Is there a rule for handling the effects of loss of blood due to a wound immediately after a fight ?
As it stands, if you get cut while fighting, you have to roll against BL at every round (= a few seconds) to avoid losing health.
This is fine during a fight, but once you have won the battle, any roll against even a modest BL will kill you if you have to do it every few seconds.
The rules on healing are proper for treating recovery, but not well suited to determine if someone lost too much blood and will die within a few minutes/hours.
Tha'ts a grim question, but I wonder just how quickly somebody would bleed to death from a serious wound. It's probably impossible to provide a simple answer, but it is clear that you can lose a limb and still survive. How can this be modelled with TROS rules ?

Well if it's after the battle and the character no longer has such pressing physical tasks, it's easy enough to get first aid, apply pressure to a wound, whatever. Internal bleeding may be another matter and require a surgeon, but for the most part it should be simple.

On first coming to this forum I had the same question (amongst others). Pretty much its handled the same way infection from wounds is...it isn't (unless somthings come out I don't know about). Tros pretty much concentrates on dramatic death...your head coming off or bleeding to death just before your head comes off. Dying in the gutter from blood loss or infection isn't part of the rules.

Yes, TRoS doesn't cover the effects of bleeding wounds after battle (unless you just keep bleeding until the bleeding is stopped. I was also very surprised to find that there were no rules for infections, considering that even Exalted, a "slightly" less gritty game, has them.

That said, if you feel you need them, house-rule away..!

There are rules for infection (the sickness/disease/aging rules) and there are rules for bleeding after a battle (the same bleeding rules)

Caz wrote: There are rules for infection (the sickness/disease/aging rules) and there are rules for bleeding after a battle (the same bleeding rules)

Noon wrote:

Caz wrote: There are rules for infection (the sickness/disease/aging rules) and there are rules for bleeding after a battle (the same bleeding rules)

I think the question isn't of what effects infection has (which may be listed), but when it occurs. Personally I'm glad it isn't laid in stone...it would influence whether such things should be ignored or handled narratively rather that rule wise.

As for bleeding after battle, a page number would be nice and all, rather than just a contrary interjection. :)

For when infection starts, how about this: At the end of the day the wound was recieved on, roll health vs. and average to easy target # if it was caused by a normal or decently kept weapon. Modify the target # by what caused the wound (rusty, bloody, dirty, wooden, whatever)
Or another method, roll Health vs. a target # of 3 + wound level +/- modifiers for the damaging weapon, etc.
You could also of course throw in mods for the environment, medical care, etc. if infection sets in.

Sneaky Git wrote:

Noon wrote:

Caz wrote: There are rules for infection (the sickness/disease/aging rules) and there are rules for bleeding after a battle (the same bleeding rules)

I think the question isn't of what effects infection has (which may be listed), but when it occurs. Personally I'm glad it isn't laid in stone...it would influence whether such things should be ignored or handled narratively rather that rule wise.

As for bleeding after battle, a page number would be nice and all, rather than just a contrary interjection. :)

Bleeding rules can be found on pages 96-99 of the main rulebook. Basically, after combat, anyone with First Aid can make a check (each wound is considered separate) to stem the flow of blood. A successful check reduces Blood Loss by 3 for every success.

Once the bleeding has stopped, long-term healing may begin, working in a similar fashion. First Aid is not required for Level 1 or 2 wounds. Level 5 wounds (ick...these are nasty...) need the skills of a Chirurgeon.

At the end of each week a [HT/Pain of Individual Wound] roll may be made (once again, a single roll per wound), each success lowering the Pain (and TN for the next weeks roll) by 1. This roll is modified by conditions (location and medical assistance) and injury (cutting, piercing, etc...) type.

Infection, as far as I can tell, is not mentioned specifically. One could, conceivably, utilize the Sickness/Disease rules on pages 98-99 to approximate the effects of infection. I'm not certain how I would handle it, but will think on it.

Chris

but its hardly a complete mechanic

Why would the bleeding rates change? Keep doing the same thing. It should only take a round to apply pressure to a wound. After that you can slow things down, bandage, make first aid rolls if you feel it necessary, begin healing. Simple :)

Caz wrote: Why would the bleeding rates change? Keep doing the same thing. It should only take a round to apply pressure to a wound. After that you can slow things down, bandage, make first aid rolls if you feel it necessary, begin healing. Simple :)

Thanaeon wrote:

Caz wrote: Why would the bleeding rates change? Keep doing the same thing. It should only take a round to apply pressure to a wound. After that you can slow things down, bandage, make first aid rolls if you feel it necessary, begin healing. Simple :)

A good point, though I'd also like to point out something... It would make sense for the bleeding to slow at least a bit outside of combat... Quite simply, because when you're no longer threatened with objects of nasty sharpness and people with harmful (in relation to you) intentions, your heart can start beating slower, and this should have some relevance to the amount of bleeding. Not sure how much, but a difference between 60 and 120 beats per minute should also affect bleeding rate, unless I'm missing something.

Well, I guess RPG'ing is a very educational hobby that can teach you all kinds of wacky things! :-)

Excuse me if I'm rehashing an old point, but it doesn't make any sense to me why someone with a better Health (HT) would bleed to death slower than someone with a lower HT. Bleeding from a level four wound should IMO cause pretty much anyone to bleed to death in roughly the same amount of time. Think about a person getting their arm lopped off. That happening to a veteran is less likely only because of their expertise as compared to someone with less experience, but if it happens the veteran and novice will roughly bleed to death in the same amount of time.

