The basic rules for first aid work great for managing Lethal and Bashing damage. What about more serious injuries? The rules here provide a high-stakes race against time when trying to heal a patient on the verge of death, without making such feats impossible without some form of magic.
Aggravated damage is very different from Bashing and Lethal. To this end, stabilizing someone who has taken aggravated damage requires a Stabilize Patient test before normal First Aid can take place.
Someone who has suffered one or more points of aggravated damage has big problems. Internal bleeding, shattered bones, punctured organs, you name it. These wounds are challenging to treat and become harder and harder the longer you wait. Each minute, the patient suffers a point of bashing damage (immediately rolling over into agg) regardless of whether they're being treated or not. Medics trying to stabilize a dying patient are fighting against time in a very real way.
Roll: Dexterity + Medicine
Action: Extended
Interval: 1 minute
Target: Total number of boxes filled with aggravated damage
Effects
Dramatic Failure: Your clumsy attempts at medicine are worse than useless, dealing a point of bashing damage. The patient continues bleeding out, suffering another point of aggravated damage.
Failure: You make no progress, but the patient continues to bleed out, suffering another point of aggravated damage.
Success: You get your patient closer to stable. If you meet the target successes, the patient is stable and no longer at risk of immediate death. They do not heal any points of damage, so it's a very good idea to treat them with standard First Aid at this point. If you do not yet meet the target successes, the patient continues to bleed out, suffering another point of aggravated damage.
Exceptional Success: You make great progress toward stabilizing the patient. If they are so wounded that you do not finish the test immediately, your efforts at least buy you some extra time. Although the patient is still bleeding out, they do not suffer any more aggravated damage during this test interval.
Suggested Modifiers
| Modifier | Situation |
|---|---|
| +1 - +3 | First aid kit of the appropriate rating |
| +2 | Trauma kit |
| -1 | Adverse conditions: low light, strong wind, etc. |
For example: A patient has 3 aggravated damage and 7 health boxes. An EMT arrives on scene and wants to stop their bleeding, so he begins his extended Dex + Medicine test. He has Dex 3, Medicine 3, and a trauma kit from his personal vehicle, providing an equipment bonus of 2, so the EMT rolls 8 dice. On his first roll, he gets one success. However, the patient suffers another point of agg damage from bleeding and the EMT's target increases to 4 successes. On the EMT's next roll, he gets another 2 successes, bringing his total to 3. The patient is still bleeding, and takes another agg, raising the target to 5. On the EMT's next roll, he scores another 2 successes, bringing him to the total of 5 and sucessfully stabilizing the patient.
This small bag is packed with only the bare minimum of supplies needed to stabilize a patient. Its size means that a trauma kit can be carried almost anywhere, giving it an advantage over a similarly capable first aid kit. When performing a Stabilize Patient test, characters using a Trauma Kit gain its full +2 equipment bonus. On First Aid or other medicine tests, characters only gain a +1 equipment bonus, as the limited supplies in the kit prevent it from being as effective as a larger first aid bag.
Cost: •
Size: 1/P
Effect: Gain +2 equipment bonus on Stabilize Patient rolls, +1 on other medicine rolls