Anyone who has ever played GTA* will know how annoying an RPG** with hit-points and levels are. Why? Because they just complicate matters!

Okay, starting from scratch (for absolute beginners) - imagine playing a fighting game on your computer (I'm sure you have). Ever notice a health bar on top of your character. This health bar measures the number of hits your character can take before it faints or dies. When this health bar reaches zero, you lose. Your enemy also has hit-points and the objective of the game is to reduce your enemy's hit-points to zero and not let him do the same to you.

Now, hit-points are really great - they simplify game-play. However, they are just not good enough. Why? Because the person who made the game gave each character in the game arbitrary hit-points due to which a skinny character might have more hit-points than a bulky character (which isn't the way it actually is in real life). In addition, damage is measured in hits, i.e. each attack will take out exactly a certain number of hit-points from the opponent regardless of whether the enemy is wearing armor or not (which is again not the way it actually is in real life).

Another ridiculous concept is levels. Levels basically measure how advanced your character is, i.e. a character with a higher level might be able to do more damage, or use better weapons, or do something he couldn't do before or go somewhere he couldn't go before. However, why do we use levels? Levels are used in MMORPGs*** to allow players who joined later catch up in the game with players who joined earlier.

How does levels do that? Well, let's say that you recently started playing an MMORPG. You initially start playing with a character who's level 1. However, many other people are playing who are of higher levels. Now, initially you have 0 experience. Say to advance from level 1 to level 2, you need 10^2=100 experience. You have 0 experience. So after getting 100 experience, you will get to level 2. Then, to advance from level 2 to level 3, say you need 10^3=1000 experience. You already have 100 experience, so after getting 900 more experience you will advance to level 3.

Thus you can see that as levels increase arithmetically, experience required to advance a level increases geometrically. Therefore, a character with a higher level will need more experience to advance a level that a character with a lower level, which will allow the lower level character to catch up! Bonuses are provided per level, so it's harder for higher level players to get more bonuses. Note: Experience is awarded for the completion of certain tasks.

So what's the problem with levels? Isn't it obvious? It becomes too boring for a higher level player to keep playing the game because he hardly gets any bonuses.

Now, GTA is a game that can hook you on for hours and hours on end - in short, it never gets boring! Why? Because GTA doesn't make use of hit-points or levels.

In GTA, you start of with a very skinny character. Obviously, skinny guys can't take a beating and neither can they hurt people much; thus it can be assumed that your character is of a low level (notice, no numbers involved - what a relief)! As the game progresses, your character gains more muscle mass, can take a greater beating and do more damage (it's assumed that he's of a higher level). Thus, just by looking at the character's physique you come to know whether he's a low level character or a high level character (which is how things are in real life, AWESOME!)

In addition, GTA gets rid of the annoying hit-point system. The health of a character is not directly shown to the gamer (Who wants to read a bunch of numbers in the middle of a battle anyway?) Instead, when a character gets hurt, he's shown to be limping, panting, groaning, etc. (which is exactly what we do when we get hurt in real life, SWEET!) So, it can be assumed that when a character is limping, it's leg is injured, rather than to see a perfectly fine on the verge of dying character walking down the street as if nothing has happened to him!

In addition, damage in GTA isn't measured in hits; it's calculated using the force of the attack and the resistance of the armor. Thus, when a character hits a fully armored soldier, he'll do less damage than when performing the same move on a stuffed bunny rabbit!

As you can see, GTA rocks simply because it follows the principle WYSIWYG**** instead of just telling the gamer that hey this exactly how strong you are and this is how much life you have left (i.e. it shows the gamer, doesn't simply tell the gamer). So now that we have learned how GTA functions, lets get into some of the details of exactly how it works!

Warning: The next few paragraphs contain intense mind-boggling mathematical algorithms, so if you are faint of heart we kindly request you to leave immediately. Thank you!

Note: The following mathematical algorithms have been created by ME and only I hold the copyright to use them freely. If you wish to use them, then please link back to me and give me credit (P.S. it's really not that much I'm asking for). My website is http://my.opera.com/Marionettist

Now, I have already stated that a skinny character will be able to take a lesser beating than a bulky character. Therefore the endurance of a character is directly proportional to his total body mass.

∴ Endurance ∝ Total Body Mass

Taking out the proportionality sign:

∴ Endurance = k * Total Body Mass

Defining the constant of proportionality (k) as 1:

∴ Endurance = 1 * Total Body Mass

∴ Endurance = Total Body Mass (measured in kilograms)

Now, when a character physically attacks something, the attacks with a certain acceleration (i.e. say when he's punching, he brings his fist from 0 velocity to a certain velocity v in a certain time t).

∴ Acceleration (a) = ( v - u ) / t

But u = 0; fist at rest

∴ Acceleration (a) = ( v - 0 ) / t

∴ Acceleration (a) = v / t

The force of the attack is given by the product of the mass and the attack acceleration from the formula Force = mass * acceleration ( F = m * a ).

