Blog Quest: Designing a Grappling hook

            Today, much like yesterday, I decided to do some thinking.  This time around it was towards one of my Game Design and Production 2’s Blog Quests “Design a game item.” I was contemplating which game would deserve a strategic new item that would improve but not change the core of gameplay.

Hey, why not a grappling hook.

 I’m aware that grappling hooks are a bit commonly used in many RPG’s. Doesn’t mean I don’t want them in all of them! So I’m going to propose and make reason to add one into a little(ish) MMo called Dungeons and Dragons Online. 

In case you’re unaware of what Dungeons and Dragons Online is (if you are, skip this and maybe the next paragraph), it’s a MMo that focuses itself on team-based dungeon adventuring. There are literally a handful of quests designed to be solo played in the game.  It comes packaged with your generic D&D RPG leveling & gear grinding, where the combat in the game is semi-reflex action based (think Guild Wars 2). However due to some latency issues, the reaction time of the game sometimes allows you to hit something (much) larger than its hit box.

One more thing needs to be explained before I introduce my idea for the grappling hook into DDo. It’s DDo incorporation of skills and their influence of your characters performance. Such as the swim and jump skill. The jump skill as you increase it with items or by leveling actually increases your jump height in game. This in combination with the ability to grab onto ledges/cliffs – which you can do in DDo - are common mobility tactics in the game, allowing you to escape from a charging ogre by leaping and grabbing onto the edge of an overhang.

I’m not only saying “let’s introduce a grappling hook for the lulz”, I’m going to try and preach a more interesting mechanic. I suggest adding a “Grappling” skill to the game, as well as different grappling hooks. This goes well with the already implemented weight a character has, as well as the fact players can already manually grab edges, so the feature would just piggy-back off that code.

The Grappling skill is like any other skill in DDo, where increasing this skill allow you to use better quality grappling hooks (much like the bard skill perform in relation to bard songs).  The higher the skill gives you more lean-way into how much over the weight limit a particular grappling hook can carry. I was contemplating allowing the higher the Grappling skill to increase the accuracy, however then there would be no use using it until later in the game when you have it high enough not to miss all the time.

The different grappling hook items would allow you yet another item to swap and pick between.  The item itself would determine the distance it could fire (20-300 meters), how fast it launches (a simple “Slow-very fast” rating), how heavy a player it could carry (200 lbs – 20 t), and whether or not it could interact with enemies/friendlies.  The interaction would be a “special feature” unique or semi-unique to each hook.

How I’d implement the grappling hooks as loot wouldn’t be in the random chest loot, but more as chain or raid rewards.  This allows for some special, highly customized rewards that can seem cool and unique.

Here are a few example of what I mean;

Starter/low level grapple:
“The Rusty Claw. Grappling skill min: 5. 20 meter range. Slow speed. 400lbs capacity. On Enemy hit: Stuns enemies on a failed Fortitude 15 save. Chain type: Iron”

Med level grapple:
“Dock Loader. Grappling skill min: 20. 100 meter range.  Fast speed. 5t capacity.  On Target hit: Drags target toward user. Chain type: Iron”

Epic level grapple:
“Heavens Reach. Grappling skill min: 45.  300 meter range. Very Fast Speed. Unlimited Capacity. On Enemy Hit: Pushes target to max distance, knocking them over on a failed Reflex 30 save. On Friendly Hit: Pulls target towards you instantly. If you have divine healing powers, you remove them of ailments.”

This introduces a new feature of moving enemies and players around the field of combat which currently, doesn’t exist. This could allow you to drag enemies into a pit, a trap, or a variety of features that are a staple to the grappling hook feature.

Not to mention how hilarious it would be to do all that, to your friends.

-Jordon