Defensive strength

This article is a work in progress!

Defensive Strength (DS) is the numerical value subtracted from an attack roll due to a character's defenses. This includes bonuses from the defender's skills in evading, blocking, and parrying attacks, their combat stance, their active spells, any enchantments that may be on their equipment, as well as environmental factors such as exceptionally bright or dark rooms.

Formulas

Defensive Strength Formula:

Total Defensive Strength = Generic Defense + Evade Defense + Block Defense + Parry Defense

To calculate a character's Defensive Strength, one adds the values from the categories listed above. Formulas for each type of defense can be found on the following articles:

• Evade
• Block
• Parry - defense for one-handed and two-handed weapons
  • Polearm Weapons - defense for polearms
  • Art of the Bow (guide) - parry defense for ranged weapons
  • Two Weapon Combat - parry defense for offhand weapons
  • Runestaff - parry defense for staff users derived from magic skills

Generic Defense

Generic defense consists of the defender's active spells/maneuvers and the environmental conditions of the room.

Some spells, such as Elemental Defense I, add a flat DS bonus against all attacks. Other spells, such as Spirit Warding I, add a bonus against specific types of attacks (in this case, against magical bolts). And still others contribute instead to evade, block, or parry defenses: for example, Mass Blur adds to evade defense, which can result in a different final bonus based on whether the defender is wearing heavy armor or holding a shield (less evade defense for larger shields).

Environmental Conditions

Condition	Effect	LM SENSE messaging
Average	+0 DS	pretty average lighting
Bright	-10 DS	extremely bright
Dark	+20 DS	rather dark
Foggy	+30 DS	pretty foggy

Status Conditions

• sitting/kneeling/prone: -50 DS penalty, and reduced chance for an outright evade/block/parry (-25% if sitting/kneeling, -50% if prone)
• stunned: -20 DS penalty, -50% reduced chance for an outright evade/block/parry
• immobilized (bound)/webbed - -50 DS penalty, cannot evade or parry

References

• http://www.play.net/gs4/info/combat_guide/factors.asp#DS