User:DOUG/Sandbox Combat Stuff
Combat! No matter what profession you elect for your character, you will be exposed to combat in the world of Elanthia. For most professions, combat is the primary path to knowledge, advancement and riches. Outside of a town's walls the world awaits, usually to devour your character! Denizens of the lands like trolls, zombies, orcs, and even the occassional rabid squirrel - yes, all these and more wait to send your character to meet his or her demise. In many cases, the only way to fight off these horrors is literally to engage them in combat.
Combat Components
Even though for the most part your character should feel safe while in town, from time to time creatures will band together to test the mettle of a town's population. Usually, these invasions are immediately noticeable, but a sure sign is if you check the town's justice status and find that the chaos has the attention of the local constabulary. In order for your character to have a chance, you need to understand the basics about combat. This guide will share these basics to give you a fair shot at ensuring your character's survival. But combat can be very complex, so don't expect to learn all the in's and out's in this guide. You'll have to take your character out and experience it for yourself to really gain any competency.
Let's simplify it a bit, though. Combat is made up primarily of three factors: What you're going to attack with; What you're going to defend with, and; The combat resolution system itself, which compares your character's skills and various advantages against your foe's skills and advantages to determine the outcome of your attack. Or, of course, the outcome of your foe's attack against your character. Let's take a look in general at each of these three factors.
Tools for the Attack
In general, if your character is going to hit something, pick something stout! To effectively wield these tools, you must make sure your character has the skill to utilize whatever it is you equip him or her with. For those professions of a more physical mindset, commonly referred to as the squares and semi professions, there are several classes or groupings of weapons to choose from.
| * One-handed edged weapons | * One-handed blunt weapons | * Two-handed weapons |
| * Ranged weapons | * Thrown weapons | * Polearms |
| * Brawling |
| Pure magic using professions will tend to use bolt or ball spells, or spells which must be warded against, generally referred to as CS spells. |
Ways to Defend
Mounting an effective defense against a concerted attack is no small task. At every turn, there are denizens waiting to test the rumor that dinner really can be found in that mobile humanoid-shaped can. Your character's defense will be most effective with training in shield, or if a pure, in skills that allow for runestaff defense. Training in armor is essential for your character to survive any attacks that may land and do damage. Other skills such as combat maneuvers like Vanish or Side by Side can help your character either alone or when in groups. The single greatest contributor to success in your character's defense is the stance your character is in at the moment of the attack. We'll explore this later.
For most new characters in most professions, the key to defending well is to have the best possible enchanted armor and shield / runestaff available at the time, good brawling or weapon skills, and to capitalize on protective spells that the character can cast or have cast upon himself or herself by some benevolent spell caster. In fact, probably the most frequently experienced introduction to other characters in the lands is for your character to go into your town's central square and ask for a 'spell-up'. Oftentimes it is an additional politeness if your character asks for the specific spells you desire - although this isn't necessary. You'll meet many characters this way and hopefully turn towards assisting others the same way, as you can later in your character's journey.
Resolving Conflict
This is perhaps the most confusing of the three for new players. The combat resolution system has myriad mechanisms to determine fairly who hit whom - even though sometimes you'll scratch your head and wonder what exactly just happened to your character. There are four primary types of combat resolution that you'll see. And you can quickly determine which type of combat resolution your character is facing, based on what the combat type starts with. We'll go over each type in a bit of detail, and there's a lot of math involved. Fortunately, the combat resolution system handles all that for you, but you need to understand the components. Let's get a general view of each type, first.
If, for example, the combat starts, and you see a line of letters and numbers that starts with AS, you know you're being swung at, shot at, or some mean magic user has cast a bolt or ball spell at you - or that you attempted to do the same to a creature. This is the most frequent type of attack that you'll see when first starting.
If the combat starts and you see a line of letters and numbers that starts with CS, you'll know that an even meaner magic user has cast a warding spell at you - or you cast such a spell at another.
If, on the other hand, you see a line of letters and numbers that starts with UAF, then you're facing a combatant that is attempting to use the brawling skill to shorten your character's journey - or that you are swinging away without a weapon.
And finally, if you should see a line of letters and numbers that starts with [Roll result:, then you know you're facing a creature that is attempting a combat maneuver against your character - or that you've initiated such a skilled attack.
Just because combat is so much fun, sometimes you won't see anything but the result - some calculation of damage and some effect like stunned or prone from a special creature ability. Or, it could mean you initiated an attack that resolves under the Standard Success Resolution System, the character's counterpart to the creature ability. You won't see too much of this in your character's early training, though.
Determining Resolution
In keeping with your character's personality and roleplay, you have likely decided to FIGHT! While not always your best first choice, if you're going to do it, do it well. In GemStone, attacking well means one simple thing - have the entire combat resolution come out with a number greater than 100 at the end. That's when the resolution is considered successful. Let's break down each of the four basic types of resolution briefly, to orient you to what you're actually seeing.
Attack Strength or AS
The first type of combat resolution occurs when someone swings, shoots or casts something at someone else, be it a PC or a creature. AS is always compared to DS in this formula. This type of resolution looks like this:
This resolution has four components, each made up of several factors.
AS, or Attack Strength has been calculated to be 200 for this attack. Factors that make up this component include skills, attribute bonuses like STR, weapon properties such as enchantment, and certain spells such as Strength or Bravery which can add to the attempted attack.
DS or Defensive Strength has been calculated to be -3 for this attack. Factors that make up this component include skills, attribute bonuses like AGI, shield or runestaff use, properties of the shield / runestaff and armor such as enchantment, and those spells from earlier that help protect your character.
