Medical Specialties

jedion357's picture
jedion357
April 24, 2010 - 10:48pm
inspired by another thread:
http://starfrontiers.us/node/4111

it occured to me that doctors like to specialize in one area of medicine so why not in the Frontier

was wondering what you all think

once a character reaches a certain level with med skil they can specialize for a +20% in that area alone

and what party wouldn't want a doc specialized in trauma?

However if you limit it to a level say 4 or higher that character is already rolling on a higher level and now they get a +20%

There's no drawback to specializing and getting a tough to fail chance so maybe this isn't such a good idea
and who would even bother with being an oncologist- after all cancer is just not something your RPG character worries about.
I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers!
Comments:

Inigo Montoya's picture
Inigo Montoya
April 25, 2010 - 9:25am
I like the idea of specializing. SF has lumped all science and medicine into one category. It is simple, but not much fun. While an oncologist IS a bit narrow for a PC skill, it could be a beneficial in the right setting. I suppose it really depends on how much detail the game master wants in his game.

Anonymous's picture
w00t (not verified)
April 25, 2010 - 12:47pm
jedion, is that for the AD skill set? (I know you like using A Skilled Frontier).

I mentioned before I'm updating "A Skilled Frontier" and adding "Specialization" in addition to a few skills that are missing. Since this skill system is broad by design (categorical) your character can specialize in a certain area, narrowing the focus. Specializing gives you a +10% to this focus but all other aspects of the skill are at -10%.

For example; A character with the Medic skill might want to specialize in field surgery, radiation
treatment, disease treatment, toxin treatment, or a specific race. Another character with Air Vehicles might pick a specific type of vehicle such as cyclejet, aircar or jetcopter. Let's say the character chooses to specialize in cyclejet's, whenever he is asked to make a pilot check using a cycletjet he receives an additional +10%, however when using any other air vehicle he receives a -10%.

Inigo,
There is a Science skill with no finite list of sciences from which to choose, but some
example fields of science are archaeology, anthropology, physics, mathematics, agriculture, and education.

jedion357's picture
jedion357
April 25, 2010 - 6:53pm
ooops double post
I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers!

jedion357's picture
jedion357
April 25, 2010 - 6:51pm
why would a specialize character lose -10 because he specialize?

I know it makes sence from an RPG stand point but it doesn't from a reality stand point.

just because a doctor becomes a pediatrician he doesnt forget what he already learned.

Though to be fair, your average pediatrician doesn't do surgery.

But then it would be too complicated to have surgical medics and general medicine medics.

If you just made specialization something you could do at a certain level then there is your limiting factor and you could drop the -10.
I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers!

Anonymous's picture
w00t (not verified)
April 25, 2010 - 8:35pm
Understood. A character should only specialize if he is trying to fill a character concept. Sometimes a player wants to get the initial starting boost but could regret it later (since it last the lifetime of the character).

By narrowing the focus you are concentrating on a certain aspects of the skill and do not retain the broad scope. Feel free to ignore, I was just making a suggestion.






Rick's picture
Rick
May 10, 2010 - 2:04pm
I think this idea has merit - the idea that a doctor should specialise in certain areas is a good one. Perhaps, instead of specialising, the medical PSA should be split down into different skill packages/archetypes - general practicioner, surgeon, ships doctor, paramedic for example. Skills such as diagnosis would probably be available from the start, but not every archetype would start off with access to every medical skill. Hmm - not sure I'm explaining this correctly. I'll take a look at a few bits and get back to you on this, lol!

"But, Sir," the bosun said, regretting the words even before they left his mouth, "we don't have any thumbscrews."

"That, Bosun," the XO replied in a low, mad whisper, "is why they give us machine shops!"


jedion357's picture
jedion357
May 10, 2010 - 8:55pm
Rick wrote:
I think this idea has merit - the idea that a doctor should specialise in certain areas is a good one. Perhaps, instead of specialising, the medical PSA should be split down into different skill packages/archetypes - general practicioner, surgeon, ships doctor, paramedic for example. Skills such as diagnosis would probably be available from the start, but not every archetype would start off with access to every medical skill. Hmm - not sure I'm explaining this correctly. I'll take a look at a few bits and get back to you on this, lol!


I think you have to split the skill to have different subskills for different packages

paramedic has activate Freeze field, admin drugs, first aid, and diagnosis. its skill cost is same as for military PSA cost (but its still in Bio-social PSA)

General practioner has all of the above subskills plus, control infection& Disease and toxins, plus minor surgery; the skill cost is the same for Technician PSA (but its still in Bio- social PSA)

Surgeon- has all medical subskills cost is at printed in book

I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers!

Rick's picture
Rick
May 11, 2010 - 4:41am
Yeah - thats pretty much what I was thinking, although I might add a vehicle operation skill from the Technician PSA to the Paramedic package.

