Health (in a more general sense)

[Dalmeth]

Everyone hates people who squeeze a lot of actions into a small period of time.  Most call this, "twinking."  The problem is, people can do it.  Nothing really stops them.  Whether it's sparring from dawn to dusk, sleeping away mortal injury, or riding for days upon days without much time for rest.

So, I figure we have three stats to represent the a character's immediate state : health, movement, and stun.  Why not add a fourth, less concrete stat to represent general, long-term health?  If a person is not eating regularly, taking regular, serious injury, or running themselves ragged several times over the course of a day, shouldn't that affect them somehow?  Slowly, stat penalties would be applied within a narrow range (to prevent complete crippling of a character) as the character continues to abuse themselves or until they take steps to amend their situation.

Minor Penalizing factors (extended exposure required to see an effect) :
Harsh weather
Incurring damage to your character above a certain threshold
Reduction in movement points above a certain (presumably, fairly low) threshold
Persistent riding
Hunger
Thirst
Drug use (ameliorated by a sort of drug resistance, perhaps?)

Major Penalizing Factors (will quickly produce a noticeable penalty) :
Major damage (high-damage incidents)
Damage below a certain threshold (you're getting your butt kicked)
Poisoning
Expending movement points below a certain threshold (perhaps the least of all major penalties)

Ameliorating Factors :
Lack of hunger or thirst (persistent affect)
Good food and water (separate from penalties incurred by hunger or thirst)
Environment-appropriate gear
Expert medical care

Any number of other factors could be thought up or added on later, but I feel that is a good start.

[Synthesis]

The current wound and combat systems are too stupid for something like this to work.

[Eloran]

Too much min-management.

[FantasyWriter]

Wouldn't something like the spice addiction code work?
Just take more things into account tripping it besides spice.

[Synthesis]

Wouldn't something like the spice addiction code work?
Just take more things into account tripping it besides spice.

The problem isn't coding it.

The problem is how stupid and annoying it would make the game.

(Assuming other things weren't comprehensively overhauled.)

[SMuz]

I just had a (dumb) idea from this.

Fighting more makes you more tired, forcing you to sleep and eat more.
Everyone knows what's wrong with sleeping more.
Eating more makes you fatter.
Being fatter makes you fight worse.
Fatness wears off after virtual eating and virtual exercise (logging on the next day)

[Qzzrbl]

I personally kinda like the idea....

[NoteworthyFellow]

It's basically like Moodlets from The Sims 3 and their effect on a Sim's overall mood (measured numerically, of course), which then affects all of that Sim's actions. I'm on the fence about it. I think, given the current game's code, it might not fit here, but it could work in Armageddon 2. Bringing it in with the new game might also help alleviate the shock of implementing something so game-changing.

If it goes in, though, I'd love to see some sort of wound system go in. I had a suggestion for one that I didn't think would be annoying or get in the way a couple years back, maybe I can dig it up...

EDIT: Found it!

Each coded wound (and not every hit would have to cause one, just big enough ones) lowers HP regeneration by a certain amount.  Eventually, it will lower to 0, and you will no longer regenerate HP, even by sleeping.  With even further wounds, you can get below 0, having negative HP regeneration--basically, your health constantly gets worse because your wounds are so severe.  At this point, you really, really need bandaging/stitching.  However, as long as you are still above 0 regeneration, your wounds will eventually heal over, though it will take longer than if they were bandaged and will leave nasty scars.  Bandaging and suturing, therefore, would cause those coded wounds to heal at a much faster rate, or, for simplicity's sake, simply disappear as soon as they are bandaged or sutured.  I'd prefer if it just increased the rate at which they disappear, but you know, whatever's possible.

Bandaging should be a skill that just about everyone has, and will heal minor wounds (such as light cuts or bludgeons) for most people.  A high skill in bandaging should allow one to heal moderate wounds, such as a rather deep laceration, with the right kind of bandage, though it may take longer to fully heal than if it was sutured.  High bandaging skill could also be used, with a splint, to repair broken bones.  A truly severe wound would require further medical knowledge that can be contained in a separate suturing skill, allowing one to stitch wounds shut.  This would be mostly unnecessary for light cuts, but moderate cuts will heal much more quickly when sutured than when simply bandaged.  Severe and critical cuts would barely benefit from a simple bandage, and so to increase their healing rate, suturing would be required, which would work as you described before.

Also, I love the idea of coded diseases for physicians to treat.  Allowing those coded wounds to become infected would also be great--as long as there are NPC physicians who will treat your wounds for a price so you don't die just because there are no PC physicians in your clan.  An infected wound will not heal on its own and will gradually worsen; a physician (or someone with the appropriate skill, assuming it's available outside of the physician guild/subguild) can treat the infection, allowing you to bandage it on your own and allow it to heal.  Bandaging early will, of course, help to prevent infection.

To modify that above idea, I'm not sure why I thought suturing and bandaging should be separate skills. For the sake of simplicity, perhaps just make suturing something that can be done at a high level of bandaging skill. NPC physicians will, of course, take care of all that for a price, and let's not discount healing magick, which could perhaps be refocused from directly restoring HP to cleaning and healing wounds.

[MarshallDFX]

These things are left to the creativity of the roleplayer.

Code Select Expand


Rubbing his back, the sour, grumpy old soldier says, in sirihish:
  "Krath-damned 'cruits think they c'beat up o' me all day?  Gunna keel over here soon."


[Lizzie]

I like Dalmeth's general idea...

Sort of like how shields and armor wear out eventually if they're not taken care of, or used in excess of their overall capabilities. Except, for PCs. If something like that could be a gradual degredation, I'd be all for it. Not just to cut down on twinkage, which -should- be a favorable side effect rather than the primary function. I like it because it helps provide a little more believability to the roleplay. It encourages the third part of risk/reward/consequence. It can even explain a dwarven focus, or a dwarf's need to behave a certain way, in order to achieve the focus. "I must take a break after every two hours of sparring, because if I don't I -will- wear out and I will -not- be able to sail my skimmer some day and find the Treasure Island."

I also like the general idea of it working sort of like how spice addiction works.

I'm just not sure about the implementation in the current version of the game, due to the whole damage code, as Smuz mentioned. But I definitely like the notion.