Blood loss and death scenes

[Cindrak]

I think it would be cool if, below a certain number of hp, you started gradually losing hitpoints rather than gaining them back. Right now it looks like you just stop healing at a certain point, and only sleeping allows you to heal--albeit slowly. But realistically speaking, if you're gushing blood, your condition should be worsening, not getting better. I think the damage you take from blood loss should be gradual, however, to give people a chance to survive if they can get 'tended to', and once you get to 'mortally wounded', the usual timeline for death should take over. So this would be hastening you towards being mortally wounded, not death, per se.

Realism aside, the main reason I think this would be cool is that it would make possible that gold standard of theater and roleplay alike: the long, drawn out death scene! Picture it, you're stranded in the desert, you've just been attacked by Gith, and narrowly prevailed. You've been grievously injured, however, and your faithful but slow companion, Herb the half-giant, is unable to fashion an effective tourniquette from the materials at hand. As night falls and your lifeblood ebbs hour by hour, darkening the thirsty sands, you tell Herb that he must take care of Mindy, and Sameeka, and little Freddy. You tell Herb how he was always a good companion, and how he must go on now, and find someone else who will take care of him, and *gasp* *choke*... no wait, false alarm, where was I? Oh yes, and whenever Herb kills a gith he must think of you, and whenever he is raising a frothy mug in the tavern he must remember the good times you two had together and *gasp* *choke* *gurgle*... no, not quite dead yet. Your eyes become feverish with excitement as you clutch Herb's massive tunic, pulling him close because your voice is failing you now... "The sid.... I hid the sid..... in the c... caves...."

Anyway, you get the idea As it is now there's not much opportunity for 'good-byes', because if you die in a way that hasn't been scripted beforehand (which is usually the case in combat situations) your end will be violent and swift, and there won't be time for talking. Or you'll be left mortally wounded, in which case you can't talk. Maybe make it so you can talk while mortally wounded?

Just some thoughts to consider.

-Cindrak

[Mook]

A suggested change to the status quo?  SHOOT IT DOWN!  
But really, PC mortality is high enough as it is, and I've seen scenes like this played out IG by players who allowed their chars to die, giving the whole dramatic scene, then wishing for their char to be retired (or even slayed?) by the Imms.  So go hide the 'sids in that cave anyway, and go crawl into the city to die, nothing stopping you =)

[Cuusardo]

Once you are wounded badly enough, you can't gain back hit points unless you sleep, or get bandaged.  That is to say, if your wounds are deep enough that they will not stop bleeding on their own.  Anything above that point of injury, I would say the bleeding can stop on its own, and there is nothing wrong with roleplaying the basic procedures to stop it.

[Rhyden]

Ya, there was another thread somewhat similar to this. More disadvantages when at a bad condition. It is a neat idea but also something not many would be happy with, even though it could stop more twinks running aloft with an arm cut off.

I think the best way to resolve this sort of problem is to rely on the players ability to role-play out the situation accurately. That is, until the time comes when a blood-loss code or something like that is implemented.

[jmordetsky]

While I don't think it's a pressing task, I actually *would* like to see this. But at a very, very controlled manner, it should be a rare occurrence to avoid ruining playability.

I thought about it and came up with some basic rules governing bloodloss:

1)   It would only be triggered by reaching X%  of your total HP

2)   At this level, you start losing 1 STAM per N ticks, then 1 HP per N ticks until you hit the negatives.which would then continue until you die.

3) Augment the amount of all PC starting hitpoints by X%. This helps to avoid people normally falling into this state.


The one major issue I see here, is if you;ve ever fallen off a cliff or something similar and fell to -3, and while unconscious got back to 0 woke up and crawled home, its a fun experience. But under this paradigm, that is no longer possible.

So, an additional rule becomes needed:

4) The blood loss rules above would only go into effect if "critcal wound" from was received thus pushing you into the X% threshold.  A critical wound defined as a Y% loss in a nasty location. And would have an Z% percent chance of occuring depending on the type of would received (slashing, bludgeon, falling etc)

So being nicked by a hawk repeatedly into X% wouldn't turn on bloodloss, but having your legged viscously slashed by a steroided Mul or ravaged by a tembo would.

Obviously the keys to playability are, the values of X, Y, Z and N. These would all need to be toyed with.

[FiveDisgruntledMonkeysWit]

I'd prefer it there was simply a, say, 30-60% chance of remaining concious while you're at negative HP, along with of course add some sort of flag or modifier making it impossible for the "mortally wounded" person to stand or fight. This way, people could make their final dramatic speech, then type "quit die" when they're ready to go.
Obviously, this doesn't method doesn't help to prevent twinkage. But I don't think we should be coding for the twinks, anyway.

[Cindrak]

jmordetsky:
That's a little more complex than what I had in mind, but it would be cool. As for the part about falling off a cliff, you could still get knocked unconscious, wake up, and drag your injured body back to civilization. But if you fall off a cliff and go below 0 hitpoints, that tells me you broke your neck or something... not something you should be able to crawl back to town after, although a buddy could drag you back.

-Cindrak

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

The main reason that I think it would be nice would be the need for healers. Make that skill much more useful. I mean, like you can actually save a life and such...

[Ghost]

This was brought up more than once in the past and I will iterate my very same idea:

If something like this is to be implemented, the skill bandage, or the ability to stop bleeding should be given to ALL (yes.. All..) PCs and NPCs.

And it should not be just bandage.  It should be every cloth.

[Delirium]

Or, alternatively, impliment the 'bind' command seen in several other DIKU muds, but with a twist. This is my idea for a bloodloss code:

Bleeding wounds cause stamina drain and then eventually, hit point drain. If you're knocked out while bleeding, you will not regain any stamina from being in the sleep state.

