Hit Points should be dropped as a measure of health.

[Paperclip]

How to simulate the giant octopus' toughness in an "HP-less" combat system? I think 1 HP and +9000 AC would be silly.

 

[JarlFrank]

How to simulate the giant octopus' toughness in an "HP-less" combat system? I think 1 HP and +9000 AC would be silly.

Locational hitpoints (hack one tentacle often enough and it's hacked off or becomes useless until healed) or Dwarf Fortress-like wound system (You hack the giant octopus in his sixth tentacle, cutting the muscle and causing severe pain!) would work perfectly, actually.

Also adds tactics because you'll think about either eliminating the tentacles one by one which decreases the octopus' chance to kill you with each eliminated tentacle, or you can try to go for the head (which means marching past all the tentacles and hacking at the head which has more hitpoints/stronger skin than the 'tacles).

I don't see how it would not be possible to create a HUEG OCTOPUS fight with a more realistic wound system or locational HP, and make it both more realistic *and* more fun at the same time.

 

[Paperclip]

I don't see how it would not be possible to create a HUEG OCTOPUS fight with a more realistic wound system or locational HP, and make it both more realistic *and* more fun at the same time.

Yes, but we can see that it would still need HP.

 

[JarlFrank]

Not if you use Dwarf Fortress' wound system.

 

[Unradscorpion]

Man we should end this popamole HP system and convert to deeply tactical system of Dwarf Fortress, it's like chess but with gore

 

[Castanova]

As with every other aspect of Dwarf Fortress, the wound system is just a tech demo. The main thing to be learned from it is not the system itself but rather the effect flavor text has on people's opinion of it. "Lol, it said my brain fell out - GREATEST COMBAT SYSTEM EVAR!!!!11"

The HP argument is also heavily dependent on the game context. An excessively detailed anatomy simulation might be better than HP in a 1-on-1 melee situation but it quickly becomes tedious when you're dealing with party-based combat. Even in 1-on-1 combat, you'd need a specific TYPE of combat to really fit the removal of HP (like, maybe, fencing or submission-based combat). Two people wearing plate mail swinging a sword at one another in a turn-based system without the use of HP would be incredibly silly. It would be a race to see who could get lucky and hit the 1% chance first.

 

[Zomg]

A body simulation system like DF could actually be quite cool if it was leveraged to any gameplay purpose, like e.g. you could do quite detailed wrestling/dismembering/whatever combat if you cared to.

I remember the example I thought of when I still had faith in DF was that a guy is wearing a magic ring that makes him regenerate completely, even from death, within seconds - so you have to wrestle him, pin him and cut his finger/hand off to win the fight. Sounds like a labor of Hercules or a REH Conan story to me. Or more simply you could do something like a vampire fight (decapitation, staking) completely within the "normal" ruleset of the game instead of special sidebars.

However, all the "man <conventional design> sucks they should..." talk pretty much begs you to go off and make your own game that way, and we're all just too lazy to bother. I have no doubt you could make a fun game with body simulation though, it's just that Tarn can't.

 

[mpxd]

Two people wearing plate mail swinging a sword at one another in a turn-based system without the use of HP would be incredibly silly. It would be a race to see who could get lucky and hit the 1% chance first.

If two guys with swords and plate mail encountered each other, it would be a race to see who could equip a different weapon first. You know, one which does better than 1% chance to do damage against plate-clad opponent? Horror of horrors, it might actually matter what you hit your opponent with!

 

[PandaBreeder]

I think it really depends on the type of game you want to make. In Dwarf Fortress, for example, the detailed combat system works because it aims to be some sort of realistic fantasy, if that makes sense. In games that aim to have a brutal " you're never safe" approach (perhaps in a post-apocalyptic setting?) it would also be believable. However, it wouldn't be very fun in more "heroic" games such as DnD. A more realistic wound system also has other advantages. It allows for a non-experienced combatant to beat an experienced one if he employs good tactics, thus forcing even high level players to be careful. It's difficult to implement because it requires good level design and AI, specially when referring to ranged weapons . For example, the AI would need to be able say " Hey, that guy has a crossbow, maybe I should take cover and sneak up on him" something that we know most developers have trouble with.

If two guys with swords and plate mail encountered each other, it would be a race to see who could equip a different weapon first. You know, one which does better than 1% chance to do damage against plate-clad opponent? Horror of horrors, it might actually matter what you hit your opponent with!

