I woke up this morning to an idea about combat systems. It's a fairly significant deviation from standard "I have X health and he does Y damage" systems, so I want to see what you all think about it. Characters get a number of "descriptors." These are characteristics which they have, and which you must remove to kill them. An iron golem might have the descriptors "metal hull", "strong", "shield", and "unyielding". Attacks could remove various descriptors: Acid Splash removes "metal" Ray of Enfeeblement removes "strong" Piercing Arrow removes "shield" Stunning Blow removes "unyielding" A character would die when some amount of descriptors were removed. Perhaps all, perhaps half, perhaps a number varying from creature to creature, I don't know. That's about the entire system. It's very simple, no? More specifics would need to be added in, of course, and I'd love to hear your ideas on that. Advantages: -This gives some more personality to enemies and to attacks. Rather than the lich king being just like the rat you fought at level 1, but with more health, he has completely different descriptors. -It also makes people use a variety of attacks, rather than just throwing disintegrates at everything that moves. -Seems less arbitrary than random amounts of damage and health -Could encourage teamwork for online games -Low-level spells could still retain use in higher levels -Really simple. Really easy to learn. Should be easy to implement in a game. -Makes balancing easier (maybe?) Disadvantages: -Games with one player character would have to give that character many options and abilities, otherwise some enemies would be unbeatable (player's attacks don't match up to its defenses) -Could become formulaic (to defeat an Iron Golem, always use A, B, then C. It always works.) -Hard to come up with enough descriptors to make the game interesting (possibly, I haven't really tried yet). -Some people like numbers and figuring out how to get that additional +1 to attack -Makes balancing harder (maybe?) -Possible lack of variety. You can't just make the next spell do 50 damage instead of 30. A huge variety of stuff will need to be made if you expect to give the players something new for 80 levels. What's your opinion? Did I miss a huge disadvantage? Is this the best thing since sliced bread? Has it been done before? Disagree with me on something? And some more specific questions: -Should attacks have to "hit" or should they be auto-successes? The result of the attack is predetermined in this, so should its success also be predetermined? -Do you see this working better for some types of games rather than others? Would it work better in turn-based tactics game than in a hack-and-slash RPG? How about in an RTS? Pencil-and-papers games? -Should things be able to have multiple of the same descriptors? Super strong boss-monster might have "strong" two or three times. Well, that's it. I'm interested to know whether this is stupid or plausible.

I am not sure it would work on its own (no harm in trying, though), but it might work very well in addition to a traditional hit-points based system. My suggestion would be to give each attribute hit points (similar to your stacking idea), so that you are not always able to remove strength with a single enfeeblement, etc.

I think the only way it would work is if it was coupled with standard hps so that each descriptor removed would remove a chunk of hps or altered stats. I say altered because there might be some descriptors you remove that increase stats or unlock abilities. You know, good and bad consequences.

No to autohits, yes bosses should have multiple of the same,

None of the ways are really all that good if you are aiming for more realistic...

You need divide stuff up into parts and have each part be able to have their own defense and hp and then on top of give the whole thing HP which is lost in various ways depending on what type of part is lost/taking damage

for example if you were do that to a naked body... If you broke someone's arm it would really do much in stopping them and ripping that arm off only really would hurt due to loss of blood and shock. Hitting in the stomach would stun and could cause direct damage to the over all hp, but you couldn't "kill" something with it, just "stun" it. Attacking the head, chest, or neck could have a critical damage which would insta kill..


of course if you're not aiming for realism all you are doing exchanging HP for targets which is just another for of HP and it trades off the larger amount of HP for the skill of actually hitting the targets...

The idea in itself isn't a bad thing. Turn based RPG combat is pretty boring by itself (even though several games over the years really delivered a great experience). I think it just needs to be further developed and prototyped.

I also liked the idea that each characteristic has "HP" itself, that way you could decide between different ways to take the enemy down.

I quite like the idea; I think perhaps rather than just impacting the combat system, it could affect other parts of the game as well.

i.e. each player would be given specific quests in order to obtain the appropriate "skill" to remove a certain attribute/descriptor a in-game npc may have, in order to default them.

it would certainly make combat more interesting, and it wouldn't just be about getting to a high enough level to defeat said npc; there would really be some skill in it.. is that what your trying to achieve here?

Thank you all for the feedback.

@swiftcoder + others:
When you say that you think HP for each descriptor, are you indicating that each descriptor has a health, and when all descriptors are "dead" the character dies? Or are you meaning that when *any* descriptor dies, the character dies? Although I was generally trying to get away from the whole health concept, I kind of like the thought of having the character die if any descriptor dies.

@Durakken:
Realism is not my goal. I was hoping to remove some of the arbitrariness from stats, but other than that, realism wasn't meant to factor in. Also, what you describe sounds very similar to the system in Fallout 3 (maybe the earlier ones, too). That wasn't the direction I was trying to take this.

