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Overview:

Lots of games which RPG-like statistics allow for character "buffs", ranging from simple "Deal 25% extra damage" to more complicated things like "Deal 15 damage back to attackers when hit."

The specifics of each type of buff aren't really relevant. I'm looking for a (presumably object-oriented) way to handle arbitrary buffs.

Details:

In my particular case, I have multiple characters in a turn-based battle environment, so I envisioned buffs being tied to events like "OnTurnStart", "OnReceiveDamage", etc. Perhaps each buff is a subclass of a main Buff abstract class, where only the relevant events are overloaded. Then each character could have a vector of buffs currently applied.

Does this solution make sense? I can certainly see dozens of event types being necessary, it feels like making a new subclass for each buff is overkill, and it doesn't seem to allow for any buff "interactions". That is, if I wanted to implement a cap on damage boosts so that even if you had 10 different buffs which all give 25% extra damage, you only do 100% extra instead of 250% extra.

And there's more complicated situations that ideally I could control. I'm sure everyone can come up with examples of how more sophisticated buffs can potentially interact with each other in a way that as a game developer I may not want.

As a relatively inexperienced C++ programmer (I generally have used C in embedded systems), I feel like my solution is simplistic and probably doesn't take full advantage of the object-oriented language.

Thoughts? Has anyone here designed a fairly robust buff system before?

Edit: Regarding Answer(s):

I selected an answer primarily based on good detail and a solid answer to the question I asked, but reading the responses gave me some more insight.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the different systems or tweaked systems seem to apply better to certain situations. What system works best for my game will depend on the types, variance, and number of buffs I intend to be able to apply.

For a game like Diablo 3 (mentioned below), where nearly any bit of equipment can change a buff's strength, the buffs are just character stats system seems like a good idea whenever possible.

For the turn-based situation I'm in, the event-based approach may be more suitable.

In any case, I'm still hoping someone comes along with a fancy "OO" magic bullet which will allow for me to apply a +2 move distance per turn buff, a deal 50% of damage taken back to the attacker buff, and a automatically teleport to a nearby tile when attacked from 3 or more tiles away buff in a single system without turning a +5 strength buff into its own subclass.

I think the closest thing is the answer I marked, but the floor is still open. Thanks to everyone for the input.

Overview:

Lots of games with RPG-like statistics allow for character "buffs", ranging from simple "Deal 25% extra damage" to more complicated things like "Deal 15 damage back to attackers when hit."

The specifics of each type of buff aren't really relevant. I'm looking for a (presumably object-oriented) way to handle arbitrary buffs.

Details:

In my particular case, I have multiple characters in a turn-based battle environment, so I envisioned buffs being tied to events like "OnTurnStart", "OnReceiveDamage", etc. Perhaps each buff is a subclass of a main Buff abstract class, where only the relevant events are overloaded. Then each character could have a vector of buffs currently applied.

Does this solution make sense? I can certainly see dozens of event types being necessary, it feels like making a new subclass for each buff is overkill, and it doesn't seem to allow for any buff "interactions". That is, if I wanted to implement a cap on damage boosts so that even if you had 10 different buffs which all give 25% extra damage, you only do 100% extra instead of 250% extra.

And there's more complicated situations that ideally I could control. I'm sure everyone can come up with examples of how more sophisticated buffs can potentially interact with each other in a way that as a game developer I may not want.

As a relatively inexperienced C++ programmer (I generally have used C in embedded systems), I feel like my solution is simplistic and probably doesn't take full advantage of the object-oriented language.

Thoughts? Has anyone here designed a fairly robust buff system before?

Edit: Regarding Answer(s):

I selected an answer primarily based on good detail and a solid answer to the question I asked, but reading the responses gave me some more insight.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the different systems or tweaked systems seem to apply better to certain situations. What system works best for my game will depend on the types, variance, and number of buffs I intend to be able to apply.

For a game like Diablo 3 (mentioned below), where nearly any bit of equipment can change a buff's strength, the buffs are just character stats system seems like a good idea whenever possible.

