My Server Medical Questions.

[ert]

I have been wondering about a few questions involving server medicine recently. The reason being, these two questions come to mind from a character profile, which I am currently making.

First question: (Possibly not medicine, but it's medical) Do bionic arms exists, and is it possible to have a character have a character get a bionic arm as a replacement for an arm he or she lost?

If the answer to question one is a "No", ignore question two.

Second question: Do painkillers exist, whether it is a magic spell that can numb pain, a herb, a drug, or an elixir/potion?
Since it will require surgery to get the arm attached, it would be good to know if there is a painkiller.

[Roxas65]

I know that the definite answer to the second question is "yes." I mean, even if pain numbing spells or potions were nonexistent, a smack to the head with a billy club could knock somebody out for the duration of surgery.

As for the first question, I'm not sure. There might be and if it exists, I can almost guarantee you it's some sort of magetech.

[Holynexus]

Annabelle has a .. in your terms, a bionic arm. Wouldn't really call it like that in WoW terms (might wanna ask her directly) but..yeah mostly magitech (even if it channels holy magic in her case), too.

[Roxas65]

So if the arm would work or not on a non magical class is arguable. It could probably work with some other source of power than the character him/herself. But don't quote me on that.

[Caravan]

For your first question: yes, they're possible. But, they're awful in the sense that they're not advanced technology -- this is still WoW. You can't be using it for combat as it would break easily. A magical class that was a techno-mage/priest/warlock/whatever would have an easier time adapting to the difficulties of the prosthetic whereas on a nonmagical class...you'd just have this thing attached to your body. Think 'Young Frankenstein' to the constable who has to move it around.

For your second question, painkillers exist. Probably nothing like morphine or whatever, but there's local and general anaesthetics to numb the body/knock out/dull pain. As for what it is (potion, herb, spell) there's some creative leeway there.

[c0rzilla]

Hi!

I'm the person in question--or my character is, that being Annabelle.

She, actually, no longer has the arm thanks to a bit of an event with a dragon, her real one healed. But, while she did have the arm I tried (despite its techno-priesty awesomeness) to give it legitimate drawbacks. The technology in WoW is still strange, and more likely to explode than not.

She couldn't go in the water with it, sand was a huge issue, she couldn't feel (except for exact spacial reasoning, and a vague numbness that told her something touched her), a hit with a hammer was easily crushing in a fight. Using her magic, she could move it and its digits with a deal of finesse and grace, but not as much as a real fleshy arm. Infection was also a potential, as it was (through vague magic-science I made up) connected to her bone and flesh at the shoulder. Thus, she had to clean it daily or twice a day. She could switch between a regular about-the-house arm and one more geared for battle. But, the process to change took time and it hurt as if her arm was being torn off again. You also have to think of how the arm is powered. If you go with tiny phlogiston (WoW equivalent of oil or gas) engines, the arm might overheat. If you go with clockwork, you have more moving parts that might break.

...

I also just thought of how horrible it would be if someone melted all that metal with a well placed fire attack. Glad that never happened.

The TL;DR of all this? While you're allowed a mechanical arm, they aren't as amazing and perfect as in, say, Fullmetal Alchemist. I can't think of any other media with mechanical limbs. And you gotta have some magic behind it, otherwise the engineering will be even more clunky and dangerous and simplistic if you want to use it.

Oh, yeah, forgot painkillers. Plenty of that, in either healing magic, or drugs. Be careful of painkiller addiction, though!

[ert]

Seems like it's a lot more complicated than I thought it would be. I originally was going to have a few draw backs such as; weak towards getting slashed, a weakness to the cold, from the elbow up being weak towards almost any kind of force, and the arm would not be as graceful as a living arm, but its appearance would be that of a metal colored arm. The reason only the elbow up is weak is because I was thinking about having the shoulder area and bicep be reinforced that way crushing would be less effective there, since he uses a high powered rifle and the recoil would break the arm if it wasn't. Now I'm not even sure if I can actually get it to be possible.

Knowing that the technology isn't super advanced, I was thinking it would make sense to preform maintenance on it at least once a month even if it wasn't used. As for a power source I was thinking something like Ironman's high-density storage battery only about million times less advanced, which would have to either be replaced or recharged whenever it's close to dying or dead. I thought of using cold oil as a cooling agent, since it would keep it cool and if it ran off electricity it wouldn't make anything wet to short circuit it, unfortunately though I'm pretty sure the oil would either have to be replaced or chilled by some outside factor every so often.

After reading the replies I'm now not sure as to how I would even get it to move, since the character isn't a magic based class, unless hunters count as one. In the case hunter isn't one, even if it had a power supply I doubt it would be possible to connect it to the brain allowing the brain to send commands to it as though it was the original arm, that is of course if it's not controlled through magic.

[Dae]

Well, if the character's a hunter, he can wield fist weapons; why not have him use an engineering-enhanced glove as his close-quarters weapon? That would still give you the techno-arm thing, without worrying about the movement issue.

