Idea: Increased chance of spell failure and misses when gravely wounded

[Harlas Ravelkione]

To reflect the effects of loss of blood, blows to the head, maimed arms and legs and whatever other effects follow from physical battle, I believe that one becomes less capable to continue said battle. I know that adrenaline has an effect and will work against succumbing to the strain and loss of strength - but only so far.

I therefore suggest that one becomes less capable in battle as one takes more and more damage. The first borderline could be at 70% of ones hitpoints lost, where one becomes 3% less likely to hit or succeed in casting a spell/prayer. The next could be 80% hitpoint loss, where it's 6% and lastly 90% hitpoint loss, where one is 10% more likely to fail in combat.

This encourages running/fleeing, which is also something that could be built into the game. Movement could be made a factor, so that some characters would almost always be able to escape if they ran. Others would most likely have to stay and fight until death due to their slowness.

Regards, Harlas

[twidget658]

We do want people to run around, adventure, explore AND have fun without having to worry about getting in over their heads and not having a chance to get out of it, right? Where is the line between realism and fun drawn? There is point to where things get too hard and discouraging that the fun factor drops.

[Weeblie]

The line is somewhere between the golden ratio and pi.

"One game to fit them all."-concept isn't really working...

I would personally find it a lot of fun if decreased HP (or if any other means to symbolise getting hurt if a non-HP system is used) also resulted in far less combat effectivness. Slower moving, slower rate of attack... all that would be great!

RPGs should not follow the same concept as RTS games (and... I wouldn't mind seeing RTS games use more of the "half-dead" unit concept either).

The current D&D HP system is definitely one of the items on my top-10 RP-breaking list.

[Acacea]

I think that is a very valid point and question, but that at the same time, that there is no real "answer" or point where that needs to drop. It depends on whether or not the game is balanced around those things.

I think that it is also important to remember that every game is (at least on paper and in theory, not like everyone does it well ) balanced for its systems. Things you wouldn't have wanted in WoW because it would totally screw up the flow work in another game that is based and balanced around it. Things that just don't work in major US games become the principles the Korean games revolve around.

In many cases I think we shy from aspects that we may at first feel are too realistic and not enough fun, but I think if the rest of your mechanics are connected to it and surround it, then it is just another system to adapt to.

I think one of the biggest obstacles that would come up in a game trying to encourage roleplay is our own tendency to think, "But then, that wouldn't be fun..."

Better to pick the things that encourage roleplaying and realism, and then figure out how to balance them and make it fun. I think in general (purely from my own unasked for opinion!), that we may have better luck getting people to roleplay by making realism and roleplaying "fun" than by tossing out the same thing, opting out of anything adding a level of grit in case your players get dirty, which is the road several other games take.

Not sure I'm making any sense exactly, and I'm not wearing my glasses so I feel like a mole. But I guess I am just of the opinion that we should try to think of ways the game could be realistic and encourage roleplaying, and then think of ways for it to be fun. For example, hunger, thirst, fatigue. I would personally like to see them have a part to play. Others groan because they don't want to play the Sims. But that's the thing - neither do I. The endless click is certainly not something you can include, so you'd need to think of an alternative ... perhaps automated options similar to EQ, whatever... and if you have food crafting, it should do something...

Likewise, inventory weight... some people hate weight limits and space limits, I prefer them in the setting of realistic/roleplay. But on the flip hand*, if you go that route, you have to take it into account when you make your drops, CNR, equipment weight, stackables, etc. Any system can suck. I think any system can also be a good time, too - just depends on how well they connect it to everything else. Being able to carry only 10 gems with 1 simple recipe requiring 20 and being unable to hire anything to carry for you and your only storage 30 miles away, well, that would be a poor implementation.

I know I'm rambling, I just think that any system has a ton of potential so long as it is firmly integrated into the world and offering an enhancement to gameplay. Harlas suggestion, if used, should go for hostiles as well. There could be a combination of skills that negated it, perhaps a barbarian rage like effect where someone got below a certain level and just threw themselves into the fray. A Branderback escape spell that is only available when you're getting hit. An Az'attan aura that makes them feel really guilty for killing you and they bury you and join the clergy. Whatever. I don't think any mechanic, by itself, adds anything to gameplay really, or guarantees "fun" other than the once through of checking stuff out. But I might not be normal, I guess.

So yeah. Not so much for or against any one in particular, just kind of shying away from the "realism cannot be fun" argument... I kind of think it's all in the setup. I also think that when playing a game you can get a feeling for the mentality of the devs - were they thinking "I need more fences to keep my stupid players off the grass," or were they thinking, "Oh man, wouldn't this be cool for them to be able to do!" Good games have both of course, but I've played some that seem to be made by really vindictive devs, everything made to counter any player imagination...others to exploit it and make it necessary.

