[MUD-Dev] Triangular Damage Infliction System

[Travis Casey]

Ben wrote:
> 
> <EdNote reformatted for readability (some linewrap fixes)>
> 
> I will briefly restate what has been said already on this topic, for the
> sake of those who haven't been paying attention.
> 
> In this system all HPs a person are arranged in a triangular arrangement.
> For example 33 HP would be represented as:
> 
>     *
>     **
>     ***
>     ****
>     *****
>     ******
>     ******
>     *****
>
> Basically what happens is each row can be assigned damage.  If there
> ** are enough hp left in that row to handle the damage, the damage
> is marked *** off.  If not, the damage overflows, the amount of
> overflow dictates what **** negative effects, and the severity of
> them.  In this way, a person with ***** more hitpoints can take a
> LOT more small hits than a person with moderate ****** hitpoints, as
> well as being able to take a larger hit, without a negative *******
> effect.  *****

There are a few things that can be varied easily here to create
variants:

  - how many hit points go in the smallest row
  - the rate of increase of size for rows
  - the ordering of rows
  - the method used to decide what row should be used

Also, it's possible to add internal thresholds -- filling a row above
a certain level may cause negative effects, without an actual
"overflow".

Something that's happened on rpg-create since I first introduced this
system there is that people have started referring to any system that
features "overflows" of damage without all of a character's hit points
being gone as a damage triangle system, whether it has an actual
triangle or not.  Some people have been using "damage triangles" which
have trapezoidal, rectangular, or other arrangements.
 
> This system provides a fairly good method of dealing with negative
> effects, such as scars, unconsciousness, etc...  The key is having a
> good algorithm to a) decide which row to put the damage into, and b)
> decide what effect happens.  The problem with part b, is that the
> percent of overflow should decide the effect or something, because
> if one damage overflows into a row with only 1, should it be equal
> to, less severe, or more severe than if it overflowed into a row
> with 10?  Granted the algorithm probably wouldn't put it in the 10,
> but if that is all that's left, it probably shouldn't do as much,
> after all, it is only 1/10 of a row, whereas the one is a whole row.
> BUT: it may make more sense to have it equal.  Because in this 1
> damage is overflowing either way you look at it.

It really depends on what the hit points are representing.  The
original damage triangle idea was to allow for an increasing hit-point
system like the classical D&D system, where hit points represent a
character's ability to reduce the damage they take as well as their
actual physical damage capacity, while preventing the problem that
characters have huge "safety margins" in which they can fight knowing
that they're perfectly safe for several more rounds.  The basic idea
was that a character had a certain ability to reduce damage, and as
the fight continued, that would be worn down.  A few low-damage hits
might not significantly impact their ability, but a single high-damage
hit might... or might even be beyond their reduction ability, and
cause an immediate effect.

In this sort of case, the "overflow" is considered to be real damage
(i.e., damage that the character wasn't able to avoid by taking the
blow at an angle, rolling with the blow, etc., but which actually got
through), so an overflow of X points should affect a particular
character the same way whether it was on a 10-point row or a 2-point
row.

However, if the damage triangle is representing something else, than
doing it by proportions might make sense.  For example, if the
triangle is being used to represent only physical ability to take
damage (with non-overflow points being "minor wounds" that cause real
damage, but don't have immediate effects), and the smaller rows
represent more vital areas (which can take less damage before
suffering a "major wound"), then using the proportion might make
sense.  (Of course, you'd probably also want to use a different
algorithm than "stick it in the smallest row that can take it" for
assigning damage to rows.)

--
       |\      _,,,---,,_     Travis S. Casey  <efindel at earthlink.net>
 ZZzz  /,`.-'`'    -.  ;-;;,_   No one agrees with me.  Not even me.
      |,4-  ) )-,_..;\ (  `'-' 
     '---''(_/--'  `-'\_)
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