I feel I should contribute with my combat system as well

First: In my RPG there are no classes. There are only skills, so no stats. If you want someone that can take a lot of damage, train the Endurance skill; if you want to be smart and talk your way through the game: Train in all of the Brain category skills (Logics, Computers, Mechanics, Biology and to some extent gamesall), to get some knowledge about how stuff works. But most importantly train in the five Communication category skills...

Anyways, combat.

Now, this RPG is going to be a mod for Unreal Tournament 2003. It is set in a kind of future, which means there are firearms. To hit someone with a pistol, you have to draw the gun, aim, and fire. Since UT2003's engine allows for skeleton control (ie. you can "program" the way the limbs of characters move), the computer will calculate how fast and well you can aim, and redirecting the arm with the pistol in it's hand. This way, when you fire, there's no real randomness in hitting, because the bullet goes along a path from the gun. The only random thing is in how well you aim (in other words, how fast your character will move his arm).


In close combat, however, I've decided to go with a more completely random system.

About my skills: There is no scale from 1-100 or anything: there are 5 "ranks": Novice, Apprentice, Practitioner, Expert and Master.

In close combat there are a number of skills that affect what chance you have to hit:
Your Agility, Your Unarmed Combat OR Armed Combat, and the effects your wounds are having on you, and to some degree, your armor..
The target can affect your chance to hit with HIS Agility, Unarmed Combat AND Armed Combat (both give a certain bonus to dodging a melee attack), the effects HIS wounds are having on him, and to some degree, his armor.

I don't get why using armor should DECREASE the opponents chance to hit you: You try moving fast while wearing a plate mail and see how easy that is!
Instead, using armor should make it somewhat easier to hit you, at least if you use something really heavy and encumbering. What it SHOULD do, is decrease the chance of getting damaged, and the seriousness of the damage.

Yes, damages, I should explain those. There are 3 levels of seriousness of damage: Small, Moderate and Serious. Each of those have a chance to do a number of different effects on each different part of your body. For example, a Moderate wound in a leg may result in any of these effects: Reduced AP, Drop Weapon, Worse Aim, Fall.

Reduced AP or Fall will make it easier to hit, since it's easier to hit someone slow or that is lying down....

Soo... lets try an example:
Your a Novice in Unarmed Combat. This gives you

Attack AP C2H  Wound:Chance Punch  3   50%  Sm:50% Kick   5   50%  Sm:60%,Mod:20% Chance to avoid: 10% 

(please note that I haven't balanced any of my numbers, I've just guessed on what might work )
Your an Apprentice in Agility.
This gives you
2 additional Action Points (which increases your chance to hit and your chance to avoid being hit)


You're not damaged, and you're only wearing some kind of leather armor so you're not encumbered by that.

Your enemy is basically a clone of you, for simplicity's sake.

Ok... so, your chance to hit (if you use the attack Punch) is
(50% - 10% ) * 22 / 22 = 40% chance

(if you for some reason have 5 additional AP for some reason, your CtH would be
(50% - 10% ) * 27 / 22 = 49% chance

Then, the computer rolls to see if you damage him. There is a 50% chance to inflict a Small wound (you are quite weak). Say that you also wear knuckles (+5%), and have +5% from being Apprentice in Endurance. This would mean there's a 60% chance.

The computer rolls a D100.
If the result is greater than the chance value associated with that wound type, your character didn't hurt him. If the result was less than the chance value, then the game randomizes one of the effects below. (here follows the table of damages)

Say you hit him in the head. There are two different effects for a small wound: Blindness, Deafness.
They're defined like this:

Blindness: If (Chance Value - Rolled Value) > 20, the victim permanently loses an eye.
Else: Victim can't see for 10 seconds * (target value - rolled value).

Deafness: If (Chance Value - Rolled Value) > 30, the victim permanently loses an ear.
Else: Victim can't hear for 10 seconds * (target value - rolled value).


Hope this clears things up a little.... might be a little confusing but since the computer handles all the numbers, it shouldn't matter that much

"Kaka e gott" - Me

[edited by - Srekel on January 15, 2003 10:18:35 AM]

I guess I''ll contribute my console RPG battle system as well

It takes place some 600+ years in the future, and there are no levels...only skills...

combat is turn basied...but done differently then most...each character has a speed rateing...at the start of a fight each character starts with a counter set to zero...it is accumulated each frame until one character''s counter has reached thier speed rateing...that character can then act...

