KILLER WOLF'S PROFILE

You might look into the Shining Force games from the Genesis era. They had tactical movement, and they cut away to a specialized "attack view." With a fistful of variables and some events, you could mock up the basic shell for it.

The movement would probably come back to a pathfinding issue, unless all of the enemy's movements are pre-baked. Then, you just do touch encounters for melee and a distance solution for ranged attacks, after which you kick it out to the DBS.

The trick is to have events in the DBS that will track the damage done to party members/enemies, and a "after x turns" to kick you back out to the normal map. At the start of each mini-instance of the DBS, you use the variables for enemy health to chop them down to the current value, opposed to the defaults set in the database.

You could also track the position of other player units and enemies, so that if enough are in an area, they could join in on that combat instance to gang up on an enemy or get ambushed by them. (A slight outgrowth of something I'm playing with for my western.)

If I get some extra time this weekend, I may try to knock something together you could use as a jumping off point.

In combat, my western features two types of skills: Gunplay, and Gimmicks.

Gunplay is fairly self explanatory. I'm using the mp stat to track bullets for each character. The characters can specialize in Pistols, Rifles, and Shotguns. I'm going for an older crpg level progression style, where the player gets a point every level or two that they can use to upgrade their techniques. The Initial/Untrained skills for any class of weapon are fairly terrible, but a couple of points in, the player gets a nice arsenal of attacks. The cost for any single shot will always be 1 mp/bullet, so it is up to the player to decide what shot to use in any situation. I'm planning on showing the percentage to hit in either the skill's description or name, so a player can make an informed decision between that 60% chance of inflicting slow with "Shin Buster", the 25% percent chance of an instant kill with "Headhunter", or the tried and true Quick Shot with its 95% success rate. Of course the option to branch out exists, letting the player specialize in aimed status inflicting shots, multiple shots on a single target, or the spray and pray approach that consumes ammo fast, but can shred an enemy party in a single turn at high levels.

That brings us to the Gimmick portion of combat. Each class has their own style, so here are a handful of options from each. The Preacher can buff the stats of his party with a rousing sermon, cow the enemies into losing their own faith/combat effectiveness through Judgment, or even perform "miracle" acts of healing - thus freeing up valuable first aid supplies for the REAL emergencies. The gunslinger can activate a mode that automatically reloads his weapons as long as there are bullets in the inventory (thus granting unlimited gunplay use, inventory permitting, for a handful of turns), greatly boost his own resistance to all damage types, scan enemies with a Squint, or even make them lose their nerve with a Glare. The Gambler can effect the enemy with his luck (turns on a switch that forces them to use versions of their own attacks with a much higher failure rate), turn on a mode that greatly enhances the effectiveness of his throwing knives, and even make use of his hand speed and reflexes by gaining a kind of auto-haste whenever he uses the attack type he linked it with during level up. The scout can substitute in altered versions of his standard shots that will deal much greater damage for a number of turns, grant the party guaranteed initiative in battle, make the party invisible to enemies on the map, and greatly increase the likelihood of beneficial encounters on the world map.

The only catch? Since I'm already using the mp stat for bullets, all the gimmicks fall under the old "You can use X number of times per 24 hours (ingame)." If a gunslinger character only has two stocks, and he has to turn on his ultra-resistance and free-fire modes in the same battle, he's going to be stuck with just his regular gunplay and item use until 24 hours go by. Of course, sleeping at a campsite or in a hotel will reset the counter.

There are also Social Gimmicks which are handled separately, with a sort of cooldown timer imposed by failure. They are stat based, with a random roll added to the determining statistic (along with any bonuses taken at level ups) to represent the touch of Lady Luck.

I'm planning on having the Gimmicks and Stocks level up separately, so that the player can choose between whether they would like to have a small number of powers they can use fairly often, or a wide variety of techniques that they need to be a little more selective in their application of.

There are also Fate Coins (name in progress) that will be awarded for accomplishments in the game, progress in the story, and exemplary performance in combat. These can be used to grant instant recovery to a character who is wounded/unconscious, move a chosen character's injury or disease rating back one step on the track, or to recharge a character's stock. They can also be used on characters will full stock to generate Over Stock (name change pending). The Over Stocks would not recharge after use like regular Stocks. Fate coins are linked to specific characters though, so one party member's fate coin can't be used to revive another, but events like completing a main story quest will grant a fate coin to every active party member.

So, I'm curious if this sounds like a royal pain in the backside, or a workable approach to my skill setup. I know it is kind of old school. One of the first RPGs I ever played was Pool of Radiance (Not Myth Drannor), back in the Tandy1000 days. The basic concept for my western has sort of transformed from "ABS Spaghetti Western Player Choice-Fest" into "Old School CRPG approach to Spaghetti Western Player Choice-Fest."

As I see it, the first issue will probably be pathfinding. RPGmaker is not well suited to that. I've been toying with a pathfinding workaround using terrain id and the distance equation to try and come up with the best route. You can compress it into a smaller number of events and use a master variable to track which unit is being solved for at any time, but it isn't exactly fast.

I think pathfinding for a strategy rpg MIGHT be a little easier, since the player probably doesn't directly control a unit's movement, they just tell it where to go and it goes there. With both player objects and enemy objects following the same set of rules, there SHOULD be less slip-ups.

I'd suggest making multiple tiles of each ground type with different ids. That way you can draw a path around objects and keep units moving reliably, instead of requiring a set of calculations whenever one of your "feeler" events hits a roadblock. You will still need a "case by case" set of events to deal with things like player built structures getting in the way of existing routes.

I know it is probably rudimentary, but regardless of what I'm working in, my first step in any pathfinding attempt is getting the test object I'm solving for to be able to navigate a maze by itself.

I know a pathfinding discourse is probably not what you were looking for with this topic, but a game with a strategic bent is going to require some finesse in that department. Outflanking an enemy that gets stymied by a hedge doesn't give the player a great sense of accomplishment.

Right now, the new intro for my western is a slow pan over the main hub town, showing brief glimpses of interaction between the characters that will act as quest givers/foils/and friends. The camera then pans back to main street where a horse is walking into frame. There is a man slumped over on the horse's back, dripping blood from his wounds. When the horse stops, the guy falls off. This man is your protagonist, and he is currently in need of a doctor. When the hero wakes up,it is in the doctor's office, with said doctor talking to him about his injuries. The player picks a scar (a way of damaging one starting stat in favor of another, to help shape the character) and, via asking about their possessions, chooses their starting class (Gunslinger, Gambler, Scout, or Preacher). One of the early quest motivations is earning the money to pay the doctor back for the heroic measures (and pricey medicine) it took to keep the player alive.

I like the one where Jensen tricks one guy into punching his own buddy before putting him down.

I also had a couple of funny situational ones. I screwed up, a guy saw me and went for the nearby alarm. I sprinted after him and put him in a sleeper hold. I also found it funny that the enemies seem to try to "tap out" when Jensen is choking them. It is almost as if there is some Belltower guard who is known to go around choking his comrades for fun. Choke. Tap tap. "He's not stopping! Oh crap, that's not Bill!"... unconscious.