Disease in the Twilight World

[therantingsavant]

This post entitled "Bring out Your Dead" is an analysis of the "mini-game" within the Twilight: 2000 v2.2 rules dealing with disease.

Reading through the background material (resulting disease helps drop the world population to 50% a lot more than the actual armed conflict) and the actual tables, I'm left thinking disease should be a common challenge in the average Twilight: 2000 campaign, particularly one set in Poland where there is still low-level conflict...

[Vespers War]

I'm curious why you list Medical: Diagnosis as "effectively up to +5" when a character who's gone to Medical School and spent one term as a Medical Doctor could have Medical: Diagnosis 7.

Going off on a related tangent, Medical is moderately rare in the game. Medical School provides any specialty, as does the follow-on career of Medical Doctor. Registered Nurse provides Medical (Diagnosis) 3. Paramedic has Medical (Trauma Aid) 1. Those are all the civilian careers with Medical. For the Army, Enlisted Medic and Nurse Officer both provide Medical (Trauma Aid) (at 3 and 2 respectively), while Doctor Officer has Medical (Surgery) 3. Army Special Forces and Navy Enlisted Seaman have access only as Subsequent Term Skills. The Air Force has no access to Medical.

In total, one educational track, three civilian careers, and three military careers provide Medical as part of their base skills, and two more military careers have access in subsequent terms. Of those, Medical School/Doctor and Registered Nurse are the best against disease because the others can't take Diagnosis as their cascade specialty and halve their skill for Diagnosis.

[therantingsavant]

Originally Posted by Vespers War

I'm curious why you list Medical: Diagnosis as "effectively up to +5" when a character who's gone to Medical School and spent one term as a Medical Doctor could have Medical: Diagnosis 7.

Well as you point out in your "tangent" (which I think is very relevant actually), characters with significant Medical: Diagnosis scores are comparatively rare unless they have civilian career experience (particularly Nurse, although Medical School + Doctor allows specialisation).

(I have a Google Sheet with all the Skills by Background & Term that I use to cross-reference for similar reasons to help analyse various parts of the rules).

So effectively IMO the max is +5 for an average group unless they actual have a civilian medical specialist - the consequence being the need to seek out a larger town/city with medical facilities or else protect their likely noncombatant (or relatively unskilled) "doctor" as much as their mechanic.

I might add this in to the post actually and credit your comment - I think it's a good addition to my argument that disease is a significant challenge.

[Vespers War]

Originally Posted by therantingsavant

Well as you point out in your "tangent" (which I think is very relevant actually), characters with significant Medical: Diagnosis scores are comparatively rare unless they have civilian career experience (particularly Nurse, although Medical School + Doctor allows specialisation).

(I have a Google Sheet with all the Skills by Background & Term that I use to cross-reference for similar reasons to help analyse various parts of the rules).

So effectively IMO the max is +5 for an average group unless they actual have a civilian medical specialist - the consequence being the need to seek out a larger town/city with medical facilities or else protect their likely noncombatant (or relatively unskilled) "doctor" as much as their mechanic.

I might add this in to the post actually and credit your comment - I think it's a good addition to my argument that disease is a significant challenge.

Yeah, the only other option (which would be unlikely, and I didn't think about it when writing my first post) would be one of the Subsequent Term Skills occupations spending most or all of their skills on Medical. In theory, they could be better than a Medical Doctor, who's at Medical (any) 7 after three terms (Undergraduate, Medical School, Medical Doctor), because they can throw all 5 skills in Term 2 and 4 skills in Term 3 into Medical and (with high enough EDU to absorb all the levels) have Medical (any) 9. They wouldn't be great combatants, but the Special Forces super-medic would have Small Arms (Rifle) 4, Autogun 1, and (assuming they took it as a background skill) Unarmed Martial Arts 5.

[therantingsavant]

Originally Posted by Vespers War

Yeah, the only other option (which would be unlikely, and I didn't think about it when writing my first post) would be one of the Subsequent Term Skills occupations spending most or all of their skills on Medical. In theory, they could be better than a Medical Doctor, who's at Medical (any) 7 after three terms (Undergraduate, Medical School, Medical Doctor), because they can throw all 5 skills in Term 2 and 4 skills in Term 3 into Medical and (with high enough EDU to absorb all the levels) have Medical (any) 9. They wouldn't be great combatants, but the Special Forces super-medic would have Small Arms (Rifle) 4, Autogun 1, and (assuming they took it as a background skill) Unarmed Martial Arts 5.

Yes. That is possible and "The Doctor" pregen I created actually has a higher Medical: Surgery skill but is pretty useless in combat - Medical School, 2 Medical doctor civilian terms and 2 Medical Officer terms all assisted with that but he's an extreme case of the "non-combatant" medic that needs to be protected by the group as an invaluable asset or as a "hand-wave" resource.