Hitpoints regenerate no matter how low your HP goes. But:

Bleeding wounds will bleed for a predetermined length of time depending on severity, with a variable. Hitpoints will not regenerate while the 'bleeding' state is active on your character.

When you are bleeding, you can 'bind' yourself. Binding a wound requires no coded material or skill, and trusts the player to roleplay binding their wound with cloth or a bandage, and temporarily stops the bleeding. You are still not regenerating hit points, but you aren't losing stamina/hp either.

Bandaging a wound (with success/fail rates as they are now) will stop the bleeding and start HP regeneration.

Blunt weapons would not cause bleeding damage, but their ability to knock opponents out would probably counterbalance that.

[bloodfromstone]

This is a really cool idea, in my opinion, just for the sake of good-byes and dramatic death scenes. That's something I've always felt was missing from rp games I've played in. I'm sure they're possible in Armageddon with a little pre-planning, but the most rewarding RP experiences for me are spur of the moment.

[Angela Christine]

Ya, there was another thread somewhat similar to this. More disadvantages when at a bad condition. It is a neat idea but also something not many would be happy with, even though it could stop more twinks running aloft with an arm cut off.

I once had a character with an arm cut off, well, a hand.  A little imm intervention was all that was needed to pass out (or, for that matter, to have the hand cut off).    If something is dramatic and unusual, there is usually a staff member around who is willing to help out.  



Angela Christine

[Bogre]

But what about cauterizing?

[jmordetsky]

Or, alternatively, impliment the 'bind' command seen in several other DIKU muds, but with a twist. This is my idea for a bloodloss code:

Bleeding wounds cause stamina drain and then eventually, hit point drain. If you're knocked out while bleeding, you will not regain any stamina from being in the sleep state.

Hitpoints regenerate no matter how low your HP goes. But:

Bleeding wounds will bleed for a predetermined length of time depending on severity, with a variable. Hitpoints will not regenerate while the 'bleeding' state is active on your character.

When you are bleeding, you can 'bind' yourself. Binding a wound requires no coded material or skill, and trusts the player to roleplay binding their wound with cloth or a bandage, and temporarily stops the bleeding. You are still not regenerating hit points, but you aren't losing stamina/hp either.

Bandaging a wound (with success/fail rates as they are now) will stop the bleeding and start HP regeneration.

Blunt weapons would not cause bleeding damage, but their ability to knock opponents out would probably counterbalance that.

I dig that.

[Cuusardo]

But what about cauterizing?

With Zalanthan technology, you would have to have whatever you're using in the fire already for quite a while so that the item is sufficiently heated.  Otherwise it would take a long enough time in which the person would either die of blood loss, or the wound would stop bleeding on its own.

I don't think this technique would be used a great deal in Zalanthas.  Given the rarity of metal, the only materials I can think of that would work would be bone or stone.  Both of those would take quite a bit longer to heat up to the proper temperature than metal does.  I don't think that even physicians who work for the richest of people would constantly have something like this ready.

[Seeker]

Or, alternatively, impliment the 'bind' command seen in several other DIKU muds, but with a twist. This is my idea for a bloodloss code:

Bleeding wounds cause stamina drain and then eventually, hit point drain. If you're knocked out while bleeding, you will not regain any stamina from being in the sleep state.

Hitpoints regenerate no matter how low your HP goes. But:

Bleeding wounds will bleed for a predetermined length of time depending on severity, with a variable. Hitpoints will not regenerate while the 'bleeding' state is active on your character.

When you are bleeding, you can 'bind' yourself. Binding a wound requires no coded material or skill, and trusts the player to roleplay binding their wound with cloth or a bandage, and temporarily stops the bleeding. You are still not regenerating hit points, but you aren't losing stamina/hp either.

Bandaging a wound (with success/fail rates as they are now) will stop the bleeding and start HP regeneration.

Blunt weapons would not cause bleeding damage, but their ability to knock opponents out would probably counterbalance that.

I dig that.

[Dracul]

*thumbs up*

[creeper386]

If I'm thinking of someone cauterizing wounds. I wouldn't think of bone or wood. For the most part. I would imaging glass or obsidian could reach the tempature in plenty of time. Even wood wouldn't take that much burning to be hot enough to burn flesh. It doesn't take that much.

Although it's metal, with a paperclip and a lighter it only takes ten-twenty seconds or so to get the metal hot enough, as I imagine if it's hot enough to make skin pop and sizzle it might be hot enough to close off a wound.




Creeper just guessing, as he hasn't had to cauterize a wound with glass, obsidian or anything like that.

[Cuusardo]

When glass gets hot enough to cauterize something, it tends to melt.

[moab]

Cuursardo>
I dunno if that's true.  I mean glass can get hot enough to give you a third degree burn - how hot does it need to be to seal a wound?

*ponder*

[Cuusardo]

Cuusardo>
I dunno if that's true.  I mean glass can get hot enough to give you a third degree burn - how hot does it need to be to seal a wound?

*ponder*

I'm speaking from experience.  In my chemistry class in high school, we did an experiment where we heated up glass.  During the experiment I accidentally touched a piece of heated, malleable glass, and it only gave me a first degree burn.

p.s. I corrected your spelling of my name as well.  

[Dracul]

There are differnt types of glasses (at least in ranging through thickness and etc, enough to make a difference)

anyways...perhaps back to the original topic:

Falling off a cliff to -hp and then still surviving is an awesome experience. So I would agree that a massive slash/stab/chop wound should inflict a bleeding code if hp got low enough. (Although what about internal bleeding due to clubs? there many ideas that could be revolved around)

I for one very much like the idea, but although I call myself quite far from a twink. I won't -choose- a roleplayed a out death for a charcter who I want to live and is in fact...going to live.