I believe there''s nothing wrong with physical consequences after severe wounds or a harsh battle.But there must be a way back,i mean remedies and healings.
Herbs ,potions,magic or even resting a while(time is the best doctor) may give the hero back his powers(or part of them depending on the effectiveness of the remedy).
Voodoo4

A skill for ambidexterity is a good idea. I think these consequences would make a player think twice before risking severe injury or death. Also, I agree that resting should be able to help heal wounds. Perhaps, the player would have to rest for as much as 3 or 4 days to completely cure the wounds, but it could just happen over a few seconds in real time. The main drawback to losing 3 or 4 days of game time would be if you have to do time-intensive quests, and having to heal for a few days could really cause the player to choose his/her actions carefully.

Edited by - Nazrix on June 5, 2000 3:47:54 PM

I think it;s really cool that someone pointed out that realistic location based damage and negative damage modifiers are not very suited to COMBAT-CENTRIC games, but in games of which combat is only a small part you should be OK.

Sure, things get worse the more health you lose. That''s why in real life, you RUN AWAY! Nurse yourself back to health and if you must, go back and try again. But more often; stay the hell away from the guy who throttled you to begin with. But alas, the majority of games don''t (and shouldn''t) play like that.

One of these days i''m gonna take all these wacky-assideas of mine and make a game out of them! =)



This post was brought to you by the letter "Land", and the number "Fish"!

Yeah I agree with you totally, Landfish. The player would start thinking in terms of whether to start blindly murdering all those helpless goblins for fear that the player may spend days healing himself/herself. Wow, my mind's starting to think like Landfish's. Landfish's whacky ideas are beginning to spread like an epidemic!

Edited by - Nazrix on June 6, 2000 10:08:38 AM

While designing my RPG, I found the problem of hit points and attributes of the character vs player skills.

Do I test the character or the player ?
The answer is an hybrid system in which the character attributes ''helped'' the player skills.

The player started one or another attack and the character attributes slightly modify the path of the weapon.
[Real time]

Another solution could be to let the player plan and make the character act.


Another problem was with character health.
I do not want anything made before so I choose another way :
-the character skin/texture and geometry/model is modified by the localised damage it takes.

Well I''m thinking of enhancing the system through allowing env to change the skin/texture of the character.
This way you could have sand on your boots, blood on your shirt, green on your knee cause you''ve walk with the knee on grass...


With my CHARACTER vs PLAYER problem, what do you prefer ?
(using character attributes, and which one? using your own skills or only part and which ?)

To my knowledge ambidextry as always been a feature abused by the players. It make them more powerfull so they choose to be, it''s a ''break the rule''/''be the best of the world'' attitude everyone is tempted to follow.

-* Sounds, music and story makes the difference between good and great games *-

No! You''ve found me out! How am I to infect you all with my nonsensically orginal ideas if you are aware of it?! Curse you Nazrix! You''ve foiled my evil scheme!(thanks for the ego-rub, man!)

Anyway, Ingenu, I have actually written out pretty much the same ideas, but I never got as far a you did. Good job.