By Jay

Just how much can the various high tech treatments bring one back from injury?

I just had this come up in the last session. Some things I've resolved but others I haven't. Just how much can the various high tech treatments bring one back from injury? I really want to avoid having these items become high tech versions of the AD&D healing potion. I want combat to be dangerous and to have consequences that are not immediately healable.

Elixir: I have people keep track of their wounds separately. That is, each wound they take is marked off from Vitality normally, but an extra mark is made to keep track of the number of Vitality lost per hit. Elixir can be used once per wound so long as the wound does not extend into the penalty range. Elixir is administered by someone (it could be yourself) using a Perception+Remedy roll; this takes a full turn's actions. The Victory points on this roll are added to a roll that determines how much the Elixir heals. Basic Elixir has a goal number of 13 modified by quality (+/-3). Each VP on the roll restores a Vitality level. If the Elixir botches, it does another wound level to the user--hey, no one promised you it would always be safe! Quality should be determined by the GM and kept secret, of course. (Yes, this makes Elixir not quite as nice as in the book, which is exactly my point, particularly given how cheap it is.)

NanoTech Med Pack: Here's where I still have questions. The NTMP is great but I'm not sure what its limits are. Use is pretty simple--a physician puts the right components into you and you heal at double the normal rate. However, just what are the limits of the NTMP? Can it heal wounds that are normally largely unhealable, such as a broken neck that leads to quadropalegia? What about regeneration of tissue that is destroyed? When you double nothing, you still get nothing, after all.

This is important, because in the last session a character had his neck broken; he was reduced to 0 Vitality by a Choke Hold so I ruled his neck was snapped. CPR was administered quick enough to keep him alive for the NTMP to be administered. In a fit of niceness, I allowed it to keep him alive but he's currently a quadropalegic. Had CPR not been administered with a critical success--roll kept secret from the players--that would have been that. I'm of the mind that the NTMP cannot fix this problem and cybersurgery (or a trip to Artemis, which the character won't do) will be required. If he's willing to just let the NTMP work, I'm going to knock off -4 on all physical stats. Only the installation of a Lithe Wire and some extra cyberwear will restore this. (Another character was partially castrated but this one is pretty easy to fix with a little cloning and some basic surgery.)