Dregni

This could be a simple and practical change to the way wounds and first aid looks. Currently, first aid remains useless outside of rank 4 for broken bones. Also, an infected wound only increases pain. These changes could make first aid more useful, while not making the game too easy or too much harder. The first change is the first aid skill could reduce the time for a wound to heal by 2% per skill level. First aid xp comes from removing a bandage from a fully healed wound. This stops the standing on broken glass technique for grinding first aid. A first aid skill can also reduce the chance of an infection by 2% per skill level. I don’t know if my math is right but putting a sterilized bandage on a scratch or laceration with a first aid of 10 should have an enormously low chance of an infection. A rank of 2 (or higher) in first aid could allow players to look at wound status without removing a bandage. Also, an infected wound should heal 3x slower and for each day an infection is untreated the character would become more sick. With no modifiers, 25% additively for each day with an untreated infection with the appropriate health declination. This would force players to change bandages, because currently the consequence of minor pain is too easy to deal with and many players will leave on the first bandage they use. All these changes would make first aid more realistic and more useful. The most important change in how the game is played, is players will need to change a bandage when it becomes dirty. This is likely what is intended. Here is a link to another thread with some similar ideas that I also think would be a good system or parts could be used for the system for infections.

I actually would like a system like this, but if it needed to be simpler so that it could be more practically implemented into the game it could look like this until this system could be added. First Aid skill reduces the current game’s chance of an infection considerably. An infected wound could heal 3x slower. To make first aid more useful, it could also reduce the pain a wound causes when treated with high first aid, as well as reduce the penalty to attack speed. After having an infected wound for 24+ hours the characters body temperature goes up and causes a fever. After another 48+ hours the character goes septic. Without antibiotics they will die. This gives even players with no levels in first aid time to find sterilized sheets/bandages, alcohol wipes, ect. time to heal without dying, but gives natural consequences for leaving an infection. A first aid skill of 3 could allow a player to check if a wound is infected without removing the bandage. I was originally going to post something that looks like this until I saw it’s already been suggested. So I’ll just put my ideas in this thread.