JarlFrank
I like Thief THIS much
During the "Death in RPGs" thread I began pondering about the usual injury system in RPGs, namely the hitpoint system. Hitpoints are not a bad system, no, they are good for measuring your character's constitution in numbers and makes for some easy combat rules. But especially in the later stages of a game it gets quite unrealistic. "Oh shit, I just got about twenty blows by that sword on my chest... but whatever, I still have half of my hitpoints left!" No normal human [neither elf nor dwarf] could survive this. But with hitpoints they can.
So, there must be a better way of showing the character's injuries and current state of health. We could just reduce hitpoints, so they won't go up to the hundreds at the end of the game. But that doesn't solve anything, really. Instead, we could totally throw away hitpoints. We still have a stat for bodily constitution, however, and this is, logically, constitution itself. Then we should introduce a system of injuries. This can only work really well in a combat system that allows for aiming at different body parts, like Fallout's turn based combat system or any 3D first or third person RPG [Oblivion had the chance to do this, but it didn't... every body part just recieved same damage. Dark Messiah did this, maybe, well at least you could cut off a head/arm/leg with your finishing move]. Now, let's say, I take my bow and aim for the eye. There will be a huge damage bonus, sure. But there will also be an injury to the eye, and the character that has been hit gets blind on that eye. This might seem overpowered, but hitting eyes is hard, so there's a low chance to hit it. So let's see it as some kind of intended critical hit [I know I only got a 20% chance of hitting the eye, but I also know it would be a critical hit when I get the blow, so I'll try it].
Now, let's say you hit an enemy's hand with your sword. The enemy is wearing no gauntlet to protect the hand. And you landed a very mighty blow. So the sword severs his hand from his arm. Without this hand he can't wield any two handed weapons, can't use any shields nor can he fight with two weapons at once. He sustained a serious injury which disables some of his skills, until he gets that hand to a very skilled magical healer and lets it be fixed on again, for a hell lot of money.
Now, let's be less fatal: You get a blow on the leg by a warhammer. Your bone breaks. Thus you cannot run anymore, and your walking speed is severely slowed. Now this makes for some serious disadvantages in maeuvring during combat. Or you get a deep cut on your bizeps. This arm will strike much weaker now, and you will lose blood.
Now this system would add a lot of tension to the gameplay, and make you more careful during combat. One careless move, and the consequences could be devastating. But if you plan your tactics well and manage some fatal blows, you are rewarded with a severely weakened enemy.
It adds lots of consequence to the game if you are able to lose a hand, or to get blind on one eye. And it would add lots of personality to the combat, every battle scar has its own story.
Now, as good as it sounds, it is hard to implement [at least it's hard to think of a good system that is well balanced enough]. Let's say every body part has a seperate amount of hitpoints. Yes, this brings hitpoints back again, but in another way. Let's say the hitpoints equal your constitution. When this body part gets hit, it loses some of these hitpoints, so it is injured. Get your hand injured and endure reduced effectiveness in combat. If the hitpoints fall to zero, the body part is severed, or broken, depending on the type of weapon [or just rendered useless, getting hit by an arrow into the hand won't sever it neither would it smash the hand, but the hand would become limp].
Now, every open wound you get will lose blood. This will substract from your "blood points", another value based on your constitution. Now, if you don't bandage such a bleeding wound, you will lose one blood point per wound every turn or every half a minute, depending on turn based or real time. If you lose all your blood points, you firstly fade out and get unconscious. There should be some constitution check being made, and if it succeeds, you stay awake and can take time to treat your wounds [ot to take cover if you are in a fight and hide]. If you lie unconscious, you keep losing blood. If the blood points reach, say, minus the half of your constitution, you die. So while you are unconscious, you must hope that somebody will bandage your wounds, or that you have done so yourself before passing out, or that the wounds stop bleeding [depending on how fatal they are, it is possible that they do]. If the wounds stop bleeding one way or another, your blood points are starting to regenerate again. After they reached 1 again, you wake up.
Now, what happens if your head gets below 0 hitpoints? It gets crushed or severed, you die. Easy as that. More interesting are the possibilities of the torso and the abdomen. If they get below 0 hitpoints, and then hit again, an internal organ will be damaged. Some injuries there are fatal, some not so. A hit in the heart kills you. A hit in the lungs severely decreases your fatigue and increases the chance of passing out because of blood loss. A hit into the stomach reveals yesterday's food and fills your abdomen with acid. And it's very likely to be fatal. You can imagine the possibilities.
