Topic: Healing those "dead in x rounds" crits

[DangerMan]

Last night we had a session, in which we ended an epic fight spanning two 6 hour sessions. Good times! The climax came when the only two standing characters were the Haid warrior NPC and the Magehunter PC with a "slain" flaw coined at.. you guessed it.. Haid. Naturally the PC allocated a fair deal of OB to parry and got away with no more than one slaying crit which landed on 50. He slew the Haid with his last strength and a sigh of relief went through the room.

Amongst dead neng and quaidu NPCs there was an Arcanist PC with a severed leg, a Mythic downed, unconscious and bleeding badly and finally the warrior PC who had suffered a pole arm through his cheek and out throught the neck!

Throughtout the battle, and in the rounds following, the magehunter managed to administer life keeping and preservation spells, to stop stat detoriation and the soul leaving the body on the warrior with the hole in his face. Thus arised the question of how to heal such wounds.

I ruled that they would need a healer with access to top of the notch healing spells dealing with arteries, bones, joints and nerves. The Magehunter was displeased by this, as arcane healing will not suffice at his levels.

Fair ruling, IYO? How would this play out in your games?

[yammahoper]

repair the artery, check for nerve damage, repair the bone/neck if broken.

there will be a permenant scar.  Probably a loss of Ap if that stat is used (1d10 per crit severity).

Note that I allow organ repair spells to repair artery/vein damage (all crits that bleed over 5 hits a round). 

[jdale]

Comparing the arcane healing list to healing lists in other schools, the arcane list is very compressed. Whereas in channeling you might need 6 lists to do everything. The trade-off should be less comprehensive healing. Without seeing the actual critical description, it seems reasonable that there should be wounds it is not sufficient for. Otherwise, why play a healer type using anything but arcane?

[DangerMan]

In this case Im thinking both bones (neck) and joints (jaw / neck) are damaged, and nerve damage is a given. Critical read:

Nothing fancy. Just a puncture
through his cheek and throat.
Drops now and dies in 9 rounds.

[markc]

Comparing the arcane healing list to healing lists in other schools, the arcane list is very compressed. Whereas in channeling you might need 6 lists to do everything. The trade-off should be less comprehensive healing. Without seeing the actual critical description, it seems reasonable that there should be wounds it is not sufficient for. Otherwise, why play a healer type using anything but arcane?

I agree here. You would need to use Spell Mastery to adjust the arcane spells to do what you want.
MDC

[yammahoper]

So, certainly bone repair (neck) and nerve repair (spinal column!).  Bone repair (jaw) is needed but not to revive PC.  Certainly artery repair, which strikes me as the primary repair (to restory blood circultation to the brain). 

So, the bleeding repair would stop death in 9 rnds.  Without it, the PC is toast.

Without bone repair, moving PC could be dangerous to his health.

Lack of nerve repair would indicate paralysis until healed.  Additionally, I would probably declare PC will die in X hours equal to 3x Co mod if nerve damage is not healed.  At end of 3x Co mod, an rr equal to 5xcrit severit with Co mod as level of resistance would be made.  Success would indicate PC slips into coma instead of dieing, success by 50+ indicating PC slips in and out of conciousness, success of 100+ indicates PC remains awake and aware.

Be tough but fair.  Broken necks are dangerous.  Oh, and bleed all the drama you can from this scene.  You know your players.

[jdale]

I'm trying to visualize a single hole that goes through the cheek and throat. I think it has to hit the throat first and then go up through the jaw and cheek. I'm not sure it has to break the neck (GM call, could roll on it) but probably would break the jaw because otherwise I don't think it would be a straight line. Could be death due to suffocation and blood into the lungs rather than a broken neck.

The "dead in _ rounds" results are usually the least clear ones.

Personally I think I would come up with a couple alternatives and roll to decide which one. E.g. the broken neck is certainly possible, so maybe 50% chance of that and 50% of the other. That said, it's a judgment call and I don't think the original ruling is a bad one. Especially if they have lifekeeping and preservation so this is not actually a kill.

