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[Ozarck]

Clearly, the correct way to go is to replace every body part with testicles.

Oh, PW, I had a thought for the middle part - power level. It would work like the spells in Eternal Darkness, Sanity's Requiem. For those spells, you need three symbols - a symbol that represents one of: mind, body, or soul; an action symbol; and a target symbol.

However, for stronger spells, you add either two or four of they symbol for 'power.' Now, you can edit that by having different types of power - kinetic, electric, emotional, psionic, etc, which would mean that not every part is suitable for every player, or every limb. And having multiple power types could give different increases, whereas reeating one type cold increase the power, or do nothing.


Here, let's test it out. Someone give me three symbols as mentioned above, and up to two power symbols.

[piecewise]

Huh. So would that mean that a viable thing to do would be carrying around a backpack full of human parts and temporarily swapping your demon parts with them for a bit when your humanity gets too low?

There probably has to be a limiter on that,yeah. Otherwise we'll have people doing a turn of "Switch all my body parts out for this configuration and then back to human after attacking"

Wait, wouldn't it make more sense that going beyond the baseline human form decreases humanity again? Eg. that having more than 2 arms, even if they come from other normal humans, decreases your humanity score instead of making you 'more human' somehow? If not, wouldn't it make more sense to call the stat 'human biomass' (as opposed to demon/animal/inorganic mass) instead of 'humanity'?

Yeah, I said that didn't I? Or something similar to that. Specifically I said going beyond human PARTS...hmm. So beyond normal number of human parts or beyond normal human configuration...

[spazyak]

Character growth = growing extra limbs.

end game = Literal Human centipede

[Ozarck]

Bah, and wht of those twins who share a body below the waist, hmm? what of them?

 
actually, perhaps two human brains in a body wold resist demonism more strongly?

Make a hidden "control points" stat, to determine how many alterations, and how much demonism, one human mind can control. Then, I could see additional human arms and the like costing less overall than, say, a spiked tentacle of crushing. but there would be a limit, or perhaps make it a matter of diminishing returns.

But seriously, check out my previous comment. I am interested in your feedback on that idea.

[Whisperling]

Huh. So would that mean that a viable thing to do would be carrying around a backpack full of human parts and temporarily swapping your demon parts with them for a bit when your humanity gets too low?

There probably has to be a limiter on that,yeah. Otherwise we'll have people doing a turn of "Switch all my body parts out for this configuration and then back to human after attacking"

I'd say a long rest or equivalent, but that would take away from some of the fun of frankenstein medicine and the like. Corruption when you first add things, maybe? Could spin it as, I don't know, the body being more prone to background corruption for a bit after it accepts demon bits.

[piecewise]

Bah, and wht of those twins who share a body below the waist, hmm? what of them?

 
actually, perhaps two human brains in a body wold resist demonism more strongly?

Make a hidden "control points" stat, to determine how many alterations, and how much demonism, one human mind can control. Then, I could see additional human arms and the like costing less overall than, say, a spiked tentacle of crushing. but there would be a limit, or perhaps make it a matter of diminishing returns.

But seriously, check out my previous comment. I am interested in your feedback on that idea.

Power level as the second stat could work, but it also means effectively limiting things to an action of some power level and a passive effect. I can slash with power 3 and I have a passive bonus to slashing attacks.

It is completely functional but also no where near as interesting as the "Functional and structural" approach we're working on now. Namely because it is limited to the 5 body lines that I pre-established; you can't easily expand the system in neat ways and I fell like it will lead to part favoritism because almost everyone will just try to get the most high powered part.

Character growth = growing extra limbs.

end game = Literal Human centipede

This is actually a really good idea in a way.

Earlier I said that leveling up would entail eating enough parts of a particular stat to level it up. But thats a lot of book keeping. Instead, we could work it like this:

When you level up you can choose from between three rewards.
1. Permanent boost to some stat. Totally independent of your body make up. Call it leveling up your soul or something.
2. Permanent boost to the amount of humanity human parts provide. Effectively this allows you to have less human parts and still maintain the same regen of humanity.
3. The formation of a new "Normal Part Slot". If we look at our standard body and say we have a central body with three parts (gut, chest, head) and then 4 limbs with 3 slots each, then it becomes easy to say "Ok, well I want to expand the central body to be 4 slots. Or I want to expand the left arm to be 4. Or I want to add an entirely new single slot limb."  And the idea is that, while you can add parts to yourself whenever you want, parts in these slots will not cost against as being "Extra" and drain more Humanity. So you could theoretically just expand your slots and have many extra human parts without taking any humanity penalty.

