Combat Design for low-fantasy Worlds

[Banquo]

Hi there,

Have you ever been thinking about creating a game in which "magic" is rare (e.g. Game of Thrones, the Witcher series, Dark Souls) or not available to the player?

I like the idea that the player, as a normal human being, must rely on his skill to defeat "magical" or supernatural foes.

Problems is, the RPG Makers have Battle Systems that are built on the smart use of skills, not the button-mashing skills of an action game. In order to win, you are given a wide array of different skills that you must choose wisely. But without magic, what skills are left?

Or in other words: How to spice up a combat system without magic or superhuman skills?

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For a while I have been thinking about giving weapons different types of attributes, slashing, smashing and piercing, which have different effects, depending on the targets armor. Some weapons could also unlock more than one base attack, for example the sword. When your character is attacking, you can choose to slash or to pierce.

Also instead of focussing on skills, equipment is now more important. Helmets can prevent critical hits, big shield have a high chance to block ranged attacks, but slow you down a lot. Bucklers cannot block arrows, but increase the melee evasion a lot (and a thus viable).

Weapons like a mace could give the character new skills, like stunning enemies. Spears could have a spearwall skill that automatically hurts attackers and make a good defensive weapon.

Drawback 1: That's still limited and doesn't leave much room for additional skills.

Drawback 2: Soon the player will have figured out, which attacks are effective against which enemies and it gets boring fast.

Drawback 3: Even if encounters are visible on the map, it'd hard to foresee how the enemy is equipped, i.e. which weapons should the player equip now?

Drawback 4: Does the player has to change weapons and armor between the battles in order to increase the chance of winning? That sounds really annoying.

What are your thoughts?

 

[Milennin]

It's not that hard to make normal functioning RPG skills for a low fantasy game:

Shield Bash: Stun an enemy.
Swipe: Strike all enemies.
Pierce: Lowers enemy's defence and inflict Bleed.

Endure Pain: Health points cannot drop below 1 the next turn.

Shield Stance: Raises defence and counter the next incoming attack.

Aggression: Raises attack, speed and gain Adrenaline Regeneration for several turns.

Bloodlust: Deal high damage to an enemy. Raise attack and restore Adrenaline if it's a killing blow.

Desperation: Deal more damage the lower your Health is.
Bandage: Heals for a small amount and grants Health Regeneration.

 

[Banquo]

I started to make a list, seperating skills in 3 categories:

Weapon Skills (depend on the equipped weapon), Player Skills (depends on the class), Items (have various other effects).

Weapon Skills:

Active:

Stun (Maces and Hammers, lower chance to hit because you aim for the head, but stuns the enemy for a few turns)

Spearwall (spears, polearms, chance to interrupt incoming attacks and stun the enemy)

Swordplay (1H-Swords, chance to interrupt incoming attacks and counterattack)

Shield Breaker (Axes, destroying a shield equipment, not sure how this could be implemented)

Swipe (Flails, 2H-Weapons, attack several enemies at once)

Shield Bash (medium & large shields, stun as well, but with less damage)

Shield Stance (Raises defence and counter the next incoming attack)

Passive:

2H-Weapons can sometime inflict stun

Certain weapon may inflict bleed if used with the "pierce" attack, or if they are jagged

Player Skills:

Active:

Endure Pain (Health points cannot drop below 1 the next turn)

Aggression (Raises attack, speed and gain Adrenaline Regeneration for several turns)

Bloodlust (Deal high damage to an enemy. Raise attack and restore Adrenaline if it's a killing blow)

Taunting (Chance to make enemies attack the skill user)

Inspire (Increases stats of allies)

Passive:

Desperation (Deal more damage the lower your Health is, or falls below a certain percentage)

Items:

Bandage (Heals for a small amount and grants Health Regeneration)

Poison (applies poison to the weapon for a limited number of uses/turns)

In Tactics Ogre, many Items are locked and you have to buy a "Field Medicine" skill before using them. Maybe certain items will be limited to certain classes. Better healing equipment could be used exclusively by doctors, poison by alchemists or assassines.

Hm, player skills are hard to come by.

Edit:

The players skill window would like a bit like this then:

Normal Attack Skills, depending on weapons:

"Slash", "Crush", and/or "Pierce"

Then the Weapon Skills, for example:

"Stun, Shield Stance"

Then come all Player Skills, unlocked for this specific character, for example:

"Aggression", "Bloodlust"

 

[L.W. Flouisa]

Well in the current games I'm working on, I've dropped magic completely. Instead I have a context-based system I'm thinking of doing based on whether you're in attack mode, defence mode, or distance factor mode.

Different types of monsters require different strategies. Defence mode isn't merely blocking with a shield, so much as changing the entire dynamic of the battle, by relying on macro-level battle strategies that cause less damage.

I'll be dropping experience points altogether, for party member based statistics increase. You gain a a party member? Then that member's stats is also factored into the grand total HP, ATK, and GRD.

Other than this, it's basically the same old front view battle system.

I would have considered circle chart based fleeing, but that's a little to advanced for me at this point.

Note the above, that's for pure Ruby. I've decided to learn the basics in coding so I can get the full use out of the RGSS and RPG maker design experience.