How about one SOLID hit. If you bash somebodies skull in with a warhamer, slit their throat with a dagger, or impale them with a spear; they are dead no matter what.

5 solid hits for an opponent at level. Add critical strikes, higher levels, maybe momentum factors and sure, 1 hit kill.
At the same time I want anything the PC does to be at least seemingly doable by a NPC. [] Which is why an insti-kill button would ruin the experience for me, or in the case of a NPC repeated action, it would kill the game for new players.

And on that tack, if graphics were fuzzed a bit in certain scenarios, and visuals slightly altered, then NPC sneak, invisibility, and chameleon would be possible. i.e. NPC shape molding/shifting into the backdrop or clustered in with random debris.
Not on a cartoon level though.

That is how it should work really, hell even pen & paper RPGs work like that, I read up on quite a few stories that had a humerus but still logical "one hit kill" in them. While in those it's determined by pure dumb luck it's still not the "grind your opponents down" crap we have to deal with nowadays.

Honestly I'd rather play a game with FAIR chances instead of one that just pushes it all artificially by having to grind you opponents down from 20 bajillion hitpoints, fighting against a Lion should be the same danger at level 5 as it is at level 50, the difference should be that by now you have acquired the skills to really take up the fight and the attributes to win it, but if the lion cracks your neck you're just as dead, and the spear through it's hard is as deadly on a low level as it is on a high one.
THAT is a genuine challenge, not a artificial and FAKE one.

Hmm, I'd say each solid hit should reduce their ability to dodge or defend themselves by a certain amount. So after two solid hits, getting a critical on them should be easy. Of course other things like hitting a goblin in the bare chest with a battle axe should take care of the whole matter at once.

For like level characters it should be at least 2 Vital hits to death, possibly 1 critical move.

[edit] Solid hits do not mean Vital hits. So I agree with Shades more here.

And I think we need to lay some ground-work vocabulary. I suggest this progression.

Nick
Glancing
Fair
Solid
Vital
Critical

What is a "solid hit" then?
A solid hit in the leg won't kill you no matter what unless you bleed to death from it, but i guess that's hardly what you meant.

I say make it locational damage based and NOT hitpoint based.


EDIT: And YES, instant kills possible no matter which level.

I would be fine seeing 4 solid hits, but much less and battles would be a bit to fast-paced / difficult / easy / another term.

[edit] And I am more in favor of a hit-point system, this is merely general classifications

And I edited in a list, here it is for the new page.

Personally I'd not do the "this hit is critical/weak/other" thing but just have a injure strength and differ the TYPE of injure.
With the old system one problem I often mention is arrows, it's either toothpick tossing where the arrows do nothing or "wooden nuke" where they have so much power assigned to them they could bring down a house.

That is not how arrows work, their advantage is not ripping a huge wound, it's penetrating deep into the flesh, injure organs and "block" muscles. But you simply can't express that with a purely hitpoint based system, what if a arrow does "5 damage" and your opponent has 5000 hitpoints, better carry 1000 arrows and some spare. Or you have 2 arrows that do 3000 damage, enough to blast that giant steam powered robot to pieces by scraping it's knee.

But logically you could bring him down with a well aimed one right in the heart while the robot is unimpressed by arrows at all.

Those are good. Even if a critical hit didn't kill them, they should generally be bleeding out on the floor, unable to continue a fight.

The way I think of it is that you're not trying to kill them on their feet so much as you are trying to make them unable to fight. A person hit in the leg is an easier target to attack since he can't dodge well. He could still swing a sword pretty well if he can stand, but another "solid" hit to his body, and he would be open to execution.

Actually the Mechwarrior games do a good job of that. You can shoot out enemy arms and legs, and there are effects because of that. Without their arm, they can't shoot those guns. With the damaged leg, they're slow, hobbling cannon fodder.

To this point, the three attack types would be appropriate: Slashing, Blunt, and Piercing. Robots would be pretty resistant to slashing and piercing except at the joints, so archery likely wouldn't be the choice method of engagement.

I agree, the pincushion looks a bit rediculous, but...

Arrows would fit into the classifications. Not all of them get past the armor, not all of them are on a center of mass target, not all of them penetrate into deep flesh, not all of them hit an important organ, not all of them strike a vein, not all of them penetrate the skull.

That was working down the list of terms by the way.

[edit] also, if you look at the Criticals thread you can see some variations to combat scenarios.

But he just said "two solid hits will kill them" without stating WHERE the hit was, with that it implies a completely HP based system without any locational damage unless it's a randomized one where a hit in the head could cripple someone's legs.


But what exactly would determine how strong the hit was and what it affected? If it's based on a set number you can't really alter it unless you put in a randomizer which i strongly object to. Or WHERE they hit, without damage locations to begin with you could only randomize that as well.
I'd say have them calculate how strong the impact is depending on simulated physics, weight of the arrow, speed of the arrow, sharpness of the arrow tip. And of course locations to determine what effect the arrow had. Hell even a critical hit in a leg won't kill someone instantly.

Daniel, see "Vital"

[] I would still like to see location damage in terms of movement abilities.
[2] head location damage resulting in coordination and timing impartitives.

