The -6 floor: Desired behavior & tech rezes.

[Ithildur]

Well, if that's the case, then in the meantime until it's fixed, everyone should be careful about killing your unconscious friends with CLW

[edit] (Needless info that pnp folks know already and others will find merely confusing)

BTW, 'floor' can be confusing because 'hitting the floor' could be understood as merely getting knocked unconscious to those not familiar with the terminology; someone reading these threads can get completely confused (and it sounds as if couple people already are).

[edit] Different topic altogether really as it touches on ALFA's current, hmm, 'unique' economy/wealth/power curve... but people at mid lvls and higher really shouldn't be relying on measly CLW anyway to bring their friends to consciousness (often they have no choice I realize in the potion stingy world that is ALFA). Doing that in pnp at mid lvls+ is more likely to result in killing your melee friend than helping them...

[Brokenbone]

I thought the behavior was really only "if someone is hit within about a heartbeat of being healed, they won't be saved twice"? But whatever, sounds like it's being fixed.

Mercy (from deserved death) twice in a span of what has to be under 30-36 seconds by longest count (-6 to the cusp of -10 could be just shy of 24 seconds when healed, yet slayed again before elapsing of another 6-second second mark), can't always expect that I'd have thought, confusing or not. But apparently we'll get uh... additional mercy with a fix? No problem here, my PC gets downed time to time as well, hah.

[Ithildur]

Mercy (from deserved death) twice in a span of what has to be under 30-36 seconds by longest count (-6 to the cusp of -10 could be just shy of 24 seconds when healed, yet slayed again before elapsing of another 6-second second mark), can't always expect that I'd have thought, confusing or not. But apparently we'll get uh... additional mercy with a fix? No problem here, my PC gets downed time to time as well, hah.

Am I mistaken or can the bug happen regardless of whether the first hit (that took the character to negative HPs) triggered the -6 cap or not? i.e. dropped to -2 hps, PC goes down, they get healed, get up, get hit hard, drop to -14, deaders...? If so tis not 'additional' mercy to prevent the -14, just proper implementation of the 'initial mercy' of the cap.

It seems preferable to do what's reasonably feasible to have the cap working consistently as long as we're implementing it, or not have it at all, rather than settling for 'well it's buggy, but heck, it's a bit of mercy anyway so if it don't work then too bad for joo'. That seems rather sloppy and reflects rather poorly on ACR and confidence in the tech team.

[t-ice]

Am I mistaken or can the bug happen regardless of whether the first hit (that took the character to negative HPs) triggered the -6 cap or not? i.e. dropped to -2 hps, PC goes down, they get healed, get up, get hit hard, drop to -14, deaders...? If so tis not 'additional' mercy to prevent the -14, just proper implementation of the 'initial mercy' of the cap.

That's what I thought that the bug does. If we consider this bug a feature, the biggest issue, imo, is going around it: Use Cure Minor Wounds (or anyone remember that spell "Stabilize"?) instead. Being worse off by getting hit with a heal just doesn't compute. Though killing allies with CLW (or Lesser Vigor) would of course be right up the alley of that devious cleric of Shar and how she'd get fat lewtz...

BTW, 'floor' can be confusing because 'hitting the floor' could be understood as merely getting knocked unconscious

Yeah, and guess I am the prime suspect of whipping up this "conveninent" term.

Anyways, even though most of the time PCs knocked out wouldn't go all the way to be saved by the -6 floor, the existence and reliability of the the -6 floor does result in many more knockdowns. PCs can comfortably wait until their buddies fall down for that heal, and be no worse off for it. I don't want to swat PCs left and right, as I think would happen if there was no floor in our environment and engine. Also because that would result in players adapting: The PC base would skew further towards maxxxed tanks and those who will rather flee than melee. But the threat of penalty for being saved by the floor would hopefully reduce the (metagaming) way PCs rely on the -6 floor.

