Stun, Regen, Poison, and Mute
The OHRRPGCE has built-in support for four status effects which are in almost every RPG, Poison, Stun, Regen and Mute. They are easy to use and add more strategic elements to a game. Also note that all status effects do not continue after ending a battle. Other effects are possible by using chained attacks. See below.
Remember, the suggestions here are just suggestions. Mix around with status effects to create your own spiffy attacks! Is
Status effects behave a little differently whether you are using the Active-time or Turn-based battle modes. Though explained below, Turn-based battles compared to Active-time battles explains the difference briefly.
Registers[edit]
Regen, poison, stun and mute are implemented with registers. These are special stats which have initial value 1000. The amount of regen, stun, etc, is equal to the amount below 1000 that these are decreased. For mute and stun this value is seconds, for poison and regen it's the amount of poison damage/regen healing every regen/poison time interval.
The implications are that you can't have more than 1000 seconds of stun, 1000 poison damage, etc, and that percentage-damage attacks on those registers is a really bad idea. Also, you can heal the registers above 1000 using the 'allow cure to exceed maximum' bit, which acts like a buffer (protection) against future attacks.
Poison[edit]
This is very obvious; almost every RPG has some form of Poison, though for the sake of the HOWTO I'll explain it anyways. Poison is a status effect that will slowly decrease the HP stat. Poison could also be called sickness or other things.
Usage: To poison an enemy, go to the "Damage Settings" of the selected attack, and set the "Target Stat" to "Poison Register." This means that the amount of damage done to this register (counter-intuitively, the amount it is decreased) will be slowly repeated (with some randomisation) over and over until the enemy (or hero) dies. How often it is done depends on the battle mode:
- Active-time battles: repetition time depends on the hero's or enemy's speed stat: faster enemies take damage more often. Whichever is more frequent: either every 1.5 turns, or every 8 seconds.
- Turn-based battles: at the end of each turn.
If another attack is used that poisons the enemy, then the damage repeated will increase. Be careful of how you use poison, because it can pile up and cause large amounts of damage at a time.
Curing Poison: To cure Poison, you must use an attack. To cure poison, make an attack that cures (increases) the poison register, or one that sets the poison register to 100% of its maximum. This may be confusing to you. Setting the poison register to 0% might seem more logical, but in fact that will make the target really really really severely poisoned. Remember: Poison damage = Max Poison Register - Current Poison Register
Suggestions: When using Poison, I recommend you set the "Damage Math" to pure damage, then the "Base Atk Stat" to 100. Then, go to "Extra Damage" and set the percent into the minus (by pressing LEFT on the keyboard). Depending on the amount you put into the minus in the "Extra Damage" will be taken off from the 100, in "Base Atk Stat." So if you want the attack to take roughly 20HP from the enemy each time, set the "Extra Damage" to -80%. You might also want to turn on the "Do not randomize" damage bitset.
You can use the "Fail if Target is Poisoned" attack bitset to stop the poison being inflicted to keep growing each time the enemy is hit, or alternatively use the "Reset target stat to max before hit" damage bitset.
Stun[edit]
Stun is somewhat like "Sleep" from Pokemon. Stun will freeze the ready bar where it is, stopping the target from attacking. This could also be considered a Paralyze Attack, a Sleep Attack, or a Freeze Attack. The idea is that it stops the target from moving. Be careful how long stun will last, and how frequently it will be used when being cast from an enemy. Getting hit by Stun continuously when you only have a few heroes can make a battle very boring and difficult.
Usage: Using Stun is just like using any status effecting attack. Set the Target Stat of an enemy to "Stun Register." When the target is hit with a Stun attack, the damage done to the enemy will be how many seconds (yes not ticks!) the target will wait before being able to attack again. Remember, like other status effects, Stun can pile up if used repetitively. So be sure to not make the damage too high. Expect the brainless enemies to use the attack multiple times. Another way to stop the annoyingness, is to set the "Fail if target is Stunned" bitset on so that it won't repeat.
