Wound system

[NON]

I think the old wound system would work fine if you could only receive wounds when your health is below a certain point.

Yeah I've been considering this, and Legend suggested it elsewhere too. It could really be the way to go.

I wonder if damage should be able to cause a wound if HP is below 50% *before* or *after* the HP is subtracted though.

Two choices:

(1)
HP must be < 50% before the damage is applied. Then for example an attack with 10 damage (this is a lot) would not cause a wound if it takes you from 16/16 to 6/16. That seems strange.

(2)
HP is checked after the damage is applied to see if a wound could occur. Then there would not be a "safe" zone where you cannot take any wounds at all. It mereley requires a much stronger attack to cause a wound from full HP (and a weaker attack is required the closer you get to 50%).

Method (2) seems more realistic.

[Zireael]

One thing I've wanted to try for a while is a long-term injury system where every 10 points of damage you take causes your max health to go down by 1.

Really?  That sounds insane!  The only way I can see that working is if there was no actual goal in the game other than to survive as long as possible.

I must say I like the idea, Vanguard!

[Endorya]

Method (2) seems more realistic.

Regarding point 1, if the character takes a massive hit going bellow the safe zone threshold, it should be applied immediately and proportionally. So in a 12/20 scenario, if the character takes a further 8 damage hit, the wound penalty should be treated as a 6 for there were still 2 points above the 50% threshold.

Harsh damage systems work best with party based games. For single character game play, damage penalties should be really pondered for one should not be rendered "useless" after his efficiency is compromised, unless of course the game's difficulty level takes this into account.

[NON]

But now we are talking about the current system of listing the number of "Wound" effects you have (each Wound is a serious thing, and you can only have 4 of them simultaneously before you die). It's not something that can be applied proportionally.

[Endorya]

But now we are talking about the current system of listing the number of "Wound" effects you have (each Wound is a serious thing, and you can only have 4 of them simultaneously before you die). It's not something that can be applied proportionally.

So was I but nevermind.

[guest509]

A lot of space ship games have 'criticals' that I really liked. Far more fun that HP or HullPoints or whatever. They seem to overlap, most systems use both schemes. Basically if the hit pierces the armor you roll on a critical hit table.

Applied to a boardgame or roguelike you could do something like.

Roll:
1. Roughed up. 1/2 abilities for x turns.
2. Arm wound. No 2 handed weapons/shield until healed.
3. Leg would if not wearing armored leggings. Movement 1/2 until healed.
4. Stunned if not wearing helmet. Revive in x turns.
5. Knocked out revive in x turns.
6. Mortal wound, die in x turns if not healed.

Just an idea.

For reference, you can find Full Thrust, A Sky Full of Ships and Battlefleet Gothic on the webs.

[Vanguard]

(1)
HP must be < 50% before the damage is applied. Then for example an attack with 10 damage (this is a lot) would not cause a wound if it takes you from 16/16 to 6/16. That seems strange.

(2)
HP is checked after the damage is applied to see if a wound could occur. Then there would not be a "safe" zone where you cannot take any wounds at all. It mereley requires a much stronger attack to cause a wound from full HP (and a weaker attack is required the closer you get to 50%).

Method (2) seems more realistic.

Method 2 is better because it gives the player more control over what happens to them.

Another option is to give the player a wound every time they fall below a certain threshold, say, 25% health.

[sokol815]

I like the idea of a wound happening at 25% life, but what if instead of reducing your maximum life, it reduced a stat like strength or dexterity? Then the PC would have to go through "rehabilitation" (e.g. using skills/doing things that exercised the drained stat) in order to gain the points back.

for example, if it was a wound to the head (randomly rolled, like the ship example above), it could greatly affect your intelligence. If bad enough, it could give you statuses like "migraine" or "concussing". Then the PC would have to take some turns to recover those lost stats (abstracted in the game as "rehabilitate") which may trade a serious wound like "concussing" for another like "tired" which then simply requires you to eat food or something similar.

