Spells using the Bloodied condition

[Leress]

Okay, are we trying to go for adventure story "realism" where you can fight someone and they can become your ally/rival or real life "realism" where doing that would at best get you a rival, probably a temporary ally, or someone that becomes an ally just waiting to stab you in the back?

[Winnah]

According to the sorting algorithm of heel-face turns, punching your way into friendship mainly occurs when:

The antagonist is of the opposite gender to the protagonist, is young and aesthetically pleasing, typically they also have some codependace issues.

Exceptions being for the 'last of their kind' and various freelance mercenary types.

So the Fighter is unlikely to bother to punch an obese Orc trash collector into friendship. However, the Overlord's cute daughter is definately a candidate for such treatment (according to precedents in fiction). Also, according to precedent in modern fiction, sex is going to be involved.

[Kaelik]

The rape criticism is offensively irrelevant even in your example it is offensively irrelevant. You actually had to ADD that the fighter WANTED TO RAPE SOMEONE and then you ALSO had to add that for some unexplained reason the ONLY way he could do that was by using mixed damage types. That is fucking insane.

I mean stockholme syndrome? You have to actually INSERT offensive fluff, and indeed obscure rarely used offensive fluff to make it NOT be the more typical fictional precedent of "I spare your life at the last dramatic moment, you now regard me with friendship and as an honorable opponent!"


...Oh and notice how I highlighted optimal way. Because, actually, no, shared damage tracks do not make mixed damage optimal, they make it equal to same typed damage. It's a small difference. But rather an important one.

No, I added that he wanted to have sex with her. The fact is, that he can only have sex with her by beating her into love. Because not every character has charm moves that are as good or better than their fist moves.

If he could friend someone into loving him without using his fists, then he wouldn't be a fighter, he would be an enchanter.

Because the thing you keep missing is that friendship is always better than death or unconsciousness.

So if you have a single damage track, people will always and without fail use whatever lowers the track fastest, until the very last part, where they will use friendship.

And that means for every character that is not an enchanter, the only way to get anyone level appropriate to like them is through violence or burning, or fear, or whatever their character is.

[JonSetanta]

According to Lago in this thread the better alternative to beating your foes into friends is to split the status effect tracks in to physical and mental.

I thought of this too late, just before I saw the post, but otherwise wholeheartedly agree it's the common ground between a universal Bloodied and a stupid mess of different tracks.

Using virgil's tracks from page 2....

So we have physical;

Sleep
Damage
Health
Grapple
Movement

And mental;

Fear
Brained (my contribution)
Sleep (a crossover)
Charm
Sanity

[Winnah]

You've got positional temporary conditions as well.

Cover, Concealment, Surprised, Flanked, etc.

How you want to incorperate them into a system using condition tracks may be worth noting.

[JonSetanta]

Since Flat Footed and Flanked usually just provide attack bonuses or deny defense bonuses, they combo well with attacks already.

While I'd lump them in with Physical debuffs I wouldn't have them scale or provide any access to better debuff tracks; the benefit of combat positioning is enough.

[Koumei]

Contrarywise: if flattery and chocolates is a faster way to Princess Peach's heart than beating her to near death and then requesting makeup sex, then it follows equally that the fastest way to kill an Ogre is by whispering sweet nothings to it and then running it through the heart when its trousers are down.

That is what their proposal fucking reduces to. And it's really really not acceptable.

Oh come on, imagine for a moment a D&D where that second scenario is true. Picture the lists of class features. Are you saying you don't want a game where "Provide a Birthday cake" and "Compliment them on their choice of evil robes" are class features?

Though ultimately, if you want Madoka/Disgaea where everyone does always join the party after getting dfefeated (and an understanding that the first player to advance this to "I defeated you, so now we're having sex and you'll like it" gets suplexed out the window) then you can just resolve that with "When you defeat someone by reducing them to zero HP, you win. 0 HP doesn't make them die, it just makes them join the party." And then you go about your merry Madoka/Disgaea way.

