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Castle Paradox
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Mr B
Joined: 20 Mar 2003
Posts: 382
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 Posted: Fri Sep 23, 2005 9:29 am Post subject: A Better Potion |
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For some time, I have been mulling over aspects of a pure programming RPG that I would like to make. One of the things I like best in RPGs is customization, and I have been pondering how to implement customization in the creation of potions.
Potions as we know them tend to be pretty simple creatures. They heal HP, occasionally boost stats, and, if made at all, are produced from simple materials that can be found most anywhere. There is no real strategy in this.
I would like to propose a theory of potion creation.
In order for potions to be interesting, they must have complicated effects. By this I certainly do not mean complexity for its own sake; I mean that have a range of interesting effects, contain a spectrum of interesting choices, in order to provide nitpicky strategy in all of its minmaxing glory.
In order to accomplish this, I plan on giving my characters a large number of what might be called "hidden stats," all of which are directly involved only with potions.
These hidden stats would be closely related to the four main stats that characters possess -- Constitution, Strength, Agility, and Mind. For example, look at the stats associated with Con:
Con (related pool: HP):
- Con Boost
- Con Drain
- HP Regen
- HP Drain ("poison")
- Body Boost
- Body Drain
- Con Ingestion Modifier
- Con Expulsion Modifier
- Metabolized Substance Repository
Each group of hidden stats behaves like a system or group of systems in the body. The Con group controls Constitution-related aspects, such as Hit Point regen, deterioration, and resistance to different body-based attacks. The Ingestion and Expulsion Modifiers determine how much "effects" are considered, and how soon. A high Ingestion allows stat affecting compounds to be absorbed in high quantities per turn. A high Expulsion Modifier would remove additional points from the Metabolized Substance Repository per turn. Every turn, a point or two is subtracted from each hidden stat (until it normalizes), and put into the Repository, which also slightly decreases per turn. If the Repository contains too many Metabolized Substances, then the surplus per turn is put into the HP Drain hidden stat, reflecting the poisoning associated with too many chemicals in the body.
In addition to the hidden stats associated with each main stat, there is a "group" repository of hidden stats. This most closely represents the digestive system. It contains all of the hidden stat modifiers that have not yet been allocated to their respective hidden stats.
Each potion has attributes determined by its ingredients that modify one or more of these hidden stats. These need to be mixed and matched appropriately to produce a potion that does what I want.
Let's say that I want to create a potion that increases the Constitution stat, provides increased HP regen, and raises the Body saving throw. I gather a Vinweed Berry (Con Boost) and a Brainwart Root (HP Regen and Body Boost). I want this potion to be fast-acting, so I also get a Berrybug Liver (+ Con Ingestion Modifier). When I put it all together, I get a pretty gnarly potion, eh?
However, when I test the potion on Flint (my Rogue-Smith), he starts taking poison damage. Why? It turns out that he had so many substances that they were overpowering the Metabolized Substance Repository and the excess was being put into the Poison meter.
What could I do to fix this? There are a couple of options. Firstly, I could just not put the Berrybug Liver into the potion. This would slow the ingestion of substances, and dramatically reduce the likelyhood of the Repository being maxed.
However, I want Flint to have a fast-acting potion in case of battle, and slowing down the substance absorbtion will not do the job for me. Therefore I hunt around until I find some Horn of Lesser Guardian Toad, which provides a dramatic Con Expulsion Modifier boost. It lowers the Ingestion Modifier slightly, but that's an exchange that I am willing to make.
Now let's say that I intend to hunt some Phenominal Lark Beasts, and I want to make a fast-acting poison to take down their defenses.
I could find a patch of Toxinwood and make a potion out of that, but Toxinwood doesn't provide the sheer poisoning power that I am looking for. Additionally, Phenominal Lark Beasts have a hight constitution, making their Con Expulsion Modifier rather high. This would reduce the time that the poison would remain effective, so I will look somewhere else.
