Stats in 4D - Moved from Pwipe thread

[horus]

A good example of charisma - why do you think hot young chicks get so enamoured by their teachers or professors? Most of those guys are fugly as, but its because of their aura (whether its due to their intellect or their power or whatever), and it is this aura that is essentially measured by charisma. Napoleon was a short fat man, and yet, men would follow him to the end of the world.

So charisma is a measurement of a person's effect on others, and whether that effect is from their position, their power, charm, personality or looks. The reasoning is not important, its the effect that is important.

[Britnoth]

That definition still does not have any rational connection to how powerful your fireball is, nor why you have more hitpoints.

Or why an animal would be affected by that, unless it is some magical effect.

Oh wait, charm is a magic spell, isn't it. 

[Virisin]

I don't think Anubis was arguing for charisma affecting spell power.. Just giving an example of what it is.

[Tocharaeh]

I beg to differ. A fugly gnoll, troll, orc, and ogre same level as a human...would still have more hp because HP reflects how well body can absorb damage, staunch bleeding, and so on. In table top there is no way to truly count for continuous bleeding so HP was created to reflect bodily damage and blood loss already being factored. At one point the characters would blackout. Remember where these stat systems come from.

CHA is used for persuasion, bluffing, and so on. It has never had (as far as I can remember) any part in factoring ones health, mental, physical prowess. It is a stat of Hotness, coolness, and slyness. Britnoth is right (I can't believe I agreed with him).

try to always remember WHERE these systems came from, and how each stat was intended.

I think CHA should be a stat that improves charming, taming, and summoning spells/abilities. I also think that CHA should be used more in quests for bluff checks, bribery (we like never bribe at all anymore) and so on. Should also use it for bartering skills.

[horus]

Okay, just in case this thread leads everyone off on a merry goose chase, I will get it back onto the Yellow Brick Road.

Stats will be a factor in every single skill/spell in the game. If there are two co-primary stats, their effects will be evenly divided between the two stats. If there is one primary and one secondary, then obviously the primary stat has greater effect whilst the secondary stat will contribute in a lesser amount.

Some examples below, I wont try to write up a proper description of each skill, instead, I will just write what their game purposes are:-
PS - Primary Stat
SS - Secondary Stat

Acrobatics - increases evasion
PS - dexterity

Slashing/Piercing/Bludgeoning Proficiency - increases accuracy or hit chance of a type of weapon
PS - str
SS- dex

Backstab/encircle - find new ways to make your co-worker look bad in front of your boss...oh wait, wrong backstab
PS - dex
SS - int (yes, you need to know the right pressure points to pierce a vulnerable spot for greater damage)

Momma's Lullaby - ok, ok, the name will change, but it is a bard's song that increases the heal rates of sleeping characters
PS - cha (oh look, charisma!!!), con

By the way, all bard's songs will have two primary stats, one of them will always be charisma, so its quite important for bard type characters to have good charisma, but each song will have a different other primary stat.

Archery - increase accuracy of bows
PS - dex

Arrows Hurty Hurty - increase the damage multiplier of bows
PS - str

Perception - chance to see sneaking/hiding characters
PS - wis, int

Holy Word (spell) - four letter cuss words that cause shock to players, as well as damage
PS - wis

All mage spells will have int as their main PS, and some spheres may have another PS or SS. For example, nature based spells like meteor swarm will require wis, illusion based spells require cha, on top of the int.

Similarly, all priest spells will have wis as their main PS, and some spheres may have another PS or SS.

As a basic outline, although this isnt a hard and fast rule, two PS means the two stats have a 50/50 effect on the skill, one PS and one SS means a 66/33 effect, although this may vary when it comes to PS and SS. I want to overcomplicate things because its boring if it isnt.

This is just a brief example of what the new skill tree system will entail. These stats will add significant effects to each skill, virtually adding a few extra skill ranks over and above your normal ranks.

Although I will try my best to make each PS/SS make sense in terms of their relevance to the skills/spells, there may be some skills/spells that have odd stats that dont make sense. This is done to ensure there is a good spread of stats required, so if you want to nitpick on anything, just send me a nit shampoo/lotion and I will wash my hair myself

[Virisin]

Sounds awesome. Lookin' forward to it.

[Asmodeus]

can we get rid of the coolness stat? 

[Virisin]

You're just jealous I'm cooler than you.

[Molly]

can we get rid of the coolness stat?  

At present, coolness is the most underused stat in the game, probably because it doesn't do anything, except that it could potentially be used in quests. (The only example of this that I actually know about is in a zone, made by Exodus, which never got finished and consequently isn't in the gameport).

