Surgery Feat?

[RickA]

Someone help me out here, I've got a problem in our T20 campaign.

The Surgery Feat allows the character to perform "surgery". They can remove bullets, things like that.

Problem is, the damage system used in d20 and T20 is an abstracted damage system and bullets don't get stuck in bodies, legs don't get broken, etc. There is no internal bleeding.

Considering that a feat is a big deal for a character, they have to get SOMETHING out of the Surgery feat. Right now they get nothing. In fact the highly skilled doctor with surgery isn't as good at long term care as a the autodoc is.

What should be done to give the medic character who has invested in this feat some advantage for having invested in it?

 

[Spinward Scout]

Yeah, I've run across this before. How do you simulate someone bleeding to death? You could have a house rule that if someone gets a critical hit, then without some kind of first aid, they begin losing 1 point per round or something. Then with the Massive Damage rule, you can say that even if they make their Fortitude save, they still start losing Stamina or Lifeblood very quickly. Or you could look at it from a hospital point of view: if someone loses 1/4 of their Lifeblood, then they have Minor Wounds, 1/2 of their Lifeblood is Serious Condition, 3/4 of Lifeblood is Critical Condition, and a loss of all of their Lifeblood is Dying. The Surgery Feat could then subtract from the DC by severity. The way the book reads, the Surgery feat is almost like a doctor's license or certification (i.e. you can't get a job as a Surgeon on a civilized planet without it). T/Medical is what's required to make the skill checks to save someone.

Hope that helped,

Dameon

 

[mike wightman]

Is that 1/2 of their lifeblood from a single hit is a serious wound, or can it be cumulative minor hits?
Similarly for a critical wound, does it have to be a single strike that does 3/4 lifeblood damage?

 

[Chuck Anumia]

At each level of success a charactor would gain 1/4 of their hit pionts.

At faliure they would loose 1/4 thereby giving a cumulatively more severe wound (much like real life).

 

[Rossoneill]

Probably you need an add on to the combat system to determine things like broken bones ,
bullets and other things that get stuck in bodies .
I would use things like crits are hits and or broken bones that require surgery to fix .
Or it could be based on damage done that gets through armor,
For example a max damage crit is someting broken and or stuck in the body .
Or you could just say a ships auto doc just does not do any surgery just basic low skill doctor stuff but no surgery level doctor stuff
Hope this is useful to you RickA

 

[mike wightman]

You could adapt the massive damage rule from d20 Call of Cthulhu, 10 points of damage and its Fortitude save time.
If you succeed it's a serious wound, and if you fail it is a critical wound.
A serious wound causes you to lose 1 stamina point per round until medical treatment, once all stamina points are gone then you start to take lifeblood damage.
A critical wound causes you to lose 1 point of lifeblood per round until medical treatment.

A critical hit is automatically a critical wound.

 

[RickA]

Thanks for the feedback, guys.

I'd rather not make surgery useful by making combat more deadly/damaging though. Restricting how you can heal certain types of lifeblood damage would do just that. /sigh/ Mainly that comes down to a problem of book keeping, you know? Keeping track of seperate hits, what wounds were inflicted by those hits, etc. Now I have played games that did that, and it can work if your group is into that sort of detail, but it's not the d20 way.

I guess what I'm wondering now is "What were the designers of T20 thinking this feat would be used for"?

I thought about letting someone with the surgery feat add another point per week of lifeblood healing so that a competent surgeon/doctor plus a robust patient could get up to the level of the autodoc. Or maybe 2 points/week added so that even if the patient isn't robust the compentent surgeon/doctor isn't outclassed by an autodoc.

 

[Chaos]

You could make a house rule that, if the injury that cause the Lifeblood loss would benefit* from surgery in real life, then sucessful surgery (I think the DCs are given in the THB) can immediately restore part of the damage - say, 1/4 of it or so, or a flat 1 or 2 or 3 points, if you don´t like bookkeeping - after a day´s rest.

*A hit by a slug thrower might mean a bullet has to be removed, a fall might break a bone that needs to be re-set, and so on. Laser burns would probably not necessitate surgery, nor would Lifeblood loss from a drug overdose.

 

[far-trader]

Your solution looks not bad Rick, I'd also make the autodoc use the same DCs as the Doctor too, from the Medical Care table rather than it's own bonus table.

Another possible way to do it (the way I've been leaning) is to make the Autodoc count as a Hi-Tech (TL13-15) Field Hospital (DC-10 for the attending Doctor, allows untrained use without penalty) and just roll the Medical Care. Allow exceptional success to speed recovery.

I'm playing with some numbers for supplies too. Supplies are used up at a rate of Cr5 per base DC5 treated, Cr50 per base DC10 treated, Cr500 per base DC15 treated, Cr5,000 per base DC20 treated, Cr50,000 per base DC25 treated, and Cr500,000 per base DC30+ treated.

The Autodoc does not inlcude supplies. I also allow the Autodoc to serve as an emergency (crash) lowberth for one patient.

In this system the Sickbay is counted as a Mid-Tech (TL9-12) or Hi-Tech (TL13-15) Hospital and it includes two (larger) Autodocs, as well as two freshers and two visitor chairs. The Sickbay includes a secure locker of MCr1 in Supplies.