This functionality would only work, though if "time is of the essence", so taking time to heal yourself means you lose some other resource... a quest fails because of a time constraint, you become hungry, radiation/corruption in the area draws your PC towards their death... monsters come and find you as you are attempting to rehabilitate yourself... (probably the most commonly used)... the end-boss of the current area grows in power as you spend more time in the area...

[Vanguard]

I must say I like the idea, Vanguard!

Feel free to use it.

[Endorya]

I like the idea of a wound happening at 25% life, but what if instead of reducing your maximum life, it reduced a stat like strength or dexterity? Then the PC would have to go through "rehabilitation" (e.g. using skills/doing things that exercised the drained stat) in order to gain the points back.

That's the system I'm currently developing. However, it has local damage to specific boy parts instead treating the character as a whole chunk of meat and since it is party based, the damage system and the whole "rehabilitation" process is way more diverse and fun to play with.

[awake]

One thing I've wanted to try for a while is a long-term injury system where every 10 points of damage you take causes your max health to go down by 1.

Really?  That sounds insane!  The only way I can see that working is if there was no actual goal in the game other than to survive as long as possible.

That's pretty much how Infra Arcana's sanity system works...

[Vanguard]

Nah, the sanity system is basically this

Your character takes a permanent injury when you run out of health.  For the rest of the game you have to live with a stat penalty or something.

[melville]

That's pretty much how Infra Arcana's sanity system works...

Which is kinda funny, since there was a bug in IA that would crash game, when you reach 100% insanity. Guess not many players reached that state and just died long before that.

As for ideas related to wound/HP mechanic, soft/hard health points idea isn't something new, it was just executed previously a bit different. Rechargeable shield can serve as soft HP, were you don't take any damage, when shield is still on (typically small amount of shielding is provided and it is recharging fast). When it wears off, damage is done against hard HP, which often is not easily regained or not regained at all. This can work for some games and fit some themes/settings.

The problems starts, when soft/hard HP are affecting same resource as proposed by NON. As I see it gaining one wound would increase chance of getting second one and so on. Cap between not gaining and gaining wound would be lowered each time. Combined with the fact that Infra Arcana isn't easiest game already, in my opinion it wouldn't work.

Right now wound distribution is random, but flat. Chance of getting wound at low and high HP is the same. Penalties for wound are there, yet if need you can play few levels with wound in critical situation relaying more on other resources (using more ammo etc). 

[NON]

That's pretty much how Infra Arcana's sanity system works...

Which is kinda funny, since there was a bug in IA that would crash game, when you reach 100% insanity. Guess not many players reached that state and just died long before that.

Yeah I think death from insanity almost never happens. Players tend to worry about it a lot though ("omg I'm only at lvl 3 and I'm 35% insane!"), but very few actually seem to die from it.

Going off topic here, but I want to mention that I plan to remove the long-term insanity clock. I don't think it plays an interesting role in the game. The counter currently called "shock" will be renamed to "insanity" instead (along with all references to it such as "Shock resistance" -> "Insanity resistance"). In the interface you would simply see for example:
INS:79%

There should be more "insanity symptoms" added, with more harsh effects than exists now. But the symptoms should be designed as chains, so for example "Mild Rat phobia" could lead to "Strong Rat phobia", which in turn could lead to "Severe Rat phobia". In the first stage you would receive some fear from rats, whereas in the last stage of the symptom you could become terrified for many turns or even faint from seeing rats.

There probably shouldn't exist death as a direct result from insanity, but you could become so riddled with problems that it may be close to impossible to survive.

Right now wound distribution is random, but flat. Chance of getting wound at low and high HP is the same. Penalties for wound are there, yet if need you can play few levels with wound in critical situation relaying more on other resources (using more ammo etc).

The idea to only apply wounds when below 50% HP applied to the current wound system is the best way I think. It seems to be the most supported way here too.

[Vanguard]

Yeah I think death from insanity almost never happens. Players tend to worry about it a lot though ("omg I'm only at lvl 3 and I'm 35% insane!"), but very few actually seem to die from it.

It's fitting that your game makes people paranoid.