The party's been in a few rough fights, and they've failed a few Medicine checks, and -- well, they're a little beat up. Two of the party are carrying around a few crits that have failed to heal repeatedly, and one of them just got a seriously injured arm, so they're talking about finding a medical center and spending some time in a good old bacta bath.

My quandry is this: How much should the doctors charge? I haven't seen anything in the books that talks about what treatment costs when it's done by an NPC. Since it does list the cost of a liter of bacta (20 credits), my instinct is to rule that they use up a liter of the stuff every day in the tank, so each day or fraction thereof costs them 20 credits. Does that seem like a reasonable cost for removing critical injuries? (Well, 20 credits and the time it takes, since you're gonna be basically unconscious for days...)

No clue how much you award for cash. People tend to value their lives, and people who can fix things that are stuff that people value charge accordingly. I highly doubt health facilities are just going to charge cost of supplies. There's personnel costs, facility overhead, taxes, re-stocking, cleaning, marketing, trimming the lawn, etc. Average cost per day in the hospital in the US is roughly $2000. Divide by 10, 200 credits a day in a competent well run clean facility seems fair.

**** american hospitals are expensive, just the average is actually more than my last time on intensive care.

But yeah, 200 credits per day sounds good to me. Maybe 600 per day for intensive care with bacta tanks, stim packs and a med check every twelve hours. Holonet access and free Holodrama included.

edit: BTW, I think this should vary based on planet and facility.
Here some earth averages from different countries (2015):
(All average per day)
Spain $424
South Africa $631
Australia $765
New Zealand $2,142
Swiss $4,781
USA $5,220
(Source https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/314964/umfrage/behandlungskosten-pro-tag-in-krankenhaeusern-ausgewaehlter-laender/ )

200/day sounds like a lot for crit removal, though. Maybe 100 base plus 20 per day of bacta, that puts it significantly above the cost of doing it yourself, but doesn't unduly punish players who just have lousy Resilience.

19 minutes ago, Darth Pseudonym said:

200/day sounds like a lot for crit removal, though. Maybe 100 base plus 20 per day of bacta, that puts it significantly above the cost of doing it yourself, but doesn't unduly punish players who just have lousy Resilience.

You have options here, ambulant care which requires you to visit your doctor ones per week and allows for removal of a critical hit once per week, stationary bacta treatment, intensive car which combines bacta with constant medical checks, and drug use (stimpacks) which can get your wounds down to zero very, very quickly.

Besides, is 200/day really that much? Are we talking here about literal hobos without income sources and no ability to work for their food? They might be better off with paying 20 creds to some shady almost doctor in some Undercity, revisit him once a week and pray that they don't get an infection from his dirty tools. ;-) (Adjust the medicine rating for this guy below the medical droid)

33 minutes ago, Darth Pseudonym said:

200/day sounds like a lot for crit removal, though. Maybe 100 base plus 20 per day of bacta, that puts it significantly above the cost of doing it yourself, but doesn't unduly punish players who just have lousy Resilience.

Is it punishing players who have a lousy Resilience or pointing out to them they should have a more balanced multi skilled/talented character?

It is rather interesting to have a group without high int character in the first place. And no Med-Droid either.

Is this an Edge group using Obligation? If so then a few points of Obligation might be a better option than trying to assign cash value. After all, everyone needs a favor done now and then...

My group does it 100cr a day for basic overnight hospital care, another 100cr a day for a tank job (bacta tank). This was for an average doctor throwing YYGB.

If you wanted a better doctor with better facilities (add another Y and B), double the cost.

Per Far Horizons, a house call by a doctor costs 100-300 credits. The same source also lists a complicated/major surgery at a hospital as costing 5,000 credits. If you need long-term treatment and want to get a doctor on retainer, consider that a physician's monthly salary is 2,000-4,000 credits per month to work in a hospital. Prices for medical droids vary.

