I''m thinking of implementing an "Infection" stat. The way it would work is if the character''s hit points are less than the maximum then walking around on the world map or in the field would cause the Infection stat to go up. While the character is at less than his/her maximum hit points a poison spell would be cast (minus the sound/graphics except in the case of a hit) with a ToHit ratio dependent on the Infection stat. Is it worth messing with or should I just forget about it?

well without knowing more about the game mechanics its hard to say. If you have poisioning why night make infection its own status effect? It could steadly decrease the character maxium hp until the infection is cleansed.

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Writer, Programer, Cook, I''m a Jack of all Trades
Current Design project: Ambitions Slave

The sophisticated infection feature combined with the rudimentary HP system seems like a strange match. I''d rather see the whole thing a little bit more advanced. After all, if you got punched in the ribs until you lost half of your HP, but never really had an open wound, then the risk of infection would be far less than, say, a 3 HP knee abrasion or a 7 HP puncture from a sharp stick.

I''d rather see this "infection risk" as an injury-specific probability. Since injury-specific is tough to model, how about matching it to a basic body part system? Let''s say you get hit in the legs with a kick. It would do the appropriate amount of damage, and perhaps the bruise would hurt your stats a little, but the skin would hold up and there''d be little chance of infection, so it does 8 HP of damage, a -1 to agility and zero infection. A slash to the arm with a utility knife would be a different story entirely. Maybe it would do 10 HP of damage, inflict a -1 penalty to dexterity, and add a 10% chance of infection. For every hour or so that passes without some kind of bandaging of cleaning of the wound, you''d perform a 10% "roll to infect". If it succeeded, then that arm would become infected, and your HP and dexterity would be gradually degraded by the infection until it was properly treated.

If you''ve got three cuts on that arm, with 7%, 10% and 12% infection rates, then that arm has a 29% chance of becoming infected each hour. It''s a pretty complex status ailment, and some players might be bothered by it, so make sure that they understand what''s going on with the whole system. There''s nothing worse than wondering why on Earth your HP is dropping.

Overall, this is a good idea, and would be appropriate in a more gritty game design. I like the idea of a party member being laid up with a bad infection, or washing my wounds at a stream to prevent it from festering. A little bactine and some gauze would solve the problem for good and all, but that sort of thing isn''t always readily available. Neat idea. What sort of game were you thinking of putting it in? RPG? FPS?

I was thinking of a Final Fantasy style RPG. It''s not that I''m trying to cash in on that system. I just really prefer linear games with menu based battles to Fallout and Baulder''s Gate style.

I like your suggestions, but I think I may stick to a poison stat, only now I''ll follow your suggestion about open and closed wounds.

For example, a wolf would cause an open wound, while an unarmed human would cause a closed wound. The wolf attack would set the open wound flag, triggering the system. When the character healed the flag would be set to 0. An attack by an unarmed human would have no effect on the flag.

I chose poison because an infection can lead to blood poisoning, so it would make sense to have a poison stat. I''m not sure how to have the system explained in-game (as some people will start playing a game without even looking at the manual), but I''m thinking of having something along the lines of Cloud''s materia lecture (from FF7), or Quistis'' junction/break lectures to let them know that they can get poisoned if they don''t get the wounds taken care of.