Medical code overhaul

[Marauder Moe]

I think having a good chance to do damage with the bandage skill is a big problem, though.  In addition to discouraging practice, it makes having the skill actually more harmful than not having it!  Think about it: if you don't have the skill, you give your patient some bandages to wear and tell him to rest.  His hitpoints slowly come back or at least stay where they are.  If you have skill_bandaging, however, and aren't good at it you're probably going to hurt your patient.

[Twilight]

Manhattan, explain?  Which part do you disagree with?

Marauder Moe, think about how the skill works.  Having damage done at initial levels of skill is one of the great bonuses to being able to get this skill to a decent level.

You aren't going to use this skill out of the box and get benefits.  Just like bash is more of a detriment to use out of the box.  Partly because both skills, once they are good, can completely rock.  

You also don't need this skill for sparring bruises.  Its a skill for serious wounds.  Anyone can treat minor and moderate wounds.  That is why your hps regen.

I see people bash bandage over and over and over on this board.  Yet pretty much everything I see deals with the initial stages of the skill.  As far as I see it though, it is like it is for playability.  While this seems to be the issue with some people, I'd like to remind them that skills generally aren't beneficial at the beginning, and unless you are playing a guild that initially gets bandage as a starting skill, you probably aren't seeing how good it is once trained.

The skill is fine.

[bloodfromstone]

I found it frustrating to try to practice bandage when I had it, since people run screaming from Runner McMedicson when he's holding a bandage, but I don't think that is the skills fault.

Personally, I've only played with the skill at the bare bones of skill levels. Yeah, it sucked, but, like Twilight said, so do all the other skills. I've never gotten it up to a decent level, so I can't really say one way or another...

Personally, I'd like to see the ability to bandage people who are mortally wounded (maybe you can already do this once you're really good?) to try to bring them back to life, with the obvious risk being killing them dead.

[Ester]

As someone who's played a physician, I found it frustrating to encounter situations like this:

Joebob the Adventurer walks into the bar, bleeding profusely.

Joebob the Adventurer exclaims, "Krath, I just took a brutal beating from a scrab right t'side the gates!"

A bored physician who happens to be in afformentioned bar, stands up and says, "Aye, that ye did. Want me to take a look at that for yeh? Patch ye up some?"

Joebob the Adventurer, shaking his head, says to the physician, "Nah, it's just a scratch. I'm going to go sleep it off right now."


I agree with bloodfromstone's suggestion that physicians be given the ability to resuscitate the mortally wounded, maybe even those knocked unconscious. It would make them invaluable to caravans or to anyone, really.

Also, I wouldn't mind if large drops in HP (like <50%) would make you unable to recover to max HP, no matter how much you slept, unless medical attention was obtained (like getting the wounds bandaged).

[cisalus]

What about, instead of making bandages give an instant, drastic HP boost, the effect be changed to a short-term increase of the HP regen rate of the target?

When the bandage is first applied, there could be a small (tiny) bit of damage done to represent the "This might hurt a bit..."

[spawnloser]

That's what I said, cisalus.

[Dakkon Black]

What about, instead of making bandages give an instant, drastic HP boost, the effect be changed to a short-term increase of the HP regen rate of the target?

When the bandage is first applied, there could be a small (tiny) bit of damage done to represent the "This might hurt a bit..."

Yah, das is gut.

[cisalus]

That's what I said, cisalus.

Oh, sorry. Well, glad we have the same idea.

[Delirium]

I have played someone that was good at bandaging.

It was amazing.  My character could bring people from single-digit HP to well over regen rate with total ease.  Even if they failed, they only did a very minor amount of damage.

I agree that the bandaging skill could use some fleshing out, but as is, it is immensely powerful once you're good.

[ale six]

Delerium speaks truth - I think she even did exactly that to a PC of mine once.

I agree though that some of the suggestions in this thread are pretty cool, and bandaging could use some retooling.

[ThirdEye]

What do you do in those situations where (xxx) wacks your body, wounding you.

get bandage pack
hold bandage
em something about bandaging yourself up.
You don't need any bandaging.

I hate it

[Ghost]

Although I would love the idea to bandage smaller wounds, you can still emote bandaging your wounds.  They will heal as you emote anyway.

Or, in some cases you can RP as if they are flesh wounds, nothing deep.  Someone in game has done it, and that was well RPed.

