I would be interested in hearing what you folks think, and if there are ways to improve this.
I remember in the old days of D&D there was a morale check mechanic, which gave the DM a way to determine if a monster (or group of monsters) would fight to the death or flee. Setting wimpy works for individuals, but not masses of low level guys who might be killed before they can flee -- so I wanted a script that would work on mobs that are encountered as groups and are aggressive. The in-world affect would be a group of soldiers realizing that the PCs are killing them with no effort, causing them to be demoralized and for the whole group to flee (even those who are uninjured). Obviously not appropriate for all mobs.
What I ended up with was a death trigger (so no morale checks until after the first mob dies) that counts all the levels of fighting mobs in the room (so two level 3 mobs would total 6) and then counts all of the levels of the fighting and visible PCs in the room. The script then makes a comparison similar to the one in "consider" and gives slightly outclassed mobs a 50% chance of becoming demoralized and fleeing and very outclassed mobs a 100% chance of fleeing (maybe I should change to 75%, I've play-tested this a little but still tweaking it). There are some color echoes for groups that think they outclass the PCs, as well as signs of panic for the mobs on the wrong side of the power equation.
It ended up kind of interesting, as incapacitation sometimes means a delay in the death trigger, so a lone PCs can end up killing two mobs before the trigger fires. Fleeing also doesn't keep wandering mobs from wandering back one by one to be killed, not sure what to do about that as it doesn't look like I can set wimpy from a trigger. But I suppose a non-generic trigger could transform the mobs into wimpy versions. The script also ignores non-fighting mobs that happen to be in the room, like wildlife, so they aren't affected.
Anyway, here is the script:
Code:
* Run check on mob death, tally total mob levels versus PC levels and assign
* probability of the remaining mobs fleeing. The levels of Mobs that aren't
* fighting should not be counted and they shouldn't be forced to flee.
* Using code from the "while damage" example tigger to loop through the fight
set room_var %actor.room%
set target_char %room_var.people%
set pclevels 0
set moblevels 0
set mobcount 0
set runaway 0
* Now loop through everyone fighting (and visible) to get MOB and PC total levels
while %target_char%
* Set the next target before this one perhaps dies.
set tmp_target %target_char.next_in_room%
* PCs level totals
if %target_char.canbeseen% && %target_char.is_pc% && %target_char.fighting%
eval pclevels (%pclevels% + %target_char.level%)
* Mob level totals
elseif !%target_char.is_pc% && %target_char.fighting%
eval moblevels (%moblevels% + %target_char.level%)
eval mobcount (%mobcount% + 1)
end
* Set the next target.
set target_char %tmp_target%
* Loop back.
done
* Compare total mob levels fighting versus PC levels fighting to determine
* if mobs will flee
if (%moblevels% - %pclevels%) > 4
if %mobcount% > 1
%echo% Your foes seem confident they will defeat you!
else
%echo% Your foe seems confident they will defeat you!
end
elseif ((%moblevels% - %pclevels%) >= 2) && ((%moblevels% - %pclevels%) <= 4)
if %mobcount% > 1
%echo% Your foes fight well.
else
%echo% Your foe fights well.
end
elseif %moblevels% == 0
* They are all dead!
elseif ((%moblevels% - %pclevels%) >= 0) && ((%moblevels% - %pclevels%) <= 1)
if %mobcount% > 1
%echo% You and your foes seem well matched.
else
%echo% You and your foe seem well matched.
end
elseif ((%moblevels% - %pclevels%) <= -1) && ((%moblevels% - %pclevels%) >= -2)
switch %random.2%
case 1
* Time to bolt
set runaway 1
if %mobcount% > 1
%echo% Your foes cast grim glances at their fallen comrades.
else
%echo% Your foe casts grim glances at their fallen comrades.
end
break
case 2
* Maybe hang in one more round
if %mobcount% > 1
%echo% Your foes cast uneasy glances at their fallen comrades.
else
%echo% Your foe casts uneasy glances at their fallen comrades.
end
break
default
* Shouldn't reach
done
elseif ((%moblevels% - %pclevels%) <= -3)
if %mobcount% > 1
%echo% Your foes seem panicked by your ferocity in combat!
else
%echo% Your foe seems panicked by your ferocity in combat!
end
set runaway 1
end
* Now we want to loop through the mobs again and tell the demoralized mobs to flee
set room_var_2 %actor.room%
set target_char_2 %room_var_2.people%
while %target_char_2%
* Set the next target before this one perhaps dies.
set tmp_target_2 %target_char_2.next_in_room%
if !%target_char_2.is_pc% && %target_char_2.fighting% && %runaway% == 1
%force% %target_char_2% flee
end
* Set the next target.
set target_char_2 %tmp_target_2%
* Loop back.
done
