Spells using the Bloodied condition

[Winnah]

Something like this?

Power Attack. Free action.

Effect: Explode into action but deplete your reserves of strength. Deal double damage with melee attacks for the turn.

Become fatigued. If fatigued, become exhausted. You may not use power attack while exhausted.

Sorry for the shitty 4e power description.

[Username17]

I mean, that's not bad, but I was thinking of Finishing Moves more in the sense of:

A.) A desperation attack that you can use if things are going to shit and you need to escape the death spiral now or never.

That design goal is best achieved with Drain. It doesn't even have to be a core mechanic, you can kludge it in by having your "desperation" moves hit you with a Tier 1 Status Condition when used. Then you'll end up using Soul Vortex when:

• You're already fatigued anyway, so who cares?
  or
• You're going to fucking lose if things don't change, so why not go for broke?
  or (of course)
• The battle is almost over and you think you're going to win this turn if you use a Soul Vortex and therefore don't care if you end up fatigued.

B.) Something you bust out against chaff or mooks that routs them even if they're at tip-top shape because they don't deserve a lengthy fight scene. If you really outclass them they don't even need to be dazzled by flashbangs or teargas; you just straight-up Shinkuu Hadouken or Mega-Flare them as soon as the combat music plays.

This can be achieved by allowing level differences to count as your opponents having relevant status conditions. So if your targets are four levels down, they count as being Bloodied or Slowed or whatever the fuck you need them to be for purposes of upgrading your attacks.

C.) A combo finisher that you use after an alpha strike or prolonged fight.

Drain and CAN already do that. Both individually and together.

This one might be contradictory with the other design goals, so I'm splitting it off, but optionally:

D.) A fight opener that you use to punish foes that stumbled into a lopsided tactical situation like an ambush or being stuck in Tanglebrush.

Well, if you do the CAN thing described above, having maneuvers that are good (in terms of AoE or Accuracy or Cost) but only lay down foundation conditions would fit the bill. I mean, the Medusa in the previous example would probably open with Slow, right?

-Username17

[Dean]

Seriously: shut the fuck up about your stupid idea, because it is insultingly stupid.

-Username17

Dude. First of all, take a notice about how almost everyone posting about it that isn't you is in favor of it.

Second read your posts and see how much they sound like constant aimless bellowing. This is an idea I put out while reading this thread and I'm no more attached to it than anything else I might put down with a few minutes of consideration but there hasn't been any reasonable argument against it yet. So if you'd like to make one please do, and if not, shut the fuck up.

So given a total lack of real arguments I'll chat with these strawmen here for a bit.
Punching Peach to seduce her: This is a seriously weird place to go with this and I don't know why Frank, and only Frank is constantly obsessing over it, but it doesn't work and fails to make sense on a cursory inspection. There is no "Seduction" spell in the game so at base this is dishonest but lets assume he's talking about Dominate Person. In this situation a player wants to cast "Dominate Person" on a princess to have sex with her, and for some reason Franks only problem with this is its mechanical effects. That's weird, I would say "Fuck you" but I'll address it anyway. Lets make a different example and we'll use one less likely to cause a Frankrection and one more beneficial for normal group discussion.

Lets say you are in a shop and you want to dominate the shopkeeper into giving you stuff for free. The optimal way to do so is not to use "Hammer, Hammer, Dominate" but in fact to use "Dominate, Dominate, Dominate". Hammers aren't doing anything positive. Dominate has some chance of getting him on the first try and if it doesn't it's still the best idea for your second try if your goal is domination, because in this system Dominate brings future Dominates closer to success. Using hammers would be a terrible idea because in the Dominate tactic the Shopkeeper comes out of the spell and is unhappy about his missing shit, in the hammers angle he has been beaten and robbed and is likely incredibly pissed. The first group are conmen, while the second are attempted murderers and robbers. The Dominate angle is just better.

[Username17]

Dude. First of all, take a notice about how almost everyone posting about it that isn't you is in favor of it.

