He's Stable!

[the Jester]

The DM tells you that the character has a sword wound that enters left of his navel and exits left of his spine.

What are you doing to stop imminent death?

Making a Heal check.

If the dm has chosen to make it harder to actually adventure in his game, he ought to tell the players in advance. Likewise, if the dm expects you to take a few years of medical school in order to use your characters' skills, he ought to make that clear.

As soon as it's made clear, I would jump ship and go to play in a game that's more reasonable.

Let's not forget that the reason the wound is some terrible gash or huge rent in your character is because the dm said so. Arbitrarily.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

First: Thanks for not going crazy on the color scheme on this one.

QUESTON 1: Does a dying character get the self stabilization check AND the First Aid check in the same round?

For example, if Tarl is dying, at -3 HP, do we first check to see if he self stabilizes with the 10% check, and if he doesn't, then we move on to the First Aid check in the same round?

You do both; the 10% "self-check" on the character's initiative, and the Heal check on the initiative of the character attempting first aid.

QUESTION 2: I'm wondering how long it should take for a person to stabilize a patient. Certainly, it takes longer than 6 seconds.

It takes something less than six-ish seconds.

First Aid

You usually use first aid to save a dying character. If a character has negative hit points and is losing hit points (at the rate of 1 per round, 1 per hour, or 1 per day), you can make him or her stable. A stable character regains no hit points but stops losing them.

[...]

Action

Providing first aid, treating a wound, or treating poison is a standard action.

[EDIT: I should have held my tongue; there's way more colors later on in the thread.]

[EDIT 2: This rule is another one in which I have absolutely no care for realism. Generally, any time I see a DM arguing for a house rule based on "realism," it's a bad sign. I mean, we're already playing with goldarned hit points to begin with; getting shirty about exact numbers and methods once you hit the lower bounds of them seems to me to be compeltely missing the point.]

 

[Water Bob]

Making a Heal check.

And what is a Heal Check? What does it represent? The character is doing something when you make a Heal Check, yes?

If the dm has chosen to make it harder to actually adventure in his game, he ought to tell the players in advance. Likewise, if the dm expects you to take a few years of medical school in order to use your characters' skills, he ought to make that clear.

As soon as it's made clear, I would jump ship and go to play in a game that's more reasonable.

Which means that you wouldn't pass the interview to play with our group. We look for roleplayers, not dice throwers.

Let's not forget that the reason the wound is some terrible gash or huge rent in your character is because the dm said so. Arbitrarily.

Not quite arbitrary, this.

Just use a little logic and look a the facts.

If a character is knocked down to -4 HP, he'll be dead in 36 seconds unless he rolls his 10% stabilization throw or another character stabilizes him.

What does this tell you?

It tells you that the wound is pretty severe since he could die in half a minute.

You can also look at how long it will take the character to heal naturally. That will give you a good idea of the seriousness of the wound.

Then, the GM just picks a wound that fits those characteristics.

Not so arbitrary, but based on the game results.

First: Thanks for not going crazy on the color scheme on this one.

I was sent a private e-mail to use brighter colors--so that they could be seen better on the black background.

That's why the colors are crazy. I was trying to accommodate.

[EDIT 2: This rule is another one in which I have absolutely no care for realism.

Are we playing Dungeons & Dragons or Axis & Allies?

 

[Greenfield]

The wound that puts a character negative might be a massive blow or horrible gash, or it could be a glorified paper cut (i.e. 1 point of damage, taking someone from 0 to -1).

But unless it's an arterial wound, the person isn't going to bleed to death from it in 30 seconds. If you want a real-world equivalent, think of someone going into shock. They aren't "bleeding out", they're just plain dying.

In any case, the Heal Check is a quick and dirty attempt to stabilize someone. In real world, you treat for shock by covering someone to help them maintain their body temperature, you elevate their feet to maintain blood flow to the brain, that sort of thing.

If you are treating for blood loss, it need not be an actual bandage or tourniquet. In some cases it might be elevating an arm or leg higher than the heart to slow bleeding. It might be applying direct pressure or shoving your dagger into the torch flame, then cauterizing the wound.

In every case, it has to be a simple action that can be done in a single Standard Action. It's not complex surgery, or even simple surgery, or anything more than emergency first aid.

And the Heal Check isn't just the process of treating the wound, it represents the skill to recognize what's killing them and then doing something about it. Doing the wrong thing, expertly, does little more than make for a pretty corpse. So whether it's as simple as pouring water on a serious wound or clearing their throat and tipping their head to one side so they don't choke, you need to know enough to look for that sort of problem.

If you have 12 people grabbing body parts all at once, under the theory that somebody will get it right, you're probably going to pull wounds open and make him worse.

