KO'd, Accessible Inventory?

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Brokenbone
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KO'd, Accessible Inventory?

Post by Brokenbone »

Anyone know of any systems "out there" (vault, other PWs, wherever) where being incapacitated means another PC could interact with target's inventory?

Have had weird situations where in mega battles folks get KO'd, comrades run out of healing, and it's really only after the bleeder becomes a corpse, that you might dive on them to grab a potion that boy, would've been handy to help them with about 6-12 seconds earlier.

Obviously there could be other applications, like "beat up in subdual, mug someone", or problematic ways to do it, like "I'm going to loot full plate with a click off of my downed buddy, yes I am that fast at stripping him while surrounded by dragons", just wondered if there were any systems like that known / observed out there.

Mugging isn't actually that big a scenario for me, I'd figure some kind of "barter a bunch of good stuff... or I will just turn on regular damage and not argue with your corpse" is always a way to encourage behaviour. I am more thinking of the "what if the guy with all the healing supplies amongst a bunch of poor folks who are tapped out, goes down with all kinds of shiny potions you know could save him?"

EDIT - so that could even mean a "must be in same party" safeguard if think this kind of idea creates mugger paradise.
ALFA NWN2 PCs: Rhaggot of the Bruised-Eye, and Bamshogbo
ALFA NWN1 PC: Jacobim Foxmantle
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t-ice
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Re: KO'd, Accessible Inventory?

Post by t-ice »

Sounds to me like something to do with the "use first aid" meta item, and the script it activates. If there's a healing potion on the downed PC, feed one to him when the healing is applied. Only use heal skill if no potion is available.
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Re: KO'd, Accessible Inventory?

Post by Zelknolf »

One interested in seeing how actually giving people access to a downed PC's inventory explodes might have a peek at whatever the latest chapter of Escape(d) from Underdark is-- I have written a more-muted version than that (downed PCs expose their healing magics to others) elsewhere, but the borked quickslots that resulted were often party killers anyway. Suppose we could do it elegantly, but we'd need a spanking new UI for that (which we'd only really be able to reuse to make picking pockets a more sensible mechanic).
t-ice wrote:Sounds to me like something to do with the "use first aid" meta item, and the script it activates. If there's a healing potion on the downed PC, feed one to him when the healing is applied. Only use heal skill if no potion is available.
This, however, would be far more elegant than actually rifling through the downed PC's pockets. The trick is in finding out if that's what the PC meant to do-- this would usually be the case, sure, but if, say, my character were to use the first aid kit on a downed PC, I almost certainly mean "I want this guy to stay down, but I don't want this guy to die."
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Brokenbone
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Re: KO'd, Accessible Inventory?

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I do remember weird NWN1 systems where knocking someone out meant a bag of their goodies appeared near them, to loot. Maybe saw at City of Arabel before "discovering" ALFA. Never tried EfU. Heard lots about it.

The first aid widget thing though might be a good example of lateral thinking!

First Aid (Heal Skill): you have your "first aid kit" or "healer's kit (+2?)" on a quick slot, and try to use it, it calls on the Heal skill.

First Aid (Scavenge): perhaps a Search check is run instead, having zero items in inventory with a "Cure" type power on them, and no class restrictions that exclude the searcher (Fighter discovering a Scroll of Cure Critical Wounds is useless, he'd not bother with it, would he?) perhaps means auto fail, beat a certain DC and you pull something useful, and perhaps use it ASAP?

Search should normally be a full round action for like, a whole mess of goods five feet on a side, and I suppose force-feeding a potion would be a standard action, but maybe it wouldn't be that nasty to have "everything happen at once." Pulling a potion into your own inventory, finding it somewhere in an inventory "hole", right clicking it to get a targeting reticle, targeting the downed guy, sounds like a gong show.

I'd figure if a Search DC of like, 10, would do it, based on the "Ransack a chest full of junk to find a certain item" suggested DC10 from SRD. Or you could take 20 (rounds, that is) for a guaranteed result, and guaranteed bleed out, ha ha.

Again, just wondered if anyone had seen any inspiring systems "out there", but I guess thinking in terms of a first aid "heal skill stop bleed", maybe there could be a "search skill, force a potion" alternative. Maybe a less dramatic thing to do than open an entire inventory up and notice names on stuff like "Secret Sharran Cloak, Secret Sharran Keychain, Secret Warlock Pact in Blood", etc.
ALFA NWN2 PCs: Rhaggot of the Bruised-Eye, and Bamshogbo
ALFA NWN1 PC: Jacobim Foxmantle
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Re: KO'd, Accessible Inventory?

