Pain (no ontology)

From Mazeworld

Pain is one of the vital statistics tracked on every Contestant. Pain simulates the amount of physical pain the Contestant is enduring, and the resulting effects of shock that it induces. As it is the most common way to deal damage, the Pain counter is the most direct indicator of a creature's general health level. Pain is affected by several statistics and can be affected by a wide majority of factors, most of which through combat.

• PBT: Pain Blackout Threshold - default value is 100%
• PDT: Pain Death Threshold - default value is 150%

How it works

• Pain can be naturally healed, at a standard rate of 2% per turn. Natural healing of Pain costs 5 ntri and 0.1% Fatigue per 1% Pain healed. Thus, every turn, at the normal rate of 2% Pain per turn, 10 ntri and 0.2% Fatigue will be consumed.
• Incoming Pain can be lessened by wearing clothing and armor of the highest possible armor class, and it should cover the most body parts possible to ensure reliable protection.
• Pain can be treated via certain medical aids, or when finding a Hospital room, for a fee.
• Various ways to affect the stats influencing Pain also exist, e.g. meds modifying pain sensitivity.

Modifiers

Three stats influence Pain directly, not counting natural healing: Pain sensitivity, Pain Blackout Threshold, and Pain Death Threshold.

• Pain sensitivity (Default value: 100% which corresponds to 1.00x) is a multiplier on incoming Pain damage can be modified temporarily or permanently via the use of meds, Bionics, or other methods (magic, certain items or effects, etc).
• Pain Blackout Threshold (PBT, default value: 100%) sets the minimum amount of Pain needed to pass out or blackout. It can never be higher than the Max Pain Threshold, for obvious reasons. It can only be modified via the use of Bionics or certain other methods.
• Pain Death Threshold (PDT or "true Max Pain", default value: 150%) sets the maximum amount of Pain needed before dying. It is defined as being always equal to MPuB + 50% ; in other words, anything that affects PBT also affects PDT. It can only be modified on its own, separately from PBT, via certain other methods.

Effects

The various stages of Pain may cause various Secondary effects.

• Hurt causes reduced accuracy (FT+1).
• Agony causes further reduced accuracy (FT+2).
• Reaching Blackout Threshold causes loss of consciousness, as the term suggests.
  • While in combat, a blacked-out creature loses consciousness and all awareness of its surroundings, similarly to being asleep, although blacking out is not considered a form of sleep (it will not heal Fatigue). Blacked-out creatures are considered helpless ; which means nothing can wake them up, until Pain subsides, death occurs, or forced wakefulness occurs. Generally speaking, a creature in blackout state is totally helpless, blind, deaf, and incapable of acting or moving in any way.
  • Blacked-out creatures are still subject to Pain Sensitivity ; even if they technically no longer suffer the accuracy loss effects of previous states of pain, they can still feel pain and be hurt by Pain damage.
• Reaching Death Threshold causes Death, except in very specific circumstances.

Blacking out

If the Contestant blacks out during combat, they will be helpless until combat ends, which may result in certain situations occurring.

• In most cases, Contestants will be considered 'defeated' by their opponents if they black out, and depending on the enemy, the Contestant's body may also be looted. Looting priority is as follows: Money in backpack pouch, money elsewhere in inventory, valuables in inventory.
• In certain cases, particularly if the Contestant is wanted dead for any reason (generally as a result of poor Reputation with relevant factions, or in specific situations from Quests), enemies will attempt to execute a blacked-out Contestant. This naturally results in their Death and will end their progress.
• Any allies and friendly creatures still conscious while the Contestant is blacked out will continue fighting, and may attempt to use their own medical supplies (if they carry any) to wake the Contestant up.

In case the Contestant blacks out outside of combat, the following occurs:

• A time counter of 10 turns begins as soon as the Contestant leaves combat, or immediately if not in combat.
• During this time frame, the Contestant is helpless.
  • Any secondary effects and other statistics will continue ticking down ; life-threatening situations such as suffering from open wounds, being poisoned, and other such effects may very well kill the Contestant in the meantime, but natural healing is also still active and may also allow the Contestant to wake up on their own.
  • Any conscious allies and friendlies with available medical supplies may, if they can, attempt to heal the Contestant and help him/her wake up.
• If, at the end of those 10 turns, the Contestant is both still alive and still blacked out, he/she will wake up in a hospital bedroom, in the hospital of the town they last visited. It is implied that Hebizuka herself is responsible for transporting the Contestant there.
  • Failsafe #1: If the Contestant's Reputation in the last town (either faction or town) is too low to allow entry in the last town, in which case the Contestant will immediately return to Arnett and land in a hospital bedroom there.
  • Failsafe #2: If the Contestant's Reputation in Arnett is still too low to allow entry even there, then Hebizuka will not transport the Contestant to another town's hospital ; instead, she will inject him/her with a syringe of Epinephrine right on the spot ; which has, among other effects, the ability to force a Contestant into wakefulness even when into blackout.

Note that if the Contestant has a permanent ally, they will also be transported to the hospital bedroom so as to not lose them.

After landing in a hospital bedroom, the Contestant will have been automatically health diagnosed, all Pain and Fatigue will be healed for free, and any other ailments can be healed as much as their current funds allow (the player will be prompted to choose what treatment they wish the Contestant to receive). Do note that depending on Reputation, price markups or discounts apply as they normally would.

See also

• Statistics
• Medical aid
• Death
• Secondary effect