New Skill - Analyze Death

[Yummri]

Feel free to come up with a different name for this guys. Because I wasn't sure. But!

There should be a skill for trained doctors/hunters/assassins who would know a lot about anatomy enough to heal, skin or place a killing arrow and saycritical strike a human body etc.
That allows them to see how something died.

The varying skill levels could arrange from just noticing what type of damage killed from stabbing to chopping at low levels to much more detailed descriptions as you gain a mastery of telling the signs of death.

This could be a great way to rp around finding bodies, solving crimes or simply telling a little more about rival assassins in your area or other hunters.

Even before medical science was as advanced as it is today. There were some people who could tell what killed others or animals and even guess when or how long the body had been there based on rate of decay and weather conditions etc. I think this would make an interesting skill and a great new addition to improve rp around this otherwise uninteresting discovery of bodies. Let finding a body be more than what loot it had and leaving/disposing of it.

[ShaLeah]

I remember ideaing this 12 yrs ago for the physician subguild as autopsy lol.

[catchall]

I too had this idea when I started playing.  I feel like it's almost a rite of passage when you start playing a permdeath RPI.  You realize, hey, permdeath means murder investigations can make sense.  So then you want an autopsy skill.  It would be awesome, but if you go beyond the killing blow, it does imply a new code system to track damage.  We don't see a whole lot of new code systems come in these days.

No disputing it, though, it would definitely be cool.

[ShaLeah]

Right. A simple "The body has been slashed/pierced/chopped/clubbed/burned/stoned/clawed/punched to death. It bears the distinct markings of a <insert critter here> attack" would make it so much more interesting!

[BuNutzCola]

Though not foolproof, when I have played characters in which this sort of thing would be actually necessary and my pc had the relevant background, I have found the wish command to almost always give some sort of insight, if it was apparent.

[Voular]

And murders ho leave pc or npc corpses to be found generally use the arrange command to leave clues about what transpired. And if you do not then you should!

[Yummri]

I just think it would actually allow for the tracking down of criminals or rivals and give players more reason to interact and rp. I think it would be based on killing blow or at least wounds inflicted on areas of the body.

Most of the bodies I've come across are just left there with no sign and no hope of locating the culprit. Which really doesn't make a lot of sense. But yeah I think it shouldn't be to much information.

Location o killing blow, other major wounds, the type of damage done...then as you get better maybe you can pin down the weight or size of the weapon. and so on.

Enough to give clues, but not so much you can ever say exactly what did it. So other work still has to be done. It would be nice to see something like this.

[Riev]

What if you were "bad" at the autopsy skill?

Code Select Expand


autopsy corpse
The body looks like it was bludgeoned to death, with many cracked ribs.

autopsy corpse
The body looks like it was slashed, and then dismembered.

autopsy corpse
The body looks to have been shot by a cannonball.

autopsy corpse
What corpse?


[Ktavialt]

If you "wish all hey I'm trying to figure out what killed this guy whose corpse I'm in front of" the immortals have in the past modified the ldesc of the body to give a decent hint.

[RogueGunslinger]

If you "wish all hey I'm trying to figure out what killed this guy whose corpse I'm in front of" the immortals have in the past modified the ldesc of the body to give a decent hint.

I've never had your luck.


I think this is a great idea.

[Yummri]

If your bad at the skill, you'd either  get a "You can't be sure exactly" message

Or a partial truth, you think it could of been a slashing weapon that caused the fatal blow, but it could be a chopping weapon too....

Things like that

[Wish]

This idea is awesome.

cast 'mon un please please please' morgenes

[Barsook]

I dig this.

[Orin]

Or perhaps during the death sequence, depending on the weapon skill used, a tdesc would be attached to the body.

"It appears the body has been bludgeoned quite heavily"

"Several stab wounds weep a dark red blood"

"Lacerations are seen all over this body, some slashed in quite deep"

I don't like the idea of a skill that would be exclusive to certain guild/subguilds.  Anyone who has lived in the world of Zalanthas would know what certain wounds look like imo.

