Wounds & Healing

In the Dark Future, you are going to get shot. A lot. This section covers how you heal after the gunfight. The term "Trauma Team" refers to a specialized paramedical squad that retrieves clients who have been wound or otherwise incapacitated.    

Wound States

  As you take damage, you cross Wound State Thresholds, eventually becoming wounded in ways that impair your performance. Each new Wound State replaces the effect of your previous Wound State.       ▶ Critical Injuries ◀     Roll 2d6 on the appropriate Critical Injury Table until you get a Critical Injury that the target isn't currently suffering. If you weren't using an Aimed Shot to target the head, roll on the Critical Injuries to the Body Table.   All Critical Injuries cause a horrible Injury Effect and deal 5 Bonus Damage directly to the target's Hit Points when suffered. The Bonus Damage doesn't ablate armor and isn't modified by hit location.   Critical Injuries and their Bonus Damage are inflicted regardless of if any of the attack's damage got through the target's SP.       ▶ Mortally Wounded ◀   Mortally Wounded Characters suffer a Critical Injury whenever they are damaged by an Attack. In addition their Death Save Penalty increases by 1.   ▶ Death Saves
At the start of each of your Turns where you are Mortally Wounded, you must make a Death Save. Roll a d10. If you roll under your BODY, you live, and can take your Turn as usual. If you roll a 10, you automatically fail your Death Save. Every time you roll a Death Save, your Death Save Penalty increases, meaning each future Death Save you roll is made with an additional +1, making it progressively harder to stave off death. This Death Save Penalty continues to add up until you are brought back to 1HP by Stabilization, where it resets to your Base Death Save Penalty, which can be increased by the nastiest Critical Injuries.      

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Stabilization and Healing

  Assuming you don't end up dead, you'll want to heal up so you can get back on The Street and do it all over again. To begin the natural healing process, you must first receive stabilization       ▶ I'm Stabilized. Now What? ◀   Once successful stabilization has been reached, the target will heal a number of Hit Points equal to their BODY for each full day they spend resting, spending the majority of each day taking it easy and doing only light activity, until they are at Full HP again. If the patient pushes it, they will gain no HP that day, their wounds will reopen, and they will need to receive stabilization again to restart the natural healing process.     ▶ ...Unless You're Mortally Wounded ◀   A Mortally Wounded target who receives successful stabilization is immediately healed to 1 Hit Point and is now Unconscious. Their adrenaline has run out. While unconscious, you are gone from the world. This condition always lasts one minute. You still roll Death Saves if somebody stabs you into a Mortally Wounded state while you are unconscious. Happens more than you think.     ▶ Needed Skills ◀   There are four healing Skills in Cyberpunk RED: Cybertech, First Aid, Paramedic (x2), and Surgery.   ▶ Cybertech

• Not capable of Stabilizing Wound States.
• Can be used to Quick Fix and Treat Critical Injuries done to cyberware that have replaced meat parts like cyberlimbs or cybereyes.

  ▶ First Aid

• Capable of Stabilizing Wound States and Quick Fixing only the most common Critical Injuries.
• Available to all Characters with minimal investment because it is always trained to at least +2.

  ▶ Paramedic (x2)

• Capable of Stabilizing Wound States and Quick Fixing or Treating all but the deadliest Critical Injuries.
• Available to all Characters but is a costly investment as it is a (x2) cost Skill.

  ▶ Surgery

• Capable of Treating even the deadliest Critical Injuries.
• Available only to Medtechs through their Role Ability, Medicine.

    ▶ Treating a Critical Injury ◀   There are two ways to heal a Critical Injury: a Quick Fix and a Treatment. Depending on the severity of the Critical Injury, either option may not be available, or they may require different skills. The worst Critical Injuries require the Surgery Skill, which is exclusive to the Medtech Role Ability.     ▶ Critical Injuries and Cybertech ◀   If you suffer a Critical Injury to a section of your body that has been replaced with cyberware (Cyberarm, Cyberleg, Cybereye, Cyberaudio, etc.) you still suffer the Effect of the Critical Injury and its Bonus Damage. However, you can use the Cybertech Skill to perform a Quick Fix or Treatment in place of the First Aid, Paramedic, or Surgery Skills. This Check is made at the listed DV and takes the same amount of time.  

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Trauma Team: Silver or exec?

