A BEGINNER'S QUESTION!

From the sound of the third question, I think it's RMXP.

For your first question, there is a way to disable saving, but it involves turning it off when you start the game. There's an event command called "Enable/Disable Saving." You'll want to disable it at the beginning of the game (since there's no way to disable it on a map-based basis). When you want to re-enable it, make the event in question (the savepoint/NPC) have that same command, except with enabling instead of disabling. If it's an NPC, it's an easier idea to just force the save menu open (which is a command on the third tab).

If it's a save point, then after making the save point event, you'll want to put four "Touched by Hero" events around the save point, each with one command "Disable Saving." This way, after the player leaves the save point, they cannot save again unless they're on the save point.

For your second question, you'll need another System graphic file. Once you save/import one (I'd point you to some, but I fear being hounded!) into your "System" graphics folder, just choose it from the "System" tab in the main database.

For your third question, in RMXP, damage is determined by ((Attack Power) - (Defense Power)). Therefore, if your Attack Power is zero (as in, no equipment on that raises Attack Power), then your damage is effectively zero. You must equip something that increases Attack Power to do any damage. However, I think there's a script that allows for unarmed damage floating around somewhere.

For the fourth question, well... I use a trick that isn't simple or easy, but does work.

(As the following will make clear, my Ruby-Fu is weak to the point of nonexistent. This may change someday, but in the meantime...)

First, I create a pic for that face image, by trimming down the battler image of the character. (I totally lack skills in the visual arts. If you can get better art, go for it!) Import the image as a picture.

Next, I create a common event for each character that I'm doing this for, that will display the image, say, right above where the message text would be.

Another common event will erase pictures displayed on the screen.

Now, whenever that character has dialog, I call the event that makes the picture appear before the 'Show Text' command, and call the erase event afterwards, so the image only appears while the player is reading the text.

It's clunky, but it works.

Now, if you want to do different reaction takes, I can think of two ways to do this:

1) Have artistic skills, and import pics of different facial expressions. This would be totally cool, and is beyond my ability. So I go with option...

2) If I want a character to, say, do a sweatdrop to show nervousness, I'll import an appropriate picture, scaled to the portrait size. I'll then create a common event which displays it over the place where the portrait would go, and then moves it slowly down, perhaps with a sound effect. This principal can be used to create a variety of emotional cues.

I still think that having art skills and using different actual facial expressions would be better, but hey, I work with what I've got...

If someone knows a better way, please let me know, as I am a rank amateur fumbling my way through game design on my own...