Changing the -6 Safety Net

[FoamBats4All]

Welcome to ALFA, where it's in-character for a creature to prioritize a neutralized threat over the thing pummeling it in the face?

[Galadorn]

...which is why I bring up the fallacy of misleading vividness. Humans have well-established cognitive flaws that will cause them to inflate the priorities of these issues in their minds to help provide this pressure. It's probably why Galadorn is just above me here, formatting his post like it's Time Cube.

Agreed. Being born on Krypton though, this wouldn't apply to me.

Which is why my editing was for 'emphasis' only.

I save my cognitive flaws' comments for my sarcastic posts on this silly yellow sun planet.

((but i understand! j/k Zelk you da bess massah))



Up up and away!

[Galadorn]

...I know most folks just don't want to play the fighter with a halberd and scale mail (no, you cant play him - that's my next concept)...

Awesome plan. What about my next concept? Pure fighter, using Quarterstaff who never wears any armor heavier than light armor (and NO Chain Shirts either!) ...with desires to seek out a weapon master in quarterstaff....? ((or become the first one!))

I think i win!

[Wild Wombat]

This isn't really the place to discuss tech stuff, and I don't think tech politics should affect which changes we deem desirable.

I will always argue that the viability of getting the change made is the primary concern when talking about any change...

+1 (Seriously? We can't bring reality into a brainstorming session?)

As for the rest of the discussion, I got lost many posts ago. I don't really understand the whole -6 concept and am not sure I really care. But keep it or get rid of it, the way I play is not going to change: I play my PCs as rational beings that want to survive. Maybe one day I will play a "damn the torpedoes" kind of PC ... and will be prepared to quickly roll up another since a PC like that should not survive to see level 2.

[Ronan]

+1 (Seriously? We can't bring reality into a brainstorming session?)

I didn't mean it that way. I was just referring to politics and people's current workloads, not implementations. Implementations of course should be discussed. Edit: though at this point there's not much else left to discuss. Everyone seems to agree that some penalty is needed for 'using' the floor, so now its a matter of 'what', which is heavily tied to implementation. Anyway, my implementation idea was rejected.

In that thread, it would probably be helpful if we started to make a list of approved stuffs which tech or whomever can add to the game at their leisure.

Welcome to ALFA, where it's in-character for a creature to prioritize a neutralized threat over the thing pummeling it in the face?

I don't think anyone has suggested a change to the 'loses interest' scripts, though obviously they don't work so well in some situations. Sometimes a DM steps in, most times not.

[Zelknolf]

There is another common cognitive error wherein having a couple people say one thing many times makes the listener believe that a larger population supports that opinion.

Those people who advocate no change spoke up early, but exist, and do not appear to be a trivial number of people-- just people who didn't continue to rattle about here. And we do totally have a thread exactly for things that we would trust just anyone to pick up -- I really don't think a change to acr_death_i would be on that list, though. All of that stuff about changing death being too risky gets worse when the contributor is unproven or unreliable.

[Ronan]

A lot of people advocated not removing the floor, which I don't think anyone actually proposed except for Galadorn. Similarly, Heegz is the only one who suggested it be strengthened. MI said she'd only object to a penalty if it stalled DM sessions. OGR said he'd prefer a slight nerf, or just have DMs police abuse. Fionn, BB and T-ice tossed around all sorts of penalty-proposals. Adanu didn't state a clear opinion. Rumple and I are obviously not happy with the way thing works currently. Zelk has stated she would prefer some sort of nerf or penalty. From this I assume HEEGZ is the only one set against a use-penalty, while many others are on the fence, don't care, or haven't continued reading the thread.

Anyway, this is why we have polls. I only bothered with this thread because the change I had in mind was so simple to implement.

Edit: Gala, I would love it if we didn't need the floor, but I just can't see mixed-level parties working without it. If a level 1 could always find 4 other level 1s to go hunt CR 1/3 kobolds, then no we probably wouldn't need safety measures. Alas, I don't think I've ever seen a party of five level ones!

