Creative Corner > Game Design
Huh: State-based Stack HP
Amechra:
Alright, show of hands who understands the word salad title! Anyone? Bueller, Bueller?
Anywho, I was working on a cRPG concept in my head earlier (mostly on the combat engine, because jRPGs have gotten stale and boring.) when I had a thought:
You can represent HP as a Stack of States.
To give an example:
You are an adventurer wandering around in the Healthy state. No benefits, no drawbacks, no nuttin'. You then come across a big scary monster, who punches you in the face. Ouch! Now you are in the Wounded state, which has X benefit, Y drawback. If you don't defend yourself, you will drop down to the Dead state, which reads something like this:
"Dead: You've kicked the bucket, guv; immediately add the Corpse state on top of this one."
Then the Corpse state reads:
"Corpse: You're dead. As a doornail. Can't do a bloody thing."
Now, why set it up that way? Because of how Healing is handled.
Basically, a normal Heal spell just pops the top State off the Stack; Wounded gets popped down to Healthy, and so on and so forth. Now, if you try casting Heal on a guy with the Corpse state, they pop back to Dead... then immediately regain the Corpse state. Basically, it's a kludge to stop basic healing from bringing back the dead.
However, the more powerful Megaheal (or whatever) pops two States off, leaving Corpses alive (if barely).
And voila, we have Resurrection as a direct consequence of the HP rules.
And you can do other fun stuff, too!
A Zombie-making spell would just slap the Zombie state on top of the Corpse state, allowing the Corpse to move around under the Necromancer's control; a good Heal spell will remove the Zombie state... thus turning him back into a Corpse. Depending on how Zombie works, you could play this as either an immunity to damage (Head-shots remove Zombie!) or just have Sword-to-Chest remove Zombie in the same way as healing.
Someone whose flesh rots away adds the Skellington state on top of the Corpse state, making it that much harder to resurrect them (which can be extrapolated to the Dust state, which makes it even harder.) Combine with the Zombie-making spell, and you've got a spell that makes SKELETON WARRIORS!
Stack other states on top of Zombie or Skellington to make other forms of Undead, etc.
A super-charged Healing spell could remove the Healthy state, leaving you at SUPER HEALTHY!, which makes you that much harder to kill.
A Necromancer could have a class feature that makes Dead transition into the Ghost state instead of the Corpse state.
So, thoughts?
Garryl:
For undead that work this way, you'll need a whole extra set of wounded conditions for each undead type so you don't just pop back to alive (but injured) as soon as your shambling zombie corpse stubs its toe. Then you'll need to add an extra rule for each undead condition and undead sub-condition that makes them use the undead-specific conditions instead of the living conditions. And if you ever try to introduce new states, you'll need extra rules for them to provide the equivalent undead state for each undead type. And then you get the oddity of heal spells only returning healthy undead to corpse state, not near-dead ones. Also, if you get knocked down to death again as undead, healing spells might bring you back as undead again.
Amechra:
Well, when you get to Undead, it stacks reversed; if you wanted Undead to be subject to damage, you just leave the following note in the condition:
"This Condition is removed by damage."
Define what that means, and that makes sure that Undead don't have to reverse the order of everything; the Undead states would go Corpse -> Zombie -> Vampire, to give an example.
Really depends on how the conditions are set up, when you get down to it.
Nytemare3701:
Hmm...Let's see if I can't expand this into a prototype...
(click to show/hide)Untitled Stack-Based Card-RPG
Each player has 3 stacks
Stack 1: Health (Unharmed, X Injured cards, Unconscious, Corpse, Undead)
Stack 2: Condition (These are cumulative, but Corpse removes conditions. Starts empty.)
Stack 3: Gear (Also cumulative. Starts with a starter item for default attack)
Some classes have more injury cards, granting more effective HP. Other classes have more ability cards to modify the different stacks.
Conditions: Bleeding (DoT), Poisoned (DoT), Paralyzed (CC), Zombie/Vampire/Ghost (Only applied to Undead characters, and is added automatically based on the effect that added Undead), and Class Conditions (See the rogue's improved dodge)
Class Abilities:
Rogue can
(click to show/hide)"The next time you would receive an Injury while unharmed, put dodge on your health stack instead. At the beginning of your next turn, return Dodge to your hand if it is still the top card of the stack. (click to show/hide)Class Condition (meaning it's class specific, and goes on the condition stack, effectively buffing you until you die and remove all conditions): You may use Dodge when injured or unharmed.
Quillwraith:
--- Quote from: Amechra on March 01, 2014, 06:13:53 AM ---Well, when you get to Undead, it stacks reversed; if you wanted Undead to be subject to damage, you just leave the following note in the condition:
"This Condition is removed by damage."
--- End quote ---
Alternatively, damaging something without the health or wounded states to remove applies the Destroyed state over Corpse, Undead or whatever.
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