[piecewise]

Hmm. So there's the potential problem that you could keep your human body and just staple extra limbs on. Because, then you could have the same loss of humanity regen but more body parts to soak damage for you. Like:

Start with a body that has 15 parts, so regens 15 points each turn

Replace an arm, and it regens 12

add a new arm, it regens 12 because of the -3 from the new arm.

What we probably need to do is have body parts outside the "Normal" plan cost double. So you could add that new arm, but it would bring regen down to 9 instead.

[renegadelobster]

Could also have chests/guts that have an extra arm(s) slot at no extra cost. Like, you get rid of both of your human arms, so then you get a -6 to humanity. Get rid of your human chest and/or gut, get a -1/-2 to humanity, but because the demon one has an extra arm slot already, you don't take another -3, because it already had the arm slot. Just make them a somewhat rare drop.

Edit: I fixed it. I think. Seems less confusing now

[piecewise]

Could also have chests/guts that have extra arm slot at no extra cost. Like, you get rid of both your arms, so -6. Get rid of your chest/gut, -1, but because it has an extra arm slot already, you don't take another -3, because it already had the arm slot. Just make them a somewhat rare drop.

Took me a few reads to understand what you meant. Might be possible.

[renegadelobster]

...Jesus. I just re-read that. That's what I get for posting after being awake for 20ish hours. Imma go to sleep now. I might attempt to fix that post first though.

[Unholy_Pariah]

what if middle arm governed melee attack style?

so if I had a human arm I can slash, thrust and chop with no penalty.
but if my middle arm is say a chameleon's tongue I get a nice bonus to thrust attack damage but I cant slash or chop for peanuts.

just a thought.

[piecewise]

Random ideas:

Transplant sickness: a method of preventing quickswapping lots of parts. Basically just a random humanity cost when the parts are swapped. Or maybe a stat malus for a time. Or maybe both.

Alternative part swap prevention: Just make it so that when you remove a part, the part is destroyed. This does, however, limit utility and people are less likely to try out new parts. Conclusion: Bad idea.


Body stat containment: All stats are contained in the body parts, none exist externally. You could drop stats to zero by simply removing the parts with them. Bonus: Advancement and specialization of stats becomes quite directly tied to body parts. Hard choices to make about switching out parts and losing points in one thing for points or abilities. Destruction of parts has a really powerful effect. Negatives: Difficult to balance. Requires growth curve of part stat points. Players will almost inevitably swap out old parts for new, more powerful ones; creating lack of variety.  Conclusion: Probably better to keep a "Core" stat and skill set and have parts act as bonuses. Easier to balance and predict.


Core: Since players will be swapping limbs and body parts out like crazy, and these body parts will be destroyed or damaged as time goes on, it is important to establish exactly what is fatal. After all, tearing off your head in this is a method of powering up. There are two possible ways to handle this that I can think of: First is to designate one part of your body as the "core", the part that, if destroyed, will cause you to die. The alternative is to go DF undead style and just say "If 60% of your parts are destroyed, or you lose all functional parts, you are dead."

[Whisperling]

Random ideas:

Transplant sickness: a method of preventing quickswapping lots of parts. Basically just a random humanity cost when the parts are swapped. Or maybe a stat malus for a time. Or maybe both.

Stat malus sounds good. Kinda defeats the point of doing a swiss army knife thing via negating the extra utility. I could see humanity turning it into a sort of "secondary use for mana" situation, too, so stats are probably better overall.

Core: Since players will be swapping limbs and body parts out like crazy, and these body parts will be destroyed or damaged as time goes on, it is important to establish exactly what is fatal. After all, tearing off your head in this is a method of powering up. There are two possible ways to handle this that I can think of: First is to designate one part of your body as the "core", the part that, if destroyed, will cause you to die. The alternative is to go DF undead style and just say "If 60% of your parts are destroyed, or you lose all functional parts, you are dead."

Core seems a bit weird. Sort of like being able to stuff your vital organs into your left hand.

60% is also wacky, in what's almost the opposite sense (Nah, don't worry about the grey matter splattered all over the place. Just a flesh wound.), but becomes less so as your get more demon bits, because god only knows what those things need to stay alive.


I feel like there's a balance in there somewhere (and the whole thing kind of reminds me of that one ORO combat test we did), but its late, so I'll wrap this up and get to bed.

[Egan_BW]

More entertaining would be that you can always choose what bodypart your soul resides in at any one time, so you could stick your soul in your hand, cut that arm off, and be a living arm.

[AoshimaMichio]

More entertaining would be that you can always choose what bodypart your soul resides in at any one time, so you could stick your soul in your hand, cut that arm off, and be a living arm.

I imagine that would be instant ticket to demonhood.