On unguents and treatment pricing

Seekers of knowledge, from physickers to alchemists to occultists.
Post Reply
jerc
Posts: 80
Joined: Sun Feb 13, 2022 3:26 pm

On unguents and treatment pricing

Post by jerc »

There's a mismatch between unguent consumption and how wound treatment is priced. Since any wound can be treated by a single dab of unguent, players are incentivized to treat wounds themselves when they're more severe, rather than go to a professional.

Assuming it's been sutured, a wound of 100 damage will cost a player the exact same amount to treat as a wound of 1 damage - 1 dab or 30-35 riln, depending on whether a jar was refilled or purchased outright. This means that, per damage, the price varies from 0.3 riln to 35. NPC pricing on the other hand is a static 1 riln per damage. So for wounds more severe than the "dab cost threshold," riln-pinchers are encouraged to self-treat, and only go to the infirmary for bumps, bruises, and scratches. This seems entirely backwards.

Player physickers have a similar conundrum. Since their pricing is also based on the amount of damage for a wound, but a full dab is consumed regardless, they're encouraged to only treat more severe wounds, else they lose money. They'd have to charge more than NPCs to break even up to 30-damage wounds, and then above that, why would players go to them if they could just treat themselves for 30 riln? That leaves player physickers with just splinting, frostbite, and field wound treatment. Or going on-duty and being able to use free unguent, and charging less than the NPC I guess. Still, players wouldn't want to pay more than 30 per wound, since that's the max that self-treatment costs.

My suggestion:
Make unguent consumption more accurately reflect the amount of damage treated. Instead of 20 dabs, an unguent jar could contain 2400 units. With no medical skill, it costs 4 units to treat 1 damage. This comes out to 600 total damage treatable by someone without training, or the equivalent of averaging 30 damage per dab in the current system. As medical skill increases, so does unguent efficiency, down to 1 unit per damage for a master physicker. The most skilled know that less is more, and can spread out a jar to its fullest potential! The unit scale could be adjusted as desired to allow for more granularity as medical skill increases, raise the minimum unit use, etc.

Related idea:
Make unguent application a static RT, but put a cap on the number of units consumed (and therefore damage healed) per application. Unskilled folks will find that they'll have to reapply constantly to keep up with damage being done, since they might not be able to fully treat more severe wounds, but an actual doctor might be able to fully treat any wound in a single application. This adds more incentive to go to players because in addition to the RT savings, there's also the lack of "ugh, I have to reapply?! It's still not healed?!" That they'd have on their own.
User avatar
Maina
Posts: 172
Joined: Fri Apr 24, 2020 12:32 pm
Location: Colorado

Re: On unguents and treatment pricing

Post by Maina »

It should be worth noting that the prices for unguent are player set just like treatment is: the market price is a consignment price, not what the market itself pays. At least, as far as I recall.

While I do think the idea is a good one, it could also be resolved by physickers charging more for what is, ultimately, a convenience and luxury.
Post Reply