Bandage

[Melkor]

Am I the only one who thinks that the bandage skill is in need of a hefty revamp?

Here are a few of my gripes with the skill:

As a physician subguild with maxed bandage skill, with good stats, using quality bandages, I still find myself failing 4/5 times. I find it more dangerous to use than not.

Also, I think it is pretty ridiculous that, if you are at 60% health, just a hair under when you would not automatically regen HP, that you could potentially bandage yourself to death. What is this guy doing? Ripping out veins and arteries and stuffing the bandages underneath? I mean, boy scouts learn to effectively and safely tend to very serious wounds, often using salvaged bandaging materials to do so.... But a Zalanthan can bandage himself to death from 60% hp, basically just wrapping cloth around a gash...?

[Pale Horse]

You're not the only one.

Everyone has at one time or another pointed out what you mentioned.  The bandage skill is kind of borked.

If I remember right, a re-vamp of it is on Staff's radar, but it's of lower priority.

[Hauwke]

I must be stupidly lucky with bandage because I fail like 1 every 15 times or so.

[Melkor]

I must be stupidly lucky with bandage because I fail like 1 every 15 times or so.

Or maybe I am stupidly unlucky. Shrug.

my 80% failure rate is pretty consistent, though. ATM feels like the only reason subguild physician is remotely useful is for brew.

[Exen44]

I must be stupidly lucky with bandage because I fail like 1 every 15 times or so.

Or maybe I am stupidly unlucky. Shrug.

my 80% failure rate is pretty consistent, though. ATM feels like the only reason subguild physician is remotely useful is for brew.

Trust me, it's not just you. It's ridiculous. I'm hoping that they do something about it soon.

[Synthesis]

When you assess -v the bandages you're using, what is the quality output?

Are you trying to bandage yourself when you're already near-death?

Are you trying to bandage yourself when you're otherwise impaired (drunk, withdrawing from spice, etc.)?

Are you trying to bandage yourself when you're extremely burdened?

[Riev]

I've almost never seen someone bandage themselves to death, because nobody would be so foolish. I think the HP rolls on what gets healed/damaged need a bit of tweaking, because you can heal for 3pts at high skill, and lose 20 at the same skill level.

That said, I've also seen Rangers with High Bandaging bring a half-giant who got beaten and poisoned back from Near-Death status, with a single bandage.

Vivaduans have magick that can heal you with no failing, but its magick. Mundanes have a fucking smelly bandage that can PROBABLY bring you back from the bring of death with a  single skill check.


I do think the numbers could be looked at, but I don't think its absolutely terrible. Mostly, I think Physician Subguilds should be a bit more effective, as its kind of their chosen profession, and they fail pretty well often.

[Melkor]

When you assess -v the bandages you're using, what is the quality output?

Pristine.

Are you trying to bandage yourself when you're already near-death?

No. ~60% hp. Just under self-regen.

Are you trying to bandage yourself when you're otherwise impaired (drunk, withdrawing from spice, etc.)?

Nope.

Are you trying to bandage yourself when you're extremely burdened?

Manageable or Heavy but manageable.

I merely said you are ABLE bandage yourself to death, which is silly. Like I said before, boy-scouts learn to effectively set bones, suture wounds, cauterize non-suturable wounds, and even to stabilize a person who has lost a limb. Doesn't really make sense that a physician-subguild warrior in Zalanthas would hurt himself more by bandaging a gash on his arm.

[manipura]

Doesn't really make sense that in RL doctors would amputate the wrong limb, give the wrong medication, misdiagnose a patient, or leave instruments in a patient after surgery.  Zalanthas is hardly the gold standard for how medical treatment -should- play out.

I don't think bandage is all that broken.  I think it's odd that physicians cap the skill where they do, but in regard to other skills in game that cap at the same level, it's pretty much on par.  Advanced is just not really that good or reliable.  I think you just notice it more when you fail at bandage and damage yourself, rather than failing at the same level and ending up with yet another pile of kindling or snapped branch or scrap of useless cloth. 

I think it's a bit odd that both physician and apothecary cap at the same level, considering one is an extended subguild, which I thought was meant to be a regular subguild, but a little better.