Anyway, just some ideas I've been thinking about. Critique welcomed.

 

[far-trader]

Hmm, now what to do about the lack of a mesh between the abstract wounds and the defined treatments?

That's a bit trickier. Off the top of my head you might use a simple percentage of Lifeblood lost divided by two equals the required DC for treatment. So Lifeblood loss of less than 10% would be a scratch and not need treatment, while an injury resulting in the loss of 50% Lifeblood would mean treatment of DC25 to stabalize. Loss of 100% Lifeblood (i.e. He's dead Jim.) would mean a treatment of DC50 to reanimate and stabablize. Like I said, just a thought off the top of my head.

 

[tjoneslo]

Borrow the Treat Injury rules from D20 Modern SRD:

Surgery (DC 20): With a surgery kit, a character can conduct field surgery. This application of the Treat Injury skill carries a –4 penalty, which can be negated with the Surgery feat. Surgery requires 1d4 hours; if the patient is at negative hit points, add an additional hour for every point below 0 the patient has fallen. Surgery restores 1d6 hit points for every character level of the patient (up to the patient’s full normal total of hit points) with a successful skill check. Surgery can only be used successfully on a character once in a 24-hour period.
A character who undergoes surgery is fatigued for 24 hours, minus 2 hours for every point above the DC the surgeon achieves. The period of fatigue can never be reduced below 6 hours in this fashion

No Feat gives a -4 to this Treat Injury (or T/Medical) check.

My only other suggestions are to add detailed critical hit rules. I.e. get a get a confirmed critical, roll on critical damage table, take additional effects shown. This gives something for the surgeon to fix.

 

[Spinward Scout]

Yeah, this one's tough without making combat more deadly. I'd say any time that a character's Lifeblood goes below 0 requires Surgery. The character can be stabilized with First Aid (T/Medical) but should still see a doctor/autodoc. Without Surgery, the character should definitely suffer a physical impairment until receiving medical treatment. The rules for Injury and Death in the book specifically say not to use the Massive Damage system. My fault - I was looking at it from a D&D perspective.

Dameon

 

[Maladominus]

You need to be a little more creative, if you want to make Medical skill pay off.

Have you guys read the latest Stellar Reaches fanzine? You know, the article that discusses how Players with high Medical skills can be the ones to surgically do RNA Memory Implants?

Yup. Great idea. RNA implants. Put a tiny biological implant to an individual, and the person learns a new skill or gets an attribute boost like +1 Education. Actually been explored in many other Science Fiction movies, including Total Recall.

The point is.... high Medical/Surgical skill does not have to be about "being an on call healer" all the time. Why not look at that player as a great resource for giving the other players a surgeon who can do things like RNA (surgical) Implants, or even plastic surgery (new identity?) or breast augmentation.... erm ok I'm not sure why I said that.

 

[stofsk]

Originally posted by Maladominus:
The point is.... high Medical/Surgical skill does not have to be about "being an on call healer" all the time. Why not look at that player as a great resource for giving the other players a surgeon who can do things like RNA (surgical) Implants, or even plastic surgery (new identity?) or breast augmentation.... erm ok I'm not sure why I said that.

I think you know why you said that. You said what we're all thinking. Well... us guys, at any rate.

 

[Shadowdancer]

Originally posted by Maladominus:
The point is.... high Medical/Surgical skill does not have to be about "being an on call healer" all the time. Why not look at that player as a great resource for giving the other players a surgeon who can do things like RNA (surgical) Implants, or even plastic surgery (new identity?) or breast augmentation.... erm ok I'm not sure why I said that.

Don't forget cybernetic implants, if you allow them IYTU.

 

[RickA]

So, I've decided to up the weekly care healing to 5 life/week if they have surgery feat from the regular healing. This gives an accomplished doctor the chance of being as good, or even slightly better, than an autodoc.

Anyone know what the devs were thinking when they put this feat in?

 

[RickA]

So, I've decided to up the weekly care healing to 5 life/week if they have surgery feat from the regular healing. This gives an accomplished doctor the chance of being as good, or even slightly better, than an autodoc.

Anyone know what the devs were thinking when they put this feat in?

 

[Rossoneill]

I would bet that in the original draft of T20 it was ok .
Then they increased the skill rating of the auto doc from previous Traveller versions.
In TNE depending on the Tl of the Auto doc
It was either + 1 to +4 on doctor skill roll .

 

[tjoneslo]

Originally posted by RickA:
Anyone know what the devs were thinking when they put this feat in?

Yes. The Developers cut and pasted a great many rules from previous Traveller versions, making minor adjustments to use the D20 mechanics. But without going through the entire manuscript to discover if the rules had a good use or not.

Natural Resources roll in the star system generation system is another such rule.

 

[RickA]

Originally posted by tjoneslo:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by RickA:
Anyone know what the devs were thinking when they put this feat in?

Yes. The Developers cut and pasted a great many rules from previous Traveller versions, making minor adjustments to use the D20 mechanics. But without going through the entire manuscript to discover if the rules had a good use or not.
</font>[/QUOTE]Ah, tell me that's not so, someone. Without a top to bottom edit and playtesting of a rules set you don't have good rules, you've got someone's house rules that were hardcover bound and sold to the public, heh.