Burn status effect.

[draconuszero]

Hi all, I was wondering what skill would be used to treat burns?  i'm assuming that it it isn't medicine, as i tried it and it doesn't help at all.  Currently my guy has been on fire for the past half an hour with no doctor able to treat the burns...

[macksting]

As far as I can discern, the most effective counter to a status ailment, given time, is the Resistance skill. As this is a skill every character or party member will have to roll against some day, it's handy to have around; as I recall, using a skill you don't actually have incurs, unless you've got the right Talent, a -2 penalty.
The Resistance skill uses the Ego stat. A character with a high ego stat might never notice the difference, I'd have to ask Peter or Hewitt, but a character with a low Ego and no Resistance skill is probably going to have a lot of problems. Therefore, if I'm not playing a martial artist or cybernetics buff, which makes Ego one of my low stats, I tend to ramp up my Resistance skill. The same applies to my lancemates.

That said, it would be rather nice if doctors had an effective solution to the chemicals that cause burn status ailments.

[Epsilon]

General Repair, isn't it?

[draconuszero]

It is gen repair as far as I can tell, as I went to elric and after repairs and some burn damage, it disappeared!  I'm surprised its a gen repair fixable rather than medicine though...

[Joseph Hewitt]

Originally it was first aid, but your mecha can catch on fire too. So I changed it to general repair. I think maybe I should change things again so that fire can be put out by any repair skill.

[peter]

Quoting: macksting

a low Ego and no Resistance skill is probably going to have a lot of problems

 Well, they're going to need general repair and medicine for all the poison and burns.  esp. if they get hit often.

Joseph, you've said that BURN weapons in gearhead use nasty chemicals that burn under water.  But shouldn't they be consumed after a few minutes?  Not having personal experience with a flame thrower, I don't know, but it seems odd to have fire doing the same random damage for half an hour, with the same chance to resist then as when it first hit.

 Suggestion: after the first damage*10 seconds or something, the fire become "normal", and extinguishable by various means: any repair skill, or water (including the spa in Mauna!).  And the Resistance target should start to decay.  The attack that caused the fire status effect would increment an integer attribute by the damage of the attack that caused the effect.  If > 0, the attr would decay at a rate of 1 per 10 seconds (or whatever time step is convenient) toward zero.  SF:2 weapons hitting SF:2 targets should just do their unscaled damage, not * 25.  It could be Random(damage)...  The Resistance target could be based on how high your fire counter is.

 I don't know if we'd want to have the fire counter go up even when the target doesn't catch fire.  You could have to keep making Resistance checks as the napalm wore off to keep from being officially "on fire".  This would result in alternating back and forth as the fire decayed.  Hmmm, maybe it would be best to always be listed as on fire if your fire counter is non-zero, but you make a resistance check to avoid taking damage from it every time.  What does it mean anyway to Resist a burn attack?  That you don't end up covered in napalm?  Wouldn't that mean you don't get hit for damage either, and that you Dodged the attack?

[SharkD]

These sorts of chemicals tend to burn at a steady, constant rate. That's what makes them better suited than explosive chemicals like TNT or jet fuel.

[macksting]

I'm reminded of individuals caught by white phosphorus grenades in such a way that phosphorus remains under the skin, igniting violently when exposed to air by the surgeon's knife.
Slow burn or fast, some chemicals just keep going.

Other than that, I have no particular comments regarding the role of Resistance.

[Joseph Hewitt]

Quoting: peter

Joseph, you've said that BURN weapons in gearhead use nasty chemicals that burn under water. But shouldn't they be consumed after a few minutes?

You're right. Burning should go out on its own after a while, for gaming reasons even if not strictly for realism (I'm sure in the far future it would be possible to come up with some nasty chemical that could keep burning for a very long time).

This change should be easy enough to make. I'll add it to the list.

[peter]

Quoting: SharkD

These sorts of chemicals tend to burn at a steady, constant rate.

 But some areas will have a thicker coating of the chemicals than others, so after a while it will burn off in some places, and less than the whole surface area will be burning.  This suggests that easier and easier Resistance checks might make sense.

[SharkD]

Good point.