* Yeah, I mixed my sayings. Wanna make somethin' of it?

Edit: This was not a direct response to the above post - I did not mean to put words in his mouth via implication. Rather, I think his post touches on an important topic that is a very real necessity to consider... but on the other hand, one that can be, if done right, completely in the hands of its creators to transform. I think the suggestion as described could either make people more afraid to travel and have some fun by making it more likely for them to die, or it could just be another integrated mechanic that works well in the context of its setting. How it works though depends on how well it, and other things that would bring up that question (and everyone has different lines!), is implemeted, I think...

[Gulnyr]

In a PnP game full of abstractions, it's not really bad design to simplify things so that a character with full hit points and the same character with one hit point left are equally capable. It cuts out some paperwork and math to do things that way, which speeds up play and keeps things moving.

It's totally weird, though.

There's really no reason at all that someone who has just been through a nasty battle and is now exhausted and losing a lot of blood from a wound or two (aka one hit point left) should be anywhere near as capable as they were when rested and fresh before the fight. Realistically, a character low on hit points (and/or stamina and the like) should be pretty much falling down and useless. Harlas's suggestion of only a 10% reduction in capability when a character is on the brink of death is nowhere near terrible and barely closer to 'realism' than the NWN and D&D system.

EDIT: Also, I would like the chance for my characters to get in over their heads. It should be possible to bite off more than one can chew and pay the consequences. Always having an out means never losing, and losing is as important to building a character (rather than just a pile of numbers) as winning.

[lonnarin]

Originally Posted by Acacea

Likewise, inventory weight... some people hate weight limits and space limits, I prefer them in the setting of realistic/roleplay. But on the flip hand*, if you go that route, you have to take it into account when you make your drops, CNR, equipment weight, stackables, etc.

I wouldn't mind it so much if there was at least some equipment weight on the enemies as well which acts to their detriment. It's rather unbalancing that a player character can be encumbered by crippling strike or negative energy burst, but not an enemy. Each of them should have at least 50-100 lbs on them just for their armor alone.

Crafting weight encumbrance isn't so bad if there's some form of storage available which meets the current needs of the CNR system. However, thanks to all the nifty new bottle-necker ingredients like threads and sandpapers, we created an economy which PUNISHES the light traveller, and incredibly so. Forget about smithing unless you can either lift an "extra" 300 lbs or a buddy with some spare crates, what with the 11.5lb boxes of 35 molds, the 12 lb nuggets which suddnly you need two or three of them for a single ingot on a 10 ingot fullplate or a 7 ingot shield, and you have a pretty hardcoded glass ceiling on the crafting biz. Whine about how eveybody has too much inventory, then set the stage for them to buy 10packs of lion and malar bags, etc. its counterproductive. And that old line of "hey, not everybody needs to be a crafter!" is immediately offset by the fact that Earl's had 17k in his bank gathering dust, and not a single crafter out there feels it worth his time to make 17.5k overnight, to make him one bloody doublesword.

Encumberance, while nice, is seldom enjoyed by the enemy, nor by the main populace. Only the Bjornigars who can bench 650 unspelled and invest over 100k into lion bags. Where does that leave the rest of the populace?

Stockpiling, Hoarding and Muling. The only way one can craft with so many nitpicky little ingredients scattered across 3 continents. When you have to climb 3-4 mountains, slay several hundred tribesman and return 3-4 times to the same mine just to make one bloody fullplate, then crafting no longer becomes a hobby or RP experience in game, it becomes a RL job. Let an old man just pick up a log and whittle wood! Why does he need to grind wood, make paper, dig sand, pinch sand, bake paper, and manke sure its all the right kind of paper because some ooc mechanism causes yew or mahoganey to explode when touched by hickory sandpaper? then you need to fight spiders to collect silk and sew them with your kit into a bowstring, attach the bowstring, set it with yer carpenter tools, and wham, for one bow you just lagged up the server with 3 pieces fo pinched sand, one bag of sand before it was pinched, two logs, one for the two sawdusts and the other for the shaft, a bucket, a sheet of parchment, a sheet of paper, a sheet of sandpaper, a stave, two bolts of silk, 1 bowstring and a set of carpenter and tailor tools each, not to mention an axe for the lumber and needle for the tailoring. 1 simple magohangey bow comes from the net combination of 21 unique CNR items. And that's only if one assumes a 100% success rate! as we all know,t hat rarely happens, especially while training, so double or triple that figure to around 50 items.

