FRUA morale mechanics

[SilentThief]

Been into the old UANL's again. Seems this might help developers make FRUA-like AI code for DC:

Recently, a familiar question was raised over the FRUA Mailing List:

I.e., "How does morale work?"

Prompted by this, and a suggestion from Chris Harwood Jones, I did a few experiments... Then, Chris did a few experiments, and well... ;>

Chris sums up the results in the following well-done article. :]

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Subj: Article: Morale Mysteries Revealed

From: chj@mindlink.bc.ca (Chris Harwood-Jones)

Since the dawn of UA one of the standard questions from new module designers has been "Hey! How does morale work?", to which the seasoned UA veterans would reply sagely, "We dunno. Higher numbers mean higher morale, though...".

This article is intended to put those questions to rest. As you have seen we have finally got around to running a few tests, and we can now say with confidence "Hey! THIS is how morale works:"...

THE COMBAT MORALE VALUE
The first factor that determines monster morale is set in the COMBAT event itself. This is the "combat morale value". This is within the range of 1..100.

This value sets the amount of damage the monsters can take before they risk losing heart. For example, if you set the combat morale to 25, the monsters have a chance of losing heart if they take more than 25% of their COMBINED hit points worth of damage.

Note that the number of monsters "left standing" is not considered by UA when making this calculation. The test is simply one of damage. So if there are two monsters and the combat morale is set to 25, they will be at risk of losing heart when the combined damage against them is more than 25% of their combined hit points - in fact it is quite likely that both of them will still be standing when that happens!


THE INDIVIDUAL MORALE VALUE
The other factor involved is the morale value for the monster itself, set in the monster editor. This is within the range of 0..50.

This sets the amount of damage each individual monster must take before it will lose heart (since the range is 0 to 50, the effective percentage is equal to *double* the morale rating). For example, a monster with an individual morale rating of 20 will NOT lose heart unless they have taken at least 40% of their personal hit points in damage.


BOTH CONDITIONS MUST BE MET
Note that BOTH conditions must be met for a monster to lose heart. That is, enough combined damage must have been done by the party for the combat morale percentage to be exceeded, AND the monster must have taken enough damage for their personal morale to be shaken.

Some example combinations:

CMV IMV Monster will surrender:
---------------------------------


100 0 never! combat morale is 100%.

50 0 if the group is over 50% damaged.

1 0 if the group is over 1% damaged.

1 50 never! individual morale is 100%

1 25 when the individual monster is 50% damaged*

50 25 when the group is over 50% damaged AND the individual is at least 50% damaged.
*Technically, example (e) should add "and the group is over 1% damaged", but if the individual has taken 50% that is very likely.


SURRENDER OR FLEE?
When a monster loses heart, it will flee if it has a movement value that is equal to or greater than the fastest member of the party. Otherwise it will just surrender.


BONE-DEAD STUPID
Monsters with Intelligence of 5 or less will never lose heart.


FRIENDLY NPCs
Individual morale works for NPCs the same way it does for monsters. The "combat morale value" for the party is always 0. Intelligence does not affect morale for friendly NPCs, and they will always flee rather than surrender.


UNSOLVED MYSTERIES
The current health of the party may also have something to do with monsters' morale, but how this works is as yet unknown. There seems to be no effect most of the time, but having friendly monsters or NPCs "get up and grin" seems to destroy enemy morale pretty effectively....
Chris Harwood-Jones

[manikus]

Tarlanon may be able to tell us better, but I recall CocoaSpud not following this route.
In the combat event the number is 0-50. It is the same for the monster. The two added together give the monster's morale for that battle. The combined number is the percentage of damage (relative to total hitpoints) that a creature will take before fleeing (I don't know if surrender works yet...).