In order to take down my prey, I finally decide on the perfect poison potion. I use some Toxinwood in order to provide a base poison modifier, but I augment it with a Brainwart Root (HP Regen and Body Boost). If Brainwart is beneficial, why am I using it? None of my characters use attacks that are affected by the Body Saving Throw, and the additional chemicals will challenge the beast's expulsion system. Finally, I throw in a Bog Hog Tooth, which is famous for lowering the Con Expulsion Modifier.
Although this potion has some beneficial effects, the sheer bulk of substances entering the Phenominal Lark Beast's system will mean that the Metabolized Substance Repository will be dangerously high. The addition of the Bog Hog Tooth will lower the reduction rate for the Repository, sending large amounts of toxins into the beast's poison meter.
Although this method of making potions is a great deal more complicated than most, I think that it will provide a lot of enjoyable customizability for players. The only problem I see with it is the amount of information for players to deal with. With so many options, finding substances that do what you want might be difficult.
Do you think this is too complicated? Will there be too much info for players to deal with? Would you, most importantly, find it fun? |
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Moogle1
Scourge of the Seas
Halloween 2006 Creativity Winner
Joined: 15 Jul 2004
Posts: 3377
Location: Seattle, WA
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| Posted: Fri Sep 23, 2005 9:43 am Post subject: |
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That sounds like a pretty good system, now that I've read the whole thing. That said, the pitfall of complicated forging systems (as learned from Legend of Mana) is overwhelming your player. If you can't ease your player into a learning curve for item creation as well as give him hints as to what ingredients do (perhaps modified by an Alchemy stat a la Morrowind), he's going to give up on it.
It swings both ways, though -- make it too easy to understand and it becomes uninteresting or easily abused. Speaking of abused, what's keeping me from throwing fifty different ingredients into one potion to make it deal lethal poison damage?
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Ssalamanderr
Simply too strong. Simply too beautiful!
Joined: 14 Feb 2003
Posts: 208
Location: Out somewhere, Chillaxing.
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| Posted: Fri Sep 23, 2005 10:05 am Post subject: |
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This sounds pretty cool. I think that if you did this you would want to make it the main focus of the game, and explain it really well. Otherwise it may be too confusing and end up not being used by the majority of players.
The poison thing is tricky... I suppose you could have a limit to the amount of ingredients that could go in one potion. This would be kind of boring though. Maybe just balance it so that people won't want to waste ingredients (That there twistroot cost me a bundle you know!). Also, with some of the ingredients giving stat bonuses, you could end up with a poisoned monster who also has regen and enough strength to kill any of your party members in one attack. This might balance it somewhat.
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Mr B
Joined: 20 Mar 2003
Posts: 382
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| Posted: Fri Sep 23, 2005 11:37 am Post subject: |
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| Moogle1 wrote: | That sounds like a pretty good system, now that I've read the whole thing. That said, the pitfall of complicated forging systems (as learned from Legend of Mana) is overwhelming your player. If you can't ease your player into a learning curve for item creation as well as give him hints as to what ingredients do (perhaps modified by an Alchemy stat a la Morrowind), he's going to give up on it.
It swings both ways, though -- make it too easy to understand and it becomes uninteresting or easily abused. Speaking of abused, what's keeping me from throwing fifty different ingredients into one potion to make it deal lethal poison damage? |
Yes; the learning curve will be...difficult. You bring up some important points. Let me try to work them out by describing the larger game system.
In brief, the game is a standard wipe-out-the-dungeon game. You start out at the top, go to the bottom, and kill everything in between that so much as twitches. Relatively standard fare.
You start out with three characters and six classes. Each character takes two classes, a main class and a subclass. Each class has specific skills that are necessary to beating the game. The six classes are (at this point in time!) Knight (ye olde smasher), Rogue (detect and eliminate puzzles and traps), Hunter (special skills vs. enemies, as well as potion ingredient gathering), Scout (maze mapping), Smith (mining and weapon forging), and Chemist (potion creation). Each class has an unique bonus if it is the main class, and they can be swapped around in any configuration during character creation, so there are a lot of possibilities.