Suggestions: Like I mentioned in Poison, use the 100 Stat, and Pure Damage, to ensure that the same amount of controlled damage is sent every time. This time though, you can try using the "Do Not Randomize" Bitset.
Regen[edit]
Regen is short for Regenerate. This is one of the less obvious status effects. Regen, works the same way as poison, but it does the opposite thing. It cures the target repetitively. This is usually used on allies, you don't want to heal an enemy. There is no symbol that goes in the ready bar for regen, so a caption box would do nicely to show that the target is regenerating.
Usage: You now already know how to use status effects, this time just set the Target Stat to, "Regen Register." If someone is using Regen it's usually on a friend, so be sure to set the target as "Ally." During the battle, the damage done to this register will repeat ceaselessly. It's a pretty good deal, having some extra HP every so-and-so.
Curing Regen: By curing Regen, I mean stopping regen. Regen does not wear off automatically over time. Regen is a good thing, and no body would want to stop it, but you might want to stop your enemies from regenerating. Stopping regen would be done the same way Poison is cured. When using this "Stop Regen" attack, set the target to enemy, because no body would want to use it on a friend. The easiest way to make an attack that cancels regen is to make an attack that targets the regen register and sets it to 0% (Mike C.: Or, should you set it to 100%?)
Suggestions: Try to use Regen at low numbers if you are allowing pile-ups. Having extra HP every now and then is a big boost. If repeated really high numbers, it would make the hero or enemy become unstoppable. Since Regen is such a good thing, make MP for it high. Or better yet, make it an item, a rare item, the kind people save for boss battles.
Don't forget pile-ups. If you don't want to allow them, the set the, "Fail if Target is Regenerating" Bitset on.
Mute[edit]
Mute is an interesting power, somewhat like "Disable" from Pokemon. Mute stops the target from using certain attacks, which are marked by an attack bitset, Mutable. Like stun, it lasts for a certain amount of time, tracked using the "stun register", a special stat.
Usage: Creating a mute attack is as simple as eating cheese. Like the other status effects, set the Target Stat to "Mute Register." Each point of Damage done to this register will cause the target to be muted for one second. So if you do 60 damage, it will be a minute until they are cured of mute. When muted, the target will not be able to use certain attacks. You have to choose which attacks are not available when you are muted. Edit the attacks you want to be unavailable, and select "Mutable" under the Attack Bitset menu.
Suggestions: Mute isn't as powerful as stun is, so it would be best to make it last longer.
Don't make all the attacks "Mutable" or the effect will be just like stun. Just make the special attacks mutable. Try to make it so that every hero and enemy has at least one attack that can't be muted. The original idea behind mute was that magical attacks can be muted (since you need to chant a spell), while physical attacks could not (you don't need to talk to run someone through with a sword).
Status Ideas[edit]
Here are some multiple usages for statuses, if you have any you would like to share, than please add them to this list.
Captions: It's good to add captions when using a status effecting attack. The user may not be entirely aware when a enemy attacks with a status attack. The user my get frustrated, and wonders why he's losing so much HP with poison, or why the ready bar is stuck when they are stunned.
Status Identifiers: Just so you know that your hero is Poisoned, Stunned, or Muted (but not Regenerating!), there are symbols that will appear in the Health Bar, you can set these in "General Game Data."
Doesn't Work with certain Status Effect: You can make it so that certain attacks don't work when YOU are inflicted with a certain status effect then try this...
- Lets say, you don't want to be able to "Super Attack" when your poisoned.
- Make the attack called "Super Attack" but make it have no appearance or damage.
- Set the bitset, "Fail if Target is Poisoned" on, and set the "Target Class", to Self.
- Then make the real attack (Lets call it, "Super Attack Chain") with the Damage, Appearance, and everything else to the way you want.
- The go back to "Super Attack" and make it chain to "Super Attack Chain" and set the Chain Rate to 100%.
- Make sure you give the hero the "Super Attack" and not "Super Attack Chain."
Side Effects: You can make attacks have status effecting side effects. Just make your attack, chain to an attack, that inflicts a status effect. If you want, make the chain rate NOT 100% so that these extra effects are rare.
