Shattered Kingdoms

There is such a feature for the reason given, but it's not absolute. If you let the NPC heal back up naturally it regains the ability to once again grant XP. It could be that feature could use tweaking, but until now I'd never heard of any problems with it (because nobody ever uses mode stun on NPCs).

I think a lot of the reason that people don't use mode stun is because of the time it would take to level. Letting the NPCs heal back naturally can take 10-20 minutes. In addition, a lot of the NPCs in leveling areas have that memory flag thing, so they all just "Get extremely angry and charge!" over and over if you just stun them and move on. That also presumes they're not one of the many, many, many NPCs in the game that track.

Would it be ideal for many light-aura and even some dark-aura characters not to have to kill the NPCs? Yes. Is it possible with the way that many of the leveling areas are built/some of the code regarding NPCs? No.

Can you give other suggestions to make it more feasible in practice?

barbs would be wise to go stun mode and stun the crap out of everyone in an area where they have the memory flag and master counterstrike

Create an 'auto' that when you stun an npc, the mobile automatically passes out and vanishes akin to the taslamaran school.

Certainly.

First, take NPC tracking all but completely out of the game. There are so many, many NPCs out there in the game that track to a completely insane degree and with no sense to the act. Just to take a popular example, those tigers in Zhenshi. They're only really any kind of issue for low level characters, however, these tigers will follow GMs nearly all the way across the map to just throw themselves pointlessly on weapons. I can understand boss NPCs having tracking, those NPCs that are powerful enough to basically be "How dare you mess with me and think you can just run away?" But the majority of NPCs in this game really don't need it, and don't make sense having it.

Second, take the memory flag thing away from most NPCs as well. That will make sure that people attempting to train by stunning don't back track to check on the health level of previously stunned NPCs, then suddenly find themselves swarmed by more than they can handle. Again, only certain kinds of NPCs should really ever be flagged with that memory thing. Boss NPCs, common charms/controls, things of that sort.

Third, increase the healing rate of HP. Personally, I don't think this would be unbalancing to do it across the board, but if you want to keep it where only naturally restored HP can generate exp from NPCs, then the rate of regeneration on NPCs has to be significantly increased (tripled at least). Another possible solution to this on a code-level is to have any NPC under a certain level (say, 35-40) given some kind of flag where if they're stunned on a tick, they fully regen their hps "naturally." There are some fringe cases where I can see this causing problems, but on the main it would just make training to stun a viable solution. The reason I don't suggest that NPCs all the way to top level do this is because after a certain level there's enough high-level NPCs that are diametrically opposed to the allignments that killing them really shouldn't pose any kind of rp issues (demons for lighties, angels for darkies, etc).

A dirty, inelegant work around that wouldn't require a code change would be to have wizi script NPCs that wander common leveling areas that "naturally" heal any NPCs below a certain percentage of HPs as long as they're not currently in combat. That's an unwieldy solution at best, but I don't believe it would require code changes to enact.

Fourth, incentivize training to mode stun. Quest NPCs that give rewards for not killing NPCs in common training areas, but instead stunning them, could easily be fitted to themes for all alignments. Evil alignments would be something like "Death is a release, not a punishment. Beat them to show them who's boss, but don't cut into our workforce by killing them, and I'll make it worth your while." Good alignments would be something like "The foes here need to be taught a lesson in the power of the Light, but how can they learn if they're dead? Knock them senseless in the hopes that it will knock some sense into them, and the Light will reward you." Players and characters then still have the option of training to mode kill, but there is an actual reason not to. Just have the quest counters reset to 0 if they kill a NPC in the area.

I'm sure with a few more hours of dedicated thought I could come up with other suggestions that would make training to mode stun a viable option, but those are the ones that come to mind off the top of my head.

Good stuff. I like the quest idea and encourage builders to implement some. I am pretty sure we already have a stun trigger for quests but I will double check.

I will focus on the code required suggestions. Specifically, I like NPCs healing at a faster rate and also, if you manage to stun someone, they should not attempt to chase you later or report you to the judge. Both of those are things you dont have to worry about if you kill them and is an unnecessary penalty for people who prefer stun.

A long time I recall making a suggestion to warlocks purely for flavor.

You get to pick element and specialize in it. What it would do is change the top tier spell of Magma Spray to the element of choice. If the warlock picks fire, then they keep magma spray, if they pick wind they can get frost shock which would work exactly like magma spray with the cling effect (frost bite) and everything. Pick water, get some sort of typhoon attack and choking cling effect.

Then you can have those warlocks summon elementals which work exactly like fire elemntals except they remain there base element. Instead of wind, they get to summon frost (I know you can summon those already), earth elemental you get something like a Granite elemental, fire gets Magma elementals (I know you can get those already) I just don't know how to upgrade water elementals. Just give these elementals the same defensive properties and HP as the fire elementals just change there description a bit to fit the choosen element.

I don't think light aura characters should be stunning anything... If you're a righteous avenger then you need to be killing evil things. If you're just going around beating the poo out of people until their unconscious then going to do the same to their neighbors and wait for them to wake up to RETURN to beat the poo out of them again you are not being righteous at all!

I agree and disagree. I like the taslamar newbie school where it is like a sparring ground. I think that the joust fields just east of exile could be set up this way and be of similar use and effect. If the area is set up to be something like a tournament where the idea isn't necessarily to kill then stunning works great.

If we are talking monsters or demons ala the temple of murder then I'd go with killing.

As I said it is the theme of the area. I do think stylistically beating people up over and over is kind of cruel and unusual punishment. Fitting for darkies but not always for lighties.