Basic combat involves selecting from a number of different attacks basied on weapon and different attack skills...there are three "base" attack and defense types "missle"(for guns), Melee, and PSI (sorta like magic)...these numbers are used as a base that other factors are added to...every attack skill has a rateing that gets added (as well as weapon bonuses if applicable)...for example:

character A is attacking monster A with his "slash-sweep" sword attack

Character A melee base = 40
Character A "slash-sweep" skill = 40
Character A weapon attack bonus = 0
character A total (add above values) = 80

Monster melee evade base = 30
Monster move counter value = 32 (counter that indicates when monster can perform action)
monster total = 62

Both attack and defense are added together (142) and a random number is generated basied on this value (from 1 to 142, in this case)...if this number is less then or equal to Character A total attack value (80) then character A hits the monster, else he will miss...If the random number is less then 10% of the Character''s total attack value they will perform a "critical hit" (mega damage) in addition to recieveing a "karma" point (like Experience points...except the player can assign where they will be spent...each skill and "base" attribute works the same....to increase a value from, say, 40 to 41 requires 41 "karma" points)...however if the random number was above 90% of the total value (both attacker and defender combined, 142 in this case) the character will lose a "karma" point (even if they still hit....say the attack total is 200...and the defender total is 10...a random number is generated based on the combined value (210)...if it is greater then 189 (90% of 210) then the attacker will lose a "karma" point even if the random roll was less then or equal to 200 (the attackers total) and connected with a hit...if the roll was less then 20 (10% of 200) then the attacker gains a "karma" point) this sorta penalises the player for picking on weaker creatures...

Additionaly each attack skill has a "recovery time" value...this is added to the character''s speed, effecting when a character can perform a action again...example...the "slash-sweep" attack has a "recovery time" value of 60...the character''s base is 30...once the character is finnished with thier move...thier total "next move" time is calculated (base + modifiers...in this case 30 + 60 = 90)...and thier counter is reset to zero...the battle engine then increases the counters until a character/monster''s counter has reached thier "next move" value (and it becomes that characters turn to act)...also some attacks, if they connect, will reduce the monsters current counter value...makeing it take longer before that monster can act again...

I''m using something very similar to 3rd Edition rules for my hit rules, and it works just fine. The only real differences are that:

A. The game''s combat system is like Secret of Mana crossed with Neverwinter Nights, only faster. A 1st level character with an average Speed rating gets an average of one attack every two seconds, while the fastest 1st level characters get 1 attack every second. This is not based upon an "Attack per second" rule, but on a complex Action Point system, where your AP gauge charges constantly and you can make ultra-fast combinations of attacks that will throw your enemy off guard (similar to Xenogears, I guess, but in realtime) if you forgo attacking for a few seconds. The game is controlled almost just like SoM.

B. Armor Class is a misnomer, since it doesn''t convey the fact that many characters get all or most of their AC from dodging ability rather than armor. I use DR for Defense Rating, a value which is based on a d% system rather than a d20 system. DR, however, is only an approximate indication of your character''s chance to be hit, since blows from powerful weapons to your armor and shield will actually DAMAGE your armor and shield if they do enough damage to overcome the "damage reduction" that they have. If your armor is at (50-X)% of it''s HP, it only grants (100-2X)% of the DR protection and your DR drops. If your armor is destroyed, it encumbers you badly and actually lowers your DR by one-fourth the value by which it gave you protection when it was fully intact. Note that certain skills will allow characters, given the time and proper equipment and materials, to repair their armor while "in the field" instead of paying an armorer to do the job for them.

C. In addition, damage causes status penalties to characters; one random status penalty is inflicted for every 10% of damage past 40% done to a character. In Pentaverse, the only way for a character to die is to have a current Constitution score of 0, so the -20% Constitution penalty is particularly deadly. Once at 0 HP, your character is unconscious. For every 1% of max HP damage done past 0 HP, your Constitution drops by 2%. Once you are at -50% HP, your Constitution is 0 and you are dead. If you are somehow reduced all the way to -100% HP, you are so damaged that you cannot be resurrected by any means. Once below -25% HP, your HP will drop slowly in a manner quite frankly stolen from 3rd Edition D&D.

By the way, Neverwinter Nights does NOT accurately copy 3E D&D. Personally, I love the game, but most of the more irritating deficiencies in NwN spring from a lack of adherence to D&D rules. They should have sped up combat, though.

Far be it for me to be the voice of realism here, but I''d like to analyze something for a moment.

Armor is heavy. Its goal was to allow someone to take a blow to a critical area and not be injured. The better the materials and the better the blacksmith, the more of an impact leaving no permanent damage to the warrior.

Dodging is entirely left up to the quickness and weight of the person, not his equipment. So a better armor provides better protection, but adversely affects the ability to dodge.

I''ll realize that that the pen&paper armor class idea was created to reduce the time spent on number crunching, and statistically, being able to avoid damage 1 in every 6 attacks would lead to 1/6th less damage on the average, but this is a forum dedicated to the development of computer games. With that in mind, wouldn''t the following apply:

Dodging is a character skill. Level or what-not increases it.

