HP-less RPG combat

[RK47]

There should be another aspect to 'taking damage' that just draws from the HP pool. I'm talking about 'Pain' level. Pain should really disable or slow you down, so even if someone gets hit by a huge hammer yet manage to block it with a shield he SHOULD receive some Pain from the shock, not just deflecting it and resuming combat as if nothing happened.

Eg: Fallout target system. Being hit in the groin for 5 dmg tells me nothing. How the hell does a guy stand after getting a solid whack on the groin like that? I didn't crit? There should be a physical dmg as well as pain dmg. Some attacks inflict more pain yet less dmg such as a groin punch.

 

[Raapys]

I don't want total realism in a game. I want a fantasy. I play games to escape the real world, so the more a game is like reality the less I like it in a manner of speaking.

Strange, I want exactly the opposite. In fact, my dream RPG is a game which is 100% realistic, where the NPCs think for themselves, the world responds realistically to the player's actions, etc.

 

[adron]

Strange, I want exactly the opposite. In fact, my dream RPG is a game which is 100% realistic, where the NPCs think for themselves, the world responds realistically to the player's actions, etc.

word

 

[Claw]

Well, I'd like to see a system similar to that employed by the Cyberpunk RPG.

Instead of hitpoints, damage points accumulate. Every few points the condition of the player gets more severe.
The part I'm not so fond of is that the player has to make checks against unconsciousness and death with penalties depending on the condition.
There is a maximum at which the player is absolutely, certainly dead.
I would prefer it if you suffer increasing handicaps instead, being able to resist the effects of the "current" injury level while automatically suffering those of levels you have already passed, with unconsciousness and death kicking in at the highest levels of injury.

Additionally, there is a chance of a crippling critical hit when a certain damage limit is exceeded by a single hit. I think that makes sense. I don't believe you're likely to lose a limb from many small injuries, but one big one. Also, I think a critical to the body or head may be fatal. That could certainly be expanded into a more sophisticated system with organ injuries, blinding etc.

 

[Keldorn]

Only retarded technobot TWITS (who are usually habituated by FPS clickfests) want *FANTASY* *GAMES* to emulate the restraints of our current reality.

 

[fastjack]

re

word

 

[Section8]

This is where CRPGs can really shine. I love the Dwarf Fortress style system of having extensive "anatomy trees" and modelling injuries with as much complexity as you can manage. This is the route I'm taking with Synaesthesia, but I'm taking it a step further and adding complex gameplay to deal with healing those injuries.

 

[Keldorn]

If you go the uber-realistic route, make sure each player has to sleep a minimum of 6 hours/day and eat 1000 calories/day too.

Oh yeah, don't forget grocery shopping, doctor visits and bills to pay as well...

 

[1eyedking]

Don't forget having to realistically cut the character's nails, wash behind their ears, deal with gastrointestinal problems, develop posttraumatic stress disorders after watching their whole party getting killed, emulate kingdom economy hyperinflation (after the delivery of 30 +3 short swords from the most recent dungeon raid), and deal with raging adventurer unemployment as well.

 

[Balor]

Keldorn, you want your clickfest HP-based visceral combat, where you can get hit 1000 times in a row and not even flinch? In a fantasy Disneyland?
GET THE FUCK OUT OF THIS THREAD, BITCH.
Besides, now all PRGs are *fantasy*, anyway.

Ahem, now on topic.
One statement I have to address is 'HP is ability to roll with punches, etc'.
Question is, it can be viable for PnP, where complex calculations for easy parry, dodge, and complex armor absorption calculations can be very cumbersome for DMs.
In CRPGs, it's NOT. Computers can easily crunch those numbers.
In fact, even in PnP there ARE parries, dodges, blocks, etc - and higher level characters get better in all that.
However, they get huge HP pool TOO, and THAT is cause for 'shrug off ten direct hits from twohander' situation.
And to have 'special attacks' like backstabs and armor-ignoring crits viable you have to slap insane damage multipliers.
If you move to purely skill-based defense, improve armor to work like in RL (absorb damage, not somehow lessen one's chance of being hit which is batshit crazy) - HP-less system will become MUCH more viable and interesting.
Just read one of Dwarf Fortress combat logs...

