Question About 1st Aid

[feanor]

I just read the rules again caus I am starting a campaing using The Riddle of Steel system and one thing is bothering me...first aid.

Rules say that you can stop blood loss with succesful 1st aid ,but rules doesnt say how long it takes to do that ? BL rolls are made every round and if that means combat round (does it? and is there any mention of other kind of rounds than combat rounds in whole book?)you can easily die in seconds if you are bleeding. Knowing my players they will all be bleeding after a fight and in games like TRoS and Harnmaster (which we are currently playing) can be a really serious problem.

And other thing what seems to be missing is some sort of weapon break rolls,if you block a blow from arming sword with rapier ...well u can say ur rapier bye bye.

[Bob Richter]

And other thing what seems to be missing is some sort of weapon break rolls,if you block a blow from arming sword with rapier ...well u can say ur rapier bye bye.

Ever seen someone "block"a Greatsword with a Rapier?

I have. It was very amusing.

It didn't STOP it....but the Rapier didn't BREAK, either. It BENT.

And then it snapped right back (after the Greatsword stopped applying pressure.)

Amazing stuff, steel.

Breaking a weapon in combat is such a rare occurance that it's not even worth considering.

The difficulty of blocking a REAL sword with a Rapier is reflected by its high DTN against anything other than a light-weapon thrusting attack.

On the other hand, there should probably be some kind of rule for Arming Swords getting severely dinged up by contact with Longswords (I've seen THAT, too.)

Rules say that you can stop blood loss with succesful 1st aid ,but rules doesnt say how long it takes to do that ? BL rolls are made every round and if that means combat round (does it? and is there any mention of other kind of rounds than combat rounds in whole book?)you can easily die in seconds if you are bleeding.

Of course, that's not really very realistic. It actually takes MINUTES to bleed to death, even from a severed artery.

Hm. Seems to me the blood-loss and healing mechanics need a slight revisitation. Jake?

[Durgil]

Hi Feanor, it's Dûrgil from the HârnForum.  Weapons and especially shields not breaking was a big shock for me too coming from the HârnMaster system, but Bob is right.  Swords tended to last for incredibly long periods of time being handed down from generation to generation.  Something that has helped me to understand this is that weapons and shields, when they were used to parry attacks, were used to deflect blows, not block them.

I haven't made up a rule for it yet, but I would only have a chance of breakage if a player rolled a botch, and then it would only be a chance.

I hope you enjoy TRoS and welcome!

[Jake Norwood]

As for the 1st aid bit...it takes just a minute to stop the blood loss. As for how fast I guy can die that way...yeah, it could use revision. I'll have to call my old man, a Doctor, and ask him what his experience is with blood squirtin' all over the place.

Jake

[Jasper]

Certainly some swords lasted for generations and were handed down, especially the veyr nice ones that weren't used so often.  But on the other hand, they did get bent and messed up all the time... mostly repairable stuff in the short term, but I tend to think that multi-generation swords were not terribly common...perhaps even rare exceptions.  Their commonality in literature certainly can't be taken as evidence, since (a) it's a standard heroic trope, and (b) we're talking about rich warlords/knights with multiple swords and plenty of money for full repairs.

Of course, full breakage isn't probably worht modelling except perhaps on the worst of all fumbles.  I'd tend to just assume that after X number of fights, their weapons might need some repairs.

[Brian Leybourne]

Certainly some swords lasted for generations and were handed down, especially the veyr nice ones that weren't used so often.  But on the other hand, they did get bent and messed up all the time... mostly repairable stuff in the short term, but I tend to think that multi-generation swords were not terribly common...perhaps even rare exceptions.  

I can't speak for the west, but in the east the exceptionally fine and beautiful sword the lord would wear around town and when meeting with his equals and superiors (and which would get occasional but not often use) was NOT the same sword as the one he would take into large battles, which would be servicable and replacable.

Brian.

[feanor]

As there seems to be no offical rule for this I may as well give my own suggestion and it is simple one.

-Dont roll BL throw end of each round but once in a minute.

and also

-Fumbled EN vs BL roll take 2 HT...average character should die to blood  loss in few mins so this makes more possible.

-Pressing bleeding wound should halve the BL and 1/3 BL if player uses only one hand to do this ( if wound is serious one both hands must be used to press one wound (BL 5 or over)).

thoughts?
-------------------------
and on the sword issue ...
Im probaply going to use modiefied harn rules for weapon quality but caus my campaing happens around year 1600 im going to increase wq values so that weapons dont break in every fight like in offical harnmaster rules.

