Health and Limbs

[Alex E]

What's your opinion on using limbs and body parts instead of the usual Health bar? In what ways does using the Health bar help the game more so than using limbs and body parts to separate the areas of damage?

I'm trying to make my roguelike have a complex health system, where different areas of damage affect your status and overall preformance, since I believe that it adds a lot more to the game in terms of depth and detail.

Also, when it comes to other enemies, what would affect what body parts they attack when it's their turn to move (and they decide to attack you)? Would you make it totally random as to what body part they would hit?

[NON]

Could you give some examples of wounds, and how they would affect you?

I have been toying with this thought as well, but it seems to me that such a system would be too punishing.

Damaged arm or hand - Can only use 1-handed weapon without shield
Damaged leg or foot - move at half speed, huge dodge penalty
Damaged eye - penalty to hit (especially with ranged weapons), maybe penalty to searching
Damage to both eyes - blind
Damaged ears (from a loud noise maybe) - can't hear, maybe penalty to spotting invisible monsters

Aren't all those just frustrating?

[XLambda]

Could you give some examples of wounds, and how they would affect you?

I have been toying with this thought as well, but it seems to me that such a system would be too punishing.

[...]

I've spent a lot of time playing the infamous Dwarf Fortress Adventure Mode. It does implement such a system, and allows you to target specific body parts, etc. In my opinion it is very punishing, especially when the combat is nondeterministic. You might run around with masterwork adamantine armor, an adamantine battle axe, have legendary skills etc., and then a kobold archer shoots you in the knee. See, once someone has landed a hit inflicting such a wound, you have a disadvantage that allows the hostile unit to land even more hits, damaging even more body parts in the progress. You'd think such a system would be fun to play, but once you have received a single critical hit, you're as good as dead.

[Alex E]

NOM, I see what you mean. Those do sound frusturating, and it could be a problem in a game with multiple enemies attacking you.

Xlambda, I agree that Dwarf Fortress is punishing, and how annoying a "whoever hits hard first wins" approach can be.

 But what if combat was scarce, and there were ways to avoid combat?  I think that it would make even the weakest enemy a possible threat. With magic and such, you could heal the body parts as well. Maybe limbs instead of a health bar is better in games that try to keep combat to a minimal, such as one where sneaking and running away from fights is important. Maybe limb systems don't belong in action-oriented roguelikes.

[NON]

Maybe limb systems don't belong in action-oriented roguelikes

That's the conclusion I made. I like the abstraction of hit-points actually (In an action-oriented Roguelike/RPG), and I like that your performance doesn't degrade with them.

[Holsety]

NOM, I see what you mean. Those do sound frusturating, and it could be a problem in a game with multiple enemies attacking you.

Xlambda, I agree that Dwarf Fortress is punishing, and how annoying a "whoever hits hard first wins" approach can be.

 But what if combat was scarce, and there were ways to avoid combat?  I think that it would make even the weakest enemy a possible threat. With magic and such, you could heal the body parts as well. Maybe limbs instead of a health bar is better in games that try to keep combat to a minimal, such as one where sneaking and running away from fights is important. Maybe limb systems don't belong in action-oriented roguelikes.

Could be circumvented by having the player start off with a magical macguffin that regenerates limbs out of combat (family heirloom trollskin rings?). So you could have combat be very risky and dangerous and avoidable, yet not have the player press the suicide button once he gets caught out once. (Of course the regeneration would only be good if you got in an accidental skirmish with one foe, not several)

I like the approach of dangerous avoidable combat, so good luck.

[Z]

Have you tried IVAN? It has limbs with individual HP and stats.

[kraflab]

In epilogue, health and limb health are separate quantities.  When health reaches 0 you die as per usual.  Additionally, your arms and legs can be damaged during battle.  There is a certain chance in combat to do limb damage in addition to health damage (and certain items have a higher chance).  There are quite a few steps of limb damage, such as bruised or wounded, up to having the limb completely torn off.  In an average combat situation you will merely get bruises or wounds and recover after the battle.

However, if you are ambushed by 5 enemies who are relentlessly beating on you, you are going to come away with gashed, torn, or crippled limbs.  This helps reinforce the "run from large groups" strategy, but it is still possible to rest up afterwards.  If your limbs are too severely damaged, or completely ripped off, you can no longer heal them naturally (obviously) and there are a variety of ways to get them back.  I like this system because you can be at full health but still have the effects of a recent battle.  It also makes large amounts of damage increase the danger more rapidly than simply the health concerns.

In terms of effects, arm damage reduces your chance to hit with attacks (or block if you have a shield) and leg damage reduces your chance to dodge, as well as making it very slow to move around.  With low damage, these impacts or negligible, whereas a severed arm will give you no chance of hitting (you have no arm!).