Right. You can make a case for Charm coming after conditions like Dazzled, Fatigued, Confused, even Shaken (good cop/bad cop style). But you don't want it coming after Bloodied or Entangled. Unless you're playing FATAL.

I would suggest that "They become your buddy" should not be a generic possible outcome of your combat engine. It might not be completely impossible, there are examples where after a fight you respect your opponent so much that you become allies or something, or whatever the hell happened in They Live, but it's pretty exceptional and I don't know that it's great to have that be something you can reliably expect to end up with as an outcome of your combat minigame.

No. No they are not. Those are the responses to your initial idea, and they are negative. The initial comparison of your idea to FATAL is apt, but it isn't even mine. Your idea is repulsive and unworthy of serious discussion. Whatever hit it out of the ballpark with his first and only reply to your offensive and stupid idea - the moment that beating someone bloody becomes a standard part of your "making people your friend" minigame, the game is abhorrent and disgusting.

-Username17

[Mask_De_H]

Aren't there cases where you want the mind affecting ability to be repulsive, though? Charm shouldn't always trigger off of ass beatings, but I could see something like Dominate or Mind Rape (natch) working off bloodied.

The good cop/bad cop can come from a Tier 2 stunning shot or panicking aura or something, instead of getting punched in the face repeatedly. The bad cop is trying to scare, not injure.

EDIT: There is also a conflation of scenarios here; deanruel and PL are talking about in-combat Charm powers, while Frank's talking about the diplomacy minigame. Dean goes on to fuck his own example with Dominating the shopkeep in the diplomacy minigame when everything is based on HP damage, but I think the in and out of combat split is the point. In-combat domination should probably be a Tier 2 ability, but straight up, be my buddy forever Charm should be Tier 3 and not ding off of bloodied (unless it's an offshoot of Dominate that's explicitly terrible).

[John Magnum]

Hammers aren't doing anything positive. Dominate has some chance of getting him on the first try and if it doesn't it's still the best idea for your second try if your goal is domination, because in this system Dominate brings future Dominates closer to success. Using hammers would be a terrible idea because in the Dominate tactic the Shopkeeper comes out of the spell and is unhappy about his missing shit, in the hammers angle he has been beaten and robbed and is likely incredibly pissed. The first group are conmen, while the second are attempted murderers and robbers. The Dominate angle is just better.

That's how you would EXPECT such a system to work. As described, your system DOESN'T work like that. You've said that you want every status effect to do HP damage because HP is an abstraction for capacity to fight and resist, not just physical bodily integrity. And you've said that you want everything to progress along a single generic track of Healthy -> Bloodied -> Defeated.

If being moved along this track improves your odds of success in the diplomacy minigame, or your odds of success with spells that induce the equivalent of charm and dominate (because for you these aren't separate status conditions, they're more HP damage and progression along the Bloodied track), then you have set it up that hitting someone in the head with a hammer literally makes them MORE LIKELY to become your best pal and offer a discount.

Let's put it this way. Because you seriously apparently want your game to replicate fucking BATTERED PERSON SYNDROME, by your own words, you apparently literally WANT a system where doing enough HP damage--in the classical sense of enough severe bodily harm--they don't just follow your orders out of fear, but they actually start to like you. That's a result of your system.

If you have a "charm person" effect, in your system that effect deals HP damage and its effects are improved when the target has HP damage. Now, it might well be that for some reason Dominate Person deals more HP damage to a shopkeeper than any other ability you have and Dominate -> Dominate -> Dominate is the most efficient way to get him to like you. In which case you are in the baffling position that the best way to win combats is to use Dominate -> Dominate -> Dominate on monsters instead of hitting them with swords, unless you have a lot of hidden complexity that you haven't even alluded to.

Actually, even IF Dominate somehow does more HP damage than any other ability you have, Dominate -> Dominate -> Dominate might STILL be suboptimal compared to Hammers -> Punches -> Dominate. If we're even remotely close to the D&D convention that spells have to be conserved but you can punch dudes in the face all day without stopping, then you don't want to spend three Dominates on a single shopkeeper when you can punch him in the face four times and spend one.

