Combat Faq

A quick list of combat systems information:

Q. How can I see my combat stats?
A. The +combatstats command shows what your current stats would be with the equipment you have.

Q. What does the quality of weapons and armor do you for you?
A. The quality of armor directly affects its mitigation value. Each quality level improves it by a percentage of its base value. Weapons similarly increase their damage, in multiple ways - they can get a bonus to hit by lowering the weapon's difficulty at certain thresholds, they receive a flat damage bonus, and its damage value is improved by a percentage of its base.

Q. What is fatigue?
A. Fatigue is a representation of how tired your character gets in combat. Each action your character takes, they increase the difficulty of a fatigue roll, and then make a roll that involves their willpower, stamina, and athletics against that number. If they fail the roll, they get a fatigue point. Armor adds to the difficulty of the roll and how quickly the difficulty of the roll increases. Fatigue applies penalties to attack and defense, but hurts defense more than attack. The increasing penalties over the course of combat that hurt defense much more quickly than offense eventually forces any fight to a conclusion.

Q. What are stances?
A. Stances decide how aggressive or defensive your character is. They apply bonuses and penalties to attacking or defending. Modifiers for aggressive stances are greater than those of defensive ones.

Q. How does attacking work?
A. Your character rolls their weapon skill and a stat to attack. For all normal weapons, the stat is dexterity. It's modified by bonuses or penalties from stance, fatigue, and damage. The character you're attacking then rolls to defend based on the methods available to them. If your weapon can be parried and their weapon can parry, they roll the same type of roll they would make to hit for a parry score. Dodge is then added if the attack can be dodged, though dodge is mitigated by armor. The difficulty of defense rolls raises each time a character is attacked in a turn. Your attack roll is then compared with their defense roll. Over a certain value, the result is a complete miss. If you're closer to hitting them, however, you hit them for reduced damage. Mitigation, which is their armor value plus a small soak value determined from their stats, is subtracted from the unreduced value, then the remaining value is applied to them.

Q. How does damage work?
A. Damage reduces your rolls in a way similar to fatigue. Once it passes your maximum health, your character has to make rolls to remain conscious. Once it passes a much higher threshold, your character has to make rolls to avoid death. Characters heal very slowly, and may get also continue to get worse over time. Characters can attempt to tend to their injuries with the +heal command.

Q. How do we stop fighting?
A. Characters use the +end_combat ability. Every character capable of fighting must agree to +end_combat.

Q. Is there a place for 'fake' combat?
A. Rooms may be designated as training center where combat causes no real injury. The Training Center is the most prominent example, though there's a few other rooms set up this way.

Q. How does guarding someone in combat work?
A. It essentially says that you're standing in front of them, and opponents are forced to attack you first unless they attempt to 'flank' or specify attempting to 'bypass' you in their attack roll. NPC guards will protect their owners in this manner by default.

Q. How do I run?
A. With the 'flee' command. Players have an attempt to stop you before running, but otherwise you're home free.

Q. Can I watch a fight in progress?
A. Yes, with the '@spectate_combat' command.

Q. <Insert question about various maneuvers, weapon to armor modifiers, mounted combat, shields, dual-wielding, magic, combat styles, formations, etc>
A. Combat is in a very early/primitive state. It will be extended as time permits.