But back to the main topic of lowering combat effectiveness by hp, I like this idea a bit. Its funny when you run around badly wounded and not a single ability of combat is lowered. On the flip side, if this is implimented for players, please also impliment this for all monsters save for undead possibly. It's rather annoying if one suddenly cant run and the monsters swarm him to death, but the same monsters sprint off full speed at will with 1 hp. Already Bjorn and Willy marvel about how willy can hit elves with platemail about 20 times with crippling strike, and they run around the field fullspeed, while only 2 of the same kinds of strikes seem to slow us to a crawl.

Shadowrun had a similar system to what you're suggesting, where all die rolls whether skills, attacks, defense, or stat rolls we all shifted down by 1 for every 20% of damage. The gamplay was then less about slugging through a long hacknslash like D&D's infamous 20 round combats that took hours to roll, but more of how well you prepared sset up the ambush, put the enemy at a disadvantage and got the first shot. After people started getting injured, combat seemed to speed up since people who were dying weren't dodging as well, or fighting back as well either. People would actually flee after being shot once, vs. the Rambo-like stand there, grin and bear it HP system of D&D.

[miltonyorkcastle]

My main problem with this idea is that I don't like to view HP as wounds. And I really hope that HP does not represent wounds in the new version of Layo.

NWN forces us in a way to respond to HP as if you were actually taking wound damage, but, and I know I've brought this up before, HP makes much more sense if you view it as a combination of stamina and combat experience.

As such, your character is not actually wounded until you hit negative HP. That is, no significant loss of blood, no maimed limbs, no blows to the head until after going below 0 HP. Essentially, your stamina fails you when your HP drops below zero.

Loss of HP represents using that extra bit of know-how, that extra burst of energy, to avoid an otherwise wounding blow. If anything, the system that's being suggested shouldn't kick in until after the character drops below 0 HP. so instead of just going down after hitting 0, you might be able to keep going, just without the armt that got chopped off, or with the dagger sticking out of your back, and then you have the minuses to actions. But before 0 HP, you still have the stamina to avoid the wounding and fatal blows.

Again, all this is based on how I personally prefer to view HP, and if it is defined differently in the new Layo, then all that I'm saying in response to this suggestion may be moot.

[Gulnyr]

Y'know, it's kinda weird how what we accept in our games would be scoffed at in movies or books. Imagine how far back on the B-movie shelf the Lord of the Rings movies would be if combat scenes consisted of various main characters being stabbed or shot with arrows several times but continuing to fight as if nothing had happened, and then being more or less fine afterward when all the bad guys were dead.

I think a hit point system is a useful if imperfect tool. Maybe it's time to try something else, though. If there were a stamina stat, then that could be the measure for when a system like Harlas suggested would kick in. When your character's stamina starts getting low, he starts losing some of his combat potential. "Wounds," or whatever it would be called, would then be another stat that would determine whether the character is alive, dying, or dead, and would probably be affected by Constitution type stats and affect maximum stamina (since being hurt often limits your get-up-and-go). And since it would be something lost by actually getting hit and truly hurt rather than being a clumped up abstraction of several things, it would probably be a much lower number than in a D&D style game.

Or, y'know, maybe there will still be hit points in the hundreds and everyone getting whacked multiple times and being fine, heh.

[Dorganath]

Actually, one's stamina will definitely come into play in combat for the MMO. I won't say how, of course.

[twidget658]

There are processes that the body goes through during battle that will enable a person to continue to fight or run (fight or flight) to self preserve itself.

Acute stress reaction or an emotional state of shock that the body enters is an adaptation that allows the body to perform under extreme stress. One of the reactions is the release of adrenaline.

Adrenaline is produced to stimulate the heart-rate, dilates blood vessels and air passages, and has a number of more minor effects. Adrenaline is naturally produced in high-stress or physically exhilarating situations. This will also hide pain and give an extra energy burst for a short amount of time. There is a term called 'pain compliance' that is used in law enforcement, and I am sure in other fields. If you are using pressure points on someone to cause them pain so s/he will comply with you orders, the second that s/he complies, the pressure point is released. There is a reason for that. If the pain continues, then s/he starts to get even more mad and the adrenaline keeps pumping. After a second or so, they feel no more pain and s/he becomes more combatant. I have heard, but not experienced it, that a gunshot victim only knows that s/he has been shot when s/he becomes dizzy from a loss of blood, when the adrenaline levels are high.

One thing that I can see with the suggestion in this thread is...once the battle is over when all of reality comes back to a person along with their wits, they are extremely weak and have to get either medical attention or rest. It should not happen during battle or while running. The body has a funny way of taking care of itself.