Not to mention that in a realistic combat system, dodging and blocking are much more important.

 

[Admiral jimbob]

A body simulation system like DF could actually be quite cool if it was leveraged to any gameplay purpose, like e.g. you could do quite detailed wrestling/dismembering/whatever combat if you cared to.

I remember the example I thought of when I still had faith in DF was that a guy is wearing a magic ring that makes him regenerate completely, even from death, within seconds - so you have to wrestle him, pin him and cut his finger/hand off to win the fight. Sounds like a labor of Hercules or a REH Conan story to me. Or more simply you could do something like a vampire fight (decapitation, staking) completely within the "normal" ruleset of the game instead of special sidebars.

However, all the "man <conventional design> sucks they should..." talk pretty much begs you to go off and make your own game that way, and we're all just too lazy to bother. I have no doubt you could make a fun game with body simulation though, it's just that Tarn can't.

This makes me curious as to whether a proper game/large quest mod could be made for DF adventure mode in its current state. Maybe he hasn't implemented enough systems for it to work yet, but to my layman's brain, it seems feasible.

 

[Castanova]

If two guys with swords and plate mail encountered each other, it would be a race to see who could equip a different weapon first. You know, one which does better than 1% chance to do damage against plate-clad opponent? Horror of horrors, it might actually matter what you hit your opponent with!

Not to mention that in a realistic combat system, dodging and blocking are much more important.

Sometimes I feel like armchair designers don't even run simple thought experiments before verbally improving, in a single RPG codex forum post, almost every RPG combat system released in history.

Yes, so two guys in plate equip a new weapon designed to kill people wearing plate. Now what? I'll tell you - now it's race to see who can hit their 25% chance roll first rather than the 1% chance. How is that better than hitpoints?

In a "realistic" combat system, you'd need to dodge and block. And how exactly would you model that? There are two options and guess what they are? Die rolls and real-time action combat (which is obviously inappropriate to this discussion). Again, you are now racing your opponent to get lucky on die rolls. How is that better than hitpoints?

Feel free to get off your chair, actually design a system rather than complain about it, and prove me wrong.

 

[Paperclip]

I'm not familiar with DF's combat/wound mechanics. Would somebody kind enough to explain it to me?

 

[JarlFrank]

Two people wearing plate mail swinging a sword at one another in a turn-based system without the use of HP would be incredibly silly. It would be a race to see who could get lucky and hit the 1% chance first.

Or we could make armor breakable (yes, most probably with item HP, but for armor HPs make more sense than for people), then it's not just a game of luck.

 

[GarfunkeL]

I'm not familiar with DF's combat/wound mechanics. Would somebody kind enough to explain it to me?

I'm not too into it but basically it models anatomy quite deeply - you have the skeleton system, where each bone is connected to its neighbors and you cannot cut off someone's arm without cutting the bones too. Then you have the muscle/blood/tissue layer over the skeleton and finally skin as the third layer. So a weapon can hit pretty much any body part and inflict damage either on skin layer or muscle layer or bone layer. Plus each body part can be covered with clothing/armor which makes a difference as well.

It's possible to use a mace to break a goblins arm while keeping his skin and muscle intact, it's possible to bleed enemies to death by just slashing them repeatedly, it's possible to be covered in the molten fat of your enemies.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Yes, so two guys in plate equip a new weapon designed to kill people wearing plate. Now what? I'll tell you - now it's race to see who can hit their 25% chance roll first rather than the 1% chance. How is that better than hitpoints?

In a "realistic" combat system, you'd need to dodge and block. And how exactly would you model that? There are two options and guess what they are? Die rolls and real-time action combat (which is obviously inappropriate to this discussion). Again, you are now racing your opponent to get lucky on die rolls. How is that better than hitpoints?

I don't see what's the problem with that. You remove hit-point bleeding and replace it with percentage, right? So now you cannot predict the result of a fight just by comparing hitpoints and the damage range of the weapons.

 

[Unradscorpion]

Yes, so two guys in plate equip a new weapon designed to kill people wearing plate. Now what? I'll tell you - now it's race to see who can hit their 25% chance roll first rather than the 1% chance. How is that better than hitpoints?

