galsiah said:
I said "IF this would be such a case, it makes sense not to include it."
My bad. I thought your post were relevant.
To show that it isn't bad design, you'd need to show that it isn't going to make the game less entertaining for people.
Thanks for reminding me that I didn't achieve what I wasn't trying to do in the first place.
Hazelnut said:
I am not sure about having to calculate numbers to avoid killing someone in combat. I'm thinking of consequences like keeping a really rubbish weapon to hand (e.g. blunt dagger or something) for the sole purpose of taking out a foe without killing them etc. Not good and a potential irritation rather than gameplay IMHO.
Well, your first concern is directly tied to the fact that health is a number in the game. You're exaggerating the issue of calculating though, it's not like you actually have to do difficult math. You could as well say that choosing between different attack types (different damage modifications and AP costs as well at ToHit chances) or weapons (different damage ranges) is having to calculate numbers. You may not even know the exact values, as in Fallout: If your enemy is "almost dead" you might consider putting the minigun away.
The problem isn't "calculating numbers" but what exactly you can or have to do if you want to not kill your opponents, which is very much an issue of the game mechanics in detail.
For instance, Fallout offered little control of the exact amount of damage you were doing short of switching to melee or another ineffective weapon and went crazy with critical hits doing tremendous damage, and that's what I mainly used aimed attacks for as well.
When I think about aimed attacks in AoD, I see the special effects like disarming first, and high damage second, but I don't really know how it actually plays out and how much damage criticals do.
Fast attacks however do considerably less damage accoding to the formula VD gave, with the maximum damage halved, while a power attack does
at least that much. That's a pretty significant distincion, giving the player much control over how much damage he causes.
As Elhoim already pointed out, the actual value of the threshold matters. Too low, and you'll have a hard time controlling the outcome. Too large, and there is no risk of accidentally killing anyone, rendering it useless.
Half the maximum damage of an average weapon plus a few points to compensate for strength bonus might be about right for the purpose. It's not enough to make every successful normal or even powerful attack on a severily injured foe a fatal blow, but it should be enough to encourage player to at least think about how they finish of their opponent.
Your example of keeping a blunt dagger is also an exaggeration, but you might consider keeping a dagger for that purpose. Sure, it's not perfect, and in reality you could actively try to cause non-lethat injuries, but then again you might accidentally kill your enemy anyway.
You know, I thought the addiciton mechanic in Fallout was great. I admit I usually reloaded when that happened, unwilling to deal with the consequences, but that was my choice and no design flaw.
Last not least, I thought of a game which features a similar mechanic, and lo and behold: It's Realms of Arkania, my favourite example for superior game mechanics. Most of the time one of my heros was felled, he or she was only unconscious. And that was by pure chance, not because the opponent tried to.
