The -6 floor: Desired behavior & tech rezes.

[Brokenbone]

<SNIP>

Then again, this is D&D, where a PC at the brink of death fights just as effectively as when fully healed, so maybe it's not worth going overboard with trying to model new systems in a simulationist direction? Beats me.

Ogre Barbarian with only one hit point left will still whack you for 30 damage with a decent greataxe power attack!

[Zelknolf]

I think we're getting into entirely new territory if we want to talk about death magic. It's an interesting thought if we decide we want to change it, but I feel like it will spawn a whole other debate/ discussion.

I would wonder if there are other ideas about the floor in terms of other ways to handle it, in the more-common-to-ALFA lower-level ways? I see "Don't fix it, it works fine as is;" "Just fix it, it's a game;" "Apply a long-term penalty which requires healing" and "Apply a short-term penalty which requires no healing" on the table.

[Blindhamsterman]

Then again, this is D&D, where a PC at the brink of death fights just as effectively as when fully healed, so maybe it's not worth going overboard with trying to model new systems in a simulationist direction? Beats me.

this is true.

if we want to punish people properly for getting knocked to negatives, then just remove the floor and have 'em die as per pnp, else leave it the same, giving negative levels etc isn't a D&D rule and will do one simple thing: make it highly likely the PC will die anyway in most situations.

As a player of one PC brought up a couple times... Elenaril does indeed play whack-a-mole at times, though I don't think he's been knocked to -6 more than twice in the same fight, and even that was only once. He's been knocked into negatives in the same fight more than twice only a relatively small number of times. But of those times, most of them were against high AB, high Damage enemies, if he'd had even a couple of levels dropped he'd be down again - losing more levels as he does, and going down etc etc. Simple fact is that often if he (or any other front liner) doesn't get back up and keep swinging as intended, someone else dies too.

On the otherhand, I think save or die spells actually killing people - would probably make sense.

So yeah, if we want to give a penalty fine, but count me amongst the players that'll just have to retire (hey! maybe what some would like anyway - another 'high level' being dropped )

[kid]

I'll dislike giving back power to the save or die spells we for some reason take
from the ogre barb or the fighter with the greatsowrd. (hint hint)

Both should have a chance to kill you.
No reasont to hinder the one while not doing the same with the other.
Great axe to the head should kill just the same as finger of death.

[Ithildur]

Well, nasty magic is usually more potent/dangerous in DnD than a piece of metal hitting you, even if the piece of metal hits you really hard (i.e. I doubt there's any way way a core fighter can kill a healthy tarresque with even the nastiest hit, but spells potentially can; it's one of the reasons why wizards get d4 while fighters get d10), so there is archetypal precedent for the way it is currently.

It's not RAW however, obviously, but then neither is the -6 cap.

Maybe percentage to kill isn't a bad idea; i.e. 50% chance the -6 kicks in, as intended behavior, and advertise accordingly that 'you may or may not get lucky'. That way if someone dies from the system bugging out, point to above disclaimer and scratch it to bad luck. A bit sloppy, but less headaches potentially.

The 'healing actually kills you more' thing would still need to get fixed though, and dual wielding/flurrying foes would still be more a bit more scary than the guy with the big greataxe which is odd. Casters would be feared, as they should be, and can make up for NWN2 AOE dmg spells being so crappy.

[Ronan]

So yeah, if we want to give a penalty fine, but count me amongst the players that'll just have to retire (hey! maybe what some would like anyway - another 'high level' being dropped )

Well I think the idea is that anything we do that makes a PC live longer than it should in 3.5 will tack on a serious temporary penalty, allowing PCs to flee, try again later, etc. I don't see this as totally pwning a PC like Elenaril, especially now that he has BS levels (hell, Maer has been tanking lately, and I don't remember the last time he hit the limiter).

As a DM I'd love to be able to send the PCs home packing with wounds.

[t-ice]

As a DM I'd love to be able to send the PCs home packing with wounds.

^This.

Simple fact is that often if he (or any other front liner) doesn't get back up and keep swinging as intended, someone else dies too.

So yeah, if we want to give a penalty fine, but count me amongst the players that'll just have to retire

That's only because the DMs are used to scaling the mobs challenge to the current rules, where that whack-a-mole is the norm. It will take DMs some learning to adjust to crippling blows being crippling, but at the end of the day, I believe the (temporary) crippling option would bring better challenges and more excitment. Since tanks getting ineffectual without actually dying is then a risk to factor in.

