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Confused about injury, wounds, and healing


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p. 62 states: "First Aid may be applied only once per specific injury. Thus a character that is slashed twice in the leg may have each wound treated separately."

P. 121 states: "a character with a Healing Rate of 3 who suffers damage taking him to –3 in a Hit Location, a Serious Wound, will heal naturally at a rate of 3 Hit Points per week until his wound goes above zero, and then heal 3 Hit Points per day until fully recovered."

I'm a little confused. Let's assume a character with a 5 hit point leg receives three damaging hits to that same leg. 1st causing 2 hp damage, 2nd causing 2 hp, and 3rd causing 2 hp. The leg is now at -1 hit points.

How would First Aid and natural healing work given this premise?

Does the character have 3 injuries consisting of 1 Serious Wound and 2 Minor Wounds?

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Does the character have 3 injuries consisting of 1 Serious Wound and 2 Minor Wounds?

No, at least I don't believe so, I think in this case the character has three wounds equaling a Serious injury. Therefor all of the rules for a Serious injury kick in.

Specifically...

First Aid: Treatment restores the location to partial functionality, permitting it to heal naturally.

Healing: A successful Healing roll restores 1d3 Hit Points to a Seriously Injured location.

I suppose that after the injured location has been brought up to a Minor Wound level with a successful Healing roll, First Aid could take care of each of the remaining "wounds" separately.

It's a great question however. Hopefully Loz or Pete can chime in with additional information if I'm way off base.

Rod

Edit: For what its worth, I never bother tracking separate wounds to the same hit location. I just assume a First Aid/Healing roll takes care of all damage to that location.

Edited by threedeesix

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The real answer is, it depends on when First Aid is applied.

Let's take that character with -1 in the leg, the results of the same combat. Each is a different wound, but the cumulative effects of the damage have turned it into a Serious wound. This means that the most First Aid can do is stabilise the leg so that natural healing can take place: ie, you're going to prevent infection.

However if, after the first two small wounds, the character had retired from the fight and either sought first aid or self-administered, then he would have had the opportunity to restore 1d3 to each minor wound, perhaps negating the chance of a Serious Wound altogether. But bear in mind that each First Aid attempt takes 1d3 minutes to apply - so stopping to treat a minor wound in this way may well mean that a combat is over once you've finished.

Make sense?

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Thanks for the explanation. I have some follow up questions.

  1. If the leg had only received the first two hits, each causing 2 points so that the leg was down 4 points of damage. Would a single First Aid skill success that rolled a 3 on the 1d3 portion heal only 2 of the points or 3 of the points? Basically, is a healing roll capped by the amount of the individual injury or by the total of all injuries?
  2. If First Aid is applied to the leg at -1 hit points and a critical success is achieved allowing for 1d3 healing to occur, if that 1d3 roll brought the leg's hit points up to 1, could you then apply First Aid to each of the two Minor Wounds?
  3. If the Serious Wound heals naturally 2 points over the course of a week of rest, the remainder of the hit points would have to heal naturally (or with magic), correct? That is to say, you couldn't let the wound heal from a Serious Wound for a week bringing the leg up to 1 hit point and then apply First Aid to the two Minor Wounds to speed up the healing?
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Let's go back to the rules...

If the leg had only received the first two hits, each causing 2 points so that the leg was down 4 points of damage. Would a single First Aid skill success that rolled a 3 on the 1d3 portion heal only 2 of the points or 3 of the points? Basically, is a healing roll capped by the amount of the individual injury or by the total of all injuries?

Page 62... 'First Aid may be applied once only per specific injury', so you would need two separate First Aid rolls for each of the two wounds.

If First Aid is applied to the leg at -1 hit points and a critical success is achieved allowing for 1d3 healing to occur, if that 1d3 roll brought the leg's hit points up to 1, could you then apply First Aid to each of the two Minor Wounds?

No, because what you have to bear in mind in the underlying realism. If it were possible to apply a Healing roll and then immediately after a First Aid roll to negate all Serious or Major Wound damage, it wouldn't be realistic. Although not explicitly stated, the different wound categories are there to differentiate the recovery thresholds, as much as anything else. So, if at -1, and brought up to 1 via Healing, it really signifies that the wound has, again, been stabilised enough to allow natural recovery to now speed-up and take effect.

If the Serious Wound heals naturally 2 points over the course of a week of rest, the remainder of the hit points would have to heal naturally (or with magic), correct? That is to say, you couldn't let the wound heal from a Serious Wound for a week bringing the leg up to 1 hit point and then apply First Aid to the two Minor Wounds to speed up the healing?

Correct, which is what I was saying (and you were probably anticipating) in the earlier example. So, it's all about when the healing is applied - and, really, as soon as possible is the best answer!

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