If your system is set up so that everything deals HP damage and everything is improved by being used on targets that have suffered HP damage, unless you add in a bunch more complexity to distinguish between stuff like Bloodied and Charmed, you have set up a system that strongly incentives using physical violence as a precursor to the "nice" social interaction options.

[John Magnum]

The good cop/bad cop can come from a Tier 2 stunning shot or panicking aura or something, instead of getting punched in the face repeatedly. The bad cop is trying to scare, not injure.

It can from such an effect, but in deanruel's system it can also come from just punching people in the face repeatedly. Remember, his whole point is that his system uses HP and a single Bloodied -> Defeated track. Punching people in the face deals HP damage and moves them along that single solitary track just as well as stunning shots and panicking auras. Maybe even better, if it expends less resources.

[Dean]

I have no problem with charm+hammers, charm is not a shift in attitude but rather a fundamental rewriting off the opponent's behavior regardless of previous disposition ... a weakened state makes it more likely to stick, regardless the source IMO.

Charm effects as in Charm Person? That would make perfect sense to work better when Bloodied; it's magic, you're resisting it out of sheer willpower, which, when you're busy trying to keep your body moving on sheer willpower, is split between staying alive and resisting magic.

I'll allow it.

Subdual damage ahoy. Then comes the Charms. You could even have the Intimidate skill modified to deal subdual.

Meanwhile HP damage contributing to all combat defeat states and charm person end states have clear game play benefits, are accepted by almost everyone on this thread and everywhere else in the universe other than you

So with that out of the way.

Your problem is with Dominate, that's what's so odd about this. None of this raping and pillaging bullshit is in any way cogent because your problem that someone can do bad things to dominated people is in no way shape or form related. You continue to purposefully misrepresent the situation by calling it "making people your friend" or "seducing someone" or "the social minigame". It is none of these things. The spell Dominate gives you mental domination and total control over someone. Deal with it. That is the closest thing to everything you're bellowing about. You can't use dominate to make friends or seduce someone or any other shit. Not even charm can do that. These are magical mental domination effects and there is nothing in any way wrong with letting them deal damage, and work better and damage dealt targets.

Fear should be more effective on the wounded, Sleep more effective on the exhausted, and Dominate more effective on the helpless. In fact all of these things should be more effective on the helpless.

That's something I would include in this actually. Spells should have a sort of coup de grace ability. This emulates canon well and I think should be in this system. If you cast sleep on someone that is restrained or pinned down it just works. Allowing you to pin someone down and Zone of Truth them (or whatever) on the first try, allowing the scene to move forward with good dramatic timing as opposed to having to burn through the spell until his save is failed. Which is boring and inevitable.

[Username17]

There is also a conflation of scenarios here; deanruel and PL are talking about in-combat Charm powers, while Frank's talking about the diplomacy minigame.

That's the kind of distinction you'd want to exist, which is why I am explicitly stating that it should. But neither Phone Lobster nor Deanrule actually acknowledge the distinction in their proposals. Both of them talk abotu a single damage track that moves towards all victory states.

That means that in their proposals hitting people with hammers is in fact completely fungible with cutting remarks and the things you do or say to move someone towards liking you in a "non combat" sort of way stack explicitly and completely with things you do to move someone towards being a bleeding carcass. So if slicing someone up with a fire sword is more effective at taking down ogres than giving friendship speeches and flattery is, then the optimal way to seduce Princess Peach is to carve her up with your fire sword and then give her a Valentine's chocolate box when she is barely able to stand. 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.

-Username17

[John Magnum]

I have fewer problems with HP damage just improving limited-duration specific-effect things. However, people have been talking about defeat-into-friendship stuff as though it's a natural consequence of this system.