The Polar Bear bites you in the right upper arm!
The right upper arm flies off in a bloody arc!
You stab the polar bear in the upper body with your bronze spear!
It is badly pierced!
The polar bear's heart has been pierced!
The bronze spear has lodged firmly in the wound!
The polar bear bites you in the head!
It is badly ripped!
The polar bear shakes You around by the head!
A chunk is torn away!
You have been struck down!

And compare to HP-based system:

You hit polar bear for 10 hp.
Polar bear hits you for 20 hp.
You hit polar bear for 9 hp.
Polar bear critically hits you for 50 hp. You die.

Keldorn, if you honestly prefer latter, you are a bigger idiot that I can ever imagine.

 

[Keldorn]

Balor flails and fails.

 

[1eyedking]

Keldorn, you want your clickfest HP-based visceral combat, where you can get hit 1000 times in a row and not even flinch? In a fantasy Disneyland?
GET THE FUCK OUT OF THIS THREAD, BITCH.
Besides, now all PRGs are *fantasy*, anyway.

Ahem, now on topic.
One statement I have to address is 'HP is ability to roll with punches, etc'.
Question is, it can be viable for PnP, where complex calculations for easy parry, dodge, and complex armor absorption calculations can be very cumbersome for DMs.
In CRPGs, it's NOT. Computers can easily crunch those numbers.
In fact, even in PnP there ARE parries, dodges, blocks, etc - and higher level characters get better in all that.
However, they get huge HP pool TOO, and THAT is cause for 'shrug off ten direct hits from twohander' situation.
And to have 'special attacks' like backstabs and armor-ignoring crits viable you have to slap insane damage multipliers.
If you move to purely skill-based defense, improve armor to work like in RL (absorb damage, not somehow lessen one's chance of being hit which is batshit crazy) - HP-less system will become MUCH more viable and interesting.
Just read one of Dwarf Fortress combat logs...

The Polar Bear bites you in the right upper arm!
The right upper arm flies off in a bloody arc!
You stab the polar bear in the upper body with your bronze spear!
It is badly pierced!
The polar bear's heart has been pierced!
The bronze spear has lodged firmly in the wound!
The polar bear bites you in the head!
It is badly ripped!
The polar bear shakes You around by the head!
A chunk is torn away!
You have been struck down!

And compare to HP-based system:

You hit polar bear for 10 hp.
Polar bear hits you for 20 hp.
You hit polar bear for 9 hp.
Polar bear critically hits you for 50 hp. You die.

Keldorn, if you honestly prefer latter, you are a bigger idiot that I can ever imagine.

What about Fallout's communion of both?

The Polar Bear bites you in the right upper arm for 20 damage!
The right upper arm flies off in a bloody arc!
You stab the polar bear in the upper body with your bronze spear for 10 damage!
It is badly pierced!
You see: Polar Bear. It is wounded.
The polar bear's heart has been pierced causing 9 damage!
The bronze spear has lodged firmly in the wound!
You see: Polar bear. It is seriously wounded.
The polar bear bites you in the head for 50 damage!
It is badly ripped!
The polar bear shakes You around by the head!
A chunk is torn away!
You have been struck down.
You see dead: You.

 

[adron]

i don't recall loss of limbs in fallout unless it was a death sequence animation

 

[Balor]

Also, one HP pool (something we are talking about) is very different from from having multiple hit points for each body part (and damage levels of intenal organs, however it can be simply set to 'undamaged/damaged/destroyed').
For instance, pierced bear's heart would have resulted in his death in a few turns from massive blood loss... however, he managed to rip off your head a few moments before.
Anyway, question is, having one HP pool, and no difference in having max and 1 HP is BORING compared to alternatives.
So, I'm fine with HP myself, provided with:

HPs are split into body parts HP, with different levels of damage providing various detrimental effects.
"General HP" replaced with '"Blood level" and "Pain level".
At allows for much more tactical opportunities, which means combat would be much more interesting.
Yea, it can be emulated in HP systems (by slapping on damage modifiers, and having random 'instakill crits'), but it would be NOWHERE as natural.