For not making the game wholly more lethal for tanks only, I suppose any penalty would be best to influence offensive ability a lot, defensive ability (like AC and/or hp) somewhat (so that tanks without meaningful offense can't just shrug it off), and not influence the ability to run away with the rest of the party. I suppose that would sum up to something like penalizing AB, spells known/prepared, and Dex/Con a little. Which is almost the same as negative levels, anyway.

[Basilica]

Well I think the idea is that anything we do that makes a PC live longer than it should in 3.5 will tack on a serious temporary penalty, allowing PCs to flee, try again later, etc. I don't see this as totally pwning a PC like Elenaril, especially now that he has BS levels (hell, Maer has been tanking lately, and I don't remember the last time he hit the limiter).

As a DM I'd love to be able to send the PCs home packing with wounds.

I'd like to note the following:

There are a lot of survival tips and tricks available "in 3.5" which are not available here. One way to think of the damage limiter is compensation for the vastly reduced means to escape, manipulate, or control combat situations that there are in NWN2 versus "in 3.5".

NWN2 is not a direct analog of tabletop. Allowances are made to make the high risks of a permadeath world bearable for a PW playerbase here compared to "raw NWN2" due to factors that are different in a fundamental sense between tabletop and a fast-paced action game like NWN2.

[Ronan]

Before we go further down a crusade to reduce survivability or penalize PCs for survivability...

Well, I was hoping to keep survivability roughly the same, while improving the system and fixing its bugs. As it stands if the system was fixed to work 'perfectly' survivability would increase.

My biggest issue is that multiple damage hits, whether in a single round or over time, should not be more dangerous than one big hit. Yeah this makes those ogre barbarians more dangerous, but it makes other things less so. As long as it balances out I don't much mind.

I hope any 'wound' system we implement will primarily effect the decision of the PCs to keep fighting after a dangerous encounter and prevent silly whack-a-moling, not decrease survivability in normal conflicts.

There are a lot of survival tips and tricks available "in 3.5" which are not available here. One way to think of the damage limiter is compensation for the vastly reduced means to escape, manipulate, or control combat situations that there are in NWN2 versus "in 3.5".

Yeah, but the same is even more true of mobs, who lack more of the abilities they'd have in pnp 3.5. NWN is after all focused on players and PC abilities.

One really nice thing about the current cap is that vs. single-damage opponents, lowbies tagging along with highbies are almost guaranteed not to die.

[Zelknolf]

Well, if we're looking for a ruling, I'd be the admin who says which things above are bugs, right? Tech owns the ACR, and this is pretty core ACR stuff.

Checking above, scenarios 1-3 are bugs; they're just not supposed to work that way. We should fix them. Fixes are better than tech rezzes; if anyone has ideas and would like a design review, please use the technical staff forum. Scenario 4 is not a bug; that's the system working as designed, and we answer it with "dead means dead."


I will pick through suggestions for a "wound" system and see what's actually on the table. I'm not terribly keen on a number of things presented, because I don't want our system which was originally designed to provide mercy due to our permadeath environment to turn into an agonizingly-teasing game of cat and mouse with permadeath (namely, minus str means encumberance means death; minus movement means can't run means death; we'd need to be very careful with what we penalize to represent "was recently maimed" such that we can respond to whack-a-mole fights in a reasonable but pointed "You're losing; run away you silly bastards." fashion.)

[kid]

To pervent the wack a mole situation without killing the downed guy I was thinking...
(if at all possible and disirable)

maybe during combat someone downed to negative will not be able to resume fighting at all and would either...
a. just stop bleeding then be healed only when combat is done and he is able to be get some respite. that way if party wins, toon is alive, if party loses toon is left to the mercy of mobs.
b. toon can be healed and move, but cannot attack until combat is done.
that way toon is able to run away.
(maybe it can be done by giving dazed state...
or something similar, not sure what does what exactly)

we could limit that only to cases when one is knocked to -6 and would actualy otherwise most likely be dead to not hinder people who dropped to -2 and would be able to be healed and keep fighting in core rules.

That way massive crits who would have killed you as well as death spells would at the very least make you unavilabe in the current battle.
after all the cap is there to not off PCs on the spot, not to allow them to beat the encouters. giving an option to not die and maybe even flee seems more than kind.

[Ithildur]

I like this thought. The cap is not meant to result in wackamole, and is not meant to give repeated chances to defeat an encounter that should've been lethal by benefiting from a safety net that mobs do not get.

