Mental Combat

[Rattler]

No, not combat without a battle map, but combat literally taking place in the mind.

Basically, if two eldritch beings are having a scuffle, half the battle is taking place in the frontal lobe. How do we emulate this? I'd like your thoughts.

To start with, there are 3 ways I think you could go about this off the top of my head.

1. Just have normal combat happen in the brain using mental stats instead of physical stats on a long gray plane.
Pros:
-Simple
-Easy to implement

Cons:
-Doesn't properly capture the differences between fighting in your brain and fighting in the real world.
-Overemphasizes the combat mechanics

2. Have players make dungeons that represent their brain in accordance with some rules and have the mental attacker attempt to capture them in their mind dungeon.
Pros:
-Sufficiently brain-y
-Gives the players room to develop their character's mental state... literally
-Gives extra depth to a mental fight happening at the same time as a physical fight

Cons:
-How would I make this?
-Hard for players to mentally assault NPCs.

3. Have a mental wound system. Simple mental attacks cause mental wounds, which cause debuffs and eventually insanity.

Pros:
-Simple, without being just combat
-Gives the players something to rp

Cons:
-No mechanical depth in attack or defense

What do you guys think? How would you go about this.

[Catullus64]

Is there a particular game system that you're interested in applying this to? It's hard to give good feedback without that knowledge.

Consider doing some looking back into the very early history of D&D psionics. Its system for Psionic Combat involved attack and defense modes which had relative strengths and weaknesses, making it a kind of elaborate rock-paper-scissors affair. It was horribly convoluted and frankly rather poorly explained (a Gygax system, poorly explained? Quelle surprise!), but it's evocative, cool, and could help give you ideas. I believe that the relevant text is Supplement III: Eldritch Wizardry.

[Rattler]

Is there a particular game system that you're interested in applying this to? It's hard to give good feedback without that knowledge.[/I]

I'm currently creating a system where mental combat will be a big deal, and I'm thinking of which to add.

[aimlessPolymath]

It sorta depends on when/where you expect mental combat to be happening, and how complex you want it to be.

For example, is this happening at the same time as regular combat? That might point towards a simpler implementation, since you'd want it to be something that can be handled at the same time as a separate event- the brain dungeon might be too complicated, since it involves the NPC moving on two 'maps' at once (and taking 'two turns', depending on implementation). On the other hand, if the mental attack is the focus of the game, then there's more 'budget' for complexity.

Of the systems you've listed, 2/3 of them include some sort of 'mental battlemap', but that's not a necessity- you can have mental combat without a 'map', as long as you have some sort of way to track the state of the world.

A rough system that comes to mind for me:
-Characters each possess 2-3 mental 'targets' that enemies could attack, ex. Memories, Externalities(Senses and ability to act), Emotions/Motivations. They have varying levels of defense (mental HP?) that provide texture to attackers.
-When you attack a mental target, make an effectiveness roll. On hit, you inflict some effect (ex. read the target's secrets, make them hallucinate, make them hesitate) based on how high the effectiveness roll was, possibly choosing between lesser options.
-Additionally, you gain Infiltration on that particular target (on the character as a whole?), as you worm your way inside. This improves future effectiveness rolls progressively.
-Characters can attempt to force you out, resetting Infiltration, at a cost (their turn? limited use?). While this can fully reset Infiltration, it's harder the higher Infiltration already is.
-Mentally-focused characters can bolster weak-defense characters at a cost.

This is a lot like a simplified Brain Dungeon- 'Infiltration' measures how far you've gotten into the 'dungeon', but measured as a number rather than through a map.

[clash]

I would go with option 1 with a big caveat. The mental space starts empty and in the mental space everyone has "magic"
What I mean by that is that I would have 3 extra actions available to anyone.

1. Manifesting: it's all mental. You can create virtually anything. Roll mental check based on the complexity of what you are trying to imagine into mental reality and see if you succeed.
2. Dismissing: like manifesting you can remove things from the mental space. To remove something another creature created probably an opposed roll.
3. Transforming: you can transform things in the mental space. Change then in whatever ways you can imagine.

Adding in those abilities make the space feel very different than physical combat and very mental in my opinion.