Warding

Warding is the combat resolution system that handles spells that directly assault the target's magical defenses, in contrast with bolt spells that hurl physical objects using an attack roll. Many disease and poison effects also use this system.

Factors

• Casting Strength (CS) is primarily determined by the caster's statistics, level, and Spell Research.
• Target Defense (TD) is primarily determined by the target's statistics, level, and defensive magics.
• Cast versus Armor (CvA) is determined by how well the target's armor generally protects against spells.
• d100 is a random number from 1 to 100.

If the target is a player character, there may be additional modifiers based on race. For example, dwarves have an inherent +30 Elemental TD bonus.

If these factors add up to a number greater than 100, then the spell will affect the target. The difference between the result and 100 is known as the warding margin (WM), which typically determines the severity of the spell's effect.

This is what a typical success looks like. Note a success is when the target "failed" to ward the magic off, thus being affected.

You gesture at a ghostly pooka.
CS: +146 - TD: +123 + CvA: +25 + d100: +97 == +145
Warding failed!
... 30 points of damage!
Strike swipes cleanly through the abdomen, but seals up a moment later!
Cast Roundtime 3 Seconds.

This is a typical failure. The target succeeded in "warding off" the spell, thus the caster's magic has missed.

You gesture at a ghostly pooka.
CS: +141 - TD: +128 + CvA: +25 + d100: +60 == +98
Warded off!
Cast Roundtime 3 Seconds.

If the cast is successful, additional hidden bonuses to the warding margin may be applied before calculating the final effect. These bonuses only apply on successful casts (endroll +101 and above); they will not, for example, make an endroll of +98 actually hit the target. All of these bonuses are additive.

• Channeling spells add to the effective warding margin based on the caster's stance and number of open hands. For example, a channeled attack in guarded stance and one open hand adds +5 to the warding margin, so if the endroll is +145, it would instead use +150 to calculate damage. Channeling in offensive stance and two open hands adds +40 to the warding margin, so the same endroll would use +185 to calculate damage.
• If the target is incapacitated (for example stunned or bound), most spells receive +15 to effective warding margin.
• Certain spells like Fervent Reproach have special mechanics that can give more bonuses; more details are in the spell articles.

Resolution

Warding attacks that deal direct damage may have concussion damage cycles and/or critical damage cycles.

Concussion cycles deal HP damage based directly on the warding margin. The base damage is the warding margin multiplied by the spell's damage factor (DF), and is then modified by other factors specific to the spell, such as fixed additional damage, skill bonuses, or some random variation. Some spells have a hard cap on the amount of concussion damage dealt by a single cast.

Critical cycles use critical tables, with the critical rank determined in some way by the warding margin, the target's critical padding, and possibly other factors depending on the spell.

An example of a spell with one cycle of each type is Elemental Strike (415):

You trace a simple rune while intoning the mystical phrase for Elemental Strike...
Your spell is ready.
You gesture at a hill troll.
  CS: +118 - TD: +55 + CvA: +11 + d100: +85 == +159   <-- warding margin = 59
  Warding failed!
You blast a hill troll for 23 points of damage.       <-- concussion cycle
   ... 40 points of damage!                           <-- critical cycle (electrical)
   Right eye socket explodes in a dazzling array of multi-colored sparks.  Shocking death.

Certain spells use a warding roll to resolve success, but the exact numbers are not shown to players. Examples include:

• Soul Ward (319)
• Mass Calm (619)
• Pestilence (716) (reactive effect)