In a "realistic" combat system, you'd need to dodge and block. And how exactly would you model that? There are two options and guess what they are? Die rolls and real-time action combat (which is obviously inappropriate to this discussion). Again, you are now racing your opponent to get lucky on die rolls. How is that better than hitpoints?

I don't see what's the problem with that. You remove hit-point bleeding and replace it with percentage, right? So now you cannot predict the result of a fight just by comparing hitpoints and the damage range of the weapons.

It's still shallow

 

[Castanova]

More than shallow, it's less rewarding to the player to have a goblin get lucky and decapitate you after you've spent 30 hours building your character up. It might work in a larger-scale squad/army combat system where you don't care about individual people.

 

[PandaBreeder]

Sometimes I feel like armchair designers don't even run simple thought experiments before verbally improving, in a single RPG codex forum post, almost every RPG combat system released in history.

Yes, so two guys in plate equip a new weapon designed to kill people wearing plate. Now what? I'll tell you - now it's race to see who can hit their 25% chance roll first rather than the 1% chance. How is that better than hitpoints?

In a "realistic" combat system, you'd need to dodge and block. And how exactly would you model that? There are two options and guess what they are? Die rolls and real-time action combat (which is obviously inappropriate to this discussion). Again, you are now racing your opponent to get lucky on die rolls. How is that better than hitpoints?

Feel free to get off your chair, actually design a system rather than complain about it, and prove me wrong.

OK, I'll prove you wrong, I guess. :/ I think you're focusing too much on realistic games. IMO systems not based on hit-points are better because they allow for more tactical options, not because they're better at simulating real combat. They don't need to be that realistic. For example , you might have a system in witch each individual body part has it's own hit-points, allowing you to do things such as disarming opponents without insta-killing them with a blow to the head. That way you would also avoid the sudden death syndrome in hit-points based RPGs.

More than shallow, it's less rewarding to the player to have a goblin get lucky and decapitate you after you've spent 30 hours building your character up. It might work in a larger-scale squad/army combat system where you don't care about individual people.

That's why I said ultra realistic systems only work in certain types of games. What you're describing is essentially an RPG with a more heroic tone, and you're right, in said games it would not work.

 

[J1M]

Sometimes I feel like armchair designers don't even run simple thought experiments before verbally improving, in a single RPG codex forum post, almost every RPG combat system released in history.

Yes, so two guys in plate equip a new weapon designed to kill people wearing plate. Now what? I'll tell you - now it's race to see who can hit their 25% chance roll first rather than the 1% chance. How is that better than hitpoints?

In a "realistic" combat system, you'd need to dodge and block. And how exactly would you model that? There are two options and guess what they are? Die rolls and real-time action combat (which is obviously inappropriate to this discussion). Again, you are now racing your opponent to get lucky on die rolls. How is that better than hitpoints?

Feel free to get off your chair, actually design a system rather than complain about it, and prove me wrong.

OK, I'll prove you wrong, I guess. :/ I think you're focusing too much on realistic games. IMO systems not based on hit-points are better because they allow for more tactical options, not because they're better at simulating real combat. They don't need to be that realistic. For example , you might have a system in witch each individual body part has it's own hit-points, allowing you to do things such as disarming opponents without insta-killing them with a blow to the head. That way you would also avoid the sudden death syndrome in hit-points based RPGs.

More than shallow, it's less rewarding to the player to have a goblin get lucky and decapitate you after you've spent 30 hours building your character up. It might work in a larger-scale squad/army combat system where you don't care about individual people.

That's why I said ultra realistic systems only work in certain types of games. What you're describing is essentially an RPG with a more heroic tone, and you're right, in said games it would not work.

If you want to simulate some sort of disarming tactic, modeling things as you've described is a lot of extra effort for something that still doesn't really work. There are ways of disarming someone other than cutting off their hand.

Even basic hit points with a "disarmed" debuff would handle this case better.

 

[PandaBreeder]

If you want to simulate some sort of disarming tactic, modeling things as you've described is a lot of extra effort for something that still doesn't really work. There are ways of disarming someone other than cutting off their hand.

Even basic hit points with a "disarmed" debuff would handle this case better.

There's a difference between cutting someone's arm off and just making not able to hold a weapon. Anyhow, I was just giving an example. You could also make it so that characters suffer penalties the more wounded they become. I think stuff like that would be more interesting than just hit-points, and not overtly complicated too.