∴ Attack Force = Mass of Body Part * Attack Acceleration

But, wait a minute, what is the mass of the particular body part, we only know the total body mass! Ah, I have done my homework and I have found out the percentage body mass of each body part, so you can use these in the formula, but remember it's in percentage form so convert it first using the following formula:

Mass of Body Part = ( Percentage Mass of Body Part * Total Body Mass ) / 100

Here are the percentages for an average man and an average woman:

Man

Head = 7.1 %
Torso = 48.3 %
Upper Arm = 3.3 %
Forearm = 1.9 %
Hand = 0.6 %
Thigh = 10.5 %
Shank = 4.5 %
Foot = 1.5 %

Woman

Head = 9.4 %
Torso = 50.8 %
Upper Arm = 2.7 %
Forearm = 1.6 %
Hand = 0.5 %
Thigh = 8.3 %
Shank = 5.5 %
Foot = 1.2 %

Now that we have calculated the force of the attack, we need to calculate the pressure of the attack. Think of it this way, a sword does more damage when it's used to stab someone, than when used to slash at someone for the same amount of force. Why? Because when we stab someone, all the force is concentrated at the tip of the sword's blade, but when we slash someone, the same amount of force is spread over the length of the sword's blade.

∴ Attack Pressure = Attack Force / Area

∴ Attack Pressure = ( Mass of Body Part * Attack Acceleration ) / Area

From this equation, we can take Attack Acceleration / Area as one single entity because both of these quantities depend upon the weapon or karate move we use. Let's call this entity the Attack Factor.

∴ Attack Factor = Attack Acceleration / Area

∴ Attack Pressure = Mass of Body Part * Attack Factor

∴ Attack Pressure = ( Percentage Mass of Body Part * Total Body Mass * Attack Factor ) / 100

Now that we have found out the algorithms for the attacker, let's determine the algorithms for the defender.

When the attacker punches the defender, his fist is traveling at a certain velocity u which is brought down to 0 by the defender's body and armor, in a certain time t.

∴ Acceleration of defender (a) = ( v - u ) / t

But v = 0; final velocity

∴ Acceleration of defender (a) = ( 0 - u ) / t

∴ Acceleration of defender (a) = - u / t

However, negative acceleration is retardation.

∴ Retardation = u / t

Then, by the formula Force = Mass * Acceleration ( F = m * a )

∴ Force of Defender = Mass * Acceleration of Defender

But Acceleration of Defender is negative.

∴ Force of Defender = Mass * Retardation

Now by Newton's Third Law, every action has an equal and opposite reaction, Force of Attacker = Force of Defender

∴ Force of Attacker = Force of Defender

∴ Force of Attacker = Mass * Retardation

∴ Mass = Force of Attacker / Retardation

Force of Attacker is positive and retardation is negative acceleration. Thus, Mass is negative; but negative mass is damage, since endurance = mass.

∴ Damage = Force of Attacker / Retardation

However, we forgot one point (i.e. the area of force applied).

All materials have a stress vs. strain graph, which shows us exactly how strong that material is. Now consider, the armor of the defender to also have a stress vs. strain graph.

Stress is the pressure applied to the material (in this case the armor). The pressure applied is the attack pressure.

The stress on the material produces a certain strain in the material, which is the change in dimension. The strain has no units and therefore the stress vs. strain graph gives us the attack pressure divided by the corresponding strain.

However, we are more interested in the amount of pressure that the material can absorb per unit damage. Let's call this value, the resistance of the material.

∴ Resistance = ( Stress / Strain ) * ( 1 / Damage )

If we take the damage to be 1 unit, then:

Resistance = Stress / Strain

Resistance is measured in Pascals / damage and Attack Pressure is measured in Pascals. Therefore damage can be written as the Attack Pressure divided by the Resistance of the material.

∴ Damage = Attack Pressure / Resistance

Note: The resistance of a material is non-linear since stress vs. strain is non-linear. Therefore, the damage can be calculated by using the function f(x), where f(x) is the strain produced by the stress x.

∴ Damage = f ( Attack Pressure ) [measured in negative kilograms]

Note: The material can only take a certain amount of pressure known as the threshold pressure, after which the material will fracture and the remaining pressure will be directly converted to damage. The damage corresponding to the threshold pressure, is known as threshold damage and it's a constant.

Threshold Damage = f ( Threshold Pressure )

∴ Damage = Threshold Damage + ( Attack Pressure - Threshold Pressure ) [For Attack Pressure greater than Threshold Pressure]

Note: For a person to die using these combat mechanics, only the endurance of a certain fatal body part (such as the head or torso), needs to be brought down to 0.

The endurance of such a body part can be given by:

Endurance of Body Part = Percentage Mass of Body Part * Total Endurance

*GTA - Grand Theft Auto (some people don't know about this )
**RPG - Role Playing Game (and they don't know about this either xD)
***MMORPG - Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (I just had to say )
****WYSISYG - What You See Is What You Get (Come on, do I have to spell everything out for you? )