Dread, a new characteristic.

[Oldtimer]

Hi all,

I`ve been looking a bit on the torture thing as a way to introduce a "dread" factor for the hero. If you are dreaded, you may have enemies submit without fighting now and then...
This is IMO a necessary part of a realistic morale function, which I sincerely hope will be present in the 1.0 release.

What I want is a dialog after battle abt. the prisoners, where you can decide their fate as:

a) kill all swiftly,

b) take max prisoners and kill the others swiftly,

c) kill all painfully(impale...),

d) take max prisoners and kill the others painfully,

e) disarm the poor bstd:s and let them go...

Depending on your decision you would with time accumulate "dread", which will influence the morale of your opponents inclusive of outright capitulation.
This can be further elaborated upon as treating capitulating units leniently, after which they disband as they are disarmed or even join you and treating those resisting harshly. Such behaviour would increase the chance of enemy submission, them knowing the consequences of a lost battle.

All of this has sense in connection with a working morale function only, of course.

Regards, Oldtimer

 

[thesneakster]

Hmm... it could work.

of course, you'd need some other good ones (like give flowers and fluffy bunnies to the town's folk (j/k)) to balance it out.

If it could also be linked to changeing what parties say to you (eg, "out for a stroll are we?") when your more infamous.

 

[thaimodz]

Maybe two factors:

Fame = Good actions like trading, doing quests increase fame
Infamy = Kills, War Engagements and stuffs increase infamy

High fame will take you to the title of something worshippable and might be accepted in enemy cities (gain little reputations over time), great infamy makes you look fearful and might destroy relationships. High in both gives you the "Justice" or "the Mad" title, which means you care the peasants while killing all the enemies painfully.

 

[Swordmaster]

Fame would be just like influence points in TLD.

 

[PIL313]

this skill sounds alot like the fame skill that has been discussed before, correct me if i'm wrong

 

[Marsec]

Sounds like it, but not the same. Fame increases with every significant action which you take part in. Dread, however, increases with significant but dreadful actions. So, a well-known brutal hero will be dreadful (or have a high dread rating along with fame) whereas the stereotypic good hero will have a high fame but a low dread.

If you consider fame as a positive adjective, look at thaimodz's post; he included infamy as a solution.

 

[Swordmaster]

A brutal hero can be infamous, huh? Or famous but known as a very bad hero.

 

[Marsec]

Yeah, in simpler terms. What I mean with a "brutal" hero is a kind of guy who kills prisoners without any hesitation, punishes anyone who is not sharing the same ideas with him/her, heavily, and so on. This may look like a good - evil slider but there a lot of rock solid and dreadful leaders in history, who are still regarded as "good".

After all, every term we debate upon (good / evil / dreadful) is very very subjective.

 

[Bearhugger]

let me spam:

Swordmaster, your signature animation is funny. Fatality...UGH! Player Zidane winnnnssss!
They were right when they said that this foul will be remembered longer than the game itself.