 

[Section8]

If you go the uber-realistic route, make sure each player has to sleep a minimum of 6 hours/day and eat 1000 calories/day too.

Yep, that's in too.

Don't forget having to realistically cut the character's nails, wash behind their ears, deal with gastrointestinal problems, develop posttraumatic stress disorders after watching their whole party getting killed, emulate kingdom economy hyperinflation (after the delivery of 30 +3 short swords from the most recent dungeon raid), and deal with raging adventurer unemployment as well.

Okay, so what's the story guys? What's with this "MUST RESIST CHANGE!" bullshit? This isn't about realism, it's about making things more interesting.

Bitching about how HP systems should stay boring and one dimensional is like bitching that you shouldn't have creatures that are resistant/vulnerable to fire/piercing/crushing damage and so forth and reasoning that there should only be one type of damage, one type of attack, a single spellbook, no such thing as alignments, no racial modifiers, etc.

Do you really want to get rid of all that gameplay opportunity because it gets in the way of your LARPing or something?

 

[Balor]

If you go the uber-realistic route, make sure each player has to sleep a minimum of 6 hours/day and eat 1000 calories/day too.

Okay, so what's the story guys? What's with this "MUST RESIST CHANGE!" bullshit? This isn't about realism, it's about making things more interesting.

Bitching about how HP systems should stay boring and one dimensional is like bitching that you shouldn't have creatures that are resistant/vulnerable to fire/piercing/crushing damage and so forth and reasoning that there should only be one type of damage, one type of attack, a single spellbook, no such thing as alignments, no racial modifiers, etc.

Do you really want to get rid of all that gameplay opportunity because it gets in the way of your LARPing or something?

OQFT (Overquoted for truth.)
While you CAN have complex HP systems (Fallout, right), it all comes to emulation of things that are natural to location-based damage system.

 

[Claw]

Keldorn, if you honestly prefer latter, you are a bigger idiot that I can ever imagine.

You can't really blame Keldorn for your limited imagination.

 

[Jasede]

I don't want total realism in a game. I want a fantasy. I play games to escape the real world, so the more a game is like reality the less I like it in a manner of speaking.

Strange, I want exactly the opposite. In fact, my dream RPG is a game which is 100% realistic, where the NPCs think for themselves, the world responds realistically to the player's actions, etc.

Okay. Now please answer my question honestly - and make it a good answer, because I often wanted to ask it on the Codex. Last time I asked it people simply ignored it, either because they knew no answer or didn't want to give one. Here it goes:

If you really want a game like this, with the world responding, etc...

Why do you not play on a hardcore RP MUD/MUCK or NWN PW? With DMs and talented writers as players? You can do everything you want there: the NPCs - which are PCs played by different humans - react 100% realistically to your actions, you can shape and change the server with your actions, you have all the roleplaying you want there.

Because it's "LARP"ing? Hardly! Everyone plays their character according to their stats and if they don't they will quickly get banned, depending on how hardcore the game is. On Armageddon you get banned for even thinking about using the OOC command unless, say, your arm just got shot off offline and you need to quit during something very important.

So, why are you not playing those? They have everything you like. You could have your perfect roleplaying experience right now.

 

[Wilco]

Wouldn't it all boil down to HP anyway? You'd still have a number that you reach that signify's when you die. Can't think of any different way of representing health other then locational damage, which we already have...

 

[JarlFrank]

Okay, I guess I'll post a system I've thought about here.

