Combat mechanics
Line of Sight
Ranged attacks require line of sight, which is blocked by other enemies and by solid walls. For some attacks such as Discus, Cover objects also block line of sight. Crevasses in the map do not block line of sight.
Attackers can "lean" to see around obstacles in some cases. Specifically:
- The attacker consider five possible firing positions: the center of their current tile and positions offset by 0.7 to the north, south, east and west.
- For each firing position, check the line of sight to each tile of the target.
- For each target tile, check five lines to the target (or to each of the target's tiles, if it is large): from the firing position to the midpoint of the tile and to just inside the midpoint of each edge—technically, to offsets (0,0), (-0.49,0), (0.49,0), (0,-0.49), and (0,0.49). These are the target points.
- For each firing position, check the line of sight to each tile of the target.
If there is any unobstructed line from a valid firing position to a target point, the attacker has line of sight on the target.
Attack Strength
Also called "Attack Roll" in some places. For basic attacks, simply pick one of Melee Accuracy or Range Accuracy.
Defense Strength
Also called "Defense Roll" in some places. The target's Block, Effective Dodge, and Cover are added together to give Defense Strength.
Block
Block is straightforward. Just add Block to Defense Strength.
Dodge
The defender's Dodge is modified by the attacker's weapon Wield. Heavy weapons (low wield) are easier to dodge; light weapons (high wield) are harder.
Multiply by the following to get effective Dodge:
| Wield | Weight | Modifier |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ultraheavy | 135% |
| 2 | Heavy | 115% |
| 3 | Balanced | 100% |
| 4 | Light | 85% |
| 5 | Ultralight | 65% |
Cover
A defender must be standing adjacent to cover to get benefit from it. Diagonal adjacency counts. Solid walls, door frames and the like also give Good Cover though they do not say so.
Partial cover is worth up to +30 Defense Strength; Good cover is worth up to +60. It is reduced if the attacker is firing from an angle, and they can "lean" to further improve their shot.
Specifically, for each firing position and each target tile as described above for line of sight, test the five lines from the firing position to the target points. For each one that passes through any part of the cover tile, the target gets 20% of the potential cover value. The attacker picks their best firing position and the most exposed (lowest cover) tile of the target.
This means a defender very rarely can get full cover value from a single-tile cover object. (They would have to be diagonally adjacent to it with an attacker on the far diagonal.)
Resolution
Subtract Defense Strength from Attack Strength to get hit strength. If the result is -75 or below, the attack cannot hit. Above that, the hit chance increases by +1% per point of hit strength until it reaches 85% at hit strength +10. Then it increases by +0.5% per point of hit strength until hit chance reaches 100% at hit strength +40.
Technically, interpolate hit chance on this table:
| Hit Strength | Hit Chance |
|---|---|
| -75 | 0% |
| 0 | 75% |
| 10 | 85% |
| 40 | 100% |
Misses
If the attack fails, the system will randomly determine whether the target Dodged, Blocked, or Took Cover. Cover is the first line of defense—if the hit strength is less than the cover value, the shot hits and does damage to the cover. Otherwise, Dodge or Block is selected, weighted by the target's defense ratings. (Sometimes this matters for triggering Abilities like Riposte.)
Damage
Physical / Magical
Normal damage is physical and is benefited by bonus damage. Magic damage is benefited by potency.
Injuries heal as days pass in the Overland phase.
Armor / Warding
Armor is subtracted from incoming physical damage before inflicting injury. Warding is subtracted from incoming magic damage. If armor or warding reduces damage to zero, the attack destroys 1 armor or warding instead.
Shred
Attacks can have shred effects. Each point of shred removes one point of armor for the remainder of the mission. Shred is applied after damage for the current attack is calculated; for instance, if a monster with 6 hp and 2 armor gets hit by an attack doing 7 dmg and 1 shred, the monster takes (7 - 2) = 5 hp damage, and survives with 1 hp and 1 armor remaining.
Pierce
An attack with a pierce value ignores up to that amount of armor or warding. For instance, if a monster with 6 hp and 3 armor gets hit by an attack doing 7 dmg and 1 pierce, the monster takes (7 - (3-1)) = 5 hp damage, and survives with 1 hp and 3 armor remaining.
Attacks from grayplane ignore armor entirely.
Walling
When two heroes are next to each other, both reduce the damage they take by 1. This effect works against both physical and magic damage. It does not stack.
The power of friendship! Or, at least, being near an ally.
Status effects
Various debuffs can be inflicted upon opponents.