For the turn-based situation I'm in, the event-based approach may be more suitable.

In any case, I'm still hoping someone comes along with a fancy "OO" magic bullet which will allow for me to apply a +2 move distance per turn buff, a deal 50% of damage taken back to the attacker buff, and a automatically teleport to a nearby tile when attacked from 3 or more tiles away buff in a single system without turning a +5 strength buff into its own subclass.

I think the closest thing is the answer I marked, but the floor is still open. Thanks to everyone for the input.

Overview:

Lots of games which RPG-like statistics allow for character "buffs", ranging from simple "Deal 25% extra damage" to more complicated things like "Deal 15 damage back to attackers when hit."

The specifics of each type of buff aren't really relevant. I'm looking for a (presumably object-oriented) way to handle arbitrary buffs.

Details:

In my particular case, I have multiple characters in a turn-based battle environment, so I envisioned buffs being tied to events like "OnTurnStart", "OnReceiveDamage", etc. Perhaps each buff is a subclass of a main Buff abstract class, where only the relevant events are overloaded. Then each character could have a vector of buffs currently applied.

Does this solution make sense? I can certainly see dozens of event types being necessary, it feels like making a new subclass for each buff is overkill, and it doesn't seem to allow for any buff "interactions". That is, if I wanted to implement a cap on damage boosts so that even if you had 10 different buffs which all give 25% extra damage, you only do 100% extra instead of 250% extra.

And there's more complicated situations that ideally I could control. I'm sure everyone can come up with examples of how more sophisticated buffs can potentially interact with each other in a way that as a game developer I may not want.

As a relatively inexperienced C++ programmer (I generally have used C in embedded systems), I feel like my solution is simplistic and probably doesn't take full advantage of the object-oriented language.

Thoughts? Has anyone here designed a fairly robust buff system before?

Overview:

Lots of games which RPG-like statistics allow for character "buffs", ranging from simple "Deal 25% extra damage" to more complicated things like "Deal 15 damage back to attackers when hit."

The specifics of each type of buff aren't really relevant. I'm looking for a (presumably object-oriented) way to handle arbitrary buffs.

Details:

In my particular case, I have multiple characters in a turn-based battle environment, so I envisioned buffs being tied to events like "OnTurnStart", "OnReceiveDamage", etc. Perhaps each buff is a subclass of a main Buff abstract class, where only the relevant events are overloaded. Then each character could have a vector of buffs currently applied.

Does this solution make sense? I can certainly see dozens of event types being necessary, it feels like making a new subclass for each buff is overkill, and it doesn't seem to allow for any buff "interactions". That is, if I wanted to implement a cap on damage boosts so that even if you had 10 different buffs which all give 25% extra damage, you only do 100% extra instead of 250% extra.

And there's more complicated situations that ideally I could control. I'm sure everyone can come up with examples of how more sophisticated buffs can potentially interact with each other in a way that as a game developer I may not want.

As a relatively inexperienced C++ programmer (I generally have used C in embedded systems), I feel like my solution is simplistic and probably doesn't take full advantage of the object-oriented language.

Thoughts? Has anyone here designed a fairly robust buff system before?

Edit: Regarding Answer(s):

I selected an answer primarily based on good detail and a solid answer to the question I asked, but reading the responses gave me some more insight.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the different systems or tweaked systems seem to apply better to certain situations. What system works best for my game will depend on the types, variance, and number of buffs I intend to be able to apply.

For a game like Diablo 3 (mentioned below), where nearly any bit of equipment can change a buff's strength, the buffs are just character stats system seems like a good idea whenever possible.

For the turn-based situation I'm in, the event-based approach may be more suitable.

In any case, I'm still hoping someone comes along with a fancy "OO" magic bullet which will allow for me to apply a +2 move distance per turn buff, a deal 50% of damage taken back to the attacker buff, and a automatically teleport to a nearby tile when attacked from 3 or more tiles away buff in a single system without turning a +5 strength buff into its own subclass.

I think the closest thing is the answer I marked, but the floor is still open. Thanks to everyone for the input.