However, that doesn't mean that coolness is useless. There was a thought behind it, when Mordecai implemented it, and even if it never got finished, that thought is still valid. Like any other stat it could be utilised to add some variety to the game, especially if Anubis ever gets around to implementing Mob AI (Artificial Intelligence).

Coolness equals what in some games is known as Reputation, i.e. the status of a person in the eyes of others. It is different from Cha in the way that it also has a strong element of fear.

Coolness could be affected by your Kills-versus-Deaths factor, and also by your status on the PK ladder, (although it wouldn't effectively affect PK much, just mob interaction).
The coolness factor could also be raised by having succeeded in some prestigious achievement, like killing a very tough Boss mob, finishing a hard quest, finding a rare item, getting into a hard-to-reach area, or some other major exploring/questing based deed.
We could even have a coolness ladder in the game, just like a PK ladder.

Some examples of how coolness could be used in the gameplay:

1. Since coolness instigates respect and fear, it could be used in all fear-based spells, (like psi-panic, heartsqueeze, nightmare etc.), increasing the effect, if the cool factor is high.

2. A high cool factor could make the weaker mobs in an area fear you, while the stronger, who'd see you as an equal, would respect you. The effect would generally be that an otherwise aggressive mob would be reluctant to attack a player with high coolness, perhaps choosing to let them pass by instead. (In a way similar to sneaking and invisibility). Or it could make a mob more prone to start a conversation,  to start trading with you, or to give you a better deal.

3. One thing that I've always wanted in the game is a feature called Mercy. Basically it would mean that when you are fighting certain intelligent mobs, and get them down to a certain point, they could beg for mercy, which would stop the fight flow for a second or two. The player would then have to decide whether to spare the mob's life or not.
If they choose to grant the mercy, the reward might be just that the victor gets almost the same amount of exp as if they had actually killed the mob, but without having to spend all the time actually doing it. Or in some cases, the mob could trade his life against some piece of equipment. It could also put the mob in your debt, for future use. Or in yet other cases, it would make the mob follow you, which could then be used in quests.
Mercy could actually be used in the opposite way too. If you feel you are losing a battle, you could ask the mob for mercy. The mob would then demand some piece of your equipment, (probably random choice), to let you go.
Granting someone mercy would obviously be very cool, and add to your coolness factor, begging for mercy would have the opposite effect.

I haven't seen Mercy implemented in any Mud. Originality is usually a good thing.

[Virisin]

All seems really cool but I think it'd suit a more in depth alignment system to be honest.

[isis]

its different then align some you can be cool and evil and get away with alot more and good and lame you know?
also you should have a lame score maybe?

[Kvetch]

I like the idea of mercy, but maybe (instead of being related to alignment) just let the players choose (if they want to) to never show mercy or to always show mercy.  Basically the idea is, if you're going to always kill the mob, there's no reason for the game to even give you a choice - all it does is slow down combat.  If you're always going to show mercy - same thing just giving the offer will slow the combat down.  The choice would be presented though for those that don't choose one way or the other.  Also, this should be a changable flag so if you're fighting a mob that you may want to show mercy too even if you normall don't show mercy, you can go back to being neutral on it.

As for coolness, I seem to remember Mord saying "Don't put this on any objects".  Or something.  I assumed there was a big plan for it so truthfully never even considered where I could use it.  I like what Molly presented for possible uses for coolness.

Kvetch

[Virisin]

What would happen to a mob you gave mercy too? If I go with a friend and one of us always gives mercy and the other never does, and the one that never does just follows the one that does, do we double the normal exp we'd get from the mob?

I really like the idea of mercy, it'd also be a way of opening double paths in quests. I just think having it completely disconnected from alignment would be weird. A really evil player always giving mercy to mobs and not having his alignment affected just because it suits him better that way.

Reputation is a really cool idea though, like in Fable, the more reputation you have the more people respond to you in either positive or negative ways depending on your alignment.

[Kvetch]

What would happen to a mob you gave mercy too? If I go with a friend and one of us always gives mercy and the other never does, and the one that never does just follows the one that does, do we double the normal exp we'd get from the mob?

My answer to this would be no only because, since your friend never gives mercy he's gonna kill the mob no matter what your sorry little butt wants.  I had a roleplaying session like that once.  Poor guy never knew what hit him after he stabbed that surrendering kobold in the heart.  Suddenly his intellegent magic weapon became as heavy as lead.  Oh, wait, you don't care about that.  nvm.

[Virisin]

No but I mean, if I go through a zone and give mercy to all the mobs and get slightly less exp for doing slightly less work as Molly said, and my friend goes through finishing them off.. Does he get full exp for killing them afterwards or could it be coded so he gets the remainder of the exp I essentially left with the mob by giving it mercy.

Same kinda thing applies with if I just kill all the mobs I give mercy to directly afterwards.