Sanity Mechanic

[RealTeddyRed]

I've been playing with my dungeon ambient light down to 0.3, so I have to use torches, and it reminded me of the game Darkest Dungeon, where your party members lose sanity as they explore dungeons without torchlight, fight terrifying monsters, etc.

I think a mod that adds a similar to system to Daggerfall Unity would be really great for immersion. Your maximum sanity could be your Willpower*0.5 + your Hardened Score (I'll get to this later) + 10.

You could lose sanity from:

• Exploring dungeons

• Exploring dungeons without a light source (if player torch is on)

• Failing quests or being kicked out of a guild

• Fighting undead enemies

• Being turned into a Vampire or Werewolf

• Committing murder

You could gain your sanity back from:

• Exploring towns/cities during the day

• Resting at inns

• Completing quests

• Completing quests for holy temples

• Drinking alcohol

• Sleeping with prostitutes

• Resting in your own home

When you run out of sanity, you reputation will start to drop with most factions, you will be woken up randomly by nightmares when trying to rest, and you may even begin to see figments of your imagination that will attack you even during the day. If your illusion skill is high enough, you may be able to dispel these phantasms automatically, but otherwise you'll be in for a hell of a fight.

The one big problem with this idea is that it kind of screws over the roleplaying for characters who are supposed to be battle hardened warriors, immoral assassins, or savage vampires, who shouldn't be losing sleep over killing someone or exploring a few tough dungeons, and who realistically would never complete find comfort in the gods through temple quests or drink away their sorrows. This can be fixed through the player's Hardened Score.

The players Hardened Score increases their maximum Sanity, and could be increased by:

• Losing sanity through any of the above methods (especially murder)

• Being a Vampire or Werewolf for an extended period of time

• Going to jail

This means that your character will slowly become more numb to the terrors of dungeons and the sorrows of failure over time, which is a realistic progression, while players who commit murder, go to jail, or become (and choose to stay) monsters will become more numb to fear much, much faster. Once your Hardened Score gets high enough, maybe some of the things that normally cause you to lose sanity could now cause you to gain sanity (for example, murder). So if you kill enough innocent people, your character will start to enjoy it.

[Hazelnut]

I've been playing with my dungeon ambient light down to 0.3, so I have to use torches

Just wanted to say it's great to hear that someone is enjoying the player torch feature I made. Hope you're enjoying playing with it enabled.

[RealTeddyRed]

Its one of my favorite things about Daggerfall Unity! Makes things much more atmospheric and adds another level of realism and resource management. The fear you get when you're in a dungeon too long and run out of oil for your lantern is unreal. You did an excellent job

[emmathepony]

I've been playing with my dungeon ambient light down to 0.3, so I have to use torches

Just wanted to say it's great to hear that someone is enjoying the player torch feature I made. Hope you're enjoying playing with it enabled.

The torch mechanic is one of my favourites, a total game changer in atmosphere. Made a few screenshots showing the darkness and then how a torch makes it all the different.

[Hazelnut]

Thanks, that's great to hear. Definitely worthwhile doing then. Apologies for derailing the thread...

[King of Worms]

Torch is a must!! (Im sry as well for offtopic)