I also don't think it should matter whether it's during combat or not. The only thing that should play a part is how much exertion does it take to speed up the process and by how much, and maybe some percentages of reduction for trying to get it stopped, like just putting your hand over it as opposed to a poor bandage as opposed to a good bandage as opposed to a tunicate. IMO, HT should only have an affect on resisting infection, how serious the infection becomes, and the length of time the infection stays, though the other physical attributes I could see being used in conjunction with HT.

Are there any doctors/nurses or EMT's that can conform or dispute these opinions?

Here's an arm removed, just as you described, with a doctor's opinion on it, from recent news:

http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/West/11/02/shark.attack.ap/index.html

Doctors at Wilcox Memorial Hospital said Bethany's top condition as a competitive athlete helped her survive the attack.

"It was a very clean amputation," Dr. David Rovinsky said.

Hamilton's background in competitive surfing helped her survive, he said.

"This is a woman who is a highly trained athlete, and because of that she's able to handle a huge blood loss really well," Rovinsky said.

Excuse me if I'm rehashing an old point, but it doesn't make any sense to me why someone with a better Health (HT) would bleed to death slower than someone with a lower HT.

Just to be clear, I wasn't trying to insult anyone with the initial part of my last post. I know that there have been discussions in the past about blood loss, which I never really had any interest in for some reason until now and didn't read. I wrote what I did just incase my opinions had already been discussed and thrown out earlier.

Loki wrote: A small person bleeds to death faster than a large one, all else being equal.

Loki wrote: Also, some hearts might crap out when they have 50% blood loss, while others might hang in there with less. Seems to me that some attribute or combination thereof is a good placeholder for a real-life situation that's going to be difficult to test empirically (except for the most hard-core, committed gamers).

Essentially, nobody dies from blood loss.

In fact, to be really precise, death means brain death. So, for that to occur, oxygenated blood must stop reaching the brain. For that to happen, there must either be no blood at all, or something else happens. Nobody ever bleeds out entirely (well, not unless their strung up for that purpose like a deer carcass). As blood pressure drops bleeding slows to the point where the blood just pools. The question is almost always at what point does the pressure in the system drop so low that the person bleeding goes into cardiac arest (as Salamander noted).

This usually happens as a result of the patient going into shock or at some point thereafter. Shock is an odd condition in that the body, in an "attempt" to keep the blood from leaving it ironically, expands the blood vessels suddenly making the system much larger in terms of volume (it's actually quite a complex process). This causes blood pressure to plummet, making cardiac arest much more likely.

At that point, the brain is still probably bathed in blood, but without oxygen in it. Thats when brain death typically occurs. So it's precisely a healthy resistance to going into shock and other cardiac fitness that determines how long you have to live in a case like this. It's also why psychology is important in treating bleeding victims, as shock is dramatically affected by biofeedback (things like lots of adrenaline make shock much more likely to occur). The Will stat should actually have a significant effect because of this. This is also why part of treating a patient to prevent shock is just to talk to them and calm them down.

I have the best credentials in the world for this - game designer. Have any idea how much research I put into learning stuff like that? :-)

Mike

That is really damn good Mike. Now, the question I have is do the current rules catch the spirit of all of that research, or is there some changes that could be made to reflect that reality in the spirit of TRoS? When you have such a realistic combat RPG, I think that the very realistic result of bleeding (both internally and externally) should be realistic as well.

I'm not so sure. That is, does this sort of detail actually enhance play? The point is that the rules as they stand do fine in making some gross approximations. As such, I don't know that you really need more detail. Especially because, once a character has bled out enough, they're as good as dead in such a setting. There are no IVs or blood transfusions. Nobody knows CPR. Once unconscious, and bled heavily, I think that pretty much they'd leave you for a goner. For practical purposes, that's dead in a fantasy environment.

Now, if we were doing a game about Paramedics or something....

Mike

Mike Holmes wrote: I'm not so sure. That is, does this sort of detail actually enhance play? The point is that the rules as they stand do fine in making some gross approximations. As such, I don't know that you really need more detail. Especially because, once a character has bled out enough, they're as good as dead in such a setting. There are no IVs or blood transfusions. Nobody knows CPR. Once unconscious, and bled heavily, I think that pretty much they'd leave you for a goner. For practical purposes, that's dead in a fantasy environment.

Mike Holmes wrote: Now, if we were doing a game about Paramedics or something....

Mike Holmes wrote: There are no IVs or blood transfusions. Nobody knows CPR. Once unconscious, and bled heavily, I think that pretty much they'd leave you for a goner. For practical purposes, that's dead in a fantasy environment.

Ithron wrote: I've only got the QS rules atm (book's ordered), but I see no reason why a caster who'd seen deaths from bleeding to a cardiac arest couldn't or wouldn't do something similar to CPR or a blood transfusion or whatever.

Valamir wrote:

but its hardly a complete mechanic

[rant]
Complete. I hate it when people start tossing Complete and Incomplete around.

A game is incomplete when it is missing some piece of information that is necessary to play. If a game is missing necessary information than it can't be played...if it can be played, than obviously that piece of information is not necessary.

A game is complete when there is enough information provided to play and enjoy it.

*snip*

Mike Holmes wrote: Essentially, nobody dies from blood loss.
*snip*