Forensic investigation

[crawly]

Would be neat to have some kind of skill available for certain classes/guilds to be able to see the cause of death on a dead body.
If it was stabbed, slashed, gnarled, burned, smells from acid...

Actually, I tried to create a system for clues recently... like that a small piece of the killers clothing might stick to the dead body (or fall on the ground) only to be discovered by a person skilled enough to find it.

The ability to "junk" corpses should be removed as well.

[Dakkon Black]

Yes, one of my longstanding wishes for arm has been a system to at least tell what in krath happened to the guy and perhaps with more skill in it what kind of weapon was used etc.

As for just corpse... maybe that should be removed but if so then a rot code should be put in and the quality of the corpse will degenerate and hide more and more of what happened. You should be able to hide your corpses though.

Study corpse  (noob)

This corpse has a deep hole in its back

Study corpse  (l337)

This corpse has a deep hole in it's back
The hole was made by a short dagger with jagged edges.
There is also a club mark on the back of its skull.

OR

Study corpse (noob)

There are slashes all over this body.

Study Corpse (l337)

There are slashes all over this body
Three on the face, two on the torso, one on the wrist.
The slashes were made by a serrated war-sword.

There are bruises on this body's head.
Two on the head
The bruises were made by a knotted baobab club.

Dont tell me this wouldn't be the raddest skill ever.

[Ueda]

I love the idea so don't get me wrong by this ? K! What type of class would get it? the only class I could see would be a new subclass.

Your thought?

[crawly]

Another thought I had (but it might be really hard to code) was some kind of memory for npcs. This could be used by Imortals if someone wishes to interrogate the npc about something. I guess, like the "hunt" system but the npc should be able to "remember" who passed him the last hour...

[crawly]

About what class...
Well, I merely thought of the problems I have when playing a guard, I come across corpses of citizens lying on the street.
In this case I want to know if the poor buggers fell victim to toks outside the gates and dragged inside or maybe was killed for money by a weapon.

So either guards or officiers of the guards? Templars?

EDIT: Im not aware of any class that may fit that require karma since im new.

[__Torax__]

Why couldnt a physician have this skill? They are intune with curing wounds and the likes, why wouldnt they be able to identify the type of wound?

[Ueda]

Torax your right.

[Stroker]

You study a corpse:

You find traces of semen.

[God]

It shouldn't take any skill to see the basic damage done to a corpse, as far as I can tell. I suppose a skill to tell the difference between slashing wounds and piercing might be alright, but I don't really see the point in making it a skill at all.

[crawly]

In order of difficulty (not considering limitations of coding) when you look at a corpse.

1. The person is dead.
2. Killed by claws/teeth/mandibles or by a weapon.
3. Is it many small cuts or a few really deadly? (this can tell something about the skill of the attackers)
4. What kind of weapon killed him? (stab, slash, blunt, fire, acid or unknown)
5. Was the wound a "backstab" and thus directed at a vital organ.
6. Posion, magic, heartattack or perhaps he fell from a cliff breaking his neck.

The 5 and 6 would probably require a physician while the first 3 or 4 probably would be known to soldiers and hunters also.

[Malifaxis]

I had a staffer that was kind enough to assist me once with a problem of this sort, and I have to say it really increased my enjoyment of the game knowing that something like this could be done.

Playing Devil's Advocate here, it would most likely be semi-hellacious to code.  You would need flags added to each person varying on the damage they took.  These flags would need to stack with each various wound they got, realistically longer than the wound would stick around (residual scarring etc, since a wound is still visible while closed and healing).

In the case of backstabbing, there would need to be some extremely tricky code which took into account the effectiveness of the strike, the size of the weapon, and the comparative skills of the stabber and the person viewing the damage.

I also know of at least one ocassion where I, personally (in character), have mangled a corpse I recently produced from a once living person in order to confuse someone who came across it.  How would this be taken in to effect?  I mean, if I knock someone out with a few deft punches, then strangle them (with a series of emotes), then use actual damage after that (lets say, an axe) to *simulate* the death of strangulation (because I am not aware of a 'strangle' command), and then, after the corpse is produced, douse it in oil and light it on fire...  Anyone that checks the body out will receive a "This body was hacked up by a hatchet of uberness" instead of the result I made much effort to produce, which is to burn the crap out of the corpse in an attempt to hide the bruising around the neck and whatnot.

