Physicians

[Irathu]

I just want to put this out there, that I wish more folks would use physicians in game, such as training/sparring accidents, I think they should turn to the other memebers of their clan especially if one of them is specifically hired into that clan for that purpose. Now I do not mean ever little scratch or cut, but if one of charater gets the piss knocked beat out of him by a much better character I think that would call for some patching up, at the very least let the doc/medic/physician do a little roleplay of examining the char andd what not, instead of them immediately running off to another room to rest, or running off to get looked at by the clan npc doc. If the player is good enough, he will roleplay accordingly either telling the injured char to suck it up and drive on, or to have a seat and he will sew/bandage him up, or that its probably broken and he cant handle that and tell him to go see the npc doc (in that case i dont see a prob with it at all).

Also, I have noticed an issue of cures seeminly being everywhere, so in turn it makes it to where most players dont even bother with thinking they are rare, or hard to get, I have had plenty of run ins where players were not even willing to consider buying cures, either because they had 50 in their pouches, or because the risk of them getting poisoned was slim to none, even when I tried to bullshit them and tell them it would cure x, y, and z, ailments, which is pretty much the way the old physicians/apothacarys (sp sorry) would have seen their cures in the middle ages. One cure was able to do do a half dozen different things in their eyes. Even though it codedly doesnt cure it, why not buy it, take the cure/rp taking the cure and go from there, it would be fun to see a group of people chasing their crackpot doctor down the road throwing stones at him because he didnt cure their athletes foot by pissing on it, or because his mul mix didnt work etc.

On thing I am curiuous about, is this, since I read a few posts about burials and what not, would it be considered illegal, taboo, creepy, etc etc for one to do an autopsy, or disection of an unclaimed body, or a body of a friend that you found dead etc if you was trained in the basics of being a physician. I know that it was common practice in some places, and it was also forbidden in some to do such a thing.

Anyways im on pain meds right now, so forgive me if I left something out, or sounded like I was rambling but please give your feedback and forgive my slight rant at the beginning.

[Cutthroat]

I just want to put this out there, that I wish more folks would use physicians in game, such as training/sparring accidents, I think they should turn to the other memebers of their clan especially if one of them is specifically hired into that clan for that purpose. Now I do not mean ever little scratch or cut, but if one of charater gets the piss knocked beat out of him by a much better character I think that would call for some patching up, at the very least let the doc/medic/physician do a little roleplay of examining the char andd what not, instead of them immediately running off to another room to rest, or running off to get looked at by the clan npc doc. If the player is good enough, he will roleplay accordingly either telling the injured char to suck it up and drive on, or to have a seat and he will sew/bandage him up, or that its probably broken and he cant handle that and tell him to go see the npc doc (in that case i dont see a prob with it at all).

I agree. I always figured, use PCs first... in the lack of PCs, use NPCs... and if there's a lack of NPCs, and there would be a vNPC medic, use a vNPC.

Also, I have noticed an issue of cures seeminly being everywhere, so in turn it makes it to where most players dont even bother with thinking they are rare, or hard to get, I have had plenty of run ins where players were not even willing to consider buying cures, either because they had 50 in their pouches, or because the risk of them getting poisoned was slim to none, even when I tried to bullshit them and tell them it would cure x, y, and z, ailments, which is pretty much the way the old physicians/apothacarys (sp sorry) would have seen their cures in the middle ages. One cure was able to do do a half dozen different things in their eyes. Even though it codedly doesnt cure it, why not buy it, take the cure/rp taking the cure and go from there, it would be fun to see a group of people chasing their crackpot doctor down the road throwing stones at him because he didnt cure their athletes foot by pissing on it, or because his mul mix didnt work etc.

Like with any sort of scamming IG you have to fool the player, or hope the player plays along.

On thing I am curiuous about, is this, since I read a few posts about burials and what not, would it be considered illegal, taboo, creepy, etc etc for one to do an autopsy, or disection of an unclaimed body, or a body of a friend that you found dead etc if you was trained in the basics of being a physician. I know that it was common practice in some places, and it was also forbidden in some to do such a thing.

Anyways im on pain meds right now, so forgive me if I left something out, or sounded like I was rambling but please give your feedback and forgive my slight rant at the beginning.

I don't think there's any official taboo against it.

One of my characters from over a year ago had his fellow soldiers help him take bodies off the pile on Caravan Way, and dissect them and use them as backstabbing dummies. If bodies are just thrown out there to rot, and someone can put it to good use, who would have anything against that?

The only thing I can see is if an authority prefers to do something else with a body, like put it on a funeral pyre. I can imagine they'd get annoyed if they caught someone stealing organs from that body with a sharp bone stick.