First, you got HPs for the different body parts. Yeah, it's unavoidable to have at least a few HPs. So, basically, if you recieve a number of hits on your arm it gets broken/severed depending on what weapon struck it. Same with hands, feet, legs, even fingers and toes [although fingers and toes could just get hacked off with a critical hit or something]. But wait, that's not all! With that system you could basically get all your arms and legs lopped off and still live. Nope, there should also be a pain rating, and, most importantly, a blood rating.

Pain rating increases when you get hit. Depends on how/where you get hit, of course, too. A little scratch doesn't hurt as much as getting your hand shattered with a big mace. Pain should be a bad thing, restricting you from using spells effectively [because you can hardly concentrate], but also being able to send you into a berserker rage if you have the skill for it. Then there's blood. You don't have hitpoints, you have blood points. And, of course, your inner organs. When you get hit, there won't be any loss of HP. There will be a wound. That wound will inflict pain, and it will bleed. Or just pain and no bleeding if you used a blunt weapon. So, basically, if you have wounds, you lose blood. If the wounds are deep, you lose more blood. The more blood you lose, the less effectively you can fight and the closer to death you come. If you run out of blood, you're dead. If you get one of your vital organs damaged, your combat effectiveness severely decreases.

Stuff like that. I got a pretty complex system in my mind, but I'm too lazy to write all of the details, you should already get the picture from what I wrote up there. It's pretty similar to Dwarf Fortress, actually, which has the most awesome combat system ever.

 

[onemananadhisdroid]

Stuff like that. I got a pretty complex system in my mind, but I'm too lazy to write all of the details,.

Unless you will be able to cut off yer own limbs count me out. :codexdevil:

 

[Radech]

back in the day when i played loads of D&D(3rd edition if that matters) I had a gm that hated it as well, and he figured out a quick fix(it's merely a case of renaming and really doesn't change the rules)

be basically renamed hp to "hero points" (yeah it sounds lame but i said it was a quick fix ) and the idea was every time you take hp dmg your hero in fact dodges(like a movie hero who doesn't get hit even though several people are shooting at him) if you run out of hp you take con dmg and when you get critted you take weapon dmg in con dmg, con is your actual hp and if you run out of that you die.

that was basically how we did it, it removes the idea that you can take more direct hits at lvl 1 billion than at lvl 1, without making you oneshot-able by goblins.

now all that's needed is a table for the amount of injury con dmg represents, and it should be useable in a crpg. should of course depend on aimed shots(a big crit in the arm cuts it off, like 10-12 or so so only big bad weapons can do it, otherwise it would just be cuts which would lower your str and agi, legs reduces movement speed, head reduces perception(wisdom?!?!), torso has greater chance of causing bleeding, groin is just plain unfair and really hurts , and so on

not sure how bleeding should be implemented, since any kind of limb removal would leave you dead within hours without a healbot handy, but in games using D&D rules it's not a problem just let them bleed 1 con dmg every 3 rounds until healed/dead or so. or maybe the con dmg you take from direct hits will bleed for the same amount over a period of time untill healed, would allow you to shrug off minor hits, but big hits would still kill you off if not treated(you shouldn't bleed to dead for breaking a nail, but you should if you catch a greatsword with your bellybutton)

 

[Demnogonis Saastuttaja]

One thing you could have is simply make more game options for diffrent play styles. Perhaps you could have a system where your character could at creation buy optional fate/luck/karma/whatever points, which you could use to miraculously dodge blows, have your enemies weapons jam etc (or simply hit points if the designer was lazy). So the ordinary fella would propably buy them because he wants to be heroic, he doesn't want to die easily and generally likes power fantasies. Then the next guy (me) would skip those, being instead the type of character who achieves his goals through will, wit and general toughness instead of being a lucky bastard, but cannot simply walk in to gunfire like some damn superman.

"The battle should have strategy. In movie swordfights, the characters move all over the scene, using the environment to try and gain some advantage. In video games, there is no reason to move around, so the fighters just stand there and trade blows. Yawn. We need to keep the fight mobile."

Seconded, it isn't just that stationary fights look boring, but terrain and movement would add great depth to combat mechanics.

