Should Water and Ice be different elements?

[Dark_Ansem]

I want to revive this thread with a slightly similar question: does it make any sense to have more than one type of physical damage (blunt, pierce, slash), from a practical POV?

 

[NamEtag]

I want to revive this thread with a slightly similar question: does it make any sense to have more than one type of physical damage (blunt, pierce, slash), from a practical POV?

what is a "practical POV"?

You can check SMT, Fire Emblem, a lot of medieval simulators for that kinda stuff. Are you commited to making a system that's realistic, or balanced? Because a bullet is just a blunt attack with very, very high attack power.

 

[Finnuval]

I want to revive this thread with a slightly similar question: does it make any sense to have more than one type of physical damage (blunt, pierce, slash), from a practical POV?

If your game has multiple weapon-types that you want to differentiate besides things like crit chance
Or as a balancing tool when dealing with multiple party-members, especially in a non magic setting, to make some more or less useful for certain battles I say yes.

 

[kirbwarrior]

I want to revive this thread with a slightly similar question: does it make any sense to have more than one type of physical damage (blunt, pierce, slash), from a practical POV?

Having been in tabletop roleplaying a lot, the 'physical' damage type breakdown I'm used to is;
Blunt/Crush, Cut/Slash, Impale/Stab, Piercing/Bullet (combination of speed and size substantially change some things from 'blunt'), with some systems adding in Hacking/Chopping (swords cut, axes hack down trees). In video games I generally combine Impale and Piercing only because my brain sees them as synonyms and have hacking as an 'extreme' slashing type, if I use them at all.

As for a mechanical POV, they have zero difference from the more 'conceptual' elements. An element is just a name and special effects. You could rename every element in your game with a number and nothing would change except of course how much sense things would make to the player. You could have your elements be vehicle types, planets, the setting's pantheon, named after your cats, etc.

Now, if the question is "is it practical to have every weapon (or weapon type) have a given element?" then that depends on how you want to use elements in your game. Some games like everything having an element and then having ways to interact with those elements, with sometimes having exactly one nonelemental attack as a crazy way to get around the system. In one elemental system I had, 'metal' and 'wood' fell under the more conceptual elements and thus weapons were commonly one element and things definitely resisted or were weak to it. Other games want to 'restrict' elemental stuff to 'magic'. And other games want the opposite, forcing you to deal with weapon types while magic is just magic (or 'magic' is itself a singular weapon element, thanks Fire Emblem Fates!). Some games might even want 'physical' damage types for skills but not normal attacks (a sword just hits, but that Hidden Dagger skill the assassin has always crits and does slashing).

But at the core, it is the same question as 'should water and ice be different?'


One day we'll get a pokemon-style elemental juggling game based around the periodic table and no one will like it XD

 

[Dark_Ansem]

practical POV

Practical Point of View.

realistic, or balanced

Always balanced. Realistic, no way, my project used to be a D&D campaign, can't get any further from reality than summoning a unicorn in a tavern full of men, managing to get him drunk and dance, then rename the tavern "the Drunken Unicorn" after the spell expires.

 

[kirbwarrior]

Realistic, no way, my project used to be a D&D campaign, can't get any further from reality than summoning a unicorn in a tavern full of men, managing to get him drunk and dance, then rename the tavern "the Drunken Unicorn" after the spell expires.

I guarantee there is a tavern IRL called The Drunken Horse" that has this exact story. Except instead of summoning a unicorn with a spell, the horse bust in through the window. Same thing, really

On a more serious note, you also don't need realistic damage types if you don't have realistic weapons. A cinematic chainsaw is just plainly different damage than any 'commoner' blade. You can have weapons made entirely up of a conceptual element like Ice or Shadow. You can lean into 'sort ofs' like bites being a specific damage type because they hit in multiple locations at once and come together. XP had "anti" types and a dragon fang could be a "sword" that deals "anti-dragon" instead of "slashing". Heck, a unicorn horn strapped onto a stick could do "truth" damage because it only hurts those who lie.

 

[Dark_Ansem]

I guarantee there is a tavern IRL called The Drunken Horse" that has this exact story. Except instead of summoning a unicorn with a spell, the horse bust in through the window. Same thing, really

absolutely

On a more serious note, you also don't need realistic damage types if you don't have realistic weapons.