[Irathu]

Also, I have noticed an issue of cures seeminly being everywhere, so in turn it makes it to where most players dont even bother with thinking they are rare, or hard to get, I have had plenty of run ins where players were not even willing to consider buying cures, either because they had 50 in their pouches, or because the risk of them getting poisoned was slim to none, even when I tried to bullshit them and tell them it would cure x, y, and z, ailments, which is pretty much the way the old physicians/apothacarys (sp sorry) would have seen their cures in the middle ages. One cure was able to do do a half dozen different things in their eyes. Even though it codedly doesnt cure it, why not buy it, take the cure/rp taking the cure and go from there, it would be fun to see a group of people chasing their crackpot doctor down the road throwing stones at him because he didnt cure their athletes foot by pissing on it, or because his mul mix didnt work etc.

Like with any sort of scamming IG you have to fool the player, or hope the player plays along.

The only thing I am saying with that is, even if a player knows for a fact the cure wont do crap, the least he could do is if his player doenst know any better to take the cure, or at least rp it accordingly, such as tasting it, something along those lines.
It is just that I have seen so many players not even bother with trying to rp anything from a common cold, to having a headache and needing a cure. Even if another player is not a physician, I am sure there is some home remedy that can be came up with, wheither or not it works, is just like in rl, but some ppl believe it works, and others do not. I would just like to see more of this sort of thing happening, even if its not with coded cures, just someone mixing up item x and item y to create a folk remedy for Amos's bloody nose or what not. Not trying to offend anyone or be rude, it is just that I have noticed that alot of players choose to ignore the chances for that sort of rp when they come about.

[Lizzie]

I don't remember if it's a current pc or not but I know there is/was one who has/had allergies and sneezed a lot.

Also, bear with me on this...I know what I mean in my head, but it might not come out right in text.

We have cure tablets, yes. They definitely provide coded relief from certain coded problems, yes. They can also provide uncoded relief from uncoded problems, sure, why not. However...

Before god invented pharmaceuticals, he invented the herbs from which the pharmaceuticals were discovered.

What I'd -rather- see, is someone take a more serious study of the flora and fauna in Zalanthas, and exploit the hell out of their knowledge, educating the masses one at a time. Oh..you have a headache? Suck on a few leaves from THIS herb here...it'll make your headache go away. What's that, you say there's a mindbender in your head? Hold THAT herb to your nose and inhale sharply three times fast so you get dizzy, and it'll help you kick them out of your head.

Stuff like that would be great. Not everyone complains of getting sick, and not everyone gets injured. But everyone has unpleasant moments, why not have a plant that can help provide relief for those things? Folk remedies, country remedies, lots of these worked, and many only worked because of the methodology rather than the substance. So why not include that in your "physicker" roleplay.

[Pale Horse]

What Lizzie said.

I've had my character get sick before, from an uncoded ailment and be treated with an uncoded cure.  It was a lot of fun.

Try it.

You'll like it.

[Cutthroat]

We have cure tablets, yes. They definitely provide coded relief from certain coded problems, yes. They can also provide uncoded relief from uncoded problems, sure, why not. However...

Before god invented pharmaceuticals, he invented the herbs from which the pharmaceuticals were discovered.

What I'd -rather- see, is someone take a more serious study of the flora and fauna in Zalanthas, and exploit the hell out of their knowledge, educating the masses one at a time. Oh..you have a headache? Suck on a few leaves from THIS herb here...it'll make your headache go away. What's that, you say there's a mindbender in your head? Hold THAT herb to your nose and inhale sharply three times fast so you get dizzy, and it'll help you kick them out of your head.

Stuff like that would be great. Not everyone complains of getting sick, and not everyone gets injured. But everyone has unpleasant moments, why not have a plant that can help provide relief for those things? Folk remedies, country remedies, lots of these worked, and many only worked because of the methodology rather than the substance. So why not include that in your "physicker" roleplay.

I've seen this IG. I've seen it done well. And that's sort of what I meant when I said selling those tablets as a cure for sickness might be received as a scam, hence a lack of success with it.

The cures are brewed specifically for... curing what they cure. But perhaps a Herbalism Expert would know that certain plants have more uncoded properties when left unprocessed. Maybe if you eat some seeds of some plant your constipation or crotch rot will go away. Make a tea out of some other plant and drink it and say goodbye to bad dreams. Be creative with it.