[Synthesis]

Also, I have a suspicion that bandage success is partially agility-based, so if you have shit agility to start with, and you're burdened on top of that, it's going to make bandaging yourself a problem.  If you add to that other negative modifiers that seem to be in effect occasionally, it might be enough to bring a cap where you fail 40 percent of the time down to an effective cap of failing 50 or 60 percent of the time.

Not saying it necessarily makes sense, but I imagine the bandage code and the guild/subguild caps were playtested to be "functional" by average human standards, prior to other things being added to the game (encumbrance "fuck-your-agility" code and other things).  As such, there may be some interplays between old and new code that are yielding unintended results.

[Exen44]

As someone who has played characters with high agility who has had the bandage skill, I'm inclined to say that I doubt that bandage success is partially agility-based.

[Synthesis]

As someone who has played characters with high agility who has had the bandage skill, I'm inclined to say that I doubt that bandage success is partially agility-based.

Well, since you're apparently in the "failures are possible" zone, you could test the hypothesis for yourself if you really wanted to.

The only PCs I ever really used bandage on frequently were rangers and merchants, both of which get a high cap.

[Riev]

The high default failure rate may also be intended, not just "because Zalanthas" but because of the coded ability of healing someone like that.

LikeI said, I'd like to see the numbers changed, so higher skill was less "pass or fail" and more "the higher the skill, the more 'positive' HP is affected". So if you fail, at a high skill, you don't lose 12hp a hit.

[Melkor]

@ synth... Fails at this rate with hella-high agility.

Riev, that is a great idea. Perfect.

[Hauwke]

Just so its known, my 1 to 15 failure rate was on a ranger with master bandage. Which goes to show that a few extra points in a skill is the difference between killing yourself and instaheals.

[Melkor]

I figured you were a ranger, tbh.

I think physicians should be able to bandage better than a ranger.

[Hauwke]

In the grand scheme of things they really should have maxxed bandage and brew and probably even an extra command to possibly diagnose if someone is poisoned or thirsty or hungry. But at the end of the day, for coded simplicity it is just a subguild which never achieves mastery so far as I know.

Maybe after the mainguild revamp it will get fixed, which would be fabulous.

[Synthesis]

jman bandage

using scraps of cloth

failed for -1 hp

succeeded for +3 hp

failed for -2 hp

succeeded for +15 hp

-3

+8

Doesn't seem to be broken in the "useless" direction.  Granted, that's a small sample size, but it's the only hard data that's been offered so far.

[Melkor]

Adv bandage.

Scraps of cloth.

-4
+6
+3
-7

[Hauwke]

At master bandage with scraps of cloth I have routinely healed for 20s and 30s. Exact numbers are lost, but definately a sizable chunk once master is reached, which is perhaps a little bit much all things told.

[Melkor]

At master bandage with scraps of cloth I have routinely healed for 20s and 30s. Exact numbers are lost, but definately a sizable chunk once master is reached, which is perhaps a little bit much all things told.

....ughhhh

[Hauwke]

Its a scrap of cloth, healing for anything past 10 is probably a bit much with them. Or is the ughhhh from lack of evidence?

[Melkor]

Nah. The uggghhhhh was from, using salve-bandages, or herb-steeped bandages, with Advanced level bandage skill, the most I ever healed for was like 12 hp, and lost around 15hp.

[Hauwke]

Ah, yeah the difference between adv and master bandage is nuts. Fail once every blue moon, heal for large amounts quite easily.
It could probably use a little tweaking to stop scraps healing so very much, but at the same time, you are a master at doing said thing, if you couldnt at least slow a bleed with a random scrap of cloth you arent going to stop it entirely with cloth made specifically for the job.

[Melkor]

Ehhhh now you're getting into the murky waters of trying to make IG actions analogous to RL ones.
I mean, if you sever your femoral artery, cloth of any kind ain't gonna cut it.
Or if you break a pelvis, a scrap of cloth wont do shit.

My issue is separate from that. Riev was on-point when he said

I'd like to see the numbers changed, so higher skill was less "pass or fail" and more "the higher the skill, the more 'positive' HP is affected". So if you fail, at a high skill, you don't lose 12hp a hit.

"higher skill was less "pass or fail" and more "the higher the skill, the more 'positive' HP is affected"