Post by Ronan »

On KO copy everything in a player's inventory and slots to a newly-created Merchant object. Add a "loot" right-click menu item which opens this store if the player is KO'd (or maybe sleeping, with appropriate listen / SoH checks). Anything taken from the store gets destroyed in the player's inventory.

The right-click item would show up regardless of factions and thus would not cause crashes for the DM Client.

Edit: BB got it off before me. A pack probably makes more sense. I don't think we'd need to script delays in this case as it'd be hard to find what you're looking for just due to the number of items to sort through in one little window. Some PCs will overflow the container and so not everything would be lootable, but that'd be pretty rare and we could always grab healing items first.

In the future you could even add a "body" to the bag for the other PC to pick up. This could turn the KO'd PC cutscene invisible and invulnerable until he's set on the ground again or he wakes up.
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Re: KO'd, Accessible Inventory?

Post by Zelknolf »

Well, not really meta to find things that are physically there-- though I think there's something quite wrong if the flavor text on visible equipped items contains some dark terrible secret that we're not supposed to know ("Hey, you don't know I'm a Banite just because every equipment slot contains an item depicting a fist clenching a green light!") -- the problem is more that most such systems physically remove the item from the character (destroying inventory organization and quickslots-- some claim that to be perfectly in character, but I'm thinking "Oh no, I got knocked out by this poisonous gas. The healing scroll that I keep strapped to the back of my shield is no longer there!") or copy them (vulnerable to cheating on numerous angles).

Search might be sensible-- it's supposed to be a full round action to just "find an item in your backpack," and I doubt that people are going to hide their life-saving potions-- and doubt they'd complain about people being able to get at them if it prevents character death. Can't say what priority it could be given; it would mean changing some of the structure of how we run first aid.

I've made a ticket about it, in any case. Not something I can jump on right now, as I'm currently stuck between doing some development or leaving some obnoxious "gotcha" logging in long term (and I'd prefer the former).
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Regalis
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Re: KO'd, Accessible Inventory?

Post by Regalis »

One of the major NWN2 worlds, though I can't remember which one, had a custom pickpocketing system that pulled up a gui of the target's inventory and let the cutpurse decide which item they wanted to lift.

Slightly repurposing a well implemented pickpocketing system might be an easy way to accomplish this.
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Re: KO'd, Accessible Inventory?

Post by Brokenbone »

I'd say sure, it's low priority, it was just a wondering out loud kind of "brainstorm" item, thanks for the "ticket thinking" on that, recognizing it's short strokes time for 1.87, which takes priority big time.

Something to satisfy the healer, the mugger, and the pickpocket community, what a riot that'd be, hah. Here, let me cast hold person on you and steal your diamond ring...

I imagine though a big fat popup of 100 items and a square that blocks seeing 1/6th of a map, during combat, would be pretty klunky. An OOC "Scavenge Healing" icon to drag to quickslot and attempt a one-click calculation of "did you find anything useful, and apply whatever the hell you found" may fit real time scenes well though, no?
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Re: KO'd, Accessible Inventory?

Post by Ronan »

All items copied to the "loot bag" get a local object pointer set to their original item on the PC. If removed from the loot bag, the original gets destroyed. If for whatever reason this object pointer does not point to a valid object, the taken item gets destroyed (so nothing happens). If the PC logs, the bag goes poof. How can this be exploited?
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Re: KO'd, Accessible Inventory?

Post by Regalis »

Brokenbone wrote:I imagine though a big fat popup of 100 items and a square that blocks seeing 1/6th of a map, during combat, would be pretty klunky. An OOC "Scavenge Healing" icon to drag to quickslot and attempt a one-click calculation of "did you find anything useful, and apply whatever the hell you found" may fit real time scenes well though, no?
Well, you think people should readily be able to follow the flow of combat, whilst frantically rifling through another's possessions?

Even so, if I were going to implement a system like this, I would allow muggers/guardian angels/hamburglars to filter what they were looking for. Maybe along the lines of Potions, Scrolls, Wands, Weapons, Ammo, and Valuables. Then they might get their hands on a limited number of said items every few seconds of looking, with the number and accuracy being dependent both upon their skill and the nature of the inventory in question. Then I think one left click might loot an item. Double left click might attempt to use the item on themselves. Single right click might attempt to use the item on the victim, and double right click to attempt only to stablize.

If potions and wands had been selected, the interface might hypothetically look something like this:
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Re: KO'd, Accessible Inventory?