[Irathu]

These are all exactly what I was intending to say, it is just that the drugs and lack of sleep from having a wisdom tooth taken out has caused me to be a bit off topic. Sorry. I guess it is just me, but I tend to always be around players unwilling to let a coded pc physician do his job and they always run off to sleep, yes the code makes the bandages cause damage at first, and for some pc physicians, they dont know exactly what cure does what, but thats part of it, you have to trust your physician, and hope to Muk Utep that he's got it right. And if not, so be it, yell at him, try to beat his brains in, but let him live so that you can continue playing, also as for the cures thing, that is currently one of my pet peeves is that I am trying to accumulate oocly all the knowledge i can about the current herbs and what not for my future chars. It will make for some interesting rp down the road that is for sure.

[jcljules]

I've considered making up fake diseases for my PCs and relying on IG physicians to cure me. Much easier now with tdesc to show symptoms.

[Potaje]

physicians are fun.. and the most fun is trying to figure out the sdesc and the doc relation. They are not always clear and some of them even seem like one type but are really another.. the key is once you have your chest, trunk, or footlocker full (Which I had one of each with leaves, flowers, berries ect seperated into to) use the names of the plants to get.. I personally having created the physians field guide to herbs for my own amusement am currently working on making drawings of the plants with all the information to go with them.. the one thing I am missing in a few cases is the location of the plant. A whole nother part of the fun of the Physicain herb lore.

Cures are easy to find out information on for the most part.. find the Dasari's beg, pled, prostrate yourself to the chosen.. or ask any seasoned hunter type... There are not to many that would not give up the knowing in exchange for a handful of cures.. and once you know some of the quick and easy methods (of and there are some) for the cures you will have so many on your hands that you can use them like currency.

However I agree getting the bandage skill up is hard... perhaps you should consider being a vet.. (I'm serious) I will not elaborate on how to be a vet, however there are some criters out there that are humanoid, and either you get beat up and bandage youself or you work on critters until you can confidently work on the people around. Now I do not believe I have given any in game information out so I hope what I have said is alright.. just my opinion on the ins and outs of being a Doc.

[Qzzrbl]

Couldn't going out into the wastes and beating up critters and then patching them up be considered a little twinkish though?

I mean, it's one thing to fix yourself up after something hands your ass to you, but bandaging up a raptor you just broke?

[Is Friday]

My favorite kind of PC to play is physician in a combat clan. I remember playing one in a certain northern hunting clan nearly a year ago and I had a blast. I think she codedly bandaged PCs... twice or so. The rest of the ailments consisted of: scrub fever, bad dreams, drippy poo, headaches, etc. I think she left the compound 3-4 times total, because there was someone always around to gossip/mid-wife over.

I highly encourage people to try playing strictly "doctor" characters. It really is fun.

I think I'll spec app a maxed bandage merchant for my next PC.

[Nyr]

Couldn't going out into the wastes and beating up critters and then patching them up be considered a little twinkish though?

I mean, it's one thing to fix yourself up after something hands your ass to you, but bandaging up a raptor you just broke?

A little, if not a lot--yes.

[Thunkkin]

Couldn't going out into the wastes and beating up critters and then patching them up be considered a little twinkish though?

I mean, it's one thing to fix yourself up after something hands your ass to you, but bandaging up a raptor you just broke?

Until the last few centuries, medical learning/training basically required animals (especially since dissection was taboo).  Animal anatomy can be quite different from humans, though, and led to some fairly amusing medical misconceptions until human dissection began to be practiced.  Dissecting women was especially taboo, so there were some wildly wrong ideas about the female reproductive system that were learned from sheep.  That said, working on animals allowed pre-modern surgeons to practice incisions, stitches, some basic knowledge of how organs worked, observe arteries, etc.

I'm not saying I'd do it in Zalanthas, but it was certainly the case in our own history.  Testing herbs, stitching techniques, surgery, etc. on tregils that were captured and brought into a city might be something reasonably done by elite physicians.  I'd assume your average physician wouldn't have the time or leisure to figure these things out, but would just wing it, like the barbers of old.

[FantasyWriter]

Assassin/physician who kidnaps victims and keeps them locked away in their lair and too drugged up to escape or use the way.

[musashi]

Assassin/physician who kidnaps victims and keeps them locked away in their lair and too drugged up to escape or use the way.

And experiments on them ...

Oh man that's hot.

[FantasyWriter]

Assassin/physician who kidnaps victims and keeps them locked away in their lair and too drugged up to escape or use the way.

And experiments on them ...

Oh man that's hot.

And practice bandage of course, so they stay nice and healthy.

[musashi]

I think in that situation staff would be ok with bandaging someone you just jacked up.

[Gimfalisette]

I played a physician who experimented on other characters. She also gave counseling and medicines to a patient suffering from impotence. And did war-time triage healing. And poisoned people. It was fun.

[Potaje]

Couldn't going out into the wastes and beating up critters and then patching them up be considered a little twinkish though?