And now I'm curious about why an outdoorsey hunter would want a mechanical arm, but I suppose I'll have to wait for the profile for that one. :P

[ert]

In his past his arm was ripped off by undead. Since he's a shooter he needs two arms. The reason for a mechanical one is because he's an engineer IC and would create said arm. Since it's the whole arm gone just having a fist won't work. That being said if I can't find a way to do it right, then I'll have to cut the bionic arm out and he'll just receive the other wounds he got

[Dae]

In his past his arm was ripped off by undead. Since he's a shooter he needs two arms. The reason for a mechanical one is because he's an engineer IC and would create said arm. Since it's the whole arm gone just having a fist won't work. That being said if I can't find a way to do it right, then I'll have to cut the bionic arm out and he'll just receive the other wounds he got

Its important to note that, bar unusual or genetic issues, Light and nature magic on this server are accepted to be able to regrow limbs, but they don't just come back all willy-nilly-perfect. If he were to, say, have had his arm ripped off and got it regrown, this doesn't mean it would be in perfect condition. If he, say, had poor medical care or something else prevented him from getting proper physical rehabilitation, his muscles could have atrophied, he could have ligament problems or any other number of issues.

An engineering-enhanced arm brace or other assistive device could be used for, say, preventing his high-powered rifle from tearing apart his arm and the likes and would be less problematic than a completely robotic arm, but again, technology is still mediocre in WoW and such tools would be only useful for a small set of tasks they're specifically designed for.

And let me get a little better understanding here- I understand that losing an arm and coping with chronic pain are a part of your character's life and development, but what purpose were you hoping the arm would serve? Mostly as a means of coping with the past tragedies and enabling him to continue his markmansness or whatever? Or perhaps its a source of motivation for him to develop and maintain his engineering skills?

Knowing what makes the arm relevant to the character would help us find ways to allow you to get your ideas to fit into WoW.

[ert]

I was thinking mostly as a means to continue his marksmanship and less of a means of motivation to continue engineering, but more of using engineering as a means to allow him to continue his marksmanship. The second purpose for it was appearance. Not because it would look cool, but if covered by clothing it would more or less look like he would have two regular arms, which would prevent him from looking weak in the eyes of others. The biggest reason I was thinking a mechanical arm was due to the fact that he has pride in his skills and believed he could make one. Granted I'm not saying like boom bam done he made it, but over the course of several years, since he has to learn how to make it, what he needs to make, how to get it attached, and just creating the arm.

I actually didn't realize nature or light magic would be able to regrow the arm, but that makes sense. The main purpose of the arm would be small tasks anyways, as the character hates fighting at close distance so the arm would pretty much only be used for shooting at long distance and menial tasks such as eating or pretty much any other simple daily task.

[Scow2]

I'm new here, and thus am not familiar with the server... but my answer is "Yes" to both questions... at least for the Alliance. Because Gnomes. And even the horde has a little bit from goblins... moreso once the Bilgewater Cartel joins them.

Gnomes are awesome, capable of deploying advanced air- and water-craft that don't have any modern equivalences until the mid-20th century... and that was during the SECOND war. Where Gnomes are concerned, you're dealing with straight-up Atompunk tech. Nuclear and antimatter reactors. Advanced sensor arrays. Guided missile systems. Remote-controlled and autonomous giant, armored robot systems. Saying World of Warcraft's technology is "low tech" is so wrong it's hilarious.

And then there's the Space-faring Draenai.

[Holynexus]

Yes, but gnome stuff still tends to follow a certain limit, though they do make things that have a lot of uses. Being keepers of lore in a way I suppose they'd mostly keep it for themselves, give what they want to others, and mostly keep most of THEIR stuff sealed away in their fallen Gnomeregan. Besides, what works at the scale of a gnome will never barely make it at the scale of a human. So I do suppose that gnomes have a lot of alien magic technology things, sure, but I don't think many even make it outside their holds. Besides, most need skilled people to operate, and not every human is knowledgable enough to operate Gnome technology. (In real life, this is a common reason in some countries to abrogate things like military service - the tech is simply too evolved.)

So while, indeed, we have powerful tech, its uses are limited by their very complexity, their fragility and their typical lack of practicability; what with engines blowing up in your own face, various OOC devices that have no real use in lore, and issues with producing and scaling. Especially as the gnomes' main city, Gnomeregan, which had most assembly lines (that needed to be as evolved to make up most Gnome tech), is sunken in radiation and populated with troggs. Therefore we can consider that, for the most part, the Alliance still relies more on conventional technology than on steampunk Gnomish apparatus.

But I'm trying to make sense out of WoW lore. I really shouldn't. :P

[CappnRob]

Also, draenei don't "travel space". The NAARU use that technology, which is stupidly powerful magic dimensional warp stuff.

Also only the Oshu'gun and Tempest Keep could do it.