 

[Damned Registrations]

I like the idea of having multiple systems tracking aspects of your characters health/combat ability. To be more specific, even in a PnP rpg, one would ideally have:

Bleeding. This could be measured as a percentage quite well, or done as points, with larger creatures having more. Damage would cause bleeding proportional to the scale of the wound. A stab from a dagger in the leg might make a child bleed out rather quickly, a giant muscle man slowly unless attended to, and a bear could probably put up with it until it coagulated. A dragon would hardly notice. A robot or zombie is totally unaffected. Speaking of which:

Breaking. This is pretty much just a yes/no. Either your arm is broken or it isn't. Sure, it can be shattered into tiny fragments instead of just a clean break, but it's useless either way. This would be caused with probablities rather than attrition. Swing the hammer, doesn't land quite right, zombie leg still working. Swing again, better luck, zombie falls over because his shin is folded in half. This would work more akin to saving throws in DnD.

Pain. Sure, maybe having your leg lit on fire and slowly burned to ash can't kill you, since you can't bleed out and it's not a vital organ, but you're probably going to pass out. Pain is very difficult to deal with though, because with enough adrenaline (Or your drugs of choice) pain is irrelevant, and it's hard to say when your character should be able to ignore the arrow stuck in his thigh, or the flesh melted off his left hand. Moreover, the exact effect of pain doesn't really have much consequence until you pass out, except for...

Focus. This should be a measure of your characters ability to keep fighting. A billion things could affect this, from anger/fear/etc., spells, distractions, pain and most simply, exhaustion. Two people in a sword fight without armor aren't going to trade blows until one of them falls unconscious, they'll fight defensively until one of them falters for some reason, and the other lands a hit because of it. At this point, unless the person who was just hit is a berserker or something, they should become even MORE likely to be hit if they keep fighting. Sure, a professional fighter would kick any normal guy's ass if he's in top shape, but if he's just been fighting for 30 minutes, even if he doesn't have a bruise on him, his odds are going to drop sharply. If he's also in pain and is afraid of whoever is attacking him, he's going to think a lot less about the fact that his opponent is leaning to the right and has too tight a stance. This last part could certainly be done with simply a myriad of circumstance modifiers as it is in most games, but wouldn't it make more sense to have it as a single stat that gets modified by a variety of things?

Also, this still leaves out a few things, such a specific organs, but really, only the brain is very important there. I don't really need to know whether or not my character's liver can't properly handle alcohol for the rest of the game. Pretty much everything but the brain would just equate to heavy bleeding and pain. Brain/spine is simply insta kill, or close enough as to not matter.

 

[avatar_58]

What about Fallout's communion of both?

The Polar Bear bites you in the right upper arm for 20 damage!
The right upper arm flies off in a bloody arc!
You stab the polar bear in the upper body with your bronze spear for 10 damage!
It is badly pierced!
You see: Polar Bear. It is wounded.
The polar bear's heart has been pierced causing 9 damage!
The bronze spear has lodged firmly in the wound!
You see: Polar bear. It is seriously wounded.
The polar bear bites you in the head for 50 damage!
It is badly ripped!
The polar bear shakes You around by the head!
A chunk is torn away!
You have been struck down.
You see dead: You.

That way tougher guys wouldn't lose limbs simply because they were bitten there. You can have both, your cake and eat it too. The problem is some games would prefer just to have you get more and more HP to the point where you could travel back to the first area of the game and let a tiger scratch you for a half hour before any real damage is done. Thats not realistic and does take away from the game.

However Oblivion's method sure as hell isn't the answer either, having that tiger mysteriously get stronger just because you did, probably from the Ebony armour he's gotten ahold of.

With a proper system in place you'd have a certain amount of HP (how tough you are, your strength) and enemies like Bears, Dragons and other huge monsters should be tough no mater what. In other words if a Dragon bits you, you lose an arm. It doesn't matter if you are ahnold or not, that arm is gone. However how would you go about making sure this happens? Level caps?