Quote:
What sort of level of medicine would you expect in Legend? Similar to the real world? A course of leeches to drain foul humours?
Is surgery done with a trusty bone-saw?
What effect does Sorcery have on the day-to-day life of your average garden variety peasant?
I apply a similar level of medicine to that of early medieval times, with just a dash of fantasy thrown in.
I have First Aid, a skill which most professional fighters (including Knights) would be expected to have at least a basic knowledge of. This allows the recovery of a HP at the end of a fight if the skill is correctly applied. This kind of treatment was actually not too bad in those days (people understood that you bandaged a wound to stop blood leaking out); it's later in Georgian and Victorian times that treatment got a bit bizarre (e.g. widening a wound until you could see right through in order to "let air in"). Infection may be a problem, of course, but that's what die rolls are for...
I also have Chirurgery, a skill which is largely the preserve of women and monks, although practiced by men in the Ta'ashim lands (the barber surgeons to which Kharille and Cobwebbed Dragon refer). A mix of herb lore, bone setting and a generous dollop of prayer and misinformation, Chirurgery is a skill of dubious value but required to make an "unhealthy" character "healthy".
A character becomes "unhealthy" in my game when (a) they lose enough Health Points that they become unconscious (i.e. 0 to –2 HP), (b) they nearly die through loss of Health Points (i.e. –3 HP and survived), (c) the caregiver fumbled First Aid roll, or (d) through disease or poison.For other ailments, there's always the village wise woman and her knowledge of herbs. Some monks may also fulfill this function.
There are simply not enough Sorcerers around to affect the medical prospects of the vast majority of the population. Nobles who maintain a court Sorcerer will have access to the healing magics that the mage brings (depending on their Rank). There may to be some debate over whether the pagan healing magics of a Sorcerer might taint the soul of the patient... But a certain amount of practicality is likely to prevail. Only the most fanatical or superstitious would turn away healing
in extremis. A low-Rank Sorcerer may well disguise an applied healing by brewing up some random herbs & mixing a poultice, thus avoiding drawing
too much attention to their Art.
(In my game, there is no problem with a Sorcerer offering healing in Ta'ashim lands as this is considered "good" magic and therefore permissible.)