[HarborGeek]

I think we ought to revamp bandaging to make it easier for Joe Shmoe to heal himself or his friend. Have it make regen of hp quicker than normal with a failure resulting in no benefit or slight damage. I think it shouldn't have much affect for those that are "mortally wounded", it should just keep them from bleeding to death. Once bandaged, those that are near death regen at normal if they sleep.

For those that are in dire straits and being "mortally wounded" why not a "surgery" skill. Now, this is where you should be able to do REAL damage if you were to fail. Wouldn't it also be fun to use for torture too? (smiling darkly)  :twisted:

ThugA holds down PoorBastard while EvilVillian uses some cutlery to surgery PoorBastard's left eye out?

Anyway, it would give the mortally wounded a choice to heal quick with a successful surgery, or heal slow with bandaging.

Thoughts? Questions? Death Threats?

[creeper386]

Main thing that I don't get, is ... It's really hard to make a wound worse. Someone mentioned sticking a finger in there ... Hmm ... Who in their right mind is going to be digging around in the wound unless they are trying to remove a weapon fragment or arrow or anything like that? Perhaps then I could see it being made worse.

And as far as bandaging too tightly. You really can't. Sure, if you LEAVE the pressure on for a prolonged period of time it'll due damage to the tissue in question due to lack of blood, but you due need to temporary reduce blood flow to the area to aid in clotting. It's way worse to not get something tied tight enough then it is to tighten it too much. As long as you don't leave it on after the area in question begins turning purple and black from lack of oxygen.

I'm in favor of reducing the chances of a crit. failure that causes damage. I think you'd have to be REALLY horribly bad to be able to do more damage while trying to bandage someone up, but then I don't really consider the skill to encompass everything about medicine like sewing someone up and such either. So maybe that's why I'm against the doing more damage.

[Ghost]

Now I think of it, yeah, bandaging someone should not lead to much of a damage in most cases.  You can make a wound worse if there is a broken piece of the weapon inside of you.  Arrows, or darts or knives mostly.  Or a splint piece of a sword.

Anyway, I think it could be better not to get any more damage.  Since you are already losing a bandage, you do not necessarily need to lose anything else just because you failed.

[Tisiphone]

I hate to be the devil's advocate, but...

the critical failures are specifically supposed, in my mind, to correlate to someone messing up while digging out foreign material. I see no problem with, at low levels, having damage be done to 'bandagees'. As a matter of fact, I would even go so far as to say, the MORE serious the wound, the MORE likely the critical failure; as you try to manage several different problems at once, remove nastiness, set bones, etc. etc.

I think this has the beautiful effect described earlier. Primitive medicine is dangerous. 'tis often even more dangerous than leaving your body alone. Thus I think that Trader Joe running away at the suggestion that a physician heal him is entirely accurate.

These both being said, I do recognize that certain master physicians can actually perform miraculous acts of healing (relative to the others, of course - they don't have MRIs), so I won't say that the medical arts should NEVER have a positive effect, but only when the practitioner is well-versed. This leads to the ever-popular practice of self-experimentation, which can be absolutely hilarious roleplay.

I also believe the idea of having a certain 'minimum wound' threshold is silly. You can bandage up scratches just as well as you can (attempt) to bandage a femoral artery. However, perhaps the 'skill gain' should be wound-proportional. After all, you also don't learn as much from bandaging scratches as more serious injuries.

[Arrak]

I have some ideas about this.

In real life bandaging doesn't heal, but protects the regenerating tissue, _possibly_ enhancing the process. But I see it mostly as evading all sort of ill effects on the regenerating tissue.

So, there are several approaches to bandaging.


Use of bandage could:
1) Give a direct boost to hp.
2) Give a boost to regen, based on target's original regen speed.
3) Give a boost to regen, based on target's max hp.
4) Give a boost to regen, based on the amount of hp below max.
Of course a combination of these could work, too. They aren't exclusive. Let me build up an example, based on option 2.

Natural_healing_rate*((1+(v/100))-x-y-z)

v= variable - the bandaging skill
x= variable for subguild, for example 0.0 to physicians, 0.2 to others.
y= variable for bandaging self (0.2) or others (0.0)
z= variable for bandaging own race (0.0) or others (0.2)

Let's say Arrak was a non-physician, with the skill value of 57 in bandaging. That would give his bandaging the effect of 1+0.57-0.2-0.0, resulting in 1.37. So, it would mean he's recovering 37% faster than he would without bandage. The cap of the skill could be 500 for physics, 300 for others.

With this code a master bandager would make Arrak regenerate 6 times
faster than he would naturally, if his skill was 500. Of course you could wipe the variable x if the basic multiplier was 0.8 instead of 1. Then physics could start with a higher skill when they create.