3 hours ago, Darth Pseudonym said:

The party's been in a few rough fights, and they've failed a few Medicine checks, and -- well, they're a little beat up. Two of the party are carrying around a few crits that have failed to heal repeatedly, and one of them just got a seriously injured arm, so they're talking about finding a medical center and spending some time in a good old bacta bath.

My quandry is this: How much should the doctors charge? I haven't seen anything in the books that talks about what treatment costs when it's done by an NPC. Since it does list the cost of a liter of bacta (20 credits), my instinct is to rule that they use up a liter of the stuff every day in the tank, so each day or fraction thereof costs them 20 credits. Does that seem like a reasonable cost for removing critical injuries? (Well, 20 credits and the time it takes, since you're gonna be basically unconscious for days...)

There's really no way to be sure. You might actually go through 1 liter per hour, or it might never go bad as long as the subjects don't urinate in the tank (Threats on the roll, Despair gets you turds floating with you).

"Welcome to Bob's Discount health clinic! 50% cheaper because we use recycled Bacta and community Stimpacks for a Green business friendly rating!........."

3 minutes ago, 2P51 said:

"Welcome to Bob's Discount health clinic! 50% cheaper because we use recycled Bacta and community Stimpacks for a Green business friendly rating!........."

Consider the actual volume of a bacta tank. If it's 2.25 meters tall and 1.25 meters in diameter (radius 0.625 meters), then you're looking at 2.76 cubic meters. The body will, on average, displace 0.001 cubic meter per kilogram, so we'll say that an average human of 60 kg (hey, let's keep the math easy) needs 2.7 cubic meters of bacta to fill the tank. Each cubic meter is 1,000 liters, so that means you'll need 3,400 liters for the tank. At a cost of 20 credits per liter, that's only 68,000 credits!

20,000 at Bob's!

If you want a smaller bacta tank, say 2.1m tall with a radius of 0.5m, then you have a volume of 1.65 cubic meters/1,650 liters. A really tight tank of 1.8m tall by 0.45m radius has a volume of 1.15 cubic meters/1,150 liters. Fluffy characters, presuming they fit into the cylinder, will pay less as they displace more volume and thus use less bacta.

I suspect that most hospitals and other full time medical facilities buy in bulk enough volumes to get a discount over the market per-liter price.

EDIT: Hey look, a "full tank" of bacta is only 4,000 credits (core rule book page 182)

16 hours ago, HappyDaze said:

Consider the actual volume of a bacta tank. If it's 2.25 meters tall and 1.25 meters in diameter (radius 0.625 meters), then you're looking at 2.76 cubic meters. The body will, on average, displace 0.001 cubic meter per kilogram, so we'll say that an average human of 60 kg (hey, let's keep the math easy) needs 2.7 cubic meters of bacta to fill the tank. Each cubic meter is 1,000 liters, so that means you'll need 3,400 liters for the tank. At a cost of 20 credits per liter, that's only 68,000 credits!

HUman density is about 0.985 kg/l ...

Also, the tank price is listed considerably less than the volume would imply. 4000 credits; this means that the tank doesn't use (even assuming a whopping 50% wholesale discount) more than 400 l of bacta... as the tank doesn't mention being needed.

It's also in the lore that bacta can be applied in bandages, etc... so the question really is, "How much bacta is used per healing roll?"

I figure a liter of bacta is about 10 applications... A tank is good for a long-time - the tank probably grows the stuff, not just administers it. (Reread the description - Bacta is a biotic, not really a drug.)

I'm AFB, so I'll ask: Does it specify that the 4,000 credits for the tank includes the bacta? It might sound silly, but I own a pool and the cost of that pool did not include the water to fill it.

"Bacta (full tank)" Page 182 of core rulebook.

Take that as you will.

59 minutes ago, Spatula Of Doom said:

"Bacta (full tank)" Page 182 of core rulebook.

Take that as you will.

It must mean that the solution in the tank is not straight bacta. In all likelihood, it's mixed into something like sterile water. This makes sense of both entries.

That's how I take it. Some saline or other substance balanced to the species going in.

If a few drops is good enough to enhance a bandage, you certainly don't need three and a half thousand litres to do a full body job.