"But, Sir," the bosun said, regretting the words even before they left his mouth, "we don't have any thumbscrews."

"That, Bosun," the XO replied in a low, mad whisper, "is why they give us machine shops!"


jedion357's picture
jedion357
May 11, 2010 - 5:07am
Rick wrote:
Yeah - thats pretty much what I was thinking, although I might add a vehicle operation skill from the Technician PSA to the Paramedic package.


You could do that though if you made an archetype with my proposed paramedic skill package then you'd just specify he takes paramedic 1 and Tech 1

The real complication comes in when a paramedic 3 decides he wants to become a doctor
I guess he could pay the difference between paramedic 1 and general Practioner 1 in exp then he's be paramedic 3 and GP 1; you could end up with a situation where you had Paramedic 3; GP 2; and surgeon 1 which would mean traking which subskill was performed at which level of training- a bit complicated

for the reason that you'd have to be able to upgrade to a different level of medical spec. I wouldn't put the vehicle skill in the paramedic package but just make it a requirement of the archetype.
But I'm suddenly unsure if I like my proposed packages as I can see the possible complications.

However the paramedic skill package is ideal of ther military character that just wants to be a combat medic and not the ships doctor.
I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers!

Rick's picture
Rick
May 12, 2010 - 4:48am
I think it's still a good idea, but the overlap of skills is going to be a sticking point. My initial idea is to have the character always use the highest skill level in the PSA's, but the real problem for me is why would a character pay to duplicate his skills? If he's already paid full cost for his skills, why should he pay full cost again for only 1 or 2 skills that he needs. 1 solution might be (and this could work for all PSA's) to have a basic PSA of a few, core skills, then expert PSA's, with a few, more advanced ones. Unfortunately - this would probably mean yet another overhaul of the skill system, but it would make it easier, I suppose - to add new skills to an on-going campaign!

"But, Sir," the bosun said, regretting the words even before they left his mouth, "we don't have any thumbscrews."

"That, Bosun," the XO replied in a low, mad whisper, "is why they give us machine shops!"


Gullwind's picture
Gullwind
May 12, 2010 - 4:29pm
One element I liked about the SF2000 rules was that the subskills became separate skills on their own, and did away with PSAs. There are four main "professions" with three or so variations with their own skill list. It just seems to make it easier to get the mix of skills you want, but at the cost of complexity.

But hey, if I didn't like complexity, I wouldn't play Star Fleet Battles.
"Rome didn't build an empire by having meetings. They did it by killing those who stood in their way."

jedion357's picture
jedion357
May 12, 2010 - 6:32pm
Actually I play in a game where the house rules are if you can come up with a profession concept and match 3 skills to that then that would be your PSA thus technician, medicals skill and one other could be lumped together under that system as a paramedic PSA


I mixed environmentals skill with technician & phsyc-social as a vursk smuggler PSA
I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers!

jacobsar's picture
jacobsar
June 2, 2010 - 5:41pm

How far do you guys want to take the level of detail? If you want to dial it down to where the medical profession is right now I can illustrate the complexity.

There are 17 major specialties MDs(or DOs) can take. Each one has many subspecialties. For instance according to my classification index the Pathologist may further specialize as any of the following:
Hematology, Pediatric, Cytology, Transfusion Medicine, Gynecology, Microbiology, Forensic, Dermatology and Neuropathology. In addition each species in the game would have there own physiology and therefore branch out into even more rarified corners of medicine (a Humma tail specialist perhaps). This does not even begin to address the differences among the pre-hospital, inpatient, and diagnostics branches.

Bear in mind there are two types of skills covered by a competency: First is raw knowledge and second is the "art" of medicine.
The latter is the real place where time must be spent. Getting the "feel" for your job is always the hardest part of it.
Surely the knowledge part of the equation would be primarily handled by the more reliable computers in the future. Even today telemedicine is developing to the point of performing ever more independently of the physician.

Look at it like this. Learning the rules of chess is quite easy. Becoming good at chess is another thing all together. Chess was invented to teach the basics of battlefield strategy. The lessons of chess could therefore be applied to many different endeavors.  From one thing learn one thousand, to paraphrase the book of five rings. These strategy skills would be the place where a frontier Medic would concentrate not on trying to fill his head with facts.

I believe if we want to be realistic about the progress of Medicine I would say the riggers of a frontier with far flung outposts of civilization as we see in SF would encourage LESS specialization, not more. I think we are more likely to see more Dr. Franklins (a la B5) in the frontier setting with specialists available for consultation via subspace radio. Specialists are unlikely to wish to depart from there nice planetside practices, let them be NPCs.

In the mean time I am trying to put the finishing touches on a new skill system for W00Ts Frontier space. The details are kicking me back to the drawing board twice a week but I should be able to post something in the coming two weeks.

Reasonable men adapt to the world around them; unreasonable men make the world adapt to them. The world is changed by unreasonable men.
Edwin Louis Cole