AvD, or attack versus defense, is a numerical value that aggregates the effectiveness of the weapon used in the attack against the effectiveness of the armor worn by the defender. It is very complicated and wide ranging, but check out your character's specific weapon to see what AvD is expected against different armors can be a very helpful piece of information. If the AvD value is low, the weapon your character chose will not be nearly as effective against the defender's armor as you might wish.
And here the magic happens. Each attack is randomized by a d100 (random number between 1 and 100). Besides tracking your character's luck, this number compared against the attack's final result will give you an immediate impression of whether or not your character might even stand a chance of defeating the opponent. Or, if you're looking at the result of an attack on your character, whether or not your character might be in harm's way.
The last number in the string is the one you want to see over 100, if your character is attacking, or under 100 if your character is under attack. The higher this number over 100, the more pain someone is going to feel!
Cast Strength or CS
The second combat resolution type occurs when someone casts a warding spell at someone else, again irrespective of PC or creature. Here, CS is always compared against TD or Target Defense, to resolve success or failure of the attack. This type of resolution looks like this:
This attack likewise has four components which function similarly to the AS/DS resolution type, each component possibly comprised of several factors.
CS, or Cast Strength has been calculated to be 141 for this attack. Factors that make up this component include spell ranks, attribute bonuses like WIS or AUR, and certain spells such as Elemental Targeting or Mystic Focus which can add to the spell's power.
TD, or Target Defense has been calculated to be 128 for this attack. Factors that make up this component include character or creature level, attribute bonuses like WIS or AUR, and those defensive spells that help your character ward off spells.
CvA, or Cast versus Armor, is a numerical value that shows how hard it may be to penetrate armor with a spell's effect. This number is much more straight forward to calculate than AvD, and not quite as wide ranging. A low CvA value usually means that the opponent is in a heavier armor, and likely to take less damage than you might like..
Again, the attack is randomized by a d100 (random number between 1 and 100). It is still important to watch this number and compare it to the end result to see how much potential for success the attack may have.
Bad news! The last number in the string is not over 100. In this example, the opponent will successfully ward this spell and will suffer no ill consequence. This is also a good example of a case where success is questionable. Since the end result would need to increase by three to indicate success, the attacker in this scenario would need a d100 result of 63 or more. Said differently, there is only a 37 percent chance of success - just a bit more than 1/3rd of the casts will cause damage. Not very good odds!
Unarmed combat or UAF
The third combat resolution type occurs when someone attempts using unarmed combat (referred to in general as UAC) based on their brawling skills to bring about another's demise. There are several subtleties in the unarmed combat system that make it a bit more complex than just swinging a blade or tossing a bolt spell. Here, UAF, or the unarmed attack factor for the attacker is always compared against UDF or unarmed defense factor of the defender, to resolve success or failure of the attack. This type of resolution looks like this:
This attack again has four components which function similarly to the preceding resolution types, each component possibly comprised of several factors.
The UAF or unarmed attack factor has been calculated to be 29 for this attack. Factors that make up this component include skills, attribute bonuses like STR and AGI, the enchantment properties of UAC-specific boots and gloves, and certain spells such as Strength or Dragonclaw.
UDF, or the unarmed defense factor has been calculated to be 31 for this attack. Factors that make up this component include character or creature level, dodge and parry abilities, shield use, the enchantment properties of various items, and those defensive spells that help your character's defenses.
In the case of unarmed combat, an interim value is calculated and shown. This interim value is simply a ratio derived from the UAF divided by the UDF. Of course, you would like this interim value to be higher than 1.0, and it has a highest potential value of 2.0.
MM, or Multiplier Modifier, is calculated here to be 125 and is a concept unique to the UAC system. It is a numerical value comprised of various advantages and penalties like the attacker's stance and positioning, equipment like shield or weapon held and armor worn, the defender's status (i.e. stunned or prone), and the lighting conditions in the room or area. It is a bit complex to understand, but you would like this number to be as high as possible.
Our friend, the random d100 (random number between 1 and 100) puts in its appearance again.
And the final result is 208. This number is calculated by taking the interim ratio calculated earlier, multiplying that ratio and the multiplier modifier, and then adding the d100 result. Of course, as expected you need this end result to be higher than 100, and the higher the value, the more devastating the blow.
Maneuvers
It's surprising what a little hug can do in these lands, or how devastating swatting with your shield can be! These types of attacks are generally the purview of the more physical adversaries in the lands - the warrior and paladin types - but all professions have some maneuvers that can be learned. And they can be very effective!
This resolution looks much simpler at the outset to understand. But be warned, that's simply because a lot of the advantages and penalties are not directly shown. This makes explaining what you will see straight-forward, and understanding what you will see the journey of your character's lifetime. This type of resolution looks like this:
Simple, right? This resolution has only two visible components, but there are a couple of peculiarities.
Unlike our preceding combat resolution types, this one starts off with the resolution result for the attack. Again, the value to strive for is greater than 100.
And unlike our preceding combat resolution types, the concept of an open-ended d100 (random number between 1 and an unbounded value) is expressed. What does this mean? In simple terms, a standard d100 result is generated, and if that value is 96 or greater, another d100 value is generated. This process continues (open-ended) until the d100 roll result is less than 96. Then all the values are added together. Therefore, however unlikely it may be, it is possible to have this number show a result of 200, 300 or more!
One helpful note: The same rule about comparing values holds true here. The difference between the final result and the d100 role can give important insights into the potential success of your character's attack or survival. The greater the difference between these two numbers, the more skilled or less disadvantaged the attacker is over the defender. It is well beyond the scope of this beginner's guide to explain all the nuances that make up the final resulting number as each maneuver has different factors involved. But with a little research and exploration, those nuances can be understood.