  As demand for their services rose, the Trauma Team changed their funding model to reflect the times, offering 2 levels of service for their clients: Silver (500eb/ month) and Executive (1,000eb/month).   Silver members are charged for Treatments requiring Surgery equal to the cost that they would be charged at the Hospital. If the member doesn't want to pay extra for these Treatments, the Trauma Team will do everything possible for them using the Paramedic Skill before dropping them off at the nearest hospital.   Executive coverage includes Treatments requiring Surgery at no extra cost.   Both plans are transferable on a 1-1 basis meaning you can use your coverage to help one of your friends without coverage, but not for two friends simultaneously, or if you've already called in your coverage for yourself. Registering your Trauma Team Card on an Agent with a linked Biomonitor will allow your Agent to call the Trauma Team on your behalf during a firefight without you needing to take an Action to do so when you have HP less than your BODY or whenever you receive a Critical Injury that dismembers a body part. If you register your Trauma Team Card to a friend's Agent, their Agent will be able to call for their injuries as above, but on your plan. Otherwise, calling the Trauma Team is an Action, and can be done whenever you are injured.   If you piss them off by calling them for extremely minor injuries, they might forget to respond to your next call.   Upon calling the Trauma Team, you roll a d6. The result is how many Rounds before the Trauma Team arrives. They then join at the top of the Initiative Queue. The Trauma Team are treated like the Lawman's Backup, meaning that in addition to SP, HP, and a MOVE, and BODY score, they have a Combat Number, which is used for both offense and defense. This number combines both STAT and Skill for them. You add a d10 roll to this value whenever attacking with their carried weapons or equipment or defending. The Trauma Team members cannot dodge bullets.   A Trauma Team consists of 5 members: A Doctor, a Medical Assistant, a Pilot, and 2 Trauma Team Security Officers. They arrive from the air in an AV-4 equipped with a Vehicle Heavy Weapon Mount loaded with a Tsunami Arms Helix (see pg. 347). The AV-4 is also packed with medical tech, including 4 Cryotanks and a state-of-the-art operating table.   The Trauma Team prides themselves on arriving in their AV-4 as close to the action as possible and getting all patients safely into Cryopump bags on the same Turn that they arrive in combat if possible, after which they leave under covering fire just as soon as all policy holders are secured in the AV-4    

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Going to the Hospital

  Advances in medicine have relegated many hospital trips to simple outpatient procedures, lasting no longer than 4 hours per Treatment required during the visit. Because of this, costs have come down significantly. When you check into a hospital, you are only charged for the Highest DV Stabilization or Treatment required to heal you fully. Everything else to start the natural healing process is thrown in at no extra charge. Likely, you'll walk out of the hospital the same day you walked in, to finish the healing process in the comfort of your home. If you'd rather heal in the hospital, beds are 100eb (Premium) a night. If you can't pay your hospital bill when you leave, the hospital can work out a payment plan with you where you can pay your bill at the beginning of the next month. People who don't pay their medical bills on time risk collection agents being sent after them, which isn't something anybody wants. Here's what a trip to the hospital will cost:  

