[MUD-Dev] Alternative Hit Point Systems?

[Sasha Hart]

[Ammon Lauritzen]
> [Jack Britt]

>> I was wondering if anyone had any ideas or concepts for a
>> different way of doing hit points?

> Apart from storing health in some sort of number or set of
> numbers? I don't think there is any other way that could be
> implemented in a computer game.

Something I toyed with for a while was probabilistic damage.  I
won't vouch for the sanity of the idea, but it accomplished certain
odd goals. It is more or less an extreme spin on the already
existing variability in hits (variable hit points, "to-hit rolls"
and the like. I got started on it as part of a bigger project to get
rid of problems like the death of a thousand paper cuts.

Instead of manipulating exactly how many points it is until death
(reducing hit points by variable amount), you would each round
basically roll a die. This would allow you in principle to keep less
state per combatant; I saw this as a kind of accessory for "monsters
lite" that took up very little memory, or a model to apply per part
of a more detailed monster.

Obviously you can change the probability as a function of anything,
ensure a death at some point, and so on. My code back then applied
it per-part, and each part's capabilities were effectively disabled
or enabled by the wound labels that would be applied to it in the
course of the probabilistic fighting. IMO it worked OK, in some
respects better and in others worse. It's been shelved.

Sasha

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