Training damage.

[gfair]

I am curious to know if the issue of damage sustained in training has come up before?

It seems that an aful lot of people think you are actually bleeding to death after you get hit hard a couple times in training.  That doesn't make sense - what makes sense in training combat is that you get injured enough to feel sore, but never approach a "bleeding heavily" state.

Is damage sustained in training an area that is up for debate, or is the issue settled?  If it's up for debate, I'd like to explore alternatives to the current system where people can be seriously hurt, or worse, in training.

[Rindan]

Personally, I think that if you get beaten down hard enough that you are 'bleeding heavily' then you are in fact bleeding or very beat up.  Now, you might not have a large gash in your side, but a bloody nose, some blood leaking from your lips, and lots of healthy black and blues does make sense.  This is especially true if you manage to get beaten down hard enough that you need to sleep.  The goal of training is not to harm each other so bad that one guy is seriously hurt, but if you can't break off before one of you has really had the crap kicked out of them then it makes sense that you show a little battle damange for the effort.

[Anonymous]

I'm with Rindan on this one.

My PCs have RPed the harder sparring hits to have been very painful but not life threatening.  They also use them as an excuse to lie around and get a break from training for a few days.

Generally I don't RP that skin has been broken, but that blunt trauma has been delivered due to the dull edges of the normally bone or wooden training weapons.  Black eyes swollen shut, grevious-looking welts, huge, nasty looking bruising.  Yeah...its all good.

I don't particularly enjoy seeing people shrug off a nasty training whack and just go about their day.  That shit hurts, period.

[gfair]

Right, I agree that training must indeed result in damage, but when you read "is bleeding heavily" does that fit your image of someone who has been whooped by training weapons?  How about something like "looks badly beat" or alternative descriptions for training-style wounds?

[Kronus]

For whatever it's worth, you also are 'bleeding heavily' when poison chews your insides up from full health to.. whatever point makes you bleed heavily.

Nothing's more uncomfortable than sitting there, shivering from your poison, and having some joker walk in and ask "What happened to you?!" just because your ldesc says you're bleeding all over the place.

So I tend to ignore the fact that the ldesc says you're bleeding, and just take it to mean that the person's overall health isn't all that hot at the moment. If it was a club, they'd probably have bruises, broken bones and a concussion, but not much bleeding.  If they fell off the balcony at the Bard's Barrel, same thing.

I don't take it to indicate that anytime anyone takes a hit from anything, that somehow oozing gashes open up on their body
I wouldn't mind seeing the messages changed to be a little more general and indicative of unspecified injury and unhealthiness, rather than stab wounds a'plenty.

[Plazgoth]

I personaly do not like the idea of having different message for training. The reason being is that you could get killed during a training. If the training is hard enough to kill you why shouldn't it make you bleed? I think people should just be more wary when sparring and not allow themselves to sparr until they get realy hurt.  

I was wondering if instead of seeing the bleeding message we could see the message we get when we asses someone (Relatively Fit,Moderate, etc).

[Delirium]

Personally, I always break spar when I'm getting low in Moderate condition.. really, that in itself means you're getting beat on pretty good, your character's probably got a few welts and they're getting sore and sweaty and that hit to the shin's really stinging like a bitch.. time to take a break and let the pain fade.

[gfair]

I personaly do not like the idea of having different message for training. The reason being is that you could get killed during a training. If the training is hard enough to kill you why shouldn't it make you bleed?

The reason why you can die in training is because training damage is treated no different than damage sustained in real combat.  That said, it doesn't seem to make sense that extremely blunt swords, spears, daggers, etc could kill in training, especially with intelligent people behind them.  Most RPGs have the concept of "pulling punches" to reduce damage, it would be nice if Mercy extended its features to withhold hard blows in training, especially if the person is already beat up, in order to prevent coded death.  That's essentially the difference - death is due to the code, and not necessarily due to realism.

I was wondering if instead of seeing the bleeding message we could see the message we get when we asses someone (Relatively Fit,Moderate, etc).