    ▶ Bodybank ◀   Widespread adoption of new advances in limb cloning technology pioneered by Biotechnica during the 4th Corporate War crashed the market for real human cadavers. Cloned limbs became so numerous that for the first time in the history of organ harvesting, people became worth less dead than alive. The Bodybank had to evolve its business model to keep afloat, pivoting itself into a provider of cloned limbs to hospital clients. As part of this pivot, the Bodybank stopped offering money for both legitimate and illegitimate limbs. The cost for a replacement limb is now included in the cost of a hospital visit. Buying your own to keep cryochilled for "just in case" costs only 50eb (Costly) a limb.       ▶ Found Cyberware ◀   Cyberware reclaimed from cadavers has resale value on the market, provided it is properly harvested. Only a Medtech is capable of harvesting cyberware (except those easily removable with an Action, like Chipware or Cyberlimbs with Quick Change Mounts) from a corpse without destroying it in the process (destroyed cyberware has no value on the market, but it could always be repaired with the Cybertech Skill), and the DV to do so is equal to the DV to install the cyberware in a new body. Both procedures take 4 hours, and if failed, destroy the cyberware and waste 2 hours of operating time. If you have no issue destroying the cyberware in the process you can reach for your machete and have that Cyberarm in your pack in a minute. Just remember, it will have to be repaired before it's of any use. While the installation of any cyberware you purchase is part of its cost, there are many reasons why you may still want to do your own installation surgeries off the grid, namely privacy. Your patient still suffers Humanity Loss from your installation, as normal.       ▶ Bodysculpting ◀   While you are in the hospital getting some work done for bullet-related injuries, why not put up a couple of EB to get a whole new look? The art of Bodysculpting has undergone a renaissance of sorts in the Time of The Red, as the low cost of vat grown clone tissue has made Bodysculpting financially attainable for segments of the population for whom it was previously out of reach. Accessibility has led to innovation in the practice: skin cancer is now no longer an issue, and Humanity Loss from most Biosculpting has been eliminated with the introduction of more life-like tissues. With the cost of materials being so low, street level providers like the Bodyshoppe and Doc's R Us™ have more freely experimented with what is possible with Bodysculpting, competing to seasonally re-invent the landscape. It is no longer possible to identify a Bodysculpted human from a "natural" one by sight alone. It is much easier to assume that the most attractive person in a room is probably Bodysculpted.   Exotic Bodysculpting, truly fantastic Bodysculpt jobs that emphasize alien or inhuman features, like whiskers, muzzles, manes, reptilian skin, fur, tails, hooves, antennae, claws, fins, and paws have also become cheaper and more available. Exotic Bodysculpting, however, causes Humanity Loss due to its extreme effects, and represents a fringe practice in society, being the provenance of animal motif gangs, and other close-knit enthusiast groups. "Exotics," people who get Exotic Bodysculpt jobs, typically also get cyberware to augment their abilities to bring them in line with their new form.   A skilled Medtech can perform Bodysculpting surgeries on their own. These procedures take 4 hours, and if failed, destroy the materials required for the surgery and waste 2 hours of operating time.  

Biosculpting can be used for cosmetic purposes but also for therapeutic ones, including helping remove scar tissue, repairing damage caused by cancer and treatments for cancer, and gender affirmation

   

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Therapy and YOU!

  Empathy is a STAT, and for each point of EMP you have, you have 10 points of Humanity. A Character that starts with 5 EMP has 50 Humanity, for example. As you undergo Humanity Loss (mainly through installing cybernetics), you'll lose points of Humanity. Every time you lose enough Humanity that the ten's place on your Humanity changes, like going from 50 Humanity to 46 Humanity, your EMP is effectively lowered to the ten's place of your Humanity, in this case, EMP 5 to EMP 4.   That's where Therapy comes in. When you want to keep all your Cybernetics without feeling less empathetic, or when you want to kick an addiction. It's certainly not cheap, or easy, but it is quite fast when compared to similar treatments from yesteryear. Most of the improvements in the efficiency of these therapies are due to pharmaceuticals pioneered by Biotechnica during the 4th Corporate War.   A skilled Medtech can perform therapies on their own, using the Medical Tech Skill granted to them through their Role Ability, Medicine. Each of these therapies takes 1 entire week, during which the doctor and their patient can do nothing else. At the end of the week, the doctor rolls against the DV of the Therapy. On a success, the patient gains the Effect of the Therapy. On a failed Check, the entire week was for nothing, and any materials used were lost. The materials used for these Therapies are controlled entirely by Biotechnica, and they must be purchased directly from the company. The price listed for Therapy assumes the patient is not sleeping in the hospital overnight during the Therapy process. If they are, they must pay 100eb per night, as standard.   Medtechs can't do Therapy on themselves.  

I see my therapist regularly. Yes, I'm a killer for hire, but that doesn't mean I can't practice good mental health.   — cooper

   