This still doesn't affect the shopkeeper situation, though. If you can reasonably expect your players to use HP-damage-sensitive effects to improve shopkeeper disposition, then hammering the shopkeeper in the face until he's more susceptible to giving you a discount is also reasonable. You can't make it LESS reasonable than casting Dominate until he gives you a discount without doing a bunch of tweaking that you haven't introduced yet. Now, maybe you like the idea of people being such murderhobos that they clobber everyone they meet, scare the shit out of them, and get them to do whatever they want.

You can live with the possibility that brutally beating down people and coercing them into doing your bidding is something the players will find mechanically effective, and try to dissuade them from it by using narrative mechanics (word gets out and everyone gets a disposition modifier to hate you, guards try to stop you). You can just tell players "No, your interactions with the shopkeeper aren't part of the combat minigame, you can't use Dominate Person on him." You can step away from the "everything is HP damage, every condition is Bloodied" paradigm. Lots of options.

[Dean]

It can from such an effect, but in deanruel's system it can also come from just punching people in the face repeatedly. Remember, his whole point is that his system uses HP and a single Bloodied -> Defeated track. Punching people in the face deals HP damage and moves them along that single solitary track just as well as stunning shots and panicking auras. Maybe even better, if it expends less resources.

See that's fair. What occurs to me is I've only been thinking of this as in combat application but I have that line in my initial post about "scathing wit" or whatever which seems like a social thing for the social game. This is not what I was thinking but is a fair read, and might possibly be what is causing some blockage in communication.

In SAGA there is a scoundrel talent called "Quick Wit" or some shit that works like an attack. It moves someone down the condition track and brings them closer to losing. I was thinking along these lines where "Sweet Burn" or whatever is a combat effect power totally separate from the social game, it would deal mental damage and have a defeat condition of "You surrender". Essentially a way to show off that you have a social character, even while in the combat minigame. However if in this system I did make a power called, lets say "Inspire Mutiny", where you talk to someone and deal them damage until they join your side then indeed you could make friends easier by beating them to death. That is obviously undesirable. I find it acceptable to Dominate a weak target, and crush their will for a few minutes magically but I never intended the hp loss mechanic to be a part of the social minigame, just the socially flavored aspects of the combat minigame.

A huge problem here is that D&D, which is the system we all sort of assume we're tacking these things onto, doesn't HAVE a functional social system. So casting dominate and charm and shit is what passes for it unless you invest in diplomancy. I have no solution for that problem at this time as it is well beyond the scope of what is being posted here.

It is a reasonable query to ask if we had a game with a good social system; whether its combat system should be separate or linked to it. Not having the social and combat systems linked means that people are using different victory tracks, and that leads to problems. But linking them directly would very much indeed lead to beating people with hammers until they started telling you how pretty you are.

[John Magnum]

Right. The criticisms are operating under the assumptions that you guys stated: Everything does HP damage, everything moves along a single Bloodied -> Defeated condition track. If that's supposed to explicitly include shit like "being witty" and "insulting people", if you're literally saying that persuasion and shit is supposed to deal HP damage and synergize with beating dudes with hammers, then you either clobber the king with hammers so he gives you a better quest reward or you set up bag of rats. A pretty terrible bag of rats, actually, since you've got abilities that you would expect to only work outside of combat being contrived so that they only work IN combat. It's weird when being able to create fire is contrived so that it only works in combat. It's INSANE when "being witty" is contrived to only work in combat.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Both of them talk abotu a single damage track that moves towards all victory states.

That means that in their proposals hitting people with hammers is in fact completely fungible with cutting remarks and the things you do or say to move someone towards liking you in a "non combat" sort of way stack explicitly and completely with things you do to move someone towards being a bleeding carcass. So if slicing someone up with a fire sword is more effective at taking down ogres than giving friendship speeches and flattery is, then the optimal way to seduce Princess Peach is to carve her up with your fire sword and then give her a Valentine's chocolate box when she is barely able to stand. 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.

This is like the funniest thing I've read on these boards in a week.

[Dean]

It's weird when being able to create fire is contrived so that it only works in combat. It's INSANE when "being witty" is contrived to only work in combat.