[Yummri]

I originally thought that. And on that I was thinking more that everyone would have some basic knowledge of it. But if you ever wanted to be a master of it you'd need to be of a guild or subguild that would allow a higher skill in it.

[Molten Heart]

Maybe dead bodies could include clues as to how they died, like wounds, other markings, etc (that everyone could see).  Maybe some dead bodies would lack any outward clues and would require someone with skills to learn more, if possible.

[slvrmoontiger]

I honestly don't even see why this work be important. Most of the times no one cares how a commoner died... This would probably just be for nobles and templars.

[Narf]

There's two types of bodies in the world.

Headless and headed.

If you can't learn all you need to know from that, then infer harder.

[KankWhisperer]

This is a great idea. Usually the body is just there. Usually you get no addiditonal information from wishing up. The only thing I would add is time since death, or decomposition affecting it.

>Autopsy body

>It is far too decomposed to tell.

[James de Monet]

I honestly don't even see why this work be important. Most of the times no one cares how a commoner died... This would probably just be for nobles and templars.

Not strictly true.  This would also be very useful for wilderness characters.

Code Select Expand

Somewhere in the Wilds [NESW]
The body of an insect-like scrab lies here.

>autopsy scrab
The body has been pierced to death. It bears the distinct markings of a tarantula attack

You think:
    "Oh shit."

>run
>e

-vs-

Code Select Expand

>autopsy scrab
The body has been slashed to death. It bears the distinct markings of a humanoid attack

You think:
    "Heh, check out this newb."

>draw skinning boots
>skin scrab

-vs-

Code Select Expand

>autopsy scrab
The body has been burned to death. It bears the distinct markings of a magickal attack

You think:
    "OH SHIT!"

>flee self

And in situations such as these, I probably wouldn't bother the Imms with a wish, myself, but it could still be very useful to know.

[slvrmoontiger]

I don't  know how you'd autopsy something and then skin it. Technically an autopsy already does remove things.

[James de Monet]

True, but I don't think Zalanthans are performing that type of procedure.  They are just looking at the corpse and going "Whelp, those are some big, parallel slashes.  Probably claw marks.  Big enough to be a gwoshi."

It doesn't really matter what you call it, autopsy, inspect, analyze, ass -v.  Some of these already have associations that would have to be expanded.  Autopsy doesn't (but it might leave the question of whether the skill will consume the corpse, as you point out).

[perfecto]

also wouldn't help much if I used a severed scrab claw to beat you to death.. would look like a scrab did it!

(ponders the thought)

[Lizzie]

What if...

The bandage skill, combined with the skinning skill, would produce an "autopsy echo" when you skin something? Since an autopsy basically is just a medical version of skinning something anyway.

So the higher the two skills, the more likely you are to discover the cause of death. If you don't have bandage, but do have skinning, you'd see something generic - like - "The body has been battered" (indicating a fall, or being pushed, or being dropped from the sky, or in a fist fight, or possibly blugeoned) or "The body has many open wounds" (indicating some kind of physical altercation, or possibly ripped to death by fleeing through the thornlands to avoid a bahamet attack). Or "the body appears physically intact" (indicating he died from poison, even if he might have a single wound where the arrow hit, it wasn't the arrow that killed him and the arrow wound isn't significant anyway)

If the skill is high enough, they might see that the types of "battered" wounds look more like some kind of altercation, rather than a fall or drop from a height. If there are many open wounds, you might notice they are slash-marks, or axe-wounds, or wounds from something sharp and pointy, or the skin appears to be gored (indicating either claw marks of antler marks - something not caused by battle with a humanoid). If the body is intact, therefore likely poisoned, then maybe it'd give off a hint of a smell of the particular poison that killed them.

[evilcabbage]

Not all poisons have a smell.