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Cyberpsychosis

  Humanity Loss is defined (for this purpose) as a loss of empathy for others and a corresponding loss of self-regard or sense of self preservation. Subjects with low Humanity have trouble emphasizing with themselves or others as "real." Instead, they start to see themselves or others as collections of parts instead of living, breathing organisms. This is basically a form of dissociative disorder.   According to the Mayo Clinic: Dissociation is a mental process of disconnecting from one's thoughts, feelings, memories, or sense of identity. The dissociation disorders that need professional treatment include dissociative amnesia, dissociative fugue, depersonalization disorder, and dissociative identity disorder. Traumatic events that occur during adulthood may also cause dissociative disorders. Such events may include war, torture, or living through a natural disaster.       ▶ Depersonalization Disorder ◀   Depersonalization disorder is characterized by feeling detached from one's life, thoughts, and feelings. People with this type of disorder say they feel distant and emotionally unconnected to themselves, as if they are watching a character in a boring movie. Other typical symptoms include problems with concentration and memory. The person may report feeling ‘spacey' or out of control. Time may slow down. They may perceive their body to be a different shape or size than usual; in severe cases, they cannot recognize themselves in a mirror       ▶ How Cyberware Fits in ◀   Developing cyberpsychosis is not triggered merely by putting in cyberware. It is in the voluntary removal of a functioning body part to replace it with a machine. It is generally not normal to voluntarily cut off a limb or remove a functioning body part. Putting in an earring involves some self-harm, but on a level that is barely discernible to the person doing it. It also does not require the removal of a body part. However, voluntarily choosing to replace a working part for no other reason than aesthetic or functional advantage requires that the user already be able to get past the qualms of cutting up one's body voluntarily.   Cyberpsychosis comes about when the subject begins to compulsively alter the body beyond the human baseline. Seeing the body as a thing—a form of Dissociative Personality Disorder—they change it without thought.   Why this doesn't count for people who have non-voluntarily needed cyberware:   Replacing a lost or damaged body part with a new cloned part or Medical-Grade Cyberware (only 50eb to purchase separately, cost is included in the cost of a hospital visit in the rare circumstance when a cloned limb isn't available) will not increase dissociation. This is because the replacement of the body part makes the person feel "whole" again, increasing their level of body awareness. Now, if they replaced that limb with a cyberarm with knives in the knuckles—that choice was voluntary because it was excessive augmentation, and will thus come with Humanity Loss.       ▶ Mental Trauma ◀   Adding cyberware is not the only thing that can cause Humanity Loss. Humanity Loss also occurs when the subject experiences strong and traumatic events, such as torture or living through a natural disaster. And unfortunately, Edgerunners deal with these sorts of situations on a regular basis. This is something your GM controls; they often times may attach Humanity Loss on an event or situation (like when you stumble across a pack of scavvers eating a baby).       ▶ Effects of Cyberpsychosis ◀ Cyberpsychosis is not necessarily always violent. Not all "cyberpsychos" are violent. However, a number of cases, particularly those who have already manifested psycho-pathological or sociopathic tendencies, will find those tendencies magnified to a dangerous extent. Specifically, their view of others as things to be used or harmed without thought or empathy increases dramatically.   From the Hare Psychopathy checklist, elements of psychopathy include:  

• Grandiose sense of self
• Need for stimulation
• Cunning and manipulative
• Lack of remorse or guild
• Callousness and lack of empathy
• Poor behavioral controls
• Impulsivity
• Failure to accept responsibility
• Criminal versatility

  This game assumes that if you already have a low EMP, you will be more prone to these symptoms and that the act of cramming unneeded cyberware into your body may trigger this reaction.     Dissociation + Psychopathic Tendencies = Cyberpsychosis   or, put another way...   "I'm a thing." + "Everyone else is a thing." = "Why not just kill anything that gets in my way?"     So outside of a game mechanic, this works out to be:  

• You already have low Empathy. Which means you are already prone to dissociative mental problems.
• You also have an underlying issue with psycho-pathological/schizophrenic illnesses (low EMP to begin with).
• Easily replacing body parts for no therapeutic reason enhances dissociation. So does external and psychological trauma.
• The greater the dissociation, the more likely psycho-pathological symptoms will emerge on top of the disassociation.
• When angered, irritated or just looking for stimulation, you lash out in rage or just for "fun."

      ▶ The Rules of Cyberpsychosis ◀   If your Empathy is...   ▶ 3 or Greater
No cyberpsychosis or dissociative disorder.   ▶ Equal to 2
Borderline dissociative disorder. Do your best to roleplay accordingly.   ▶ Equal to 1
Dissociative disorder, borderline cyberpsychosis, Character exhibits strongly at least 3 traits from the Hare Psychopathy checklist. Do your best to roleplay accordingly.   ▶ Equal to 0
Cyberpsychosis. Character exhibits strongly at least 5 traits from the Hare Psychopathy checklist. Do your best to roleplay accordingly.   ▶ Equal to 0 and You Have Negative Humanity
Extreme cyberpsychosis. Character is handed to the GM, who plays them according to their worst tendencies. Character is handed back to the Player if their Humanity becomes a positive number again.   Violent cyberpsychos that become a danger to public safety are hunted down by a branch of Law Enforcement known as the Psycho Squad or C-Swat. Death is a typical outcome. Capture and rehabilitation are rare.