Totally. I didn't imagine that to be true though. I think Fireball should still be able to light trees on fire and I assume the character with "Quick Wit" actually has a high Bluff score and shit. It might also be wildly reasonable to have the "Sweet Burn" power be able to give you a bonus to intimidate or whatever. But to make the decision of what effect these powers would have in the social game I would have to see what a system's social game is, and D&D just doesn't have one.

To me these are all combat powers, with social implications. Because Dungeons and Dragons ONLY HAS a functional combat minigame.

[Kaelik]

Dude. First of all, take a notice about how almost everyone posting about it that isn't you is in favor of it.

there hasn't been any reasonable argument against it yet. So if you'd like to make one please do, and if not, shut the fuck up.

A) not true, B) Most of us are just ignoring it and hoping it goes away, because we know for a fact that if you ever criticize the idea of punching people into being your friend, PL fights to the bitter end to force your agreement that this is not only a workable system with a fun game, but literally the only worthwhile system that could ever exist, as if he was Lago and you had criticized Winds of Fate.

C) Here's a reasoned argument: If you ever fucking talk about it again, I'm going to punch you in the face over and over until you agree with me that you should never talk about it again.

If that doesn't sound horrifically repulsive to you, if that doesn't sound like a really stupid thing you don't want in your game, then I don't want to game with you, and I don't want to play a game if you had anything to do with the creation of a diplomacy system.

[PhoneLobster]

Again. Frank pulls out the rape bullshit, without addressing my initial complaint. If the players decide to rape the princess, then punching her unconscious is just as effective and provides MORE mechanical support for doing so than "making friends with her" by ANY means, punching involved or not.

We do not abandon the benefits of regular combat because players might want to rape unconscious things they beat up with regular combat. The clear in genre benefits of in combat social actions are there, the "hell, any adventure fiction ever?" angle applies strongly. In combat social stuff is the most interesting and important social stuff that happens in combat adventure stories.

Throwing all that away because players might tell a distasteful story means throwing away everything up to and including regular combat because, again, they could do that with ANYTHING, there is no direct mechanical support for rape being discussed anywhere other than in Frank's gigantic and disgusting strawman that every poster on this board SHOULD be yelling at him for daring to pull.

[Winnah]

We do not abandon the benefits of regular combat because players might want to rape unconscious things they beat up with regular combat. The clear in genre benefits of in combat social actions are there, the "hell, any adventure fiction ever?" angle applies strongly. In combat social stuff is the most interesting and important social stuff that happens in combat adventure stories.

Maybe it's because I have not had my caffeine dose this morning...

But are you suggesting that rape is the most interesting and important social element of a combat adventure story? Any adventure story ever?

[Lago PARANOIA]

but literally the only worthwhile system that could ever exist, as if he was Lago and you had criticized Winds of Fate.

That's not true. I have stuck up for At-Will systems, generic spell charges (and have also said that 95% of games I've seen should one of the previous two), Drain, and Rage Meter. I've said that Winds of Fate would be better for a game that has the design goals of D&D, which...

You know what? Never mind.

[Red_Rob]

Forgetting the rape shit for a minute, the main concern with the "various input conditions lead to various finishing conditions" suggestion is that it could easily become overcomplicated. Having to remember which of 17 effects powers up your various finishing moves seems like it would lead to constant sheet checking and confusion.

Perhaps if effects were grouped into 5 or so "categories"? So all your movement restriction stuff could be Blue, whilst the various mental stuff would be White. So your power would key off, say, any Green or Red effects, which would include various similar themed powers.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Perhaps if effects were grouped into 5 or so "categories"?

Even if you could solve the complication problem, the other concern is that you don't want to partition categories too much because otherwise party members' tactics won't overlap meaningfully. If you just have a Physical and a Mental condition track for a five-person party there will still be occasions in which a Physical user and a Mental user will be at odds with each other. If you have five, it's almost guaranteed that the Artificer will not be caring about what the Warlock is doing for most combats -- or even worse, you have created a powerful incentive for people to make a party of All-Artificers or All-Warlocks.

