IDEA FOR A BATTLE SYSTEM...

I am working on a project and wanted to run an idea for a battle system past you all to see if A)It's possible B)It would be difficult to script and C) Anyone has done anything similar before.

Any who, the basic idea is this. Hit points aren't realistic. In a real fight you wouldn't just slap each other around. Most of your attacks wouldn't connect and likewise you'd be trying to dodge and block your opponent's blows.

Keeping this in mind I'd like to make a battle system where you only have a scant few hit points and separate bars/stats for stamina and armor that degrade as you're attacked. For instance, initially an enemy would only drain your stamina as you parry their blows. Once your stamina ran out any attacks that struck home would degrade your armor and then finally when your armor ran out enemy attacks would damage your hit points and kill you.

I think there are a few cool possibilities for this, especially in the ways you could play with stamina points. SP could serve dual purposes; serving as your first line of defense but also as fuel for special attacks. In turn combat would become a game of balancing your special attacks with the necessity of maintaining a healthy buffer of SP to shield your vulnerable hit points.

Likewise, it could make dealing with enemy units and bosses interesting. An enemy might use a powerful special attack, but if you survived they might be vulnerable afterward on account of their SP being depleted and not being able to block your attacks. Conversely, a strong offensive could keep them on the ropes and not able to perform special attacks.

Does any of this make sense? Does anyone have suggestions? Impressions? Ideas for refinement?

Okay I see what your saying. Let me explain a bit further.

You have some of the basics of it right. Attacks would burn through Stamina Points first, then Armor Points and then HP. What I think would make the difference is also connecting your special abilities to your Stamina Points.

You could potentially do more damage or afflict an enemy with a status ailment by performing a special move, but in effect you'd be making your character more tired and less able to block enemy attacks. This in turn would force them to rely more on their armor which, depending on their class might not be much.

I'm kind of hoping it could create something of a risk/reward system. For instance, your archer could have a move that circumvents an enemy's armor and goes straight for their hit points, but that also requires a lot of SP and only has a 50-50 chance of working.

Depending on the situation you might have to react differently. In a game with the traditional HP/MP system you could spam that sucker with little consequence outside of having to carry a lot of items that restore your SP. In my system however, using that attack could leave them vulnerable. If their target survived they might be too tired to defend themselves in the next turn.

I'm just hoping it could add an extra element of strategy.

This is the only time I'll bump this, but would there be an experienced XP scripter who might be able and willing to help me with this? I can offer a bit of compensation and would of course give full credit in demo/game I'm working on.