[VladD]

When a puncture wound from the cheek, goes through the throat, it will mostly automatically miss the spine. I think its from an upper hand blow or descending arrow. It will sever the jugular vein, so that's spot on. Lots of facial bone damage, especially the cheek bone and the upper jaw, but its not certain the lower jaw is hit. Last piece of damage no one mentioned is the actual throat itself: the larynx and the associated muscles and air and feed ways. I might consider the larynx an organ, but basically its a bone and cartilage thing. So its all severe damage to the muscles, ligaments, cartilage, bone and arteries.

In my game I would rule the "drops and dies" criticals, as mostly severe trauma. So the wound is so horrible, the victim's brain tries to conserve itself, but can't, shutting down in the process. Fixing the wound and casting an Awakening would do the trick.

[Old Man]

In this case Im thinking both bones (neck) and joints (jaw / neck) are damaged, and nerve damage is a given. Critical read:

Nothing fancy. Just a puncture
through his cheek and throat.
Drops now and dies in 9 rounds.

This is always the a) fun or b) annoying part of critical results - choosing the actual damage body parts to map to Spell Law's healing... You can't go wrong with some combination of severed blood vessels and larynx with death due to drowning in his/her own blood ...

[RandalThor]

Amongst dead neng and quaidu NPCs there was an Arcanist PC with a severed leg, a Mythic downed, unconscious and bleeding badly and finally the warrior PC who had suffered a pole arm through his cheek and out throught the neck!

Throughtout the battle, and in the rounds following, the magehunter managed to administer life keeping and preservation spells, to stop stat detoriation and the soul leaving the body on the warrior with the hole in his face. Thus arised the question of how to heal such wounds.

I ruled that they would need a healer with access to top of the notch healing spells dealing with arteries, bones, joints and nerves. The Magehunter was displeased by this, as arcane healing will not suffice at his levels.

Fair ruling, IYO? How would this play out in your games?

I think that sounds about right. If they don't have access to the level of healing they will need (and most don't), then they do need to seek out those that do - most notably, high-level Clerics or Lay Healers.

PS: That warrior just got a nasty scar, or more bragging rights with his people, depending upon how they view battle-scars. No matter what though, his Appearance should go down by 3-30 points.

[markc]

  As to how, maybe the attacker pushed the critical taken back so his head dropped to his chest, he opened his mouth to breath on the way up and the sword stroke took him through the cheek and into the throat.


 A side thought: I wonder if someone has some historical book that details a list of wounds taken in battle during the middle ages. That might be a good source of ideas for criticals. But again it might be a bit biased also depend on who is telling the tale or writing the account.
MDC

[VladD]

Do an Inet search on battle of wisby (visby) of 1361. Mass grave with plenty of skeletons from a well documented battle. Interesting to see how the armors that were used protected the warriors: almost no bone damage on the torso, most of the damage was sustained on the arms and legs and even the head. The researchers concluded also that the armors used (mail haubergeon and coat of plates) were already outdated at that time.

Anyway: check it out:

More:
http://www.the-exiles.org/Article%20Towton.htm

[jdale]

It does support those criticals where the effect is reduced if torso armor is worn...

[markc]

 Interesting article,
 I find this quote interesting:
" [/size]There are few infra-cranial (torso and limb) injuries, which may suggest that these areas were not targeted, that these individuals were wearing armour, or that they sustained their injuries while in a position that did not allow them to defend themselves.[/size] "
[/size] Especially the last part, ...or they sustained their injuries while in a position that did not allow them to defend themselves. I do find it very strange all of the injuries to the head region it almost makes me think the later was the case. But I would have to know more to be sure.
[/size] P.S. the pic at the end is exactly what my group have been looking for. The GM of another game likes to put PC kills up on his GM screen and I think the included pic is excellent for that.
[/size]MDC 

[DangerMan]

Thanks for all the feedback, guys! As it seem we are all more or less on the same page I'll stick with my ruling.

Funny part here is that the warrior has the Dense (greater) talent, and therefore weighs half a metric ton, IIRC. No way the scrawny mythic and magehunter gonna even drag him to a cleric, and they let the NPC guiding them to the regions lore master die (It's a SW camp.). So, they're stuck in the wilderness with two comatized bodies