[MUD-Dev] Better Combat

[Craig Huber]

Byron Ellacott wrote:

> Or, as you said, defense won't get your opponent to 0 or fewer hit
> points.  It's just not limited to D&D style combat - all combat
> follows this property.

> (If someone has a counterexample, I would love to hear it!)

A couple of potential counter-examples:

Victory through resource depletion I'm not a boxing aficianado, so I
can't give a specific bout as an example.  However, if you picked
any 10 boxing matches that went beyond round 10, I am fairly certain
you would find at least one where the victory was credited to
allowing the opponent to wear themselves out with an
aggressive/offensive burst at the beginning of the match against
effective defensive maneuvering.

Victory through finding and exploiting a vulnerability/mistake I can
recall a few football games (ritualized combat: pretty weird rules,
tho, I admit) where victory was achieved by an effective defense
exploiting the mistakes of the opposing offense.  Probably more than
half of the climactic battles in cinema could be cast in this light
as well, but that doesn't really count (I'd say Star Wars, but that
was a case of an ineffective/inadequate defense...)

I admit, neither of the above cases is an example of being 100%
defensive...  they are instead cases of reserving offensive bursts
until the appropriate moment.  However, they are counter-examples to
"100% offensive is always superior", and perhaps even illustrate one
of the ways in which the specific abstractions of D&D (ignored
exhaustion, no loss of effectiveness to injury/fatigue, one number
measuring all aspects of well-being) can subtly color the
discussion.

Craig
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