If a PC is damaged (legitimately) where they would've gone below -9 but got saved by the cap, let them stabilize upon receiving healing/heal check but be unavailable for that encounter. In order to save that PC, the rest of the party needs to defeat the bad guys (or at least lure off, retreat/runaway and regroup)and bring him to positive HPs once out of combat mode. This would fix bug #3 as well as eliminate battles being won by a guy who should really have been dead per RAW.




As for introducing extra penalties to make things more realistic, as AL stated this is DnD, and we're talking about magical and abstracted healing and HP system that can bring someone from the brink of death to full HPs if the spell is potent enough, well, magically, and they're fit to go. It's not first aid, it's not a heal check or surgery, etc. (btw I play in a pbp game that features some surgery and more permanent damage that cure spells can't patch up; it's interesting at times, annoying at other times).

Besides, isn't that what stuff like wights, vamps, stirges, Enervating casters, etc are for (assuming all these effects work more or less correctly)? If you want people to fear long term effects that aren't waved away with a few low lvl cure spells or items, utilize these guys. That's the fun/purpose of having a wide variety of such critters.

If we set out to make things feel grittier with drain effects for nasty falls during combat that's well and good (and honestly may fit ALFA's ethos better; face it, we already play a much grittier game than a lot of DnD campaigns at least where rules, numbers, and such are concerned), but it needs to be understood by all that we are making the game grittier than not just stock NWN2, but stock DnD.

[t-ice]

this is DnD, and we're talking about magical and abstracted healing and HP system that can bring someone from the brink of death to full HPs if the spell is potent enough, well, magically, and they're fit to go.

Which is why something like Negative Levels would be very nice: You need magic of equivalent "fantasticness" to the injury, and Restoration would about fit the bill for popping up to full swing after nearly being cleaven in half. Level 7 is nicely in there between "gritty" and "heroic fantastic" level. Lesser restoration, let alone "just" piling up CLWs is rather trivial compared to a "zOMG awful injury!".

wights, vamps, stirges, Enervating casters ... If you want people to fear long term effects that aren't waved away with a few low lvl cure spells or items, utilize these guys. That's the fun/purpose of having a wide variety of such critters.

Yeah, all of these guys have their place. But even if it's against "simple" orcs, PCs bouncing back whack-a-mole in a single fight isn't much more silly than the party pushing on, several members nearly dying encounter after encounter, and just keeping on pushing whack-a-mole, stamina unhindered, until victory or TPK. Or let's say that at least it doesn't fall into the low-level regime of "gritty adventure" and CLW potions, but sure sounds like something that needs some (mid-level) restoration spells to infuse in the positive energy.

it needs to be understood by all that we are making the game grittier than not just stock NWN2, but stock DnD.

By "stock DnD" anyone saved by the floor would have been killed until dead. Anything less than death for them by our systems, no matter how gruesome a penalty, is less gritty. (With the caveat that arguably death comes easier in the real-time nwn2 than turn-based DnD. But we also already have (almost) double hp for PCs, and not for mobs, to counteract this.)

But all in all, "saved by the floor" equalling being unable to get up for the rest of the encounter would be decent. The concern I see in it, is that it pins the party into not being able to escape the encounter without abandoning the downed PC. It removes any chance that PC has of being healed and fleeing under current rules. Which might lead to a distinct lack of tanks in our PC base, and metagaming by characters suddenly being suicidially loyal due to player to player loyalty. (Character deaths is where the no-metagaming rule really gets stretched, after all.)

As far as telling stories of more lasting wounds (or stressing to a stubborn-ly pressing-on party: "run away you fools!"), the DM can also cast enervations from the avatar

[I-KP]

If the spirit behind the -6 floor is meant to somewhat mitigate the perma-death aspect of ALFA (and to indirectly push the notion of never going it alone) then it should do exactly what it says on the tin in all likely cases; translating a death result as per PnP into a 'no longer able to help beat the encounter' in this context works for me, with the method by which this is acheived ([Zelk:] no sub-clauses that still equal death, i.e., sudden encumbrance; [kid:] until rested pacification effect after being healed) being left up for debate between people who know what they're talking about.

[Blindhamsterman]

have to admit i'd be totally behind a system where getting hit by enough damage it'd take you below -10 in one hit resulted in being in a down for the remainder of the encounter.

And if you want to have it so theres some ability to bring a character back into the fight... have a similar reverse logic. Perhaps they remain down (unconcious) unless they're healed back to full hp (status effect to keep them on the ground unable to take actions - but as soon as they're over 0 hp enemies may still opt to target them). Meaning a party has to SERIOUSLY invest if they want their tank back right there and then, otherwise they have to deal with the fight without them and he/she gets up when the combat status ends.