Tuesday, February 28, 2017

Hospital Stays

After Rusty Keys' hospital debacle, I believe we need some rules centered around getting professional care. According to the rules on page 78 of the rulebook, the healing skill may only be used in the "golden hour". Additionally, only one roll per character may attempt to heal. After the golden hour only supernatural healing or natural healing will help. Unfortunately, natural healing takes a game-week for the first roll. That could make a game pretty suck-tastic if a player character takes one hard early in a game and is forced to limp through the remainder of the session. With that in mind, I would like to suggest the following supplementary house rulings for discussion:

  • PCs and NPCs who present themselves at a hospital during the "golden hour" may roll a healing check for care. The check is done as if by a wild card with a D6 healing skill. In case of a failure (or god-forbid a 1 on the healing die), PCs may choose to spend a "bennie" to roll again at +2 (as if the hospital ALSO had the "healer" edge).
  • Players who deem their characters too "beat up" to continue may choose to switch PCs mid-game and play an alternate PC. This could either be a the player's own alternate (such as Bob's Two-Chains / Friday Jones) or one of the henchman from HQ - Eugene, Pierre, Gorak. In case of a switch, the player chooses which characters win the experience at the end of the adventure.
  • 6 comments:

    1. That looks good to me, but perhaps we could vary the skill level, and risk of "heat" by hospital

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    2. Also, I do have cards for Eugene, Gorak and Pierre

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    3. At the risk of adding more rules, maybe we say that traveling between districts takes ten minutes unless the driver makes a driving roll. The driving roll gains a cumulative -4 to the roll until the driver fails one, adding ten minutes to the trip. For example:

      Rusty needs to get from Blackgate to Gotham Proper to get medical attention at Gotham General. He rolls a 4 moving into the Financial District, but rolls a 6 moving into Old Gotham and loses 10 minutes from the trip. He rolls a 5 moving into Gotham Proper, so the trip only consumes 10 minutes time.

      Maybe we want to compare the hospitals in Gotham in terms of wait time and care quality? Maybe we're overthinking this. Just about all the care is located in or near Gotham Proper.

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    4. Maybe something like this, give each hospital a die rating:
      Gotham General: d10
      Sisters of Mercy: d8
      St. Luke's: d6
      Shadow Clinic?: d4

      The die is used for 2 rolls: the healing roll, and the heat roll (if the heat roll is 4+, the cops question the injuries).

      The healing roll gets a Wild Die, the heat roll doesn't.

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      Replies
      1. I like the heat even better than the delay. I'm sure there will be other times to use the "driving in Gotham" rules, but I like this one even better.

        Does police questioning potentially bring chips? Maybe we throw a chip as a "get out of the hospital free" card? Otherwise, you may be taking a chance that "bad cops" show up and want more than just the name of who shot you.

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    5. The get out of cops free for a bennie sounds good.
      The police usually bring donuts, not chips.

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