If, on the other hand, you have one person doing the hands-on part, and others advising by checking his eyes, his breathing, his color, noting that he's clammy, or just observing, "Didn't he have two legs when we came in here?", their collective insights and observations become "Aid Another" attempts.

 

[domino]

If a character is knocked down to -4 HP, he'll be dead in 36 seconds unless he rolls his 10% stabilization throw or another character stabilizes him.

What does this tell you?

It tells you that the wound is pretty severe since he could die in half a minute.

You can also look at how long it will take the character to heal naturally. That will give you a good idea of the seriousness of the wound.

Then, the GM just picks a wound that fits those characteristics.

Not so arbitrary, but based on the game results.

Sure. If that's the only damage he took.

But odds are that's not the only damage he took. Odds are he's been hit several times before the final "killing" blow. So maybe he's been arrowed a few times, and then stabbed horribly once or twice, and finally a monk headbutts him into negative numbers.

Is the headbutting the wound that the players need to fix to stabilize? And how, by a field trepanation?

Or maybe it's some other wound they would fix, despite that not being the one that was serious enough to drop their comrade.

Likewise, the healing time has nothing to do with seriousness of the wound, since that's determined by how much total damage they took, not that one wound. A PC who is savagely mauled by a housecat will eventually die if he doesn't do something about the cat, despite each attack being mildly annoying at the very worst.

 

[Water Bob]

The wound that puts a character negative might be a massive blow or horrible gash, or it could be a glorified paper cut (i.e. 1 point of damage, taking someone from 0 to -1).

That would be a heck of a paper cut, with the chance that the character dies in less than a minute.

But unless it's an arterial wound, the person isn't going to bleed to death from it in 30 seconds. If you want a real-world equivalent, think of someone going into shock. They aren't "bleeding out", they're just plain dying.

It could be a lot of things. It could be blunt force trauma that broke a rib and shoved that into a lung. It could be internal bleeding. It could be a lot of things that the PCs have no chance to "fix".

But, since the game allows characters the Heal Check, then the GM should decide on a wound that can be checked like that, keeping the character from dying.

If all the checks fail, and the character dies, that might be a good time to describe a wound that couldn't be fixed by the characters.

In any case, the Heal Check is a quick and dirty attempt to stabilize someone.

It is. And, I've decided to go further with it. I'm not going to change the action on a Heal Check. It will still be a standard action.

But, a healing character is going to have to earn the throw. Just because he arrives at the patients side isn't good enough. He's got to examine and do something to keep the downed character from dying. This might happen on the same round as the care giver arives, if the wound is obvious and the character acts quickly (like using his hands to stop the bleeding and put pressure on the wound). Or, it might take a few rounds before the player of the care giver says something that earns the the throw.

I'm not going to allow the throw willy-nilly, just because one character approached the other during a round. The care giver actually has to help, and he may need supplies, depending on what he wants to do.

I know I lot of you don't approve of this, but why would I care about that? That's how I'm going to run it in my game. Old School.

In every case, it has to be a simple action that can be done in a single Standard Action. It's not complex surgery, or even simple surgery, or anything more than emergency first aid.

Agreed. And, as I just said above, I want the player to describe what he's doing to provide emergency first aid.

And the Heal Check isn't just the process of treating the wound, it represents the skill to recognize what's killing them and then doing something about it.

Now, that's a tall order for an action that only takes 3-4 seconds.

Sure. If that's the only damage he took.

But odds are that's not the only damage he took. Odds are he's been hit several times before the final "killing" blow. So maybe he's been arrowed a few times, and then stabbed horribly once or twice, and finally a monk headbutts him into negative numbers.

It's up to the GM to describe what's wrong with the character. I would think that the earlier blows aren't the critical ones because they in no way hampered the character's actions. A character with 1 HP is just as healthy and lively as he is at his full hit poitn status.

Thus, it's the blow that takes him to the negative hit points that we're concerned with. That's the blow that gives him a chance of dying.

Is the headbutting the wound that the players need to fix to stabilize? And how, by a field trepanation?

If that's the blow that took the character to the negative hit points, then that headbutt did some serious damage.

Maybe a piece of the victim's nose cartilage broke and shoved into a serious part of the head.

Maybe the headbutt did enough blunt force trauma to kill.

Likewise, the healing time has nothing to do with seriousness of the wound, since that's determined by how much total damage they took, not that one wound.

BS. The healing time has a direct link to the wound. And, the fact that the character could die from the wound.

Any wound that doesn't take the character to -1 HP is not a serious wound. It's a miscelaneous nuisance wound. It could be a sore ankle, a bruise, a thin cut. All of those won't really hamper a person but take time to heal. That fits logically with the rules.