Honestly, I do think it's an AWESOME idea, I just think that it's going to be a trickier bit of code then getting oral sex from a halfling and still being able to walk straight.

[crawly]

Kid me not... it sure would be a bitch to code.

Couldnt it be done in some cheesy way tho?
Like, when taking damage you would write to the playerfile about this damage. When a player heals up to max hp this information would wipe.
In case of backstab a special entry would be made as well as if special damage caused by posion or magic (I know nothing of this).

Then, if the player would die I you would keep the playerfile but flag it as dead.

Now, if anyone came across the body they could read the damage file by using the skill to various degree.

Would only work with PC´s if done this way tho... unless you would create a file for each npc that dies.

[growingall]

Next time you kill someone, omote the body?

[crymerci]

I can just see it now: CSI Zalanthas.

But realisitcally, I don't know how specific it could get.  You could maybe see if someone was killed via a weapon or via claws & teeth, or if they have no visible wounds (magick, poison, etc.) I don't know if it's codeable or not.

[Quirk]

Yes, it's all perfectly codeable, but you'd need a wounds code system first to keep track of the damage done. It's a fairly substantial undertaking though and unless there was a mass desire to move over to a wounds code system the effort required would far outweigh the value of the results.

The bruises were made by a knotted baobab club.

And no. That would simply be bad. There's no way realistically you would be able to tell the kind of weapon responsible except very vaguely "It was sharp" or "It was blunt". This is Zalanthas - medicine's pretty crude and we don't have an array of scientific kit to deploy on corpses. The whole idea of tracking killers more closely doesn't enthrall me either - there's too much justice at the moment, not too little. Cities are depressingly lawful places.

Quirk

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

There is too much justice within the cities, and I'll agree with you there, Quirk. However, in the desert, there is none. Now, it would be exceedingly exciting to not just run across corpses any longer and not know what happened to them.

A skilled ranger, assassin, warrior, or physisian should be able to tell what did what. I can see a warrior knowing the weapon, a ranger knowing the animal, an assassin knowing about poisons and the sneaky attacks, and a physisian being able to note a good amount of everything.

I think the Forensic skill would be such an excellent addition to the game.

[Ueda]

"It was sharp"  "It was blunt"
Quirk

Those could be two options.

I see a very wide array of posibilities like ex.

0. Blood covers the wounds of this corpse

1. Sharp marking spread across this corpse

2. A blunt object was obviously used against this corpse

3. Sharp marking where trusted into the corpse

4. Sharp slicing  cover the corpse

5. Teeth bit this corpse

6. The corpse appears intact

7. Traces of puke seem to be evident on his lips/mount

8. Bruises cover the corpse

9. I think I could go on forever

[Bestatte]

What Ueda lists seems to be much more in line with the lack of technology of the Zalanthan world.

She offers what people SEE when they LOOK at someone, not what caused what they see to exist.

Teeth-marks would be iffy - tiny or big puncture-wounds would be more appropriate I think.

One doesn't need any kind of skill to see bruises, or a dented skull, or a missing limb, or puncture wounds, or a slashed throat, or a green tinge to their skin, or puke mixed in with the blood. One only needs fairly clear weather and decent eye-sight.

I agree that it would be very bad form to look at a corpse and be able to tell that it died as a result of a wooden club, as opposed to a bone club, as opposed to a bahamet's footstomp. All three are blunt objects, and unless there's a splinter in the corpse you ain't gonne see more than "dent from a blunt object."

[Anonymous]

I like this idea a lot.  I've seen other muds that have it.  Basically you see several different types of wounds and different severities recorded on the corpse.  So:

>look corpse
There is a grievious slash wound to the head.  There is a deep puncture wound in the lower back.  etc, etc.

The only problem I have with this idea is I wonder what the return on effort will be once the wow factor wears off.  How often is it so critical to know how a corpse became a corpse that it would take programming resources away from some of the other ideas bandied about on this board?  Like sneaking past aggro NPCs...

I also wonder if a wish up to the staff might result in being told what sort of damage was found on a corpse if it was absolutely necessary.

But if something like this is going to be instituted, I'd like to see a further step taken and have a 'look corpse' give you some kind of indication of decay from which a rough time of death could be ascertained.  It would be cool to find a corpse with deep whip marks in silt horror country.