Board Thread:Suggestions forum/@comment-26172435-20160317214636

Introduction, Motives & Objectives
As many of you know, I support 'survival roleplay the hard way', I detest grinding as much as Mevans does, and I promote an Advanced RPG System based on experience orbs for the mod.

To support these three objectives I have a number of related suggestions I wish to bring forward here. As some of the proposals in this package can be judged independently and/or are simply less related, I decided to split the suggestion post in a few parts, so people can vote for each topic separately. Kudos for the first post shall be interpreted as a general support kudo for the main motives, objectives and the generic methods chosen. A kudo and/or a ‘yes’ vote for each of the separate proposals is a clear thumbs up for the proposed modification of the mod.

Objectives
The objectives of the proposed modifications are:
 * Make it harder to grind passive mobs.
 * Encourage immersive roleplay by creating a more realistic environment, an environment that actually hurts and makes players (characters) act less careless.

Assumptions
I assume the following:
 * Some of the mod developers main starting points are that grinding should be discouraged and immersive, realistic gameplay should be encouraged.
 * The experience orbs system will remain the basic system used to enhance gear and/or other player specific buffs.

Related Proposals
This proposal is assumed an intergrated part of the Advanced RPG System I’ve proposed for the mod. Like the other 3 main parts (experience orb based traits/smithing/crafting/enchanting, armor weight dependent movement speed and NPCs avoiding grinding traps) this can be implemented separately, but it has strong synergetic effects to implement one or more of the separate proposals simultaneously. The objectives of said proposals are similar and the entire system should optimally ensure a full immersive, roleplay system, based on minecraft tailored for and embedded in the LOTR mod.

Animals avoid slaughter
See second post to vote for this.
 * They can counterattack. Any larger animal will charge and butt, bite or kick an attacker. The effect may be species dependent. A full list of possible effects: sheep butt to give 2 hp damage and knockback I effect; deer butt to give 3 hp damage and knockback I effect; wild boar butt and bite to give 4 hp damage and knockback I effect; pigs react just like wild boar but are a bit less fierce, they bite and give 3 hp damage; cows butt and kick to give 4 hp damage and knockback II effect; elks and gemsboks butt to give 3 hp damage and knockback II effect; horses and zebras kick to give 5 hp damage and knockback II effect; giraffes kick to give 6 hp damage and knockback II effect; lions charge and bite to give 7 hp damage and knockback I effect; rhinos butt to give 8 hp damage and knockback III effect; crocodiles bite to give 9 hp damage. All other animals flee, see below.
 * Or they flee. Animals with low counterattack strength tend to flee before they are hit. Rabbits, chickens, flamingos and dik-diks are way too easy to kill atm. They should flee faster and further away from a player or predator (like wargs and lions) and sit still for shorter periods of time.
 * They act as a group. If a larger herd animal is attacked, nearby animals respond as if they were attacked. For this to effectively scare off players, herds must become larger: doubling herd spawn sizes would seem reasonable. Also, the range for animals to detect one of their own being attacked should be doubled. For the largest animals and especially for predatory animals, a pack will chase an attacker.

Animals are alive
See third post to vote for this.
 * Disease spreads and kills animals in overcrowd situations. Main inspiration for this is the [plague plugin]. The mechanism for this is a simple whither effect that occurs with increasing chance the more animals are in a chunk. Indicative parameters could be: when animal density exceeds 16 per chunk, chance of mortal whither effect to occur will be increased with 1 in 20*60 ticks (an in-game hour) per animal. As soon as the animal density drops below the threshold, the chance of falling ill will be set to zero.
 * Animal reproduction should be lowered. Time between breeding cycles should at least be doubled, preferably quadrupled.

Hurt hurts
See fourth post to vote for this.
 * Fall damage should be doubled. Combined with the knockback effect of hurt and scared animals, this will seriously endanger players while attacking larger animals.
 * When a players health is low, players should get a chance to experience ‘Fatigue’ as proposed here. It gives a random weakness effect. Optionally nausea could be added as well, for even lower health values.

Recovery is a process
What many call 'Death' is referred to here as 'knockout'. Upon knockout a player should recover from injury, preferably not instantaneously in some miraculous manner. In any case a player starts with weakness I and mining fatigue I during a configurable period of time. Default time will be 2 minutes. When KeepInventory is on, he starts with only half his maximum health a hunger bar only half filled. When KeepInventory is off, players will not experience additional effects.

See fifth post to vote for this.

Intended effects of proposed modifications
Effect of the above modifications will be: Any feedback will be highly appreciated, and as this is strongly interrelated, especially when the feedback also relates to mentioned 'Advanced RPG system'. 
 * Players will act more as hunters when chasing prey in the wild. Spears and bows will become more important.
 * Players will prepare better and use better gear if they wish to engage in a slaughter frenzy among passive animals.
 * When chased by a pack of attacked animals, light armour will be more relevant, especially when combined with armour weight.
 * When killing larger pasture animals, players will first isolate their target and bring it down when separated from the herd.
 * Grinding of both wild game and domesticated animals will be greatly discouraged. In combination with this proposal, that aims to add more and better lore-fitting conversion options and maximise the effects of 'enchants', the rewards of getting experience will likely be better valued by the average player.
 * There will be less but larger animal packs roaming the lands, and with decreasing animal slaughter, chances that lands will be 'emptied' will be reduced.
 * Animal drops like leather and feathers will have increased value in the game. Combined with armour weight, this will result in more careful use of leather and warg armor.
 * Grinding of NPCs will be harder. This effect will be optimal when combined with NPC AI to avoid grinding traps.
 * Use of the mods draughts and brews will become more important in many PVE situations.
 * Players will be more careful in many circumstances. This greatly enhances the immersive character of the survival roleplay the mod offers.