Post by t-ice »

Ronan wrote:All items copied to the "loot bag" get a local object pointer set to their original item on the PC. If removed from the loot bag, the original gets destroyed. If for whatever reason this object pointer does not point to a valid object, the taken item gets destroyed (so nothing happens). If the PC logs, the bag goes poof. How can this be exploited?
The PC who falls unconscious could have items taken by his "friends". And without a DM there is no way to get them back, short of killing/KOing the taker. There might also not even be a certain way to know who of the adjacent allies took the valuable item off the KOd PC while fighting sans DM. Ninja-looting your own party! It's not a huge problem, but people who get their kicks off creating inter-PC squabble, which might well be argued IC and thus fair RP, could probably get some tools for troubling sans DM CvC.

I have a feeling we're drifting off to what these brainstorms always do: Utopian designs of massive complexity and scope. The problem is simple: You can't use potions from a downed PC to heal himself, only your own potions. Fix it by having a script and a trigger that does just that. There isn't need for a tool to strip all gear off a unconscious PC, is there? However realistic one might consider it, that crosses to CvC and thus is DM territory.

Presumably a PC entering a fight would have potions ready on a belt or some such (otherwise drinking a potion would take more than the 3secs it does now). So a friend could feed a potion from the downed PC's belt readily. Presumably party members entering combat would show each other where they could reach each others potions to save each others lives, too.
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Re: KO'd, Accessible Inventory?

Post by Ronan »

t-ice wrote:I have a feeling we're drifting off to what these brainstorms always do: Utopian designs of massive complexity and scope.
Being able to loot a KOed (N)PC* is much easier to code than a heuristic which loops through the inventory to try an figure what can be used to heal (chiefly because dealing with item properties is a PITA, and unique powers is nigh impossible).

Emoting who takes what from a loot bag is one line of code, if that functionality is desired.

Picking up and carrying a PC's unconscious body would be more work, of course. It could wait.

* Making it work on NPCs would require changes to the looting system, at the very least, since NPCs frequently have powerful magic items they don't drop for wealth reasons.
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Re: KO'd, Accessible Inventory?

Post by t-ice »

Ronan wrote:Being able to loot a KOed (N)PC* is much easier to code than a heuristic which loops through the inventory to try an figure what can be used to heal (chiefly because dealing with item properties is a PITA, and unique powers is nigh impossible).
Loop through inventory to see if any of 4 items is there: CLW, CMW, CSW, CCW potions. Can be referenced by tag, far as I know. Make a line of note to those potions descriptions that others can use it on you when you are down. No need to include scrolls, wands, wonderous items etc that could potentially heal under some circumstance. That's just ridiculously complex, as you note. Recall that by the canon rules you need to study a scroll before you can use it:
d20srd wrote:The writing on a scroll must be deciphered before a character can use it or know exactly what spell it contains. This requires a read magic spell or a successful Spellcraft check (DC 20 + spell level).

Deciphering a scroll to determine its contents does not activate its magic unless it is a specially prepared cursed scroll. A character can decipher the writing on a scroll in advance so that he or she can proceed directly to the next step when the time comes to use the scroll.
So you can't just pick someone else's scroll and fire away, by the rules. And it's good that the mechanism doesn't give more power to divine casters.

It's all good if this increases utility of potions that doesn't carry over to scrolls, wands, heal/day rings etc. Potions are equally available to all classes, and generally seem to have taken a sad back seat due to heal rings being what everyone packs.
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Re: KO'd, Accessible Inventory?

Post by Zelknolf »

All items copied to the "loot bag" get a local object pointer set to their original item on the PC. If removed from the loot bag, the original gets destroyed. If for whatever reason this object pointer does not point to a valid object, the taken item gets destroyed (so nothing happens). If the PC logs, the bag goes poof. How can this be exploited?
I didn't say that it couldn't be done, I note-- I just would be hesitant to take someone else's system of the sort, because I've always been able to break the ones I've found with minimal effort. We could clean them up, sure; we have existing UIs that are just fine for displaying and swiping inventory which might be repurposed (we don't have to give all of the information in the Inventory Report GUI, for example, and that would work for planting items too); we could also provide a "look for healing item on unconscious dude; use on unconscious dude" on the context menu or as another freebie feat. Far from an impossible project, as long as it doesn't die in scope creep.
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Re: KO'd, Accessible Inventory?

Post by t-ice »

Far from an impossible project, as long as it doesn't die in scope creep
We can cover 95% of use cases with just the the cure potions. Ninja -inventory swap actions are also not exactly agreeing with the canon rules, are they? Plus it crosses to CvC territory when one PC is given access to make non-consensual changes to another's invetory.
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