I do kind of have a bit of both.

Heck, a unicorn horn strapped onto a stick could do "truth" damage because it only hurts those who lie.

Oh this is brilliant!

 

[Grunwave]

I want to revive this thread with a slightly similar question: does it make any sense to have more than one type of physical damage (blunt, pierce, slash), from a practical POV?

Since no mod has shut this down:

I played an MMO back in 2003 called DAOC. It had a great Thrust, Blunt, Slash system. I emulated this system in my project. It is reliant on the armor type of the defender.

 

[Dark_Ansem]

Since no mod has shut this down:

Why would it be shut down.

I emulated this system in my project. It is reliant on the armor type of the defender.

please elaborate.

 

[M.I.A.]

I used to differentiate between Smash/Slice/Pierce damage in previous projects, but I have since simplified them in just Physical, but added attributes for each into the mechanics of the weapons being used (rather than being a separate type).

Example: "Pierce" is now rolled into Spears, Arrows, etc., and will bypass any magical Barriers or Shielded enemies. Some skills will even deal an absolute damage, vs. skills that vary based on stats.

How you choose to rationalize your use of types or attributes is completely up to you.
That's the joy of the process.

-MIA

 

[Dark_Ansem]

Example: "Pierce" is now rolled into Spears, Arrows, etc., and will bypass any magical Barriers or Shielded enemies. Some skills will even deal an absolute damage, vs. skills that vary based on stats.

I mean, that would work as well. one type, different weapons.

 

[Grunwave]

 

[Dark_Ansem]

View attachment 257334

Does this table differ on armour materials?

 

[FarOutFighter]

Yeah, I do think they should be separate elements. Ice freezes things. causes frostbite. water makes things wet. ice melts when exposed to heat, water evaporates at best. You could think of them like "cold" and "wet" because those two states of being are totally different.

 

[geek42]

It depends how many other elements you have and how complicated you want your game to be.

Blunt/Pierce/Slash is great for low-magic games to give fighters some variety. D&D never quite made full use of it, preferring to focus on the magic-heavy classical elements, but there's no reason you couldn't.

As for water and ice...as AkiraKotatsuhime said upthread combine them if you want 4 classical elements, combine them for the classical 5 chinese elements (water represents cold weather and is associated with winter), separate them if you want 6 final fantasy elements (earth/water/wind/fire/lightning/ice).

 

[lianderson]

Should? I don't know.

Could? Yes.

 

[JohnDoeNews]

Maybe a fun idea: Don't make water a base element, but a hidden element, which will be used when both Fire and Ice element are used on the same target. (Because, when you put fire and ice together, the fire and ice will cancel each other out and all there will be left is water.)

 

[Dark_Ansem]

It depends how many other elements you have and how complicated you want your game to be.

Blunt/Pierce/Slash is great for low-magic games to give fighters some variety. D&D never quite made full use of it, preferring to focus on the magic-heavy classical elements, but there's no reason you couldn't.

As for water and ice...as AkiraKotatsuhime said upthread combine them if you want 4 classical elements, combine them for the classical 5 chinese elements (water represents cold weather and is associated with winter), separate them if you want 6 final fantasy elements (earth/water/wind/fire/lightning/ice).

I'm actually going for an 8 element based wheel.

 

[gstv87]

I guess having multiple types of damage is RPG 101 by now.
if you'd have your cast work with only one type of damage, then the grinding becomes min-max and it's boring.

the real appeal is to not only have multiple types of damage, but multiple play styles to go with those.
trade wide-area slashing for single-target bludgeoning, or direct piercing for half piercing and half poison over time.
that prevents that the party would rely too much on one character.

 

[Dark_Ansem]

I guess having multiple types of damage is RPG 101 by now.
if you'd have your cast work with only one type of damage, then the grinding becomes min-max and it's boring.

the real appeal is to not only have multiple types of damage, but multiple play styles to go with those.
trade wide-area slashing for single-target bludgeoning, or direct piercing for half piercing and half poison over time.
that prevents that the party would rely too much on one character.

A good compromise is something like the Fire Emblem triangle " swords beat axes, axes beat lances, and then lances beat swords" which could easily be reworked with the D&D damages, but I'm not sure how.