[Mokkurkalfe]

I like the pressing bleeding wound idea. Still, a BL 5 wound can be pretty safely ignored. I mean, *one* success with a TN of 5 with four or five dice?
If there are lots of BL 5 wounds OTOH, there might be a problem. Although in those cases you need a lot of hands. :-)

On a side note, what about a knockout-roll if HT go down to two due to bleeding?

[Brian Leybourne]

I like the pressing bleeding wound idea. Still, a BL 5 wound can be pretty safely ignored. I mean, *one* success with a TN of 5 with four or five dice?
If there are lots of BL 5 wounds OTOH, there might be a problem. Although in those cases you need a lot of hands. :-)

Remember that BL doesn't work that way. If I receive three wounds with BL5 each, I don't make three rolls against TN5, I make one roll against TN15.

Each round.

Brian.

[feanor]

On a side note, what about a knockout-roll if HT go down to two due to bleeding?

that is a good idea indeed. could go someting like the normal knockout rule but with all bleeding wounds and their severities added together. it is quite easy to lose consciouness while bleeding and there is no reason why this wouldnt happen when HT goes down by 1 also. Maybe even a double K.O. roll when fumble is made in BL roll.

[Mokkurkalfe]

I like the pressing bleeding wound idea. Still, a BL 5 wound can be pretty safely ignored. I mean, *one* success with a TN of 5 with four or five dice?
If there are lots of BL 5 wounds OTOH, there might be a problem. Although in those cases you need a lot of hands. :-)

Remember that BL doesn't work that way. If I receive three wounds with BL5 each, I don't make three rolls against TN5, I make one roll against TN15.

Each round.

Brian.

Of course. That's why there will be a problem with three BL5 wounds. Not so easy to roll above fifteen. Though you still need at least three hands to halve the bloodloss. :-)

[Durgil]

I know that the Book says that a Round is one to two seconds in length, but I have always taken that to mean that each exchange is approximately a second long.  There are typically two exchanges per round, therefore the majority of rounds are two seconds long.  In most situations, rounds aren't even discussed, like with spells.  Everything is talked about in terms of seconds.  Maybe that's what needs to go on here.

If a moderate wound is a BL 5, the average Human with a HT and EN of 4 loose two HT point once every 250 rolls (odds of getting a failure with a dice pool of 4 and a TN of 5 is 99.2%).  This calculates to 1 HT lost every 4 minutes 10 seconds.  That would take our hypathetical character almost 17 minutes to bleed to death (16 minutes 40 seconds - man I'd hate to actually roll that out!).  On the other hand if the same character has a BL of 20, he only has a 3.9% chance of rolling a success with 4 dice, and in all likelihood would expire in 4 rounds (or 8 seconds).

I'm no EMT or Doctor, but both of these examples seem a little fast.  Maybe there should be a different frequency of rolls when no longer in a combat situation.

As far as the Knockout idea goes, the Book states that when HT drops to 1, all Attributes and Dice Pools are halved.  Being knocked out seems worse to me than halfing everything, but you would have that happen before halfing.  I'm not so sure about doing that myself.

[Mokkurkalfe]

I'd say that a BL 5 wound would stop bleeding by itself before you bled to death.
Given that losing an entire arm gives you BL 12, BL 20 is a *lot*.
Still, you might say that these BL values are for when the character is still fighting or engaging in any other heavy activity(e.g. sprinting) and concentrating more on not getting hit again than on damage control.
So perhaps you could lower these values when you try to not bleed?

[Durgil]

I picked a BL of 20 because I saw a couple in the Level Five Wounds of Zones III, IV, & VI and because my probability calculator only goes up to TN's of 20 (there was a 25 in Zone V).

Just some quick math though on cutting off an arm (BL 12).  That same average joe that I had in the above example is going to role, roughly, 1 success out of three rolls, so it should take him about 6 rounds (or approximately 12 seconds) to bleed to death.

I guess I could live with these numbers.  I need to remember that this is just an average human and just a look at the odds; I should probably look at both extreems as will to get a more accurate picture of the situation.

I do like the idea of smaller wounds stopping on their own both during combat and outside of combat, though I probably wouldn't want anything higher than 1 to be able to do that in the former case.

[Jake Norwood]

To shorten the rolling process you could just say -2 HT for every failed roll, and only roll every 30 sec.

Jake