Defense is a equipment attribute, and has a side effect of reducing the ability to dodge.

This probably leads to interesting statistics, at what point are you on average losing more HP with the armor on then you would have with the armor off, but that''d require a system agree''d upon , plenty of sample numbers, and some thought to go with it.

I disagree with having defense directly reduce evasion. Armor is heavy, but heaviness doesn''t guarentee protection. A poorly designed armor would have low defense but still be heavy. Likewise, a well designed armor would be lightweight and agile, but provide decent protection. Can you imagine going back to medevil times before firearms with titanium and kevlar type materials? Oh man, you could rule the place. If you add another attribute, say weight, you can pull of what your talking about well though.



*Only in darkness can one truely shine*

I didn't read all the posts in this thread, but I'm going to reply anyways:

Whatever you do, please _DO NOT_ make the amount of XP you need per level exponential AND make it harder to get exp at higher levels. Do one or the other. I'm tired of it taking 1000/2000/4000/8000/16000/32000 xp to get to level 2/3/4/5/6/7 AND have the amount of experience gained from each creature divided by an arbitrary number that increases with level. Doing that is effectively making it doubly hard to increase in level and it gets _REALLY_ annoying after a while.

I think the best way to do it would be to give every creature a level, and have the experience gained from killing it be related to the level difference(like say monster level / player level * 10) and make levels require a flat experience amount (like 100 per level).
Well, not really - I like skill-based systems better, but if you MUST use levels, please follow the above advice.

quote: Original post by Inmate2993
[...]I'll realize that that the pen&paper armor class idea was created to reduce the time spent on number crunching, and statistically, being able to avoid damage 1 in every 6 attacks would lead to 1/6th less damage on the average, but this is a forum dedicated to the development of computer games. With that in mind, wouldn't the following apply:[...]

Not all RPGs are as simple as AD&D. GURPS might be a better system to base a computer game on, because it has lots of optional combat rules that could be implemented to good effect in a computer game. For example, in it, armor does both damage reduction and adds to psasive defense (the ability to deflect weapons and avoid taking any damage).

[edited by - Extrarius on January 19, 2003 1:24:51 AM]

Inmate2993 : I don't entirely see the problem. In 3E D&D, dodging ability is based upon personal quickness and size (smaller=better dodging). In addition, armor has a good chance of being hit (instead of your utterly defenseless and soft skin) when you are attacked. Armor also limits your dodging ability due to its weight and makes swimming and such very hard, if not impossible. The only aspect of D&D that I can think of that is "unrealistic" (it's just too abstract for most people, I fear) is the rising HP system, which is all that keeps this and most other games from having paper-rock-scissors combat systems. (I won initiative! Oh, look at that; I killed you in one blow! What a pity that you don't have a higher Dexterity than me!)

While the concept of one human being more than one hundred times as hard to kill as another human being is rather unrealistic, it is -and I am NOT just making this up- good for game balance. Seriously. If all that goes up is your dodging ability, the game seems unfair and doesn't seem very fun at all. There's a chance that you'll be killed on the first blow of combat, whereas HP represents a limit to how many times you can dodge in a given combat period.

I'm about ready to try to start a Movement For the Abolition of Excessive Realism of Any Sort in Electronic Games (AERASEG, I guess), because these sorts of threads really irritate me. In case you hadn't figured this out by now, realism doesn't necessarily make a game fun . Magic is unrealistic, for goodness sake! The only even vaguely realistic and fun RPG (FPS-RPG, actually) that I've ever played was Deus Ex and we really don't need a thousand more Deus Ex clones.

Now don't get me wrong: realism in moderation can make a game a lot more fun. I think that we'd get pretty ticked off if gravity, for instance, didn't work the way it should in video games. However, there are limits, and I don't think that the HP system should be abolished.

I am, however, a great fan of skill systems, so no argument there. Customization adds a great deal of fun to almost any game.

---

"Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!" - mad cultist, in passing

[edited by - DuranStrife on January 19, 2003 6:07:54 PM]

I''m by no means advocating realism, we get enough of that already. What I''m just saying is that in the development of computer games, a six sided dice is about effective as a ball point pen writing on the computer screen. We have random functions and really fast multiplication and division. With that said, I''m throwing some crazy thought around so that the D&D Rulebook sitting in the glass case with the latin lettering that reads "In PNP We Trust," isn''t the only point of reference we use when developing an RPG.

While I will concede that you will get an ever-so-slightly more realistic hit-rate if you increase the base for the attack "roll" from 20 to 100 or 1000 or whatever suits you, I do wish to state that the entire AC system is a fairly decent basis for determining the potential of armor to block hits. My only problem with it is that the armor cannot be damaged except by a purposeful armor-damaging attack in D&D, meaning that having a blow strike your armor in most games is no different from dodging it.