Healing and Climbing

Two more additions to the rules! Actually, the first is more of a change to an existing rule on Healing. While any character can heal any other character, now they must have access to a medkit or similar medical supplies for the attempt to be successful. No medical supplies, no healing. The exception to this is if a character has invested his Player's Option into the "Medical" skill, in which case he can use makeshift supplies in lieu of proper bandages. This is a rule that has seen frequent changes: who can heal whom, what supplies are needed, the chance of success. On the one hand, I want healing to be fairly accessible to players, something any character can do without requiring a special skill. On the other hand, by making it too easy to heal - say, by allowing anything to be used as a bandage - robs the game of some of its intended lethality. Furthermore, if any character can heal the "Medical" Players Option becomes somewhat useless. I hope this update finds the correct balance.

I am somewhat less sanguine about the new rules for Climbing. It's not that I think the update is poorly balanced; as rules for climbing goes, I think they work fairly well. I am just not sure the game needs the added complexity. Actions such as climbing were always intended to be handled by simple Skill checks; roll a d6, add the penalties or bonuses, and if the results were a 4, 5, or 6 then the attempt succeeded! What those actual bonuses or penalties might be, however, were intended to be left up to the GameMaster; I did not want the players to constantly have to refer back to the rulebook to look up exact numbers. That would be the antithesis of the type of fast-play I intended for the game. Except now I have  added exactly that sort of chart to the rules.

So they are rules that work. I am just not sure they are necessary.