So, that's what I've thought about.
Tell me your thoughts, please, and also try coming up with some of your own systems.
It's time to finally recycle that old hitpoint system and replace it with something more thought out.
So, there must be a better way of showing the character's injuries and current state of health. We could just reduce hitpoints, so they won't go up to the hundreds at the end of the game. But that doesn't solve anything, really. Instead, we could totally throw away hitpoints. We still have a stat for bodily constitution, however, and this is, logically, constitution itself. Then we should introduce a system of injuries. This can only work really well in a combat system that allows for aiming at different body parts, like Fallout's turn based combat system or any 3D first or third person RPG [Oblivion had the chance to do this, but it didn't... every body part just recieved same damage. Dark Messiah did this, maybe, well at least you could cut off a head/arm/leg with your finishing move]. Now, let's say, I take my bow and aim for the eye. There will be a huge damage bonus, sure. But there will also be an injury to the eye, and the character that has been hit gets blind on that eye. This might seem overpowered, but hitting eyes is hard, so there's a low chance to hit it. So let's see it as some kind of intended critical hit [I know I only got a 20% chance of hitting the eye, but I also know it would be a critical hit when I get the blow, so I'll try it].
Now, let's say you hit an enemy's hand with your sword. The enemy is wearing no gauntlet to protect the hand. And you landed a very mighty blow. So the sword severs his hand from his arm. Without this hand he can't wield any two handed weapons, can't use any shields nor can he fight with two weapons at once. He sustained a serious injury which disables some of his skills, until he gets that hand to a very skilled magical healer and lets it be fixed on again, for a hell lot of money.
Now, let's be less fatal: You get a blow on the leg by a warhammer. Your bone breaks. Thus you cannot run anymore, and your walking speed is severely slowed. Now this makes for some serious disadvantages in maeuvring during combat. Or you get a deep cut on your bizeps. This arm will strike much weaker now, and you will lose blood.
Now this system would add a lot of tension to the gameplay, and make you more careful during combat. One careless move, and the consequences could be devastating. But if you plan your tactics well and manage some fatal blows, you are rewarded with a severely weakened enemy.
It adds lots of consequence to the game if you are able to lose a hand, or to get blind on one eye. And it would add lots of personality to the combat, every battle scar has its own story.
Now, as good as it sounds, it is hard to implement [at least it's hard to think of a good system that is well balanced enough]. Let's say every body part has a seperate amount of hitpoints. Yes, this brings hitpoints back again, but in another way. Let's say the hitpoints equal your constitution. When this body part gets hit, it loses some of these hitpoints, so it is injured. Get your hand injured and endure reduced effectiveness in combat. If the hitpoints fall to zero, the body part is severed, or broken, depending on the type of weapon [or just rendered useless, getting hit by an arrow into the hand won't sever it neither would it smash the hand, but the hand would become limp].
Now, every open wound you get will lose blood. This will substract from your "blood points", another value based on your constitution. Now, if you don't bandage such a bleeding wound, you will lose one blood point per wound every turn or every half a minute, depending on turn based or real time. If you lose all your blood points, you firstly fade out and get unconscious. There should be some constitution check being made, and if it succeeds, you stay awake and can take time to treat your wounds [ot to take cover if you are in a fight and hide]. If you lie unconscious, you keep losing blood. If the blood points reach, say, minus the half of your constitution, you die. So while you are unconscious, you must hope that somebody will bandage your wounds, or that you have done so yourself before passing out, or that the wounds stop bleeding [depending on how fatal they are, it is possible that they do]. If the wounds stop bleeding one way or another, your blood points are starting to regenerate again. After they reached 1 again, you wake up.
Now, what happens if your head gets below 0 hitpoints? It gets crushed or severed, you die. Easy as that. More interesting are the possibilities of the torso and the abdomen. If they get below 0 hitpoints, and then hit again, an internal organ will be damaged. Some injuries there are fatal, some not so. A hit in the heart kills you. A hit in the lungs severely decreases your fatigue and increases the chance of passing out because of blood loss. A hit into the stomach reveals yesterday's food and fills your abdomen with acid. And it's very likely to be fatal. You can imagine the possibilities.
So, that's what I've thought about.
Tell me your thoughts, please, and also try coming up with some of your own systems.
It's time to finally recycle that old hitpoint system and replace it with something more thought out.