Legends of Belariath

Combat

Standard Dice Combat

Standard dice are based upon each character's stats and any modifiers that may enhance or reduce those stats. Modifiers include weapons and armor, enchantments, spells invoked during the combat, skills, special items, and so on. As such, standard dice give a fairly accurate representation of the relative strengths between two characters while still allowing a factor of luck to play it's part in the outcome.

Attack and Defence

When a contender has the initiative, the most common action is to attack their adversary.

The stats that factored into each type of attack and defense were given on the previous page but are repeated here for convenience:

  • Close-in Physical Attack: STR AGI
  • Close-in Physical Defense: AGI RES
  • Ranged Physical Attack: STR INT
  • Ranged Physical Defense: AGI INT
  • Close-in Magical Attack: INT STR
  • Close-in Magical defense: RES STR
  • Ranged Magical Attack: INT RES
  • Ranged Magical defense: RES AGI

When Hp is dropped to 0 a player is dead unless it is agreed upon OOCly before the fight that dropping to 0 HP or below would instead put the player at 1 HP as the blow was pulled.

Calculating A Successful Attack

The format for determining if an attack is successful depends on dice rolls and calculations. These can be done manually but the bot Desdaemona is programmed to do them for you rather more reasily. Combat commands to Desdaemona are normally made in the OOC channel to keep them from clogging up roleplay and are shown on the reference list below:

Quick Reference:
  • !init [+/-#]
    Performs a Combat Initiative Roll on behalf of the character. An optional modifier may be added: if used the + or - have to be used in front of the number
  • !clophyatk #
    Performs a Combat Close Physical Attack Roll on behalf of the character - # denotes the total ATK modifier
  • !clophydef #
    Performs a Combat Close Physical Defence Roll on behalf of the character - # denotes the total DEF modifier
  • !ranphyatk #
    Performs a Combat Ranged Physical Attack Roll on behalf of the character - # denotes the total ATK modifier
  • !ranphydef #
    Performs a Combat Ranged Physical Defence Roll on behalf of the character - # denotes the total DEF modifier
  • !clomagatk #
    Performs a Combat Close Magical Attack Roll on behalf of the character - # denotes the total ATK modifier (normally slots used)
  • !clomagdef #
    Performs a Combat Close Magical Defence Roll on behalf of the character - # denotes the total DEF modifier
  • !ranmagatk #
    Performs a Combat Ranged Magical Attack Roll on behalf of the character - # denotes the total ATK modifier (normally slots used)
  • !ranmagdef #
    Performs a Combat Ranged Magical Defence Roll on behalf of the character - # denotes the total DEF modifier
  • !evade
    Performs an evade roll for the character, showing how much Stamina they can regain
The Technical Stuff

The basic formula for calculating an attack strength and a defense strength is identical:
(1dStat1) + (1dStat2) +/- Mods
where:
Stat1 is the first listed stat for the type of attack or defense you are making
Stat2 is the second listed stat for the type of attack or defense you are making
Mod is the sum of all active combat modifiers that apply. These can include weapon or armor values, spell slots, persistent spells such as magical armor and negative effects such as a sleep spell.

Both attacker and defender make their rolls with the appropriate stats and modifiers. If the total value of the attacker's dice results and mods is higher than the total of the defender's dice and mods, then the attack was successful. If the defender scores higher, the attack failed.

Example:

Fred attacks Jane with a close physical attack
Fred has STR 25, AGI 32 and carries a sword with an attack value of 2+2
His attack roll is 1d25 + 1d32 + 4

Jane has RES 18, AGI 36, armor with a DEF value +2 and a Pendant of Shielding DEF +3

If Fred's score is higher than Jane's he has made a successful attack.

Calculating Damage

Quick Reference:
  • !damage ATK DEF [+/-MOD] [X2] [comment]
    Performs a damage roll. ATK and DEF are taken from the previous combat rolls. Optional modifier is added to the result. Optional X2 for attacks that do double damage. Optional comment can be added.

When an attack is successful, then it needs to be determined just how good a hit was made. To do that involves another dice roll. Again this is simple. An attack can do an amount of damage up to the difference between attack and defense rolls with a cap of 50 points (unmodified). Spells, skills or items that add to damage, such as a x2 modifier, or a +5, allow the damage to bypass the damage cap, unless they specify specifically that they do not.

Damage is done to the LFE of the character being attacked. When LFE falls to 0 or below, the defender is dead, if you wish to not kill the defender you need cut back your damage on that final roll.

Example:

Fred makes a successful attack because his attacking roll was 73 and Jane's defensive roll was only 42. The difference between 73 and 42 is 31. So Fred rolls a 1d31 and the result is the damage done to Jane's LFE stat.

