Critical hits

[Majestic7]

Hello there, didn't find any previos posts on this topic, at least with sensible subject lines stating that.

In my opinion, staying alive in battle is as much matter of luck as that of skill - at least in a mass combat. I think it would be nice to have a small chance for critical hits with various effects. Perhaps some weapons or even a certain skill could increase the chance for a critical - while some armor would protect against them better than others? (this could be done by adding adjectives to armor, perhaps.) Adding a skill for critical hits might make them too powerful though.

Possible effects from criticals:
1. A rider being knocked off his horse. (A slash with a sword at the passing knight snaps the cords holding his saddle in place, or a blow with a hammer simply throws him off his mount.)

2. The hit ignores armor completely or halves it. (A stab with a spear hits by pure luck in a crack between the plates, bypassing the armor completely etc.)

3. The amount of damage is doubled or tripled. Sometimes this might even add to the above, ignoring or halving armor. (A lucky arrow strikes Edward the Gallant straight in to the eye, through eyeslid of his full helm.)

4. Instant kill / knockout. Sounds harsh? Being in a battle is harsh and dangerous. Yes, I think it would be fun if my completely armoured knight would be killed instantly by a rock thrown by a river pirate. That is the stuff heroics are made of. These should be the rarest of critical hits.

5. Equipment damage. This would add some balance to the game as well, due to having a chance for even the best armor and weapons in the game becoming useless. There could be a small chance for the piece of equipment being destroyed - or this could happen only if it was in the worst possible shape. Sure, it would be annoying to the player and take its toll on the loot as well. I like challenges, I think it is just a good thing. (A sea raider whacks a vaegir guard with his two-handed axe, splitting his helmet in two and then doing the same to his head with the next blow.)

6. Temporary blindness. This might be impossible to apply to other than player characters. Such blindness might be explained by variety of things - from blood or sweat pouring in to eyes to a helmet being banged to obscure vision by a strike to the head. After a certain amount of time, the combatant could see again after somehow handling the problem - if he was still alive then.

7. Temporary stun. The naughty river pirate bashes Wilhelm the Red in the groin with his club, causing him to lose focus for a period of time - or that hammer blow in the head really causes some disorientation. While stunned, character could possibly move and block slowly, but nothing else.

( edit - moved number eight to a separate message.)

 

[Majestic7]

8. Permanent effects! I'd really like to see stuff like this being applied to characters if they are really unlucky or get beaten constantly - both to soldiers under your command and your own character. Take a look at Dominions II for example and how the grizzled veterans usually have several wounds not completely healed. It would add realism to the game - but then, some would whine it to make things too difficult. If your character loses both eyes - well, **** happens, who said being a mercenary was a profesion without a risk of death or permanent mutilation.

 

[teike]

Nice

(*)Criticals concerning equipment destruction or other problems, could have a limit of 10% chance to players against AI, and 3% to AI against player equipment.

Criticals concerning unit integrity could have a limit of 3% to player against AI and 1% to AI against player HP.

I mean, who is the hero? We of course, not the AI, and a hero wont survive for long without some luck . Despite we can have a premonition and *puff* suddenly, out of nowhere we can *restore a savegame* a divine magical intervention *lol*

These limits would be based on unit lvl versus other unit lvl.
Ex. An unit lvl 15 could have 3% chance (*) against another unit lvl 5.
While the lvl 5 unit would have just the minimum (0.1%) against the lvl 15 unit.
And the lvl 15 would have 1.5% chance against a lvl 10.
While the lvl 10 would have 0.75% chance against lvl 15 (it is the 15 to 10 halved chance).
A lvl 1 unit would always have 0.1% chance even against a lvl 50 unit.

An interesting way to implement blindness would be to render graphics without colors (grayed), change to 3rd person view and show just like 0.5 meters around player on a fade out way .

