[MUD-Dev] Integrating PK

[Adam Wiggins]

[Chris L:]
>    at 08:58 AM, Adam Wiggins <nightfall at user1.inficad.com> said:
> >Yeah, well this is just the nature of the weapon.  Fists qualify as a
> >blunt object made of flesh and bone.  For the exact same reason a
> >club is going to be a lot more likely to KO someone than actually
> >kill them.
> 
> Its worth talking to someone who has some direct combat experience
> (tho an ER tech would do as well).  To take the classic example, it is
> damned difficult to hit someone on the back of the head with
> <whatever> and knock them unconcious without killing them.  The line
> between KO and DOA for head blows is extremely vague, fuzzy, and
> treacherous.  

Yes, as I think I've mentioned before, my partner and I talked to two
ER/OR nurses each with over a dozen years of 'real' experience on
these matters while designing our wounds system.  There's a lot of
interesting stuff with brain swelling, reactions by various
portions of the brain (specifically all that crap hanging under the
gray matter itself), hemoraging, and so forth.  However I didn't
code any of the wound system and it's been a while; maybe I'll see
if I can dig up some of the old documents to post here.  Interesting
reading whether it's useful to you or not.

At any rate, I've been involved in and/or witnessed plenty of fistfights
and I've yet to see anyone die from blows sustained in combat.  On the
other hand, KOs are a bit rarer thing that Hollywood would like us to
believe - usually one of the combantants just decides they are beat and
stays down.  I think the main 'advantage', persay, of blunt attacks
for non-lethal damage, is that it takes either a large amount of force
and/or a very specific target location on the body to actually kill
someone.  An arrow going through the torso is a pretty easy method, however -
it's not difficult to hit a lung, and even a weakling can pull a bow
with a large enough draw weight to transfix an unarmored, fully-grown
man.  By the same token a poorly-aimed, weak dagger blow can potentially
cut open an artery (takes at least mild force) or open a wound which
will cause a good amount of blood loss and a nasty infection.  Bludgeonous
attacks take a little more effort; a childhood friend of mine was recently
put into a coma by a man quite a bit larger than him who spent half
an hour working him over with a heavy lead pipe.  He was hurt badly and lost
most of his teeth, but not dead - I would wager that the same attacks
from a dagger or a sword would have rendered him pretty much mincemeat.