Unexpected Outcomes

This weeks session was unforunately a combat grind, 4 PCs vs 8 Royal Guard. After a few rounds the PCs realized that the Royal Guard using pistols, which are 'faster' gave them a slight advantage, and changed tack to follow suit, capitalizing on the fact that most of them have 'paired weapons' (GM Note: whilst this means they can dual wield melee weapons with out issue, there is a penalty on using pistols this way, unless you're ambidexterous. The penalty is -2 to hit with the off-hand pistol)

Eventually they managed to dispatch most of the guard, but unfitunately One succumbed to 'blood loss' from his wounds and Six came really close.

Two things come out of this, and yes this is the first time I've really had a chance to test these combat rules 1) Paramedic skill is going to be really important (see below) and 2) The complete lack of any form of technology based medical healing in the Palladium ruleset is yet another flaw I'm going to have to deal with. One thing which would have helped, had I or anybody other than Matt remebered, would have been Armour, even the 'vests' you gained from the Feris Militia. Now these as noted are only 'Vests', they cover the torso, thus have an Armout Rating. In Ranged combat you need  12 or more (adjusted rolls) to hit, but to avoid hitting the Armour you also need to roll over the AR of the Armour, which for the vests is 15. Had One been wearing armour he might have survived (the critical he took definately didn't help).

So, why Paramedic Skill, and not First Aid. It's really in the degree of training that Paramedics receive. First Aiders can't administer drugs, insert canulas, apply drips, and execute other 'complex' procedures, whilst Paramedics can. They are also trained to deal with life threateing conditions like bullet and stab wounds. The interesting angle here is that in RL often a  Paramedic is better than a Doctor unless the Doctor has been specifically trained to deal with "Trauma Cases", which also means I'm going to need to slightly amend the Medical Skill Category to differentiate MD skills more.

Now there is another angle here that didn't help. The rules were revised to deal with the complete hash Palladium Games made when they introduced the MDC system in Rifts, but Rifts also has something else which doesn't apply here, Magic and Psionics. In Rifts Magical and Psionic healing are prevalent (much to the disgust of the Coalition), and assuming you have the right sort of Mage and/or Psionic around they have the capability to deal with 'bleeding wounds'. Note: whilst on the subject of bleeding wounds your rifles did have one advantage they caused 6D3 bleeding damage per minute as opposed to 4D3 for the pistols (PV6 vs PV4).

So this brings us back to 'technological' based healing, something that never comes to light in the TV series. If I return to Rifts for a second, and indirectly to my Amber campaign, as at least one person ( Rodri) benefited from this, there is an item in Rifts that does perfom technoligical healing and is quite capable of stablizing a person bleeding out, the RMK. This is a briefcase sized device, that consists of a diagnosis computer, a drugs reserve, and a 'Cuff' (more like a vambrace) which is attached to the case by a flexible coupling (think multiple tubes and fibre optics in a binding). The cuff is placed around the forearm (typically) where is auto locates the veins and arteries, and inserts several needles and sensors. The needles are hollow and allow it to inject and retrieve 'Nanites' which are what do all the actual work. The problem is that this sort of use of Nanite technology is prohibited, at least in the context of humans in Dark Matter.

Now in the "modern" age (at least post the Vietnam War), we already have a plethora of both coagulant and anti-coagulant drugs and a liquid which was invented to seal wounds in the field, Super Glue. Therefore I see no reason that within the 'Dark Matter' universe something similar if not a lot more advanced wouldn't exist, which brings me back, in a round about manner to Paramedic and First Aid skills.

Now First aid is your basic treatment skill, allowing the application of dressings and bandages and providing a basic degree of being able to potentially stabalize someone until "Professional" help arrives. Paramedic skill is the Adanced version, allowing the administering of dugs and other life saving measures. Thus we end up with 2 treatment items, a 'trauma dressing/patch' and a 'coagulant gel' (administered using a standard injector - requires Paramedic skill to use). A 'trauma patch' - one per wound - will staunch 3D of blood loss, whilst a dose of 'Coagulant Gel', injected into a wound (one dose per wound) will staunch 5D of blood loss. An ampule of Coagulant, a 8mm diameter by 40mm long plastic cylinder containing 2ml of gell, will seal 1 wound and  2 wounds can be treated per round - you can treat your self assuming you can see the wound clearly. A typical 'field' first aid kit would likely contain 2 packs of patches, whilst a paramedic kit would possibly have an ampule case constaining 10 ampules (which may not all be coagulant gel) and 4 packs of patches. There's nothing of course stopping you from carrying more in pouches/pockets/rucksacks etc. Patches are CR1.5 for a pack of 4 or CR120 for a box of 100 packs. Coagulant ampules are CR2 or CR150 for a box of 100.

Note I am not retrospectively going to change anything, we are where we are with Six severely injured and One dead, which leads me onto....

Once you return to the Razza then Lisa can treat Six's wounds. This will leave Six on a DC equal to his PE. Now Lisa can also administer a drug which accelerates healing, but this comes with a warning and a potenital downside. Only one dose of this can be used at any one time and has a 5 day 'cooldown' period from the point it is administered. This speeds up the bodies natural healing ability. You basically heal 2xPE in the first 20 hours (1 day), 1.5x PE, in the next 20 hours, PE in the next 20 hours, after which it drops to the normal 0.5 PE per 20 hours. Note this is in relation to damage which causes bleeding wounds, ie anything which isn't mitigated by your DR - whilst a Laser or Plasma weapon don't cause a wound which bleeds (it's self cauterizing) it isn't mitigated by your DR either so it classes as a 'bleeding' wound. If you're wondering what the negative affect of receiving a second dose withing the cooldown period is, then whilst the drug works as normal, it permanently reduces your DC by CEIL(3xSQRT(PE)) .. if your PE is 9 your DC is reduced by 9, if your PE is 18 your DC is reduced by 13.

I think this mostly deals with everything relating to the 'combat' from its impact on those directly involved. Of course the one character indirectly involved was Four, who due to reasons of Honour couldn't do much more than by-stand during his rescue. Of course the one event none of you were expecting was Four to kill Akita, having gone to such lengths to keep him alive during the combat.  This also brings me to one other element than didn't really get resolved, what did you do with the Guard that Three rendered unconscious when he stunned him? Yes Two shot him, but she only shot him once and that didn't kill him. Note if Four knew about him being alive then Four would have killed him!

The upshot, as per the second paragraph, was the demise of One, whose body you did take back to the Razza with you.

As Lisa revealed, One's real identity was Derek Moss, CEO (absent) of  CoreLactic Industries. Now there were 3 things you would actually have been able to find out, two of which I forgot about at the end of the session.  As I said, One didn't have any 'family', his wife (Catherine) having been murdered under mysterious circumstances about 14 months previously. There is an element to this I've only remembered whilst writng this log, they had only been married for 3 months when the murder took place. The second element, sort of, but not directly related, is that Derek Moss had become CEO of CoreLactic Industries a few months before his marriage after his father died of a heart attack (note there was never any suspicion that this was anything other than natural causes). This does mean that his mother is still alive....

Now the one thing I did forget, which is probably more relavent, is that Derek Moss vanished without trace about 7 months ago, hence the "absent" tag in relation to him being CEO of CoreLactic Enterprises. The current CEO (acting) is Darius De Hoeven who was vice president under both Derek and his father (for a good 20 years).

This technically resolves everything directly relating to the session, but there are 2 elements of 'House Keeping' I need to pick up in the next session

1) The spend on supplies as per the Session 8 log (although we do have a dedicated Discord Server Channel which could be used to handle this in between sessions)

2) Five's hack of the planetary Network.

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