I mean, it's one thing to fix yourself up after something hands your ass to you, but bandaging up a raptor you just broke?

If your bandaging Raptors sure..

but what if you are one of those tree huger save the bahamet types...

anyways I said humanoid.. I don't think raptors are humanoids..

Plus picture with me if you would, your in the grass or whereever and there is a poor hurt creature left stunded, you take pitty on it and being that you do not care to kill it or skin it for that matter, but still some ass with out a skinning skill, or out twinking themselves left it almost dead before being run off by some thing or some one has, you settle in and being the peace, land, bunny huger that you are you mend it and send it on its way... Twink.. maybe.. RP definently... What person out there really doesn't twink from stopping with in the boundries of the code that you do not go beyond the amount it takes to learn a skill or what.. we look to better our characters and our game.. but do it with style.. and lots of Role Play... and why does it have to be twinkish to heal critters.. and we limited to only carring about humanoids.. I mean I know some in the game that would rather help a tregil than heal a human, elf or dwarf.. Are we not all just critters deep down.

[Nyr]

If you're going to try and heal up

If your bandaging Raptors sure..

but what if you are one of those tree huger save the bahamet types...

anyways I said humanoid.. I don't think raptors are humanoids..

Plus picture with me if you would, your in the grass or whereever and there is a poor hurt creature left stunded, you take pitty on it and being that you do not care to kill it or skin it for that matter, but still some ass with out a skinning skill, or out twinking themselves left it almost dead before being run off by some thing or some one has, you settle in and being the peace, land, bunny huger that you are you mend it and send it on its way... Twink.. maybe.. RP definently... What person out there really doesn't twink from stopping with in the boundries of the code that you do not go beyond the amount it takes to learn a skill or what.. we look to better our characters and our game.. but do it with style.. and lots of Role Play... and why does it have to be twinkish to heal critters.. and we limited to only carring about humanoids.. I mean I know some in the game that would rather help a tregil than heal a human, elf or dwarf.. Are we not all just critters deep down.

Bandaging up a wild animal should be done with caution in RL (if done at all), so it should be done with caution in-game (if done at all).  If you're bandaging an animal or any humanoid NPC outside of a city (such as gith, elf, dwarf, human, halfling, magera, etc.) you may want to consider wishing up in advance of doing so.  I would certainly add a character note to someone that was out bandaging any critters like this, if only to note that they were crazed.  That "let's help all of the animals" concept is foreign to Zalanthas.  I wouldn't say it's something out of character to do, but I would say that it is way outside of the norm--your average Zalanthan is not going to think "we are all just critters deep down inside."  Even the most conservationist tribal would probably make the choice to kill the majority of half-dead critters it finds.

If you are going to heal up X NPC that is found outside of a city, I would recommend having a good IC reason for it that is not tied to maxing out your bandage skill.

[MarshallDFX]

My next PC is going to start a Zalanthan PETA.

[Thunkkin]

My next PC is going to start a Zalanthan PETA.

I'm looking forward to my new MarshallDFX-skin cloak.  Clubbed from the softest, most pliable new characters.

[FiveDisgruntledMonkeysWit]

I once tried to make a character whose skills as a physician and surgeon were his only marketable skills. I even made him really old and made his main guild merchant to avoid people trying to get him to spar or something silly like that. Here's pretty much how it played out:
-Rolled up my new PC, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, in Tuluk.
-Met a couple of powerful PCs who agreed to employ him.
-I mentioned off-handedly that I could speak Cavilish.
-The powerful PCs responded: "Oh, cool. Think you could make chests for us until you branch, doctor? kthnxbye"
-I stored.

[Irathu]

I have tried to make the same type of char Five, and infact I have had the same sort of run ins with chars who guild sniff and find out (oocly of course) your chars class and want you to break rp just to do what they want/need...... that crap dont usually go over well with me either, I usually tend to leave said guild and go play at another at my first rp chance to do so, or i store my char as well.

[X-D]

When I am playing a leader type in a combat heavy clan, I try REALLY hard to get a phys sub PC in clan or at least a ranger willing to fill that spot.  Both unfortunatly are pretty hard to do. 

I've seen other leaders who are the same way.  Though I would not hire a phys into the byn (for example) If his main class was not a combat class. Why? Because though a good medic is useful, if that is all they can do they actually become less then useful. You can't take them with you on a contract because they will be the first one to die. Leaving them behind makes them useless as well, normaly when you really need a medic IG, you need them NOW. And if the clan is not combat heavy...well, you simply don't need a medic.

Now if I was playing a noble or ranking PC in a noble house other then Tor or Lyksae I would be willing to take on a medic that was not combat. But not more then one. So, even with that, non-combat medic positions would be quite hard to get.