[Khazar Stoneblood]

A lot of people advocated not removing the floor, which I don't think anyone actually proposed except for Galadorn. Similarly, Heegz is the only one who suggested it be strengthened. MI said she'd only object to a penalty if it stalled DM sessions. OGR said he'd prefer a slight nerf, or just have DMs police abuse. Fionn, BB and T-ice tossed around all sorts of penalty-proposals. Adanu didn't state a clear opinion. Rumple and I are obviously not happy with the way thing works currently. Zelk has stated she would prefer some sort of nerf or penalty. From this I assume HEEGZ is the only one set against a use-penalty, while many others are on the fence, don't care, or haven't continued reading the thread.

Anyway, this is why we have polls. I only bothered with this thread because the change I had in mind was so simple to implement.

Edit: Gala, I would love it if we didn't need the floor, but I just can't see mixed-level parties working without it. If a level 1 could always find 4 other level 1s to go hunt CR 1/3 kobolds, then no we probably wouldn't need safety measures. Alas, I don't think I've ever seen a party of five level ones!

We might have had that a couple of times in Adanu's WHL campaign. Though now we're more spread over the 1-3 level range.

[Galadorn]

Edit: Gala, I would love it if we didn't need the floor, but I just can't see mixed-level parties working without it. If a level 1 could always find 4 other level 1s to go hunt CR 1/3 kobolds, then no we probably wouldn't need safety measures. Alas, I don't think I've ever seen a party of five level ones!

Oh yeaaa. Yes yes yes! ...this IS a very good point I did not realise thank you.

The mixed parties in "ALFA" is a very different but real "thing" compared to PnP (which we say we are trying to emulate as best we can). Which obviously leads weaker PCs towards tougher spawns even, when a powerhouse PC is there... and even in DM sessions, same idea. Yup.

I think I overlooked this because, well, for 3 years, i've played pretty much a loner, so 99% chance never had anyone with me by choice.

My quarterstaff weilding, light armor wearing, acrobatic fighter (next PC in line, most likely 2018 roll-up, har!) will be much more social! And thank god a lot less "crafty"! (double har har!)

[t-ice]

Welcome to ALFA, where it's in-character for a creature to prioritize a neutralized threat over the thing pummeling it in the face?

Assuming that the "neutralized" threat has jumped back up to full strength twice already because he wasn't finished when he was down. What would any half-sentient creature do when he goes down the 3rd time?

What I continue stress with a "saved from death by the floor penalty" is that it should be by reducing the fighting ability of the PC (physical attacks and spellcasting both!), not making that PC more vulnerable. No turning off the floor. We don't need more low-level deaths. In a mixed-level party the lowest levels are prone to serial floorings, even if they try to disengage after the first. Also the AI is unpredictable, sometimes it just makes a beeline past everyone else and goes to gang- and serial- youknow that low-level rogue at the back of party.

I disagree to a point that if you hit the -6 cap you should not physically be able to go on. There is a reason we have high level spells, because high level spells do amazing things.

Yes the penalties could be quickly removable by high magic but it should not be simple hp healing spells, no matter the level. That kind of magic is the likes of (greater) restoration or regenerate, not 5 CLWs, a CCW or even a heal. (Which is partly why negative levels was my first "simple improvement" suggestion) Also it bears to mention that in the core rules the spells that restore trauma beyond hit point loss have a minimum casting time of 3 rounds (restoration line, regenerate, raise dead line) (Heal teeters on the fence, as even it cannot heal level or ability drain). Debilitating damage is clearly not intended to be fixed so readily mid-combat like nwn2 spells do (the restoration line also fixes much more in nwn2 per casting, and has cheaper and faster castings). While yes, I'm sure there's a small library of add on rulebooks that overrule just those core features, and miracle/wish does it in one standard action too, both of those are quite out there as far as ALFA is concerned.

If a "fighting efficiency penalty" is imposed, the floor could even be raised higher from -6, perhaps all the way to, say, -3? That'd pretty much remove the twitchy fingers and keyboard shortcuts -dependency on survival of downed partymates. It'd also be a benefit to anyone dropped to between -4 and -9 (as they would go to -3 and suffer no penalty). And it would reduce the urgency to get downed PCs immediately back up and into the fight.