The difference in those types of blow and one that takes the character to -1 HP or below is that this second type of blow is serious. The character can die from it.

A PC who is savagely mauled by a housecat will eventually die if he doesn't do something about the cat, despite each attack being mildly annoying at the very worst.

The came handles this using the disease and poision rules.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

[MENTION=28855]domino[/MENTION] and [MENTION=6669384]Greenfield[/MENTION] make excellent points.

Re: the housecat:

You missed his point; he's talking about a housecat doing 1 point of damage per hit, only, not transmitting a disease.

Are we playing Dungeons & Dragons or Axis & Allies?

Well, I'm playing D&D. You don't appear to be, most of the time.

That's why cries of "But it's not realistic!" hold very little sway with me, given the hugely abstract nature of hit points and damage and healing to begin with.

 

[Greenfield]

Water Bob, do you require that players have their Boy Scout Merit Badge in knots before you let their character employ a Use Rope skill?

Do you require that they have the Wilderness Survival, or the Tracking and Trailing skill award before you let them use their Survival skill?

If not, why would you require them to demonstrate a real world knowledge of First Aid before their character can do a Heal check? The Heal check *includes* the snap examination to determine the most critical thing. And no, it might not be the most recent wound. It might not be any specific wound.

You see, having earned the First Aid Merit Badge (and taught the class to others) I know that shock can kill someone, even if their injuries aren't in and of themselves life threatening.

For example, someone suffering a broken leg and still die from shock, even though there are no vital organs in the leg.

Now, of course, you can lay down any house rules you like for your own game. But you'd better be ready to duck the first time someone has to demonstrate their blade technique prior to being allowed to attack.

 

[anest1s]

Lol there are ppl who faint just by spotting blood. I would like to see how they would act in a situation like this...

 

[Water Bob]

Well, I'm playing D&D. You don't appear to be, most of the time.

I've got a friend playing with us that hasn't played in years. He used to be a regular, back in the day, then life took him out of state.

He moved back about two years ago, and recently, he's joined my game.

I asked him, "Hey, have you been playing?"

He said, "I tried a couple of times, but I just couldn't do it."

"Why," I asked.

He replied, "Because most people don't play like we do. They just don't get it. I can't play D&D like it's a 'game'. I've spent too much time actually living in another world, and it's not worth it to play if I can't have that."

We all shook our heads and agreed.

I've tried other people's games, too, and my friend is right. It's just not the same.

That's why cries of "But it's not realistic!" hold very little sway with me, given the hugely abstract nature of hit points and damage and healing to begin with.

Hit Points aren't totally abstract. The actual wounds they represent are abstract, but there's a lot about those wounds that the game relays in different ways.

Water Bob, do you require that players have their Boy Scout Merit Badge in knots before you let their character employ a Use Rope skill?

Do you require that they have the Wilderness Survival, or the Tracking and Trailing skill award before you let them use their Survival skill?

Don't be silly.

We just play using the Olde School Method, before characters had "skills".

It's more abstract to just let a character roll on a skill. As I said before, that's for computer games.

In our game, we actually live in an alternate reality.

If not, why would you require them to demonstrate a real world knowledge of First Aid before their character can do a Heal check? The Heal check *includes* the snap examination to determine the most critical thing.

It doesn't say that under the skill. You're adding to the skill.

And, it's not logical or realistic that an action that takes 3-4 seconds to perform can do all that you are allowing it to do.

And no, it might not be the most recent wound. It might not be any specific wound.

That's incorrect.

How do I know that?

Well, without the last wound, the character is unhindered in any way. He can run, jump, fight, and do everything as well as he can at full hit points.

But, once that last wound happens, the character can no longer do those things. In fact, the character is now incapaciated and could be dying.

You see, having earned the First Aid Merit Badge (and taught the class to others) I know that shock can kill someone, even if their injuries aren't in and of themselves life threatening.

I spent several years in medical sales selling wound care items. I know a bit about wounds myself. And, you're correct in that a person can seem fine and then kick the bucket.

In this case, it would be the last wound that caused the shock.

Now, of course, you can lay down any house rules you like for your own game. But you'd better be ready to duck the first time someone has to demonstrate their blade technique prior to being allowed to attack.

I'm not using a House Rule on this.

The First Aid check is still a standard action, and a successful First Aid check will still stabilize a downed character.

The character administering the First Aid check just doesn't get it for "free".

You wouldn't allow a character standing out in an open field, in plain view, under a bright sun, with nothing to hide behind or conceal himself a chance to roll on his Hide skill, no matter how high that skill was, right?

There's no reason why the First Aid function of the Heal skill should be treated any differently.

A character gets a Hide check when it's logical that he can hide.

The same goes for the application of First Aid. It happens when it's logical that a character can administer first aid.