Medicine in Eorzea

[Miss Marigold]

Mostly I used your own words, so you can't really complain about my tone.

 

Perhaps, but parroting someone like that is also its own special form of rudeness you know.

 

In any case, I agree that I overstated my point because I was mainly considering the scenario that often happens to me: Someone in suddenly injured in an otherwise normal battle and, for some undisclosed reason, the white mage's magic is no longer able to cure a common battle injury.

 

So it's not like I'm going to disrespect your choice to RP magic as a cure-all, especially if your friends and regular group go along with that.

 

I don't think it's a cure-all. For battle wounds from dungeons and the common cold, sure. For dealing with the aftermath of an intense battle between PCs, surely not.

 

So if you're rolling your eyes at people who RP differently than you do, but in a way that they enjoy, you're not really showing a large part of the community the respect they deserve.

 

Hehe, I assure you I don't make my displeasure known in-game. I'll try to steer things in another direction, and if that doesn't work then I'll mosey my way out.

 

Especially if your character "disinterestedly casts an esuna" and then you expect them to just go along with that no matter what they wanted to RP.

 

I guess there are two different ways to look at this.

 

Some people view RP scenarios as a compromise: One person wants to do A and the other wants to do B, so they meet half-way and do something in the middle.

 

I view RP scenarios as something better based on the intersection of two people's interests: One person wants to do A, B and C and the other wants to do C, D, and E, so they just suck it up and stick to C. In the case of something like a battle injury, if it's clear that the other person isn't interested I'd just drop it. I would not expect them to meet me half way just because I decided to initiate something they're not interested in.

[Havoc Snow]

I think we really just had two very different things in mind. You seem to be annoyed when people fumble serious things like PC-inflicted injures—something perfectly reasonable and something I'd get annoyed over too—and I get annoyed when people turn what was otherwise a fun IC dungeon run into a pity party because suddenly the white mage's magic no longer can make their character feel better.

 

I understand entirely now! Thank you for the clarification.

 

I'm gonna go off topic for just a moment and say that stuff like this is why I love the RPC community so much. Pain free, peaceful resolution in just a few posts. If this conversation were happening on the beta forums we'd be on page 20 by now, at least, with people resorting to petty childish name calling.

[Twinflame]

Perhaps, but parroting someone like that is also its own special form of rudeness you know.

 

In any case, I agree that I overstated my point because I was mainly considering the scenario that often happens to me: Someone in suddenly injured in an otherwise normal battle and, for some undisclosed reason, the white mage's magic is no longer able to cure a common battle injury.

 

I might've been a little ruder than I meant to in that case, but I'm given to overreaction. Now, if that's what you had in mind, then yes. That would annoy me as well.

[Eva]

Gonna chime in again quickly to add one more thing...

 

I think I may take a slightly more unconventional view in that I do think that white magic can be used to treat these more extreme things.  Do I think that it's commonplace to do so, or that any white mage is able to, and without taxing themselves extraordinarily in order to achieve such an end?  Absolutely not.

 

I view magical and mundane healing as two separate methods that have a great deal of overlap.  I think a white mage could use magic to staunch bleeding until an experienced doctor has a chance to treat the root cause of the bleeding properly.

 

By the same token, I think a field medic could use bandages, tools, and first aid to staunch bleeding until an experienced white mage has a chance to treat the root cause of the bleeding properly.

 

So what I'm saying is that I think each method is equally acceptable, but some account must be taken for the experience level of the mage or doctor in question.  I think in order to keep things somewhat realistic, the factor of time needs to be weighed as well, and exertion.

 

One thing I RPed as a healer in 1.0 was tending to a character who had received at least one gunshot wound to the chest.  These healings were conducted in the form of aetherial treatment sessions which left Eva exhausted after each one, and could probably be viewed akin to some sort of physical therapy regimin.  These went on for two or three weeks, as I recall.  I view this as sort of an accelerated healing, but I also think someone seasoned enough with field medicine who know the right herbs, salves, or what have you could have probably yielded similar results with a less 'magical' means of treatment.

