One thing I've always liked in RPGs is the concept of critical hits. It feels impactful and good when it happens, although I've never much liked overuse of random number generators in these games. I like the concept of a critical hit but I don't like randomness much at all. What's the solution? Surely you can't have critical hits (or dodging, accuracy, %chance spell effects) without using RNG. In Dungeons & Dragons, all of these random effects are decided by dice rolls. Generally when one rolls a 20, you'll get a critical hit. That's a little more interesting than a computerized number generator but it's still not quite what I'm looking for.
I had an idea at work today and I'd like to talk about it even though I'm not a programmer and likely will never have the resources to put such a system into play. I'm very interested in theoretical game design; when I was much younger I spent hours drawing up plans and writing down ideas for this kind of thing. I knew it would never go anywhere but it was really fun to think about. The working title for my idea is Critical Energy, named for critical hits. The basic idea is that you gain 10 critical energy per turn and once you reach 100 you can perform a critical hit. This is very simple on the surface, but my mind was swirling with ideas about unique ways it could be implemented.
Imagine all the ways critical energy could interact with statistics, items, and spells. Let's assume for a moment that spells cannot critically strike--what purpose then does critical energy serve for spellcaster archetypes? Well, spells tend to have a lot of random effects attached to them. Let's say a certain spell has a 50% chance to blind and costs 10 mana. It's instant, but it may not work. It feels really good when the spell succeeds and pretty bad when it doesn't. Unfortunately, there was no interaction on your end that decided whether or not the spell would succeed or fail. You rolled the dice and you won or lost. What if instead the spell used critical energy? It still costs 10 mana, but also requires, let's say, 50 critical energy. The randomness is gone and the spell succeeds every time providing you spend the required amount of energy.
Suppose having to save up 50 of your energy seems needlessly limiting for such a low impact spell. Maybe you'd rather cast it without using energy and rely on your 50% chance to get the job done. I could see how that could create an interesting gameplay experience, but I don't think that's the route I would take. Numbers would need tuning of course, but there are a lot of factors at play here. Maybe it only costs 25 energy to insure the spell is successful, but as a caveat, your opponent has the option to pay 50 of their energy to block the spell? Suppose also that you're not allowed to see how much energy your opponents possess and that 50 energy will insure the spell succeeds every time. This restores some of the "luck" factor without relying on RNG.
I could see critical energy underlying a lot of important gameplay mechanics in this hypothetical RPG. Dodging, parrying, and blocking are other mechanics that often rely on RNG. Give the player the option to use critical energy to dodge attacks and they have to make a choice. Should they use their energy defensively or offensively? Maybe dodging results in no damage sustained but costs a full 100 energy, whereas parrying costs 75 but only works against physical attacks. Blocking only costs 50 but instead of negating damage, reduces it to 1/4th its original value and requires an equipped shield.
If you only gain 10 energy a turn, I can see a lot of these mechanics rarely coming into play. However, that's just a base value. One could only assume that skills, equipment, and statistics could augment that value. For example, a warrior class could have a skill called Valiant Strike. It deals 120% normal damage and increases critical energy by 30 (in addition to the 10 gained that turn); this energy could then be saved for use later or used to dodge/parry/block an attack on the enemy turn. Maybe especially high Agility values could impart bonuses to starting energy or energy generation. There are a lot of possibilities and I really like the idea of it.
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