decanox
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First Aid

Sat 29 Jun 2019, 13:17

I have a question regarding "First Aid" skill that may cause confusion.

In general, every reference to "first aid" is related to "broken" characters. That's being said, it seems that the only way that a wounded character (not "broken", i.e. 0 health points) could be healed is through passing time ("recovery", page 64, one health time per turn of rest).

Is this intentional? I mean, is the "first aid" skill not supposed to heal a wounded character?

Logic and every game I have played says "yes, first aid may be used to heal the wounded, not only the dying", but that's far from clear in the Alien rulebook. If it's not related to only "broken" maybe it would be a good a idea to introduce the reference "broken or wounded".

*Note: by chance I discovered the following sentence (page 64): "Administering first aid to someone who isn't Broken has no effect". I don't know, keeping in mind the difficulty of Alien and the fact that this rule has not too much sense. Looking for the material included in a medkit it says, basically: some bandages, a Pharmax bandage and stim boost (poor). Why not a character could use first aid on a wounded? A bandage and an aspirin can only be administered on a dying victim who has a severed arm but not if the character has received a xenomorph punch or a scratch consequence of a shot? What is supposed to do a one-armed character with an aspirin? But the scratch of a shell could be sewn up by itself if you lie on a bed for 10 minutes? Sorry for the language and the graphic and easy examples, doing it in a exaggerated way I think it's easy to see. 
 
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aramis
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Re: First Aid

Sat 29 Jun 2019, 18:35

Broken seems to represent the point where damage is actually physical. 

So until 0, there's nothing to heal...
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decanox
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Re: First Aid

Sat 29 Jun 2019, 19:29

Yes, I suppose it's some kind of fatigue or non-lethal damage.

From that point of view, it could have some sense. But I would understand that if damage is caused consequence of not sleeping, not eating or really minor physical attacks (for example a poor unarmed attack). Reality is that you are getting damage from physical sources (xenomorphs attacks, bullets, shells, close combat weapons, etc), so logic says that damage could be healed by oneself or another character using the first aid skill. 

In addition, if you see the Critical Injuries table, there are not many "minor" wounds (winded, stunned, broken nose, etc.)... so a character with no time to rest (and this is common for example in Chariot of the Gods); with no possibility to apply a first aid roll since the wounded cannot be healed; could be dead disemboweled, with a ruptured aorta or with a severed arm consequence of a simple and clumsy punch.

I don't know if I should follow the rule or allow the characters to heal wounds using first aid. Anyway, it's a proposal for designers.   
 
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aramis
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Re: First Aid

Sat 29 Jun 2019, 19:54

Other games by Fria Ligan have similar restriction. MYZ, Coriolis, Forbidden Lands...

It clearly is intentional.
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decanox
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Re: First Aid

Sat 29 Jun 2019, 20:07

Since it seems that Alien has a high mortality rate (I checked this in the last session we have), I will try with this "houserule": that a wounded character (not broken) could be healed. If this fix is not broken, I will keep it in my games.  
 
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The1TrueFredrix
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Re: First Aid

Sat 29 Jun 2019, 20:30

Since it seems that Alien has a high mortality rate (I checked this in the last session we have), I will try with this "houserule": that a wounded character (not broken) could be healed. If this fix is not broken, I will keep it in my games.  
I advise against it, but it’s your table 🙂
Effekt - A fan podcast celebrating Swedish RPGs including, but not limited to: Alien; Coriolis; Forbidden Lands; Symbaroum; and Tales from the Loop. Featuring discussion magazine episodes and Actual Play recordings. https://effektpodcast.org/
 
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Konungr
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Re: First Aid

Sun 30 Jun 2019, 09:10

The issue becomes after every combat situation you have everyone sit around and perform medicine checks over and over until everyone is at full health again. There is no wear and tear over repeated encounters. If you LET the players heal always and whenever then they will always top themselves off. Because why wouldn't they?
 
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paulbaldowski
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Re: First Aid

Sun 30 Jun 2019, 10:50

The largest benefits of First Aid are: It allows those trained with the potentially life saving ability to assist an injured or ill person during a variety of emergency situations.
You need to remember that First Aid isn't medicine, hospital care or surgery. It's emergency triage, handling the life-threatening injuries and conditions. That's why it doesn't help with non-Broken characters. First Aid is there to handle the critical injuries, not restore well-being or return someone back to health; it's for stabilising and quick remedies.
Remember, we have a quickstart in hand, designed to provide a taste of cinematic play. If you're trying to campaign with it, I suspect you have tools missing and mechanics that we won't see until we have the full book in hand.
 
decanox
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Re: First Aid

Mon 01 Jul 2019, 10:08

The issue becomes after every combat situation you have everyone sit around and perform medicine checks over and over until everyone is at full health again. There is no wear and tear over repeated encounters. If you LET the players heal always and whenever then they will always top themselves off. Because why wouldn't they?
In other games I played lastly: Shadowrun, Call of Cthulhu, Runequest (it's the same system as CoC) and Pathfinder (I only played once last year, so maybe I am wrong); when a wounded character receives 1 health point, he/she cannot be healed again until he/she receives a new wound. For example, if we play this rule in Alien RPG: if a character loses 3 health points, another character with first aid heals 1 point so the wounded has still 2 points for recovering, but nobody can heal the character since he/she has already received 1 point and the character cannot be healed until he/she is wounded again (and it could be too late)... Maybe, this rule is nonsensical too, but as far I know it's a common rule in many games.

Anyway, we played the second session yesterday and I decided to follow the rule according to the rulebook. Players ask me why their characters couldn't be healed and they were really confused at first ("Why? My character is wounded!")... but then, when action began again, they forgot that fact.

What I did: when characters were only talking about options enough time (10 minutes more or les) in a common room (not one stained with blood, plenty of bones, etc), I allow them to recover 1 health point.   
 
Toneturbo
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Re: First Aid

Thu 04 Jul 2019, 04:37

Think of the alien movies as well.  Which this scenario is like. Very few survived after being injured. In both the movies, and this game, the death of characters is fully expected.

Also as mentioned before, this is a common limitation on medical treatment found in the other Fria Ligan games.  It is quite different from other RPG games like D&D and Pathfinder.

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