Show the poison / mute / stun symbol at enemy: ' If you attack an enemy with a poison / mute / stun register damaging attack, less experienced players may get confused, as they see a damage number appearing, that is not subtracted from the enemys health points. So we need to show the poison / mute / stun symbol at the enemy to indicate that it was damage to the specific register. Make a chained attack after your, let's say, poision attack. This chained attack needs to have your poision symbol in the name and must have the bitsets "show attack name" and "do not display damage" set on. And it should not do any damage at all, as that's done by the regular poison attack.
Other Perspectives[edit]
Here are other's advice for using status effects!
Raekuul: It's fun to toy with these!
Poison - Slowly saps the target stat. To do this, put your target stat as "Poison Register" on the attack menu.
Regen - Reverse of Poison. Short for Regenerative.
Stun - Stops the target from attacking until a time (determined by the *damage*) expires.
Stun and Regen work best with the "Do not display damage" bitset. Also, I'm not sure what a poison/regen one would do if the "Absorb damage" bitset is on... someone get back to me on that...
H-Bomb:
Poison and Stun -
Because Players can be re-poisoned, which heightens the amount of damage taken, I prefer to make individual attacks for Poison and stun, and chain them to another "real" attack, which will have this effect, and set the probability of chaining to 50% or less. Create a graphic by spelling "poison" or "stun" and making it flash different colors for effect if you want. The word will have to be reversed to appear correctly (due to the enemies facing the opposite way as the characters do). For attacker animation, select "null" and then link the poison or stun to the attack which you want to have this effect.
Regen -
Damage math: regen register = 99% of current Base ATK stat: Attack Base DEF Stat: default Target stat: Regen Register Extra Damage%: -1 Aim Math: Never Misses Extra Hits: 1 Delay Before Attack: 0
The Regen will be based on your attack stats, the extra damage bitset is backwards, -1% will regenerate small chunks of life at a time, as where -80% would generate hundreds of hitpoints at a time (depending on attack strength) You will obviously need to select cure instead of harm, and set the attack to target Ally, and link it to an attack, item, or spell.
Dr. Baconman:
Stopping Poison, Regen, or Stun "Pileups".
The normal thing that happens when you set Poison, Regen, or Stun to a specific number for damage is that the damage is added to the total every time. For example, a Poison attack that deals 20 points of damage each turn is inflicted upon you. The enemy repeats the same attack, adding 20 more points of damage, so you take 40 damage because the attack was repeated. If that were to happen over, say, 10 turns, the damage would pile up to a whopping 240 points each turn.
To stop this from happening, be sure to set the Damage to a Percent of the striker's Atk or Mag, or a Percent of the target's HP. Since percents aren't added together in the CUSTOM program, you won't have to worry about Poison, Stun, or Regen being repeated to outrageous numbers.
Platypus:
Special Effects:
You don't have to stick with these basic effects. Poison, Regen, Stun, and Mute can be inter-combined to make effects like Continuous Drain (Poison on an enemy & Regen on yourself), though there are complications involved with speed differences and Poison-eliminating attacks and such.
You can also use Mute to stop a specific class of attacks, but call it something else. I personally like to stop Cure attacks, so I made those Mutable and made the Muting attack "Lumina Lock" to prevent foes from healing themselves, additionally attaching an attack that resets Regen to max before doing no damage. But it's really up to taste.
Getting Started | Making Maptiles | Making Walkabout Graphics | Importing Graphics | Map Construction (Animating Maptiles) | NPCs | Text Boxes | Tags | Making a Hero | Items | Customizing Menus | Vehicle Use | Sound Effects | Distributing a Game
Battles | Stun, Regen, Poison, and Mute | Bosses | Making Complex Attacks | Combat Dialogues | Enemies that respond to a certain attack | Ways to refer to a hero in a script | Creating Dungeons | Conditional Door Links | Permanent Stat-Boosters | Creating Cutscenes | Using the Mouse in the Game | Making Android games