[Mask_De_H]

Man, bad things happen when people get defeated in Madoka, Koumei; Megucas don't hit zero HP and give inasmuch as they hit max Stress or get dropped by called shots to the phylactery.

Now Nanoha works like that, and Touhou most definitely works like that. A system where the abstract damage model was a measure of motivation instead of health would work. Unless you wanted to get goofy about it, that motivation track could have concessions at the end. Fighting the beautiful Amazon Queen who put her chastity on the line in a duel with you may have other awkward connotations, but you aren't Black Widowing her or beating her up to turn her on.

[Username17]

The problem with "punch someone into friendship" is with Charm Person, not with the concept of damage pushing combat to a more intense threshold.

No. The problem is with trying to put every victory state into the same damage/condition track. Because if you try to do that, then the victory state "make out with the princess" is by definition achieved the same way as the victory state "kill the minotaur". And I don't mean that there is some sort of gratitude system where killing the minotaur gets you make out sessions with the princess, I mean that repeatedly stabbing the princess is the way you get her to make out with you.

If you drop the idea of "everything has to use the same damage/condition track" then the entire problem instantly goes away. Then repeatedly stabbing the princess probably isn't the best or even a way to get make out sessions started.

It's not a problem with charm person or with fireball or any other specific thing. It's a problem with demanding that every action adds equally to all victory states. There is no reason to do that. Deanrule originally asked why it would be bad, and we fucking told him. Phone Lobster is basically insane and goes off on crazy bullshit whenever anyone mentions anything that even touches on social mechanics even tangentially. And there you are.

-Username17

[PhoneLobster]

Phone Lobster is basically insane and goes off on crazy bullshit whenever anyone mentions anything that even touches on social mechanics even tangentially. And there you are.

And yet you were the one on here telling the OP to shut the fuck up and throwing shoe throwing image macros at him out of nowhere well before I started any serious contribution to this thread.

What I see in your accusations against me is some pretty clear projection on your part. I mean hell, talk about freaking out at the drop of a hat, you went mental on this all because charm person might barely have had a mention on a list with all the other traditional SoD effects being modified by a general broad sweeping abstracted mechanic.

You've already embarrassed yourself on this thread Frank, and that was BEFORE I came along and pointed out your gigantically irrelevant and disturbing rape obsession.

[Koumei]

Man, bad things happen when people get defeated in Madoka, Koumei; Megucas don't hit zero HP and give inasmuch as they hit max Stress or get dropped by called shots to the phylactery.

Now Nanoha works like that,

Yeah, I meant Nanoha. I always get the two confused.

[Stubbazubba]

The problem with "punch someone into friendship" is with Charm Person, not with the concept of damage pushing combat to a more intense threshold.

No. The problem is with trying to put every victory state into the same damage/condition track. Because if you try to do that, then the victory state "make out with the princess" is by definition achieved the same way as the victory state "kill the minotaur". And I don't mean that there is some sort of gratitude system where killing the minotaur gets you make out sessions with the princess, I mean that repeatedly stabbing the princess is the way you get her to make out with you.

If you drop the idea of "everything has to use the same damage/condition track" then the entire problem instantly goes away. Then repeatedly stabbing the princess probably isn't the best or even a way to get make out sessions started.

It's not a problem with charm person or with fireball or any other specific thing. It's a problem with demanding that every action adds equally to all victory states. There is no reason to do that. Deanrule originally asked why it would be bad, and we fucking told him.

-Username17

I don't think anyone explicitly said that all mini-games be condensed to a single track towards any given victory state, that just doesn't follow from the context of the thread, which was explicitly about condition tracks in combat, not diplomacy, and I think you're being a little disingenuous by asserting otherwise. Deanruel took the bait and tried to defend the latter, and then backed off. We're clearly talking about combat powers with social fluff, not social mechanics. Unless you're PL, but no one's paying attention to him anyway.