Since the divider is 100, every skill increase would boost regen by 1%. If it was 50, every increase would boost it by 2% and so on. You get the idea, I'm sure.

The downside of that code is that ill effects of bandaging self or other races diminish as the skill goes higher, but I wanted to keep the example simple enough. If you want, I can make a more comlicated one later.

Another important issue. The bandaged person should ruin the bandage if they moved, so it could be some sort of forced rest, or even more critical state. It might be funny to allow only talks while 'regenerating'. So, in practise this would mean that you can only bandage resting people.

I like this idea because I think it would be realistic to see people always bandage themselves after a session of heavy beating.

The figures I put here are all imaginary, just giving you something to chew on and present the approach of the effecting mechanics.

[Edit] I added something to this post.

[jstorrie]

Here is another way bandaging could be taken. Rather than restoring HP flat out, it gives some 'phantom' HP that only count for regeneration purposes.

Say you have Jack Mul who has 140 HP, but stops regenerating if he dips below 100. Jane Elf sticks a dagger in his back and drops him to 75 HP. Jim Bynner rolls by and bandages him up, succeeding well enough on his bandaging skill to give Jack 40 'bandaged points' (which Jack needn't have any way of keeping track of) which is enough to allow him to regenerate as if he had 115, not 75, HP.

Over time these bandaged points could fade away. Strenuous activity could also make them fade faster, effectively ruining the bandage.

[tortall]

~uber bandage skill on thread~

This has come up in ATS again a few times recently.


Some good ideas were bought up on here, but I'd like to hear more.


My main problem is that I have to be at 50% of my HP to bandage myself. Yes. Half dead before I can heal myself. I don't see how that's realistic at all. I understand that uping it may mean Bynners will start smacking each other down to just practice bandage, but.... I really don't think that's the problem that everyone thinks it is.

I've had a 50 day rager only drop to the point of 50% of HPs 8 times. Most of those times she was too bad off to actually do anything. Got to bandage a total of.... 4 times? In 50+ days? Wasn't the type to stay inside either, and got hurt a LOT.

[Cutthroat]

My main problem is that I have to be at 50% of my HP to bandage myself. Yes. Half dead before I can heal myself. I don't see how that's realistic at all. I understand that uping it may mean Bynners will start smacking each other down to just practice bandage, but.... I really don't think that's the problem that everyone thinks it is.

I've had a 50 day rager only drop to the point of 50% of HPs 8 times. Most of those times she was too bad off to actually do anything. Got to bandage a total of.... 4 times? In 50+ days? Wasn't the type to stay inside either, and got hurt a LOT.

I agree it should be possible to bandage less serious wounds. What you described - sparring and hurting yourself to bandage - is interesting, but it's already theoretically possible with the current code (though it makes even less sense to try and abuse it). So as you said, it's not much of a problem.

A little scratch shouldn't get a Zalanthan Band-Aid though. But moderate condition? Those wounds should be able to be recovered by bandage.

[tortall]

Even "does not look well" would be nice. Anything that codedly tells everyone else that "you're bleeding all over their pretty floor"

'Cause it sucks when a templar's like "stop bleeding everywhere" and you're like. "......"


Then you die. :-D

[BlazinDayz]

Well, unlike in real life, your heal automatically while above 50% or so, therefore eliminating the necessity to be bandaged. Perhaps the bandage skill isn't totally realistic, but it fits the hp loss/gain code. The only thing I think should be impossible with the bandage skill is killing someone with it. Even if you fuck up trying to bandage someone, it should never bring them to below 0 hp. Only weapons should do that.

[Synthesis]

Well, unlike in real life, your heal automatically while above 50% or so, therefore eliminating the necessity to be bandaged. Perhaps the bandage skill isn't totally realistic, but it fits the hp loss/gain code. The only thing I think should be impossible with the bandage skill is killing someone with it. Even if you fuck up trying to bandage someone, it should never bring them to below 0 hp. Only weapons should do that.

Have you ever been dropped below 50% hp in real life?

I just ran "below 50% hp" through AccessMedicine and didn't get any hits....

[BlazinDayz]

My point was while above 50%, your health usually goes up in Arm. In real life, your wounds probably wouldn't heal so fast. So if you wanted to do a major overhaul of medical code, you might have to change how health automatically regenerates as is.

[RogueGunslinger]

I think it should be easy to bandage wounds around 80-100% of your max, and continually harder the closer you are to 0%.

Like in real life. Right Synthesis?