Btw, a PC being Dazed for a round after getting back up from being knocked unconsious might also be a good addition. (Or perhaps better taking 6 secs between being brought to positives, and getting back up into the fight) By PnP rules, you do have to get up, AND pick up your arms which fell to the ground as you were knocked out. This takes about a turn. By our rules, the PC takes a swing like at the same second she gets back to positives. This also compounds the "you can wait with the heal until your buddy falls dying", which isn't the way it should be.

[kid]

Well... then on a side note.
if we are making the only possible way to die is an AoE spell or bleeding out...
(as all other ways are no protected by the -6 floor)

I'd consider maybe dropping the floor lower by some? mayhap to -8?
I'd just hate to see us turning from a premadeath to a no death world.

[Ithildur]

While I wouldn't oppose the cap being lowered a bit to say -7, how the cap/floor translates into no death is beyond me; I've seen legit deaths and even TPK with the cap in place. Getting healed a measly 1d8+1/+5 from -6 does not translate into 'no death' when mobs hit for 20+ dmg when you get up and try to run away, meaning you end up right back at -6 (if the bug is fixed) while the rest of the party too is dealing with the 20+ dmg mobs.

It sounded like the current cap didn't prevent the death of a certain lvl 7 priest of Kelemvor who fell to melee only/no AOE while he was traveling with another cleric... (not trying to be mean btw, just bringing up the most clear example I can recall recently).

@T Ice, I've never played a campaign where dropping unconscious automatically meant you dropped your weapon. That happens if you're stunned, as specifically outlined in RAW/SRD; unconscious is not stunned.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/conditionSummary.htm#stunned

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/conditionSumm ... nconscious

It's not in RAW, and I don't believe it's RAI either; people can DIE while still gripping weapons and stuff in their hands (they can probably keep their grip on something while stunned too at times, but *shrug*). In 3.5e DnD, people drop unconscious, get magically healed, and can get up and swing once (provoking an AOO for getting up usually however) in one round/turn. Sure it's not super realistic and a more gritty ruleset might want to tweak that, but it's perfectly fine by default RAW in PnP. Remember a combat round can actually have a lot going on and 6 seconds is plenty of time for a 'hero' in the movies or high fantasy to come to, move a bit, and do something unlikely just in the nick of time.

As for fears that people take advantage of a cap for abuse/metagaming, I once considered it as a potential drawback as well, but in practice I really don't see it. You'd have to be crazy to think that it's fine dropping to -6, -7 whatever, and see it as a 'comfort zone' where you expect a guaranteed timely heal from a friend. All kinds of factors can happen that results in bleedout to death (like the two clerics mentioned above); people would have to be very silly to think 'Oh, it's no big deal, the cap will save me'.

[Zelknolf]

There are observed instances of a couple player groups abusing the floor; it, combined with a disproportionate number of tech rezzes from bug variety #3, is what brought most of this discussion up in the first place. The former is why I'm pushing for fixes, and the latter is why I'm pushing for penalties.

I do wonder if we're covering any new ground in this thread, though. It feels much like we're fumbling for information and spitballing the same few varieties of penalties (i.e. status effect makes PC less mobile for a short time; status effect makes PC less capable of offense for a longer time; status effect makes PC worse at everything until heals or resets; grarghle floor bad! hulk smash!), which I would think could be broken down to its component parts in good design and is probably something best put on experienced tech folk who know well the struggles with effects and their application/ the game client and its manipulation.

I can say ahead of time, though, that I have to pitch the "lower the damage floor" suggestion out of hand. We don't offer tech rezzes for "I had trouble pathfinding" or "There was a little latency when I targeted with my potion"-- or I certainly hope we don't. The damage floor works on much the same philosophy that we eventually wrote Recall Spirit in (and a few other mechanics which escape me; I recall there being a few, but most are pretty niche): which is to say "We gave you plenty of time. In fact, we gave you far more than the rulebooks say we should; if you can't pull it off in that extra time, you've just gotta live with the consequences." That falls apart without there actually being a good bit of time to work with.