Dean mentioned a scathing wit, or whatever, yeah, these would be either class abilities or combat applications of the Diplomacy skill, like Feint is a combat application of the Bluff skill. To automatically assume that he's referring to the social mini-game out of the blue, in a thread explicitly about combat conditions being tied to HP thresholds, is quite the leap in logic. Nevertheless, several people seemed to make it, so, whatever, I'm not blaming anyone for burying the idea under a discussion of how best to rape NPCs that got PL so tickled.

I think Dean, myself, and the others would wholeheartedly agree with everything quoted above, and are somewhat baffled that you ever thought we demanded " that every action add equally to all victory states." But whatever, I think we're fine to just move on.

[OgreBattle]

An except from the story of Cu CHulainn, irish super saiyan

Cú Chulainn begins an affair with Scáthach's daughter Uathach, but accidentally breaks her fingers. She screams, calling her lover Cochar Croibhe to the room. Despite Uathach's protests, he challenges Cú Chulainn to a duel, and Cú Chulainn dispatches him easily. To make it up to Uathach and Scáthach, Cú Chulainn assumes Cochar's duties, and becomes Uathach's lover. Scáthach eventually promises her daughter to him, without requiring the traditional bride price. Scáthach also grants Cú Chulainn the "friendship of her thighs" when his training is almost complete. When her rival, the warrior woman Aífe (Aoife is the Irish spelling), threatens her territory, Cú Chulainn defeats her in battle and forces her to make peace. Scathach and Aife are twins, but they fight for Cu Chulainn's love and become rivals. Aífe also sleeps with Cú Chulainn.

So CuChulainn slept with his master's daughter, slept with her, and slept with her twin sister too, all because he punched his way into their hearts

There's also a nordic guy who got whooped by a warrior woman, so his friend put on a ring of invisibility and they gang grappled her into a loving relationship.

[Username17]

I don't think anyone explicitly said that all mini-games be condensed to a single track towards any given victory state, that just doesn't follow from the context of the thread, which was explicitly about condition tracks in combat, not diplomacy, and I think you're being a little disingenuous by asserting otherwise. Deanruel took the bait and tried to defend the latter, and then backed off. We're clearly talking about combat powers with social fluff, not social mechanics. Unless you're PL, but no one's paying attention to him anyway.

Here's the thing: both Deanrule and PhoneLobster were stating exactly that. That all victory states be put onto the same track. That sword stabbings stack 100% with fear beams and sexy underwear. They even both used an appeal to consensus claiming that everyone supported them in this endeavor. Citing people (including yourself) who you claim were supporting much milder condition track conglomeration in order to justify the supposed consensus (which they clearly didn't have even including those tepid quasi-endorsements).

Now since then, Deanrule has backed off and is now claiming that he only wants to stick combat victory states together. And presumably therefore have at least one condition track that doesn't stack with hit point damage. Thereby eliminating the supposed benefit of there being only one track to keep track of. Phonelobster of course, is still completely off the deep end and still insisting that hitting people with bricks is a valid way to change their minds and be happy about it.

Now even within the context of limiting things to combat states, having domination and sword blows stack for hit point damage is an unworkable system. The entire point of mentally dominating people is that you get them to do stuff on your behalf. If mentally dominating people requires you to run through all their hit points, they aren't going to be much use to you, are they? Every dominated character or monster is a 4e-style minion under that framework, going down to the first sling stone or 1 point of incidental damage they come across. And I don't think anyone wants that.

So even if we accept Deanrule's rollback and confine our discussion to the revised combat-only proposal, it still doesn't work. Charm Person can't require us to use up all the target's hit points, because we want charmed people to still have hit points left.

-Username17

[Username17]

So CuChulainn slept with his master's daughter, slept with her, and slept with her twin sister too, all because he punched his way into their hearts

Wrong. Punching Uathach doesn't get Cú Chulainn into her pants, it gets her to call for help. Punching Cochar Croibhe gets him into Uathach's pants.

I don't think anyone has a problem with a system in which stabbing the dragon gets you make out sessions with the princess. The objection is to having a system where stabbing the princess gets you make out sessions with the princess.