If you want to get into 'the body just can't go anymore'. Then that system is already in place. You get the message 'you are incapacitated'.

[lonnarin]

I liked how adrenaline was kind of handled with the WoW fighter system. But it needed more demoralizing and psychological effects. Scary undead for existance could drain that meter, spells to demoralize, bards spellsinging giving a good boilster effect, etc. Stamina and morale meters, goods stuff.

I also like how in Gothic 3 a good stamina meant you were adept at RUNNING from combat. With the more open, less transition pointish style of the next server, I'd like to see more running from combat without the relentless chase AI of NWN. Run across an entire continent and the same badger keeps chasing you, egads thats dedication! :P

And when a team of 6 fighters hack through 20-30 goblins and get them down to 5 or less, those last littl gobbos should RUN! No critical morale checks into suicidal devotion. That also brings up some morality RP in the sense of an Aeridenite cleric getting angry that the party is going beyond basic self defense, and is arching fleeing enemies int he back, for example. Certainly a no-no for Voraxian and Toranite paladins as well.

Fatigue
Equipment Maintenance
Morale

These things are very important int he field of battle. Perhaps the hunger system could even slightly effect the stats on a sliding scale. I would like to see bards and armorcrafters play a good maintenance role on the field, as much as the clerics. And lets go nuts ont he tavern design, with card games, lounge bands, jukeboxes, open bars, ale selections and the like. Gives the party some wind-down time. Gambling tables are always a plus, oh man, I lost and won THOUSANDS in The Witcher over bar brawls, dice and drinkin competitions! Make doing these things help build the stamina meter, every adventurer needs a vacation!

[Acacea]

I thought realism vs fun is a really big issue that everyone thinks about. I don't think I was trying to quote anyone into a cell. I think the playability of limiting factors is a big deal when it comes to implementation, and game devs are just as concerned about playability as players and can be seen saying it as well. Conversations on IRC have sprung up about it. All I was trying to say was that I think things like that could be fun if the designers were designing around them... if anything lonnarin's later post about large inventory vs encouraging stockpiling is exactly what I was talking about. It can be fun and it can be not fun. Which one that is is kind of on the shoulders of the devs, heh. Players make the best of what they're given.

Edit - misunderstanding was resolved on IRC. My post was poorly written in that it was slightly (ha!) off topic and by unintended implication put words in twidget's mouth, when it was not actually intended to follow like a quotation. A better written one might have come off more as, "Yes! That is exactly the question! And yet the line depends entirely on your developers - will they make realism fun, or will they make it suck?" It can absolutely go both ways, and when hearing suggestions we will all have different lines of where the realism limits the fun factor. With that said, it might well have been better to start a new topic with that discussion! Apologies both to twidget and the original poster, move along nothing to see here!

[Script Wrecked]

The thing to bear in mind about applying penalties during combat it that it reduces the combatant's effectiveness.

Reducing the combatant's effectiveness only serves to move them to the defeated outcome (dead) quicker.

The same effect would be accomplished by reducing their hitpoints. In effect, when you lose a certain amount of hitpoints, you're applying a penalty that further reduces their hitpoints.

This creates an exponential effect. You are just being moved towards the defeated outcome earlier.

As for running away from combat, I hardly ever risk doing that now (in NWN) because all the attacks of opportunity usually end up killing me then and there. With the amount of hitpoints that are needed to successfully (i.e., not die) run away from combat, you could actually win the combat.

Regards,

Script Wrecked.

[Eight-Bit]

I think the age of click and watch the damage per second reliant RPGs is outlived it's welcome and the boring old fart should just kick the bucket and leave space for new ideas. Anything living thing can take a surprising amount of punishment before dying, but grave wounds are also terribly easy to inflict if you're not faffing about. That's why I will say I do NOT like the almost infinite life given to you in games such as gears of war or call of duty 4, provided you can duck under a chair or something.

Having any number quantify a character's ability to take hits is really counter-effective to improving the atmosphere. I don't really know where I am going with this, but the idea of hit points is so literal and uncomplicated that when implemented into a game it drives down any game to a hit-points versus damage per second environment. While simplistic this is neither new nor exciting and considering it is the basis for almost the entire prospect of any game which chooses to include hit points, including it can put a drag on the whole production or is simply tolerated because that is the game.

[Script Wrecked]

An alternative to hitpoints would be an injury effects system. Something like:

blow to arm
low: ignore
moderate: combat penalty
severe: broken, arm rended useless, cannot wield weapon|shield|two-handed wea