Detoxification (sage ability)

Detoxification is an amateur-status sage ability that enables the physician to reduce the effects of poisoning and other toxic damage to the body, with the use of diuretics, emetics, purgatives, anti-toxins and anti-venom. To succeed, the physician must collect a number of herbs and other curatives that enable treatment (most of these easily obtained), which are then employed at the appropriate time to reduce toxification.

Poisoning The physician is able to reduce amount of damage that poisoning causes, as well as the speed with which poison invests the body. Poison that is introduced to the body through injection (by stingers or bites) or some other invasive attack (weapons) is treated by constricting parts of the body to slow circulation, bloodletting and adding anti-toxins. Poison that is swallowed is relieved through the use of an emetic (vomiting) or the consumption of a substance that will absorb the poison in the stomach and intestinal tract.

Physicians through these means are able to reduce the damage per hit die and level by a potential of 1 point per 20 points of medical knowledge possessed. Thus, a physician with 34 points of knowledge could reduce a woe to a distress; a physician with 40 points, however, could reduce the effects to a rueful.

Once the physician has begun this treatment, the patient is then entitled to another saving throw, which is thrown without any modifying adjustment (reducing a poison to a grieve, for instance, would not include a -1 penalty). This saving throw has the potential for reducing the full damage to 50% of the maximum.

Finally, with regards to the onset of the poison, the PME (potential maximum effect per round) should be rolled every other round, rather than every round, providing that the patient is resting and fully under the physician's care.

Treating Addiction See Addiction. Physicians with detoxification skills have the ability to reduce the toxicity suffered by an addicted person dependent upon various substances. Continuous treatment by a physician will grant a +3 bonus to a character's success in kicking their addiction, in effect increasing the character's wisdom by three points for the duration with respect to this one difficulty.

The best treatment for addiction will take place in a hospital, where a character can be restrained as necessary or contained in a compound where staff can reduce the likelihood of obtaining a substance or the character's otherwise relapsing. A physician with this skill gains a +2 bonus to their intelligence when observing patients who may be intending to relapse.

See Medicine