Jane makes a successful attack in which her attack roll is 89 and Fred gets unlucky with the dice, so he only rolls 12 in defense. 89 minus 12 is 77. This is higher than 50, so Jane rolls the maximum dice of 1d50 to see how much damage she did to Fred's LFE.

Disabilities and Dice

There can be on occasion an event or reason that a character might come into a fight with a disability, or as a result of the fight, earn one. The penalties quoted for the various unjuries, impediments etc., are for use for pre-existing injuries as well as any injuries of the relevent type gained during a combat. This also includes any environmental or spell effects, etc., that might occur, such as stepping into a marsh whilst dodging or being caught in a spell effect that restricts free movement. Keep in mind, if a spell effect that mimicks a disability states differently, then the stronger of the two is used when determining what to roll.

The correct way to use those modifiers is to take the difference between the amount of a fully efficient roll (100%) and the disability (IE -25%), and add that result to your corresponding attack or defense in the syntax of !combatdice 1dStat1 1dStat2 @##% +Mods. Modifiers should always be added after the percentile, unless it is specified that the percentile effects both the attack and its modifiers together.

If a person is effected by multiple disabilities, the effects will stack with each other unless otherwise stated by spell, skill or ability. So for example if a person is deaf and blind, they will take the detriments at -30% to close physical attack, and -55% (-30% + -25%) to close physical defense before any modifiers are tacked on.

When it comes to detrimental spells (debuffs) a player cannot exceed a negative more than 50 percent. This does not include players who have disabilities. This only means that that the negative received from a spell or combination of spells can be as high as -50%.

Example:

Fred the Ogre loses his right hand during a fight with Jane. He loses 25% of any close physical attack made. On his turn. Fred will roll a !combatdice 1dStat1 1dStat2 @75%. The dice automatically calculates that result of Stat1 and Stat2, and reduces it to 75% of the total or the -25% required.

Stamina

Each attack and defense uses some of the contender's stamina irrespective of whether the attack is successful:

Close Physical
Attacker and defender both use 2 STA

Ranged Physical
Attacker and defender both use 1 STA

Magical Attack
Close or ranged magical attack costs one STA plus one STA for every slot put into the spell used

Magical Defense
Close or ranged magical defense costs two STA

Having an active magical shield spell in effect will use extra STA every time it is called into use. See spell lists for details.

Certain other spells and enchantments may also increase or decrease the amount of STA used to attack or defend. See lists for details.

Running Out of Stamina

When your STA drops to zero you can no longer take any action to either attack or defend, so you must yield. The only exception would be if your final attack took your opponent down to 0 LFE. Since they would have the next action, and since at zero LFE they are dead, you regain 2 STA during that final round. So you can drag yourself off the ground to win the combat.

Passive Actions

When it is a character's turn to move, they may choose to make a passive move rather than attack. This may be backing off to regain stamina (evasion), or an attempt to remove the effects of a negative spell such as sleep or poison, or the use of a potion to modify their stats or call forth defensive power. In these cases, the defender does nothing and so regains 2 STA.

Regain Stamina - Evade

If attempting to regain stamina the attacking character rolls a 1dSTA where STA represents their normal stamina stat. They regain stamina according to the result of the dice roll up to their maximum figure. Your opponent regains 2 STA at the time you roll.

Group Combat

Each of the contestants takes it in turn to make a move. These work in exactly the same way as in single combat. So, for example, if there are five weaker players attacking one strong character, they attack one after another. Each attack is met by a defensive roll so the strong contestant could end up making five defensive moves before it is their turn to attack again.

That attack could be an Area spell such as fireball which affected all within range, or it could be a personal attack on just one of the attackers.

Dual Wielding

Carrying two weapons has no effect on combat rolls unless you possess a specific skill where a second weapon can be brought into play. Otherwise the secondary weapon is purely for roleplay effect and does nothing to modify attack or defense rolls.

Changing Combat Styles

Switching from magical to physical, or from ranged to close, or vice versa does not use up a combat turn. It happens as part of an attacking turn.

Flight in Combat

Natural fliers may elect in combat to fly into the air given enough space to do so. While flying they expend an additional 1 stamina point for any attack or defense, unless stated otherwise in their racial write up. Those attempting to fly via a magical spell must use a full combat turn to succeed in gaining flight and use up stamina in accordance with the spell's mechanics. Neither natural fliers nor magical fliers may !evade for stamina in flight. Landing does not take up a combat turn for any type of flier, but after landing a flier requires a full combat turn to regain flight, regardless if the flier is natural or not. While in the air the flier may only engage ground targets with long ranged attacks and is immune to close ranged reprisals. However, those in the air may engage other targets in the air at any range.