-Username17

[Dean]

Every dominated character or monster is a 4e-style minion under that framework

I actually considered that a positive. As it stands the hierarchies of abilities go Damage, Save or Suck, Save or Die, Save or Serve.

Dominate is the most powerful effect because it not only takes a member off the opposing side but adds it to yours. This would make it a less large frontrunner.

Now I assume you'd want to pair this system with the assumption that hp regenerates quickly (for this and many other reasons). Having the system assume you come at almost every encounter with full health is something I support. This would mean in combat dominating someone is better, but not a vastly better option than killing them. But by the next combat you do just have a minion until the spell effect is over or you get a new one.

[Username17]

Every dominated character or monster is a 4e-style minion under that framework

I actually considered that a positive. As it stands the hierarchies of abilities go Damage, Save or Suck, Save or Die, Save or Serve.

Dominate is the most powerful effect because it not only takes a member off the opposing side but adds it to yours. This would make it a less large frontrunner.

Now I assume you'd want to pair this system with the assumption that hp regenerates quickly (for this and many other reasons). Having the system assume you come at almost every encounter with full health is something I support. This would mean in combat dominating someone is better, but not a vastly better option than killing them. But by the next combat you do just have a minion until the spell effect is over or you get a new one.

So... you just want the completely broken part of Dominate, where you Persuadatron a bunch of guys and then lead an army into battle and don't want the merely pretty good part of dominate where you spend your combat actions to have a chance of stealing enemy combat actions as an in-combat double-or-nothing bet on your combat actions.

Let's just say that I completely disagree.

-Username17

[John Magnum]

I dislike the system of assuming you come out of every encounter with full health in video games. I haven't given the matter of how it works in a P&P environment much thought, but just reflexively I don't care for it.

One consideration is that video games can be a lot more rigid about workday lengths than P&P games.

[ModelCitizen]

In addition to the more serious objections, forcing compelled monsters down to 1 HP makes compulsions incompatible with ongoing damage, and therefore fails to put all victory conditions on the same track.

It also encourages PCs to put little 1 HP DoTs on themselves when fighting monsters that use compulsions. Better unconscious than attacking your party members.

I still don't get why people are so intent on saddling persuasion mechanics with unreasonable design constraints. If someone proposed a new stealth minigame nobody would demand that you sneak around by throwing fireballs. If someone posted some stronghold building rules nobody would demand you build a castle by throwing fireballs. What is it about persuasion specifically that makes people demand it work exactly like combat no matter how bad the results are?

[Lago PARANOIA]

I still don't get why people are so intent on saddling persuasion mechanics with unreasonable design constraints. If someone proposed a new stealth minigame nobody would demand that you sneak around by throwing fireballs. If someone posted some stronghold building rules nobody would demand you build a castle by throwing fireballs. What is it about persuasion specifically that makes people demand it work exactly like combat no matter how bad the results are?

I talked about this in another thread (which I can bump again if you'd like but it kind of got derailed so W/E) but the sad fact is:

People derp out about diplomacy mechanics because they're offended by the idea of diplomacy happening too quickly.

Making a balanced diplomacy system with sensible inputs and outputs isn't very difficult. It requires more care than, say, the generic skill challenge system because there are a lot of nuances to it that people want to model. But seriously, disregarding social combat crap and the basic fucked-upness of the resolution system, even Exalted managed to have a reasonable looking diplomacy engine.

However, having a diplomacy system where people don't go: 'huh. So that's it, then?' is a fuckton harder. Yeah, people get mortally offended when people make friends and seduce princesses with a single die roll. It feels anti-climatic. So to make the diplomacy minigame feel more meaningful, people paste a bunch of crazy crap on top of it so that diplomacy feels more tense and non-deterministic. And because people on TGD view things through the lenses of D&D, it seems 'natural' to try to have the diplomacy system integrated with (or at least emulate) the combat system.

This is pretty much why every diplomacy system that isn't supposed to be resolved in 2-3 dice rolls is so derpy and retarded. People would rather feel like their diplomacy choices mattered and there was some give and take than have a balanced diplomacy system. Which seems like contradictory design goals, but you shouldn't underestimate the powers of obfuscation and denial.