Anyway that's my two cents.  I think it works out nicely, and with every system there is a way to do it right as long as you are a good designer and balance it with respect to your game.

Personally, I really like the odd death where you get your legs torn off and eyes gouged out by a big group of monsters, while on an average playthru you might not even notice your limbs getting damaged if you play safely.

[Pueo]

I personally don't enjoy limb-based combat, I prefer to focus on strategy, not "Oh, I hope he doesn't hack my hand off because I recently lost my Magic Metal Gloves of Protection!*"


*Sorry if that sounded condescending towards people who do like limb-based combat; I was making a point, not being mean/sarcastic.

[kraflab]

I personally don't enjoy limb-based combat, I prefer to focus on strategy, not "Oh, I hope he doesn't hack my hand off because I recently lost my Magic Metal Gloves of Protection!*"


*Sorry if that sounded condescending towards people who do like limb-based combat; I was making a point, not being mean/sarcastic.

Roguelikes are about managing risk, and a well-done limb system is just an extra piece of risk to manage, so I don't think it limits the strategy.  Now if there is just a random chance of suddenly having your hand cut off, I agree with you and that has no place here.

Consider that you have enough health to survive a battle with 3 enemies, but also that the time it takes for you to fight them increases the chance of suffering a certain amount of damage to your limbs.  Now you have an interesting choice to consider, that otherwise you wouldn't have.

[Alex E]

Roguelikes are about managing risk, and a well-done limb system is just an extra piece of risk to manage, so I don't think it limits the strategy.  Now if there is just a random chance of suddenly having your hand cut off, I agree with you and that has no place here.

That's very true, and you make a good point. I think that "too random" probably isn't a good thing when it comes to limb systems. One player might get a crazy critical hit on his neck, and die instantly, while another player might come up against the same type of enemy and get hit in the stomach, causing almost no real harm to him. It's doesn't have much to do with strategy, it's more of a dice roll.

[XLambda]

I personally don't enjoy limb-based combat, I prefer to focus on strategy, not "Oh, I hope he doesn't hack my hand off because I recently lost my Magic Metal Gloves of Protection!*"


*Sorry if that sounded condescending towards people who do like limb-based combat; I was making a point, not being mean/sarcastic.

Roguelikes are about managing risk, and a well-done limb system is just an extra piece of risk to manage, so I don't think it limits the strategy.  Now if there is just a random chance of suddenly having your hand cut off, I agree with you and that has no place here.

Consider that you have enough health to survive a battle with 3 enemies, but also that the time it takes for you to fight them increases the chance of suffering a certain amount of damage to your limbs.  Now you have an interesting choice to consider, that otherwise you wouldn't have.

One of the main problem - apart from the domino effect which leads to almost inevitable death because of the negative impact losing limbs has on your fighting performance - is that limbs, in a realistic combat system à la DF, are a resource that doesn't regenerate. It's similar to a system where every critical hit reduces your max HP. If there's no way to get them back somehow, it almost inevitably leads to you losing them ALL at some point in the game. You may consider this too punishing or still interesting, but it is a system in which the character will over the course of the game accumulate disadvantages. The question is whether it's still fun for people to play.

[kraflab]

One of the main problem - apart from the domino effect which leads to almost inevitable death because of the negative impact losing limbs has on your fighting performance - is that limbs, in a realistic combat system à la DF, are a resource that doesn't regenerate. It's similar to a system where every critical hit reduces your max HP. If there's no way to get them back somehow, it almost inevitably leads to you losing them ALL at some point in the game. You may consider this too punishing or still interesting, but it is a system in which the character will over the course of the game accumulate disadvantages. The question is whether it's still fun for people to play.

In DF i see this as a problem because the game has no end.  However, in most roguelikes the game has a finite size and you have a goal to achieve.  I personally think it is great gameplay to accumulate disadvantages, where the game actually gets harder the further you get (or not, if you have played carefully/strategically).  I think this really comes out in epilogue, where the player is really losing the arms race and enemies start dealing damage to your skills towards the end Of course, not all players will enjoy this type of thing.

[Pueo]

Roguelikes are about managing risk, and a well-done limb system is just an extra piece of risk to manage, so I don't think it limits the strategy.  Now if there is just a random chance of suddenly having your hand cut off, I agree with you and that has no place here.

Consider that you have enough health to survive a battle with 3 enemies, but also that the time it takes for you to fight them increases the chance of suffering a certain amount of damage to your limbs.  Now you have an interesting choice to consider, that otherwise you wouldn't have.

I guess that makes sense.

losing the arms race

Not sure if you intended a pun, so I laughed just to be safe 

[Omnomnom]

If you are going to do limbs you might as well do organ too. Damaged brain from being hit on the head and damaged liver from drinking too many unknown potions.