Guard/Protect

[Wolfsong]

This has probably been suggested before, and may have even been suggested in the combat thread below, but here's my take on it.

Currently, you cannot protect yourself from being hit except to have a shield - you can come with a retinue of guards, but they can't act defensively on your behalf, only offensively to attack any offending parties, drag, etc., right? So what if there was a button added to the 'drag, hit, help' line on a character's page that said 'protect' or 'guard?' (With a cute little graphic, too, like they all have.) Enable someone to protect another character, and have it function the same way as dragging functions, ie, have it base off strength or skill (fighting ability) and have it show a percentage: Protecting a man in his twenties, 23%. Whatever.

From there, then, depending on whatever it bases off of - stats or skills - you would have that percent chance of being hit instead of the protected party, if someone were to swing at them.

Make sense?

And while protecting (same as it is with drag currently) you wouldn't be able to travel, perform other activities, rest, enter buildings, leave buildings, or drag, etc.)

Say Cathy is a queen of a town and goes on a diplomatic mission; she brings 3 guards and does not carry a shield because that's lame unless you're a warrior queen. Once she arrives in hostile territory, her 3 guards each move to protect her. If diplomacy fails, and the angry Count Vlad tries to hit her with his battleaxe, there's a chance instead one of the guards protecting her will take the hit, but there's also a chance that he'll hit the queen still anyway. Etc.

[Doug R.]

I would suggest it work in the following manner:

-The protecting character would have 1/2 the normal chance of blocking an attack on the character they protect.

-The protecting character cannot defend themselves

-The protecting character cannot do anything else (like you said)

[Wolfsong]

I think the protecting character should be able to defend themselves, I mean, if they're carrying a shield, etc., as much as they might normally be able to defend themselves against an attack.

[Doug R.]

No, for two reasons:

1) The attack on them could be a diversion to draw them away from who their protecting.

2) They're paying attention to who their guarding, not themselves.

The only way this could be allowed is if:

1) Their chance to defend themselves was reduced

2) Defending themselves automatically canceled the protection on the other character. (get to the mark by attacking the bodyguards first).

[BZR]

Wolfsong is right for one particular reason. Characters not using their shields dies in 2-3 hits. He could have lowered chance to block, but it in the age of tea atacking one more person is nothing.

[SekoETC]

I'd pick option 2 but the chance of dropping the guarding project should be proportional to either the damage dealt or the damage that would've been dealt if the defender failed to block it. Thus if someone hits you with a waster, that's unlikely to break your concentration but if someone hits you with a battle axe, it's likely to happen. Also the guards could have a reduced chance of blocking attacks aimed at them but it shouldn't be awfully huge. Also a successful blocking of an attack on the guarded person could give the guard some tiredness since they likely had to run or leap to the rescue.

Edit: And also the chance of successful blocking should be defined by the fighting skill. It could be 50% for efficient but higher for experts and lower for awkwards.

[Wolfsong]

Yes yes yes for the tiredness on successful block.

[Ruby]

If you make it an active project (like dragging) I see no reason why you can't guard both yourself and another person. I like this idea a lot. I know of several times when I wish I could have jumped in front of someone and taken the hit for them.

What happens when two people guard each other though? That should be impossible. The person being guarded should also be able to refuse help imo.

[catpurr]

*And Iiiiieiiiiieiiiiiiieiii ... will always love youuuuouuuuuuouuuuouuu*

---
Request: Make it so whenever someone takes a hit for another s/he automatically screams "NOOOOOOooooooo....." while jumping into the line of fire. Ah yes, and in slow motion if that is possible.

[SekoETC]

What happens when two people guard each other though? That should be impossible. The person being guarded should also be able to refuse help imo.

I don't see a problem with two people guarding each other since only guards for the intended target would be checked, not the guards of the guard who steps in to deflect or absorb the blow, preventing an infinite loop from forming. I think it would be pretty difficult to stop someone from defending you since if you pushed them out of the way when they're trying to absorb a blow directed at you, the person might be thrown out of balance and be in more danger after that. And you would also be in more danger since you were concentrating on pushing the defender away and not countering the attacker.

Come to think of it, I don't see why blocking a blow while stepping in front of someone else would be more difficult than blocking a blow directed at yourself, especially when the attacker most likely wasn't predicting such a move, so maybe it should use the same chances for regular hit (use shield if you have one), critical hit (goes past the shield) or miss (in which case it could still roll for a second chance to hit the original target anyway).

guard_chance_of_success = (guard_fighting_skill*range_multiplier+range_minimum)/10000
*
((10000-guard_tiredness)/10000) //0 to 1
*
(guard_health/10000) //1 to 0.0001

Fighting skill ranges from 1000 to 10000. The range multiplier is a made up number to ensure that people with a maxed out skill won't be able to defend successfully 100% of the time. The range minimum is to balance things out for awkward fighters. For example if the range multiplier was 0.8, with no range minimum the most awkward fighter in Cantr had only an 8% chance of successfully defending someone while not wounded or tired. If we think they should deserve at least a 10% chance, we put 200 in range minimum and that would give fully maxed out fighters a 82% chance of success. That seems pretty high so the numbers should probably still be tweaked. The tiredness modifier ensures that if someone is 100% tired, they'll have a 0% chance of defending someone regardless of their skill.

[Ruby]

I really think this is one of the better ideas to come along on these boards for awhile.

[Piscator]

Why should skill affect the chance of success? Currently chances are fixed numbers throughout the game, so why should we make an exception now? We should try to keep the ruleset logical and consistent. Besides, skill already affects the defense strength, so this would be a double advantage.

Let's keep it simple and have a 50% chance for anyone. The one with the highest defense potential gets tested first. If successful the attack is redirected to him, if not the second in line gets his chance. Bodyguards can defend themselves (Really, why shouldn't they? Nobody would be that bloody stupid.) and of course their target, but nothing besides that (protecting a second target included).

[Ruby]

Agreed, defending someone should be an active process.