 

[jknemesis]

8. Permanent effects! I'd really like to see stuff like this being applied to characters if they are really unlucky or get beaten constantly - both to soldiers under your command and your own character. Take a look at Dominions II for example and how the grizzled veterans usually have several wounds not completely healed. It would add realism to the game - but then, some would whine it to make things too difficult. If your character loses both eyes - well, **** happens, who said being a mercenary was a profesion without a risk of death or permanent mutilation.

Your ideas are interesting, but I don't they'd add a whole lot to the game.

First of all, classic RPG developers, like those who originally created and revised D&D (the pen and paper version), decided that permanent / crippling effects for heroes would make any game less fun to play. Players want to play a hero, not a gimp who loses both legs, both eyes and an arm. There's nothing epic or heroic about that. It's just too real. There's no fun in slithering across a battlefield while the rest of your army of cripples gets to the point of encounter before you because they happen to have one more leg than you do (for a total of one leg each). Which reminds me a little of Monty Python's black knight.

Second, I dislike the idea of critical strikes because, as any classic RPG player would tell you, the damage roll is done for the exact purpose of determining things like where the weapon your blow lands. When someone can do 1 to 30 damage with a specific weapon, 1 damage indicates light damage. For instance, a shallow cut to the leg or arm. When that same weapon does 30 damage, that indicates something along the lines of a stab to the torso, or a (near) killing blow to the head. A critical strike (such as a spear stabbing through someone's armor), is simply the same thing as doing maximum damage with your wielded weapon. It might be cool to see the graphics display your blows so that they relate to the amount of damage you do. If the models were a little more advanced, a spear blow that does 0 damage could simply glance off of your opponenet's armor, while a spear blow that does 30 damage (which happens often when you're mounted on a horse) might penetrate your opponent's plate mail and impale him (and you would drag him around on the battlefield for a few seconds while he slid down the shaft of your weapon).

As RPG's have progressed, certain developers have decided to escalate damages from 1 to 30 in the beginning and then have characters capable of doing like 200000 damage in the end (like final fantasy) to prevent things from getting boring and to provide almost endless possibility for character improvement. This, however, makes very little sense in the real world and in games that attempt to provide a little more realism like M&B. Maybe in Final Fantasy your sword can strike at the speed of light and when it hits, a million thunderbolts strike your target and then the sun comes down and vaporizes your victim and then a demon drags your victim to hell and eviscerates him for all eternity. In real life and in realistic RPGs, a weapon can and ought to only do so much damage. Armor can only absorb so much and in only certain places. It is the skill of players that should determine a character's effectiveness both on the battlefield and off.

 

[Majestic7]

Err, it seems to me that you haven't played much other RPG's than D&D and then computer games. I've been playing pen & paper RPGs for a decade or so and there have been realistic ways to implement damage since eighties. In my opinion D&D 3.5 (and older version too) has a pretty ****ty system to use in combat when compared to, say, GURPS or Traveller, where the damage is dealed in a more realistic manner.
(edit - these system do have a possibility for permanent damage implemented. ) Realistic and D&D just don't fit in the same sentence.

However, this goes beyond the point of this forum and Mount & Blade. What I thought my suggestion to bring would be extra realism for those wanting it. The same guys are those who most likely play with the iron man mode and play games like Nethack without cheating with saves. Other people could always avoid the nastiest permanent effects by clicking reload or restore, like was pointed out.

I disagree with mere damage point numbers being indicator about how severe a hit is - I think it is more of a some sort of way to indicate general trauma from being beated up. Critical hits would give a chance for surprising defeats and victories. It would prevent the player from becoming a god of war, since even with the best armor and high level, a lucky strike from a random enemy might bring him down. On the other hand, it might save players life in a most heroic manner if a random crit would bring down a black knight. In the present system, there is practically no chance for a, say, lev 3 character to win black knight while armed with a club and wearing no armor. Give small chance for heroics and sudden disasters, that is all I ask. *grin*

What comes to permanent wounds, I think another way to "gain" them other than being subject to criticals would be being beaten unconscious.