Old timers who fondly recall the time before the safety net might be more prone to RPing it as a semi-ooc-saved-from-death feature, and after flooring restraining their PCs as if they had suffered debilitating wounds. New players won't have the memory of the history or the original intent of the system, so you can't really blame people for being more prone to "powergaming" the system at face value, taking whack-a-moling as an intended feature in ALFA combat. The "it's not even a challenge if no whack-a-moling" attitude. In a permadeath, hardcore-rp pw we can expect people to not metagame in all circumstances expect when their PC's death is imminent. Exhibit A: the cvc record. So the safety net system really needs to be mechanical, not relying on player RP or DM arbitration much.

[kid]

Well...
Sense we're not in DnD rules anyways. (meaning there's no -6 in DnD thats something we made up to acomidate our needs)
How about we scratch that -6, and scratch the -10 as well.

How about making death happen at -20 or something like that and have no floor?

This would give lots of time for helping bleeders but would still give a good chance of dying if taking massive risks like giant axes and death spells?
(which would bring you to minus whatever and death anyways)

There are pros and cons to our system but we're not married to it.
Its just a tool for us to have a game that suits our needs.

I don't mind helping out a bleeder but I hate the wackamole situation. More so when the wacking comes from frost giants or other massive damage (could be 20 arrows just the same).

I know people hate thinking outside our costums and habbits but im sure there are other ways to acomplish what we want other than the -6 cap.

[SwordSaintMusashi]

Well...
Sense we're not in DnD rules anyways. (meaning there's no -6 in DnD thats something we made up to acomidate our needs)
How about we scratch that -6, and scratch the -10 as well.

How about making death happen at -20 or something like that and have no floor?

This would give lots of time for helping bleeders but would still give a good chance of dying if taking massive risks like giant axes and death spells?
(which would bring you to minus whatever and death anyways)

There are pros and cons to our system but we're not married to it.
Its just a tool for us to have a game that suits our needs.

I don't mind helping out a bleeder but I hate the wackamole situation. More so when the wacking comes from frost giants or other massive damage (could be 20 arrows just the same).

I know people hate thinking outside our costums and habbits but im sure there are other ways to acomplish what we want other than the -6 cap.

This isn't just a habit or custom: It is a system written into our game world that takes time and effort to modify, and as stated above, we're not creating a whole new system willy nilly for it.

To use your example, we are very much married to it, and getting rid of it would be a divorce. How messy a divorce only a tech person could tell you.

[Zelknolf]

It would be a divorce in late 1400s CE, and the pope's sick of hearing our requests for annulment. Yeah, we need an heir, but no one's believing that the marriage wasn't consummated. Just look at the kids. Prolly have to trump up some strange charges of treason and execute NWN2 to get out of it.

Maybe we'll get lucky, and one of the daughters will be good at our job.

(namely, NWN2 defines OnDeath at -10 hit points. I don't know that we can change that, so we'd have to invent a system where dead isn't dead, and then convince every system of our new definition of dead, and then make a new event with new handling for the new dead that becomes our idea of dead.)

[Ronan]

Its possible to simulate additional hp by tracking damage to creatures and healing them as its dealt in the OnDamaged event, like we did with NWN1 subdual* or do with our current floor. So you can turn -10 hp into -100 or whatever, but yeah it would be a messy divorce. Probably something to consider if the system was re-written from scratch.

* This implementation had a lot of bugs, but our NWN1 code (especially subdual, and anything related to magic) was really bad and probably written by 20 random people. So I would guess those bugs were not related to the general technique.

[Ronan]

The worst part is that the floor is tied in with lots of other logic. Morgue handling, lootable bodies, resurrection and probably more I'm forgetting. Its what is commonly referred to as spaghetti code, because making changes to it involves untangling masses of spaghetti and is very error-prone. Ideally a lot of those systems would be separated from each other. This is why Zelk says the system is difficult to maintain and make changes to (because it is in many cases, though some things like the Spirit Shaman changes were pretty easy).