Overhauling the sprain mechanic?

[TWM]

So, in another topic about initial misconceptions on how the mechanics of this game worked, NardoLoopa made a great suggestion:

1 hour ago, NardoLoopa said:

Since the bandage looks like how you'd stabilize a sprain, I kept trying to heal my sprains with all my bandages

That might actually be an interesting mechanic. Because first of all, let's face it: healing a sprain with painkillers breaks immersion. That's not how sprains work, they don't just magically disappear by popping a few pills.

In fact, I feel a sprain should be pretty debilitating. As is, the player can just merrily hobble back to shelter and take a nap (which you're going to do anyway, and if you really need to, you can just pop a few painkillers - and, boom, it's gone!).

A way more immersive and challenging mechanic would be if a sprain requires a bandage + rest anyway (ideally, one should be able to retrieve the bandage later when used for a sprain, maybe not a very clean one, but okay...) and different amounts of painkillers are then required to perform certain tasks; plus they wear off.

So: you sprain your ankle when jumping off some rocks. Now you're in doo-doo, because unless you have a bandage + 2 painkillers, the pain will be debilitating. You can move, but you'll be pretty slow (maybe not too slow, we don't want to bore players to death, but noticeably slower than is the case now). No bandage? More painkillers required!

Same with spraining a wrist. Sowing? Try popping some pills first. Cleaning your rifle? Try popping some pills first. Reading a book on the other hand doesn't require use of both wrists, you could even put the book on your lap, so I don't feel reading a book should require two painkillers.

Anyway, permanent healing would require bandaging and rest. No bandage? You better keep using pills (maybe half as much as the first day, but still) for another day, until you get a long rest again.

Something like that. Of course, penalizing getting a sprain like this would also entail recalibrating what causes a sprain. I've seen people hopping down a rocky mountain side like an antilope and not get any sprains, and traversing a slope and getting two sprains in a row. It doesn't really make sense. Especially when one considers running on ice doesn't carry any risk of slipping and falling.

Slipping or tripping and falling deserves a better animation, by the way. Same with getting submerged after falling through the ice by the way, but that's another story...