The player also determines character stats at the beginning. There are four stats, Strength, Dex, Constitution, and Intelligence. Each stat has an associated "pool" Con = HP, Int = Thought Points, Str = ??? (don't remember the name, but it's used in attacks as an expendable, much like MP), and Dex = Action Points (used to determine movement during combat). Each stat also has an associated Saving Throw. I tried to make it pretty symmetrical.
Now, on to the point. Just about every action draws on one of the Pools. Getting damaged reduces HP, moving reduces AP, thinking reduces TP, and physical exertion reduces ?P. For example, smithing would draw upon ?P and TP, because it requires both exertion and mind. Destroying a trap involves AP and TP. And creating a potion, naturally, would draw upon TP, because you have to think about what you're composing.
Every ingredient you add to a potion adds additional points to the total TP cost to make that potion. Although you can drain a pool to below zero (I'll explain later), you can't use it again until it is positive. This means that you can theoretically make a super massive ultra shock death potion, but it will require so much TP that you're probably (if I balance it right!) better off making something simpler. Controlled min-max dynamics, built right into the system.
As far as identifying what ingredients do, I think (though it's definitely open to modification) that it will be a skill specific to the Chemist. The higher the Chemist's level is, the more likely he will be to identify the nature of an ingredient. And of course, if the Chemist is the main class (as opposed to the subclass) then he will probably have a high identification bonus.
I think that the hardest part will be explaining to the poor player how the system works. I mean, who wants to read a treatise on fantasy biology and health before playing a game?
(end potion-specific comment)
As I said, you can drain a pool to below zero. There are a couple of reason why I want to do this. One, it helps the battle turn calculations, as the first character to reach a positive AP moves next; having lots of AP going into a battle will allow that character to do several moves in rapid succession, hopefully allowing easy battles to slide quickly by. The main reason, however, is that I want the player to be able to make "ultimate" equipment and potions.
In good legends and fantasy, there are often smiths who can make marvelous weapons. However, doing so always seems to take a bit out of them -- they can only make one or two such weapons during their lifetimes, or at the very most they can do it only every once in a while. I want the player to be able to imitate that.
A character with the smith class can make weapons. The better the weapon, the more ?P and TP it requires. If the player desires, the smith can accrue negative pool points and make a very good weapon indeed. However, the smith cannot make a single dagger, or even use a thought-based skill in combat, until the pools have recovered to above zero. I think this will allow the player to create legendary weapons, but only rarely, and at great cost. This means that the most beneficial course of player behaviour will be to make typical armor and weapons, at least until the end of the game.
I'll have to write about the weapon fabrication system sometime. I think it's rather interesting.
| Ssalamanderr wrote: | This sounds pretty cool. I think that if you did this you would want to make it the main focus of the game, and explain it really well. Otherwise it may be too confusing and end up not being used by the majority of players.
The poison thing is tricky... I suppose you could have a limit to the amount of ingredients that could go in one potion. This would be kind of boring though. Maybe just balance it so that people won't want to waste ingredients (That there twistroot cost me a bundle you know!). Also, with some of the ingredients giving stat bonuses, you could end up with a poisoned monster who also has regen and enough strength to kill any of your party members in one attack. This might balance it somewhat. |
Yeah; that should definitely provide some balance. I don't want to have the ingredients to be entirely beneficial. After all, real-world medicine can be beneficial or murderous depending entirely on its concentration and the condition of the patient.
I want potion creation to be a large part of the game, but I don't want it to be the main aspect. That will be for weapon fabrication, which is somewhat similar in its system of checks and balances.
Erm. Yes. This will definitely not be a game for a casual player. Too much stuff to keep track of, I am afraid. |
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