[MUD-Dev] Alternative Hit Point Systems?

[Trickey]

From: Sasha.Hart at directory.reed.edu

> 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.

One system I starting work on was accruing Danger Points rather than
reducing hitpoints.  I was considering movie-style combat, which has
the common rule that lethal weapons almost never hit until the final
killing shot/blow.  The exception is the "ouch" hit to the shoulder,
leg, etc that's just for drama.  This pretty much holds true in most
action movies, whether its a sword or a machine gun.

So the idea is that attacks don't immediately deliver hitpoint
damage, but rather increase the target's Danger Level, which is a
measure of how close the character is to getting struck with that
final lethal blow (or one of the threshold "ouch" blows).  There
were quite a few special cases in it (like the strange fact that
throwing a punch in the middle of a gunfight is invariably a GOOD
thing), but that's the central point.

Keep in mind, I didn't completely work out the system; I switched to
a different project before finishing it, and that project doesn't
make sense with movie-style combat, so unfortunately I don't know if
it's a viable approach or not. But there's the idea for what it's
worth :)

Rob Trickey

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