[Dean]

Let's just say that I completely disagree.

-Username17

I would assume that Dominating a new person would get rid of your old thrall. One active duration at a time sort of thing. Thus; "until you get a new one".

[shadzar]

the combat system is NO different than the diplomacy system or ANY other system in D&D.

1. Action
2. roll dice to resolve

that is the entire D&D system, not matter what it is. the problem is some people dont like dice-diplomacy, because unlike combat where you have more options, diplomacy would take as much space in books as the combat components to give a full system for it.

combat needs uniformity to say that: long sword = length, damage, weight; so you dont say your long sword is 2 pounds heavier so it does a little more damage than the next guys and such.

diplomacy on the other hand doesnt use the physical tools, and doesnt have a response the same for each occurrence such as a long sword hitting leather armor.

ergo, the non-4e concept of a role in ROLEeplaying.

[Mask_De_H]

Let's just say that I completely disagree.

-Username17

I would assume that Dominating a new person would get rid of your old thrall. One active duration at a time sort of thing. Thus; "until you get a new one".

Then you don't have either the broken or the good options of Dominate. You've essentially removed the double or nothing action denial (because you have to deplete their HP and in doing so, have already taken away that enemy's actions) and you can't persuadeotron because you only get one thrall at a time. And that still doesn't solve the problem of the thrall being incredibly fragile. So what's the point, unless you want Dominate to work like a one-shot deal, which making it a serious but temporary status effect outside of the HP track would do.

Seriously, what is the value of your setup as opposed to the multiple tracks? The more clauses and spotfixes you add, the less simplicity works for you as a valid talking point.

[Stubbazubba]

I'm OK with Dominate targets having to be physically softened up first, since Dominating someone is even better than just dropping someone, in that it actually adds to your forces. So if they're a little worse for wear when they join your side, I see that as perfectly justifiable considering how much you just shifted the balance of the combat. Especially since the Bloodied condition kicks in way before 1 remaining HP, so to say that every Charmed/Dominated enemy will fall to the first point of incidental damage is nothing short of a deliberate misrepresentation of the idea, unless you're combat game is rocket-launcher tag, and if that's the case then it doesn't matter what level of health they begin with, does it? All this would mean is that people would try to time their Charm effects at the right time, maximizing the utility of the potential thrall with regards to remaining HP subject to the threshold at which he can be Charmed. If the target is already at very low HP, great, probably not a great use of your Dominate spell, save it for the next room. I'm fine with that being a tactical consideration.

This would encourage parties to coordinate damage-dealing and applying effects; if you really want that Juggernaut beast Dominated to plow your way into the next room, then the damage dealers will beat it barely into Bloodied, then back off, either attacking other targets or just full defending if that's the only thing left, letting the Enchanter Dominate it until success. I'm fine with that being a strategic option; everyone in the party contributes towards the same win state, it works as a combat option, it requires no referencing of a condition flowchart, it's intuitive and sets up great scenes for cooperative fiction. It's by far better than the Enchanter being a one-man show who ends level-appropriate encounters with a thought, and then sicks it at full power on the next level-appropriate encounter, leaving the rest of the party behind to wonder how much of the loot their Enchanter with his Juggernaut thrall will bestow upon them in his mercy.

Optionally, you could even say that if the Dominator rolls a crit or some other method of rolling well, be it confined to their own die roll or in relation to the opponent's die roll, then the target needs to make a save as if they were Bloodied or Shaken or what-have-you, and this should be the case with all condition spells; they deal less than average damage, but on a crit they roll a save against the effect as if they were Bloodied; once they are Bloodied, they have to roll every time. This is of course in addition to the rule that anything 4 levels lower than you or lower is already considered to be Bloodied for the purpose of applying condition effects.

[John Magnum]

I don't know if we're playing in a system where the monsters ALSO have powers that get way better against Bloodied targets, but if they do then a Bloodied thrall is still a very fragile thrall even if he's not at one measly hit point.