Sorry but that explains nothing to me really.

2 Vital hits could end an opponent, indicating that a vein was struck or some other serious injury was incurred.
4 Solid hits indicating 4 does of large general trauma.

[] then 6+ fair blows, 10-12+ glancing blows, 20 Nicks (or death by spoon)

again this is based on damage amounts of a hitpoint system being generalized into a tiered system.

Hmm so this is more a naming system to determine a TYPE of injure?

Honestly I'd still prefer to have predefined damage locations and just determine the damage done by how severe the injure was in that location, someone can still survive a heart injure if it was just a scraqe or didn't penetrate too deep (only a surface damage).

And I missed your last edit so I hope you can catch this post. Damage would be calculated on location and randomly. Meaning Location / Limb damage would occur simultaneously with General health damage, General health damage still being possible (vital hits) after a limb is rendered useless.

As far as Insta-kills at any level I think extremely special circumstances and physics

would step up in dealing additional damage.

OK now i think i see the problem.
In my suggestion hitpoints are almost completely OUT of the picture, they are still present but play a WAY smaller role, they pretty much just represent blood loss.
A sudden and fast loss like a hit in the heart sends you into a shock and you bleed to death within seconds, a cut neck artery or severe brain injury does pretty much the same.

Locational damage does cause a health loss that way but it's WAY less severe, so no you can't kill someone by stabbing him in the foot repeatedly, cutting the main upper leg artery though can do the trick.

Yeah, that was an oversight on my part.

Thing is with a normal weapon. Armor does its job. Plate armor can easily deflect a blade strike. Chain mail can too, to some degree. Some factors should be determined by the hardness of the weapon. Ebony and Daedric are harder than steel. Steel is harder than Iron, etc. Leather will hinder a blow, but may be cut through, letting the character receive minor cuts.

When you get hit straight without armor by a weapon though, you are either probably going to be shocked so much that you die, you will be seriously injured, or you will simply be dead. Same goes for magic.Shock is like lightning (of course, depends on the level, as all magic; not all shock is that powerful). Fire is going to cook you either way, heat up your armor, whatever. I've never got the damage health thing, unless its similar to poison.

I've always viewed magic as a repairer of the body. If your muscle gets cut into, or your skin, magic can help repair it.

Get your arm cut clean off, or your muscles disconnected, or your entrails gutted by a dagger, or your organ taken out by a spear, magic OR sleeping in a bed (lol) won't fix that.

As for "General Health", it would refer to your blood loss, most likely. Perhaps "damage health" could "svck" the blood out of you, in a way.

Also, once you get your armed chopped into in the wilderness, unless you can magically heal it or have a decent bandage (and maybe a partner with two hands), that thing is going to keep bleeding, unless you use your other arm to hold it. Therefore, blood loss should continue after a battle.

Hmm, that got me thinking about Resist Magicka. What if when magicka was successfully resisted the magnitude was proportionally taken from your magicka pool?

This is the part i mentioned a bit before, you're not a damage sponge, armors PREVENT damage, not just soften it a bit. They can't prevent kinetic energy from carrying over but can prevent you from getting sliced up.


Yea agreeing there, also instead of saying "you get attack modifiers" it's more like you get attack impairs based on certain factors like your opponents armoring and movements. A nvde guy laying uncontentious on the floor will be the easiest possible target.

Good points there, I'd do away with the "damage health" spell really, it could be replaced by something actually physically affecting you like a spell that causes blood to dissolve (some poisons do that).


Agreed, no instant heal just because you're not fighting anymore.


Your body would constantly repair itself, it wouldn't just be able to keep up with some injures, those need assistance like bandages, splints or magical healing.

This is an idea of how someone could work locational dmg. in with melee combat. you could do this by utilizing the cross hair, meaning if you have the cross hair aimed at someones chest and a dagger equipped the game would try to cause your character to inflict a stabbing wound into your opponents chest etc etc.... if the opponent has a high dodge skill, there will be a higher chance that you miss, but if the cpu factors in a clean hit it will show graphics of your dagger hitting as well as a little blood or something like that, I would be in favor of using hit points as there are so many factors that would constitute the force of a blow such as strength and weapon condition that hit points would just be a more accurate way of reflecting the amount of dmg.

Good call. Yeah, I have kind of forgotten about the crosshair but it could represent an ideal strike, and the max damage output could be decided on that, then physics and NPC movement could decide any different or resulting damage.

Now I am all excited to try this.

[] dang, all things considered on these last few pages and Dynamic Combat is a distinct possibility, balance might take a bit, and a few thing to be dropped or added. But this last tie in creates a great hybrid system.

On the first part, yea that is pretty much how it would work.
On the second, yea it would be a lot of factors but so what, you don't have to calculate them, the computer does, and computers, if you didn't notice, are damn well GREAT at juggling numbers


On that a thought i had a while back was that with higher skill your "precision" to hit exactly in the middle of the crosshair go up, on a lower skill level it's more hit and miss depending on how you move and your opponent moves. Same applies for arrows.