Bleeding? But it was a club to the thigh!

[Sunburned]

You think any of them pull strikes in any way? No, they do not.

That's because they're trying to win....

Sparring isn't a competition.

For the ideal student, who's interested in the long term benefit, maybe.

But who's an ideal student in Zalanthas?

There are plenty of Byn brutes who spar to hurt, because they're cruel.  There are soldiers that spar to beat their superiors, because its vindicating.  A couple alley rats settling things with fisticuffs atop the Folley certainly are fighting for ego.

And for all of these, and more, its okay, because its realistic.  Everyone wants to be a winner, and in a world where many people survive by swinging a sword, they know that their reputation and identity is at stake every time they are seen in combat - even if its just sparring.

In Zalanthas, self-preservation is the name of the game, and I highly doubt anyone has been afforded the perfect, educationally-conducive environment that would encourage the mutual respect to your opponent that people are describing.  The only exception I can think of is the Akei, and I can recall more than one conversation of people accusing the tribe of being un-Zalanthan.

Edited to add: In fact, I don't think the Akei even spar.

Edited again to add: Love the idea, Venomz.  Vote +1

[brytta.leofa]

I concur with OP.  "Injured" is better than "bleeding."

For a very far-out plan, I'd be interested in a more complex health model that actually tracks different kinds of injuries.  We would still have a hitpoint display, but hitpoints would be a derived quantity, not the fundamental description of health.  Internally, each wound is its own "affect."  Physicians can diagnose wounds (in a non-spammy way).  Your code-generated ldesc reflects your most obvious wounds.

A fairly simple way would be to track hitpoints individually for body parts and for major body systems.  Each body part has a health measurement, and can affect your overall health by a certain percentage.  For instance:
- Head - affects 100% of health.  (That is, a bad head wound can kill you outright.)
- Chest - affects 100% of health.  (Heart stoppage, etc.)
- Thorax - affects 70% of health.  (Being cut in half doesn't kill you; it's the other systems impacted...)
- Limbs - 20% each.
- Circulatory system - 100%.
- Respiratory system - 100%.
- Etc.  Our medically-inclined folks could do a much better breakdown.

So how do we derive hitpoints?  Suppose you're hit on the head for 10 damage, and your head has 20 hp on its own.  Your head, now at 50% health, can affect 100% of your total hitpoints, so your hitpoint display is, at most, 50% of its maximum.

But what if you already had a sucking chest wound, taking your "chest hitpoints" down to 25%?  Your hitpoints wouldn't immediately appear to drop from the head wound; you're already 75% dead.

But here's where it gets interesting: each wound can have multiple complicated affects.  Your sucking chest wound isn't just holding down your chest's hitpoints; it's also mucking badly with your respiratory system over time.  You start to feel lightheaded.  Your blows get weaker.  As you drain the oxygen from your system entirely, your respiratory hitpoints tick down-- with anything other than rest and quick treatement, you may suffocate.

On the other hand, blows to your limbs can never kill you directly.  Now, an amputated hand might cause you to bleed out over a period of a minute or so...but that's because the wound is mucking with your circulatory system.  Maybe the wound affect prevents you from holding something in the affected hand.  But a 500-damage blunt trauma to your arm can never instakill you.

I'm out of steam.  But I think something like this could be done in a very clever way that keeps the simplicity of hit and stun points while drastically increasing immersion.

[Gunnerblaster]

That seems... Complicated.

[MeTekillot]

And it would probably lead to a lot more dead PC's.

[brytta.leofa]

You guys just aren't hardcore enough.

[Kryos]

I'm a fan of targeted injuries and modified descriptors.  This has come up in the past and I voice my agreement there as well.

As for badass full contact sparring.  No.  Just no.  If units did that every day they'd never be in fighting condition:  everyone would be laid up with broken bones and concussions.  Even 'soft core' sparring leads to injuries.

[Riev]

I am still for a system that I had an idea for, and 7DV kinda reworked into something better, where you can codedly reduce your combat skills by a percentage, at will. Sort of a "Oh, well, in sparring I don't really -try-", and skill gains would be somehow set to either no-gain or gain at a slower rate when not at 100%.

Then you could emote your strikes being accurate, but you're still "pulling punches".


Oops on topic:

Injured is a lot better than bleeding, considering the multitude of things that can cause HP loss. Someone comes into the Gaj after falling off their beetle, and they're bleeding lightly makes it sound as though they have a gash in their head thats still bleeding. At least a "barely injured" sounds like "Oh hey, he looks like he fell off a wagon."

[Gunnerblaster]

I probably vote we get this whole derail started in another thread & have this one closed.

I mean, the general agreement is that we would like to have the descriptives for injuries changed from 'bleeding' to 'injured'.

I don't think this would be very hard to work into the current game and to carry over to 2.0.

[Spoon]

Cool idea, though I propose (or rather, steal from threads in the past) that rather than 'injured' have something relating to condition in general. It has been suggested before that the condition message you get from 'assess' could be tagged on after the sdesc, or something along those lines.

You know, just to avoid appearing injured from poison etc.

[brytta.leofa]

You know, just to avoid appearing injured from poison etc.

Which is where I meant to be going a few posts up, before I distracted myself.  If the code is keeping track of exactly what is wrong with you, it can create a more appropriate ldesc: "bleeding heavily" for slicing/chopping/clawing wounds, "badly injured" for blunt trauma, "very ill" for poison.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Cool idea, though I propose (or rather, steal from threads in the past) that rather than 'injured' have something relating to condition in general. It has been suggested before that the condition message you get from 'assess' could be tagged on after the sdesc, or something along those lines.

You know, just to avoid appearing injured from poison etc.

I'd be fine with that. I completely forgot about those messages.