 

In short, nothing is really wrong.  Just keep it real.  Snapping fingers and curing a disease or re-growing a missing limb is a little silly.  Do I think someone could do it if they were a strong enough mage?  I actually do.  But I also don't think it's well within most adventurer's reach to perform such miracles.  But on the off chance they could, I would expect it to take a massive physical toll on the part of the healer, and a substantial amount of time as well.

 

Again, this is just my own opinion for whatever it may be worth.

 

TL;DR:  Being an expert doctor may be on par with being an expert white mage even if the two disciplines are different, there is probably a lot of overlap.  Consider not only physical healing versus magical healing but also the degree of expertise the healer has in whichever is his or her field of practice.

[Ildur]

 

I'm gonna go off topic for just a moment and say that stuff like this is why I love the RPC community so much. Pain free, peaceful resolution in just a few posts. If this conversation were happening on the beta forums we'd be on page 20 by now, at least, with people resorting to petty childish name calling.

 

What is this? Peaceful resolutions? On the internet!? Witchcraft! Witchcraft, I say!

[Ellie]

This thread has been just wonderful, most of the stuff I had to say on the subject was already expressed on page 1 alone. You guys are amazing, and I'm really going to have to struggle to come up with something new, but I'll give it a valiant effort.

 

I think we can definitely agree that healing with magic, at least on the battlefield, is more of a superficial healing meant to get fighters back on their feet and into fighting shape. I also definitely like the idea that the effect is basically a sped up process of natural healing. I also like to think that healing with magic could be useful outside of battle, but it's difficult to really pin down what they can do without it seeming too overpowered.

 

Still, I think there's something to be said for making sure that if you're going to have a storyline injury or illness (something that you don't want healed right away), you would be wise to make sure that it's something that's difficult to cure if you don't want it to be cured right away. I made this mistake with my main storyline for Keisuna, and I realized shortly after that it seemed a little silly that she'd still be injured when it sounds like something that the healers at the Fane could easily heal.

 

As for non-magical medicine, I'm going with a sort of mid-to-late 1800's level of sophistication. The reason I say that is because while there's a definite medieval sense to the setting and level of technology, but also have more modern discoveries such as latex and rubber. It seems that medical tools and technology would be pretty advanced, but not so much that we're getting into the territory of hypodermic needles and x-ray machines.

[synaesthetic]

I'm going to side with Eva and see that mundane medicine and magical healing are two different sides of the same healing coin. Magitek medical devices might bridge the gap a little, but when it comes to healing magic, this is how I see it:

 

On the battlefield, you're taking mostly superficial damage. When you're dropped to low HP, you aren't losing any speed, agility or strength, so you really aren't that hurt yet. Being reduced to 0 HP means you are now seriously hurt, and you need some major intervention to repair yourself. It's a way of handwaving the Critical Existence Failure aspect of RPG game mechanics.

 

So the fast, rapid-fire healing that conjurers and white mages perform in combat is basically combat medicine--quick, dirty, stop the bleeding and throw 'em back into the fray. It's not going to cure things like decapitations, limb amputation and the like.

 

When it comes to serious injuries, I'm not of the mind that magic is impotent, but that the effort required is significant. Raising the dead takes a truly powerful healer who must sacrifice a great deal of their own energy, perhaps even permanently, to re-anchor the lost soul to this reality. Amputations, serious wounds, horrible diseases? All of these should be able to be cured via magic, but at the cost of significant investment of power and resources, with multiple extremely-powerful healers working together.

 

Mundane and magical medicine aren't a linear sliding scale with magical healing the superficial and mundane handling the grievous, but they're actually different methodologies, different routes to the same destination. Serious life-threatening wounds shouldn't be "easy" for even the most powerful of conjurers to heal.

 

For example, in most D&D rule sets, raising a PC from the dead requires a significant investment of energy, resources and materials. The character being raised from the dead loses a full level of experience, a point of Constitution (that they can NEVER get back unless they use a wish or miracle spell) and the priest who does the casting has to expend a chunk of their own experience points as well as material components that are extremely high in value. On top of all of this, the spell itself takes a long time to cast, and the body has to be in good condition--if it's gibbed or disintegrated or melted into goo, the raise dead spell will fail to work, and a much more powerful version (true resurrection, or a wish or miracle spell) must be cast.

 

I'm not really seeing how this is "easy" just because it's magic and not mundane.