[Blindhamsterman]

its true, hitting the -6 floor can still result in a death if the party is hard pushed...

the encounter where ansha died in the crypts of Silvy springs to mind... lot of decent level enemy rogues as well as a caster capable of dispelling, she got dropped to -6 with a sneak attack and nobody could get to her quick enough on account of trying desperately not to die themselves.

id suggest that keeping the cap on -6 or Maybe -7 is plenty. -7 gives an 18 second window to go and save the downed person. -6 gives 24 seconds.

And yeah It does seem that the bugs mentioned are indeed bugs, so fixing makes sense just need a ruling on if there should be a penalty and if so what kind from DMA and then Tech can look at sorting it out.

[Ronan]

We don't offer tech rezzes for "I had trouble pathfinding" or "There was a little latency when I targeted with my potion"-- or I certainly hope we don't.

I've heard of a few "my potion hit them when they were in the morgue, so it must have been lag" tech rezes (only one specifically comes to mind now, but I'm pretty sure there have been others). Naturally this can be perfectly normal behavior in the NWN2 engine, but the parties involved didn't know that.

...which kinda brings us back to my original purpose for starting this threat (and Zelk's observation that its going nowhere?): the floor is a nice buffer we give people to deal with minor lag, real-time issues, lucky crits, etc. So when those other little issues contribute to PC death, should we offer tech rezes? My hope is that if death system generally only kills people when they are really and truly getting their ass kicked or do something really stupid, we won't need to offer tech rezes for little things.

Tech rezes are a pain for DMs. Parsing through combat logs sucks. It especially sucks with unnamed mobs, so builders, please name your monsters!

e.g.:
"Seductive Waitress { Succubus CR7 }"
or
"Black-armored Orc Chieftan { Obould Many-Arrows CR-LOL }".

[Brokenbone]

The -6 "seems fine", as opposed to say -7 or any other figure.

I have been in a situation of saving someone by skin of teeth before... 6 Wyvern melee, comrade arrested at -6, by the time of pathing through fellow partymates and crazy AoO'ing Wyverns, a healing type of scroll was fired off somewhere in the -9 realm. I mean literally it was "target buddy's portrait when at -6", by the time of crazily weaving through sea of big lizards and party (game picked pathing, I am sure I couldn't have clicked without it being a "sword" icon on something, or WASD walked through that damn mess), but really we were almost adjacent to each other in the same clusterf*ck. Trust me it didn't feel like a "long time", hah. There would have been no time to just go "one more round" with current dance partner and go off to save buddy either. Grit teeth and hope the AoOs don't take down the armored cleric type of situation...

[oldgrayrogue]

I'm with Ronan. The floor is already a cushion. If its bugged then yes fix it but the less tech rezzes the better.

[Zelknolf]

My ideal endgame state of the death system would be to have no tech rezzes, because every tech rezz is a bug. Maybe it's a literal problem with functionality not behaving according to its specs (like the three that started this thread); maybe it's a usability ussue (like naming issues Ronan mentions). We should really be looking into tech rezzes and asking what needs to be fixed to prevent another one like it in the future.


As a matter of an explanation to one thing above: NWN2 is single-threaded, and there are no ties in a single-threaded program. If you see a potion apply an effect to someone in the morgue, it was applied to a dead person, and the ACR was behaving exactly as designed; it just so happens that you spend a very short instant being dead, being targetable, and not yet being in the morgue (specifically, we actually apply a resurrection effect to you once you die so that you're capable of being ported to the morgue: with the side effect being that your stinking corpse is also briefly able to accept healing and able to be targeted by spells. The resurrection happens immediately, and the port goes to the end of your action queue. If a potion appears during this instant, it just hops onto the end of the action queue, after the port, and the effects pile on while you're off in corpseland. Technically, we could call this not dead-- by checking hit points on arrival; I would want to just ask the DMs what they would wish to happen, based on the above knowledge, and automate that. They're the ones who rule "tech rezz" or "not a tech rezz" anyway.)