@Everyone:
What type of game would this work best in? I could actually see this working well in a roleplay-heavy pencil-and-paper game. The combat would be quick and simple.

How about a system where this is all hidden from the user? There have been some topics on the subject of detail-less combat in this forum recently. Would this system suit itself to that well? If the player knew the system, but didn't know what descriptors characters had or what abilities did, would it work?

Quote:

Original post by Ezbez How about a system where this is all hidden from the user?If the player knew the system, but didn't know what descriptors characters had or what abilities did, would it work?

I'm not sure. On one hand, if it's hidden, the player would have to use trial and error to find the enemy's weakness. On the other, if it's known upfront (or can be determined by using some kind of spell or something to determine the layers of weakness) it could get pretty boring. Then again, killing the same monster after monster, after monster can get boring, but is the staple of RPG combat.

I think it also depends on whether or not the enemy is a boss. It could get tedious for some players to have to kill 500 imps in the exact same A,B,C combination of attacks. I'd prefer that low level enemies can be quickly eliminated by simple attacks.

Quote:

What type of game would this work best in?

Not necessarily the best, but fitting:
Cooking. If you just chop everything all you could ever 'cook' is a salad.

The design concept:

The crew is hungry and a meal must be fixed. Several characters rush to the kitchen and decides to fix a meal that includes at least the main dish and the dessert (hungry crew needs no appetizer). The goal of the night is to fill everyone and have them like the food.

Character needs descriptor:
o Hunger (equivalent to HP)
o Liking sweet food
o Liking new dishes
o Liking spicy food
o Liking veggies
o Liking fruits
o Liking soup
o Liking food served hot (temperature)
o Not Picky: Eats anything

Cooking actions:
o Rinse
o Chop
o Boil
o Pan-fry
o Deep-fry
o Mix
o Bake
o Freeze

Source of Difficulty:
o Time limit
o Amount and type of ingredient available (ammo)
o Cooking resources (i.e. the number of stoves available)
o Recipe - all possible dishes follow recipes, if the cooking characters finds that there is not enough ingredient to finish the recipe in the middle, the recipe won't be completed. The same ingredient could become different dish depending on the sequence of action

Character Differences (when they are cooking):
The Experienced: Brings addition recipes
The Inexperienced: Makes the crew eat food not fully prepared
The Technie: Brings additional cooking action "Use blow torch"
The Spice Lover: Bring addition ingredient "unlimited spicies"
The Arcobat: can get stuff from the top shelves, cuts extremely fast
The Strong: can handle big and heavy pots and pans
The Distractor: entertains the crew to give more time
The Safety Officer: keeps the kitchen safe

In a particular scenario, not everyone would be in the kitchen, perhaps 1 to 4 people cooking.


Variations (Replayability):
o Varying time constraint
o Varying inventory
o Varying choice/assignment of cooking characters
o Specified recipe (when the goal specifies that one recipe be made among the dishes)
o Varying cooking resources



Learning the recipes:
o The player could read the available in-game recipe, or:
o When a character picks up an ingredient, the game automatically shows all actions that could be performed to that ingredient pertaining to a completable recipe given the inventory. However, the game does not check whether there is enough time or utensil to do the recipe. If the player starts two recipes and both uses ingredient X, in the middle, but recipe 1 used it first, then suddenly recipe 2 cannot be completed.


If you need violence, just modify the setting so that the ingredients are monsters and your party is camping out. Replace various cooking actions by spectacular magical spells.

I haven't gone through everything posted, so just ignore any redundancy on my part.

I think it's an interesting idea. I'd like to see something layered and graphical. For example, an ogre wearing bone armor with metal hinges, holding a wooden shield. You could just hack at the beast with a sword, but that will be a tough fight. Instead, you could use fire to torch the shield, then hack at it. Or you could use acid to destroy the armor hinges (before or after torching the shield), then use a Piercing Arrow to break the bone armor casing, then use a Ray of Enfeeblement against the ogre's skin, then finally hack it with a sword.

However, this would probably need mixed into an already decent fighting system. IE, the ogre is throwing punches and blocking your melee attacks the whole time you're trying to pull this stuff off. Perhaps your best bet is to stun the ogre with a head blow before firing the time consuming Ray of Enfeeblement, or etc.

I think situational opportunities are really important for this type of system. The player shouldn't be able to just run into a fight and blaze each and every ogre with hack, torch, taunt, piercing arrow, kick, jump, head stomp, ray of enfeeblement, sword stab. The enemy's behavior, armor, weapons, the landscape, the weather, and as many other factors as possible should dictate how well a strategy will work, and if it's even possible. IE, you can't use fire in the rain, so you'll have to deal with the shield some other way, while the rain itself makes some other tactic possible.