Personally, I think it's not just the message, it's the damage one sustains during training that makes all the difference and is unrealistic.  When you have 10-20 guards, be they PC, NPC, VNPC, it should be incredibly difficult to kill someone - eventually, enough of the guards out of the ring would rush in, preventing the two fighting from doing any more damage, very much like in hockey when the refs alone can break up a fight.

[Lazloth]

Most RPGs have the concept of "pulling punches" to reduce damage, it would be nice if Mercy extended its features to withhold hard blows in training, especially if the person is already beat up, in order to prevent coded death.  That's essentially the difference - death is due to the code, and not necessarily due to realism.

Everything comes full circle eventually : http://www.zalanthas.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1691

[John]

Easy solution: Make it so custom ldescs gets rid of ALL reference to damage (e.g. it gets rid of the "bleeding heavily")

The code already differentiates between custom ldescs and coded ldescs.

[Lazloth]

Easy solution: Make it so custom ldescs gets rid of ALL reference to damage (e.g. it gets rid of the "bleeding heavily")

If you're asking if change ldesc will trim the additional baggage of "very tired"/"bleeding heavily"/etc, it does.

[Cenghiz]

> emote tries to crush ~snake under his foot.
> kick
.....
When I need to crush a snake or elbow an elf, I emote it then kick... Kick is just a kick CODEWISE, but you may emote it... You may be bleeding to death CODEWISE, but you may still emote crawling out of the circle, beaten (not cut, beaten) badly. If you emote it, I'm sure the others will OK it. Once I had a character in Byn, an ex-hunter with lots of experience before byn. Sparred with an someone, wounded him badly, and he emoted hurting his shoulder badly and crawling away. I enjoyed that. Just use your imagination. The -emote- overrules the code.

[John]

Thanks Lazloth. I thought it did but this thread made me think otherwise.

So if you've been beaten up so much your "bleeding badly" just change your ldesc from:
The man is sitting here, bleeding badly

TO:
The man is sitting here, badly bruised.

[Angela Christine]

The reason why you can die in training is because training damage is treated no different than damage sustained in real combat.  That said, it doesn't seem to make sense that extremely blunt swords, spears, daggers, etc could kill in training, especially with intelligent people behind them.  Most RPGs have the concept of "pulling punches" to reduce damage, it would be nice if Mercy extended its features to withhold hard blows in training, especially if the person is already beat up, in order to prevent coded death.  That's essentially the difference - death is due to the code, and not necessarily due to realism.

I think it is due to realism.  If you try fighting with training weapons, and then try fighting the same person using real weapons, you'll notice that the real weapon fight is over much faster.  It might take 20 hits with a training axe to kill you, but only 5 with a real axe.  The training weapon does less damage with each hit, and it's mostly bruises, but it does do damage.  Getting whacked in the nose with a blunt weapon may not cut your nose off, but it will give you a nosebleed or broken nose.  A training weapon to the head could give you concussion or smush an eyeball.  A training weapon to the throat could crush your windpipe and kill you.  Hitting your wrist (or possibly even your weapon) just right can break your wrist.

If your sparring also involves kicking and bashing, there are a cornocopia of opportunities for severe damage.  Most peole are concerned when they get bashed that they are left sitting on their ass unable to fight effectively, but being thrown onto a hard surface like that could easily do damage to your tailbone, spine, neck, or head.  Code-wise it may not actually do that damage, but you can always blame most of the damage you suffered on a bad fall rather than being whacked with a blunted sword 20 times.

Sparring weapon aren't Nerf toys.  They have to be very similar to the real thing, or they would have little value as training tools.  Your training sword is blunted, but it still has to be obvious which part is the edge of the blade and which is the flat of the blade, so that you learn to strike and parry properly.  You might wrap cloth around the head of that club to soften the blow, but it's just cloth, not styrofoam.

AC

[Gorobei]

Sock 'em Boppers are sweet.