[Mod Request] Violent Pacifism for Daggerfall Unity

[user1435]

In a game with freedom of choice as a core tenet in design, the player should be allowed to pursue pacifism in it's full trinity in every scenario: avoid confrontation; resolve dispute by communication; disable or dissuade your opposition by controlled application of less than lethal violence. The lack of the last one I take as an offence- it is distasteful that any piece of media would assume that it is fine to show murder as an acceptable default follow-up to failed negotiations or as the logical default conclusion to an outburst of violence. Violent video games don't make people into psychos, we all know that here, but that does not mean that it is okay to let the standarts for depicting hostile encounters be so much lower in them. I particularly despise how that lack interacts with the trope of trying to make video game protagonists seem as 'brave heroes.' Anyhow... Daggerfall modding community has provided options for the first two methods of the trinity, namely the 'Language Skills Overhaul' by Macadaynu and Monster-University by DunnyOfPenwick, yet the third remains void. Below is an idea of a mod that I think would fill that role.

1. There would be three separate chances for an enemy to surrender or run away:

*at 3/4 health cunning actors like wild animals, not particularly blood-thirsty monsters, mages, healers, and thieves and rogues of all kinds would have a high, say, 75% chance to run away. Despawning after making the sprite shimmer for a second would be completely sufficient for this effect- a human would not be able of outrunning a scared animal anyway, mages shy away from intense combat and can cast recall, and the thieves guild definitely smuggles those archeologist guild's 30-use free recall marks by the boat-loads.

*at 1/2 health all intelligent creatures would get a new check to save themselves by eighter surrendering or running away, which one of the two would depend on their preference. Again, animals, monsters, casters and rogues of all stripes would try to run away, while brave or reasonable actors would consider surrender. 50% chance.

*finally, at 10% health only undead, daedra and completely insane would be able to keep fighting, while all of the rest would have no other option than pleading mercy, as they would be too weak keep fighting. All intelligent creatures (animals, monsters, living and not demonic humanoids) would have 95% chance to yield. This condition, despite how it may seem, would be rare in game-play, since it is very difficult to get someone to so low a health without killing them, meaning that only those who specifically choose to use low damage weapons would see it consistently.

2. Ideally there would be special sprites for surrendering actors, but it would be much simplier to make a new version of all 'dead actor' sprites, only different by having no blood/severed limbs on them. When a character surrenders they become completely passive and neutral to everyone, their sprite changes to the new 'dead actor sans blood' sprite, and their hitbox shrinks accordingly.

3. Once the battle ends (no enemies nearby), interacting with surrendered enemies with 'grab' or 'steal' would loot them as it they were dead, but the 'talk' option would open a window with two choices: capture / let go. The former would open a looting screen with all of the regular loot + the body, taking which would despawn the actor, while the latter would change the actor back into their regular, non-lootable sprite shape, allowing the player to interact with them like they would with any pacified enemy. Ideally, there would also be a third option 'show mercy,' selecting which would pass half of an hour, performing a medical skill check to heal back some to most of their hitpoints.

4. Any captured creatures would be displayed as the 'dead actor sans blood' sprite in the inventory and would eighter have no weight at all(walking in shackles behind you), or their weight would be determined by class/type. If both are implemented simultaneously, then there would be a 'shackle' item available for cheap at general stores and pawnshops- one shackle is automaticly consumed when picking up a body, then reducing that body's weight to zero. Shackles could cost 10 gold each and weight 1kg.

5. When talking to any guard while in possesion of any bodies, a pop-up comes up with something like "Do you want give in all of you prisoners?" If yes, then all of the bodies dissapear from your inventory, and a loot page opens with a letter of credit, the worth of which would be dependant eighter on the classes/types of captured enemies or, for a simplier version, a single captured enemy could be worth 50 gold or something.

If classes would determine price, then maybe knights could pay 100, warriors, mages and such- 75 gold, and animals and scum- 50 gold. Shackles would not need to be compensated.

I firmly believe that it is utterly abominable that most video games do not have anything like this, and that that is a big issue. I plead to anyone that read this post and is capable of modding Daggerfall Unity to consider creating a mod like what I have described above.

Or better yet, start a tradition of modding in at least some basic less than lethal options into all video games that don't have them by default.