[Dean]

C) Here's a reasoned argument: If you ever fucking talk about it again, I'm going to punch you in the face over and over until you agree with me that you should never talk about it again.

The "Party on different tracks to victory" is never really something we've solved. It crops up a lot and I think basically anytime we talk about adding complications, even beneficial complications to the combat system, it is exacerbated.

I mean in most games party breadth is accomplished by -mandating it-. Tifa will always play different than Cloud and if you had a choice you'd probably have 4 Clouds. Is there any ttrpg or ccg that anyone knows about where it's NOT a better idea to have 3 people "Milling" than one Mill, one Flyer, and one Red direct damage.

[PhoneLobster]

If you just have a Physical and a Mental condition track for a five-person party there will still be occasions in which a Physical user and a Mental user will be at odds with each other.

Or rather every party will consist solely of mental or physical characters and they won't be at odds because they don't ever mix in the same party because doing so is an absolutely stupid game losing strategy.

Maybe it's because I have not had my caffeine dose this morning...

Cearly it is. I'm saying players deciding to rape things is bad. But segregating your social and physical damage does not solve the problem and throwing out the actual beneficial aspects of both the abstraction and the ability to perform in combat social anything in fear of rape outcomes means we must in fact ALSO throw out beating people unconscious for fear of THAT having rape outcomes. IE Franks criticism is really fucking broadly applicable in it's sheer bloody minded stupidity.

Remember. The system suggested did not support rape directly in anyway. Frank just said that "punch punch best friends, afterwards someone is raped outside of the mechanics! GASP!" which is stupid because his supposedly superior segregation scenario also has those outcomes with "punch punch unconscious, afterwards someone is raped outside of the mechanics! GASP!" and "friendly friendly best friends, afterwards someone is raped outside of the mechanics! GASP!".

You don't get to make a bullshit offensive criticism of a mechanic if the criticism is SO bullshit it also applies to your preferred options. Simple as that.

[Kaelik]

And by calling the name of the Elder God I summon him, Phone Lobster!

PL, the part you are missing is that you know that thing were someone punches you in the face, and then afterwords you are friends?

That's fucking terrible and we don't want it in our games. It's not that someone rapes someone outside the mechanics, it's that every time the Fighter finds a hot level appropriate chick he wants to bang, the only way he can do it is to beat her within an inch of her life, then compliment her tits, and then she will love him. It's not the act of rape, it's that it makes stockholm syndrome the optimal way to get someone to like you, and stockholm syndrome is fucking rape.

[PhoneLobster]

That's fucking terrible and we don't want it in our games. It's not that someone rapes someone outside the mechanics, it's that every time the Fighter finds a hot level appropriate chick he wants to bang, the only way he can do it is to beat her within an inch of her life, then compliment her tits, and then she will love him. It's not the act of rape, it's that it makes stockholm syndrome the optimal way to get someone to like you, and stockholm syndrome is fucking rape.

So we remove punch punch friends... later on... rape. Because the fighter explicitly decided to rape an NPC for some reason.

So then the fighter, who still, apparently, decides to do that looks at his situation and says "Oh. um." ... punch punch unconscious ... later... rape! Or, if you haven't stripped the game of all functional social mechanics at all, Friends friends friends... later... Rape!

Single damage tracks do good things mechanically and do NOTHING to encourage players deciding to rape things.

Separate damage tracks do bad things mechanically and do NOTHING to discourage players from deciding to rape things.

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.

[JonSetanta]

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

Change Charm & Friends. Bloodied is fine for at least achieving a neutral reaction, not only out of realism but since far more characters will be dealing damage than slinging Charm effects on a round per round or even per encounter basis.

And seriously, PL has good points about the rape comparison. What the hell is wrong with some of you folks? Who the hell says Charm leads to sex in the first place? Oh wait that's right... the evidence is right here in the thread.