combat mechanics

[Ragnarok-X]

Can someone explain how combat actually works ?

I think i know this:

Attack skill and defense skill are weighted against other to calculate odds about hitting the target.
If you hit, the strength is added to the weapons damage and then the targets protection value is substracted to get the exact damage.

Where exactly does a weapons length come on on this?
How does a shield come in ? Is it included in the attack vs defense skill ? How does it aid missile defense (tower shield) ?

How does fatigue/encumbrance work ?
Trample ?

- thanks

[13lackGu4rd]

Originally Posted by Ragnarok-X

Can someone explain how combat actually works ?

I think i know this:

Attack skill and defense skill are weighted against other to calculate odds about hitting the target.
If you hit, the strength is added to the weapons damage and then the targets protection value is substracted to get the exact damage.

pretty much yes, just that you forgot about the die roll that happens everywhere in dom3. each side rolls a D6(standard) die, if either side gets a 6 it get a 2nd roll. this value is added to the other effects, for whatever action it was(attacking, spell casting, MR resist, etc).

Where exactly does a weapons length come on on this?
How does a shield come in ? Is it included in the attack vs defense skill ? How does it aid missile defense (tower shield) ?

weapon length comes in the form of repel. if an attacker with a shorter weapon is trying to attack a defender with a long weapon, say a short sword vs a spear than the defender has a chance to repel the attack. the longer the weapon difference(click on the weapon in the unit's screen to see its length) the higher your repel chances.

shields add defense value, and have a parry rating. the parry rating is the shield's chance to block missiles(arrows, as well as some projectile spells). not exactly sure how this is calculated though, but generally missiles are not affected by the defense rating, not sure if its attack rating vs parry or something else...

How does fatigue/encumbrance work ?
Trample ?

- thanks

fatigue shows how tired your unit is. the higher fatigue the bigger chance of the enemy to inflict a critical hit on the fatigued unit. also once a unit reaches 100+ fatigue it can't do any actions, it just sits there practically frozen in place. encumbrance is the amount of fatigue a unit loses each time it makes an action(attacking, spell casting, etc). in the case of mages, each spell also has an independent fatigue value, which is added to the caster's spell casting fatigue(encumbrance). reinvigoration items reduce fatigue, which is why it's very important for thugs, SCs and mages to have some reinvigoration items on them, and why the earth bless is so good(especially for mages).

trampling means that a unit runs over a group of smaller units, damaging them in the process. trampling isn't an attack per se, so weapon damage nor number of weapons/attacks are ignored, it's basically a strength hit. the larger the trampling creature(max is size6, elephants, niefel giants, etc) the more effective its trampling, and the more creatures it can trample(anything smaller, so a size6 can even trample over a size 4/5).

[Graeme Dice]

Originally Posted by Ragnarok-X

Attack skill and defense skill are weighted against other to calculate odds about hitting the target.

All of this information is based on my memory of discussions and the manual, so some of it is quite probably wrong.

(1d6oem means that it's a random number from one to six, with any sixes getting an additional roll added to the total)
If Attack + 1d6oe > Defense + 1d6oe then the attack hits.

If you hit, the strength is added to the weapons damage and then the targets protection value is substracted to get the exact damage.

Damage done is:
Strength + damage + 1d6oe - protection - 1d6oe

Where exactly does a weapons length come on on this?

I'm not sure that I've ever seen repelling work at all, either as a defense or in causing damage to the attacker. It's especially less effective than awe +0, when it should be just as effective at damage prevention.

If the attacker has a shorter weapon than the defender, then the attacker must check:
morale + 1d6oe > 10 + 1d6oe

If it succeeds then the attack continues, if it fails then the attack aborts. If the attack continues, then the defender makes a attack roll. If that attack roll is successful, then a damage roll is made. The damage caused by this roll is capped at 1, and no extra effects are caused by the weapon.

How does a shield come in ? Is it included in the attack vs defense skill ?

A shield's protection is added to the units other protection if the attack would hit without the shield, but not with the shield.

[quote] How does it aid missile defense (tower shield) ?

Missiles that hit the shield a shield are ignored. What proportion of missiles hit a shield with a given parry value is not well understood.

How does fatigue/encumbrance work ?

This is explained in the manual, except that the critical hit section is incorrect.

[Calahan]

I haven't got the manual at hand to check, but isn't all the info regarding combat in there? I remember reading it several times a long time ago, and thought it did a fine job of explaining the basics of combat.

I know I might sound like an arse to some in saying this, but some care is needed here I think not to reproduce the info that is in the manual, and thereby getting on the wrong side of the moderators.

To me at least, asking if certain examples or formulas etc. in the manual are correct or not seems ok to post, but just asking such a basic thing as "how does combat work" is a little bit much. All just my opinion of course, but some people think the manual exists for a reason.

[Graeme Dice]

All of this info has been posted multiple times to the forums over many years. If the mods want to come down on us for answering questions asked by new players, then there's not going to be much discussion left at all.

[thejeff]

Also going from memory, but I think your description of repelling is wrong.

I thought a defender with a longer weapon got to make the repel attack first and only if that hits and does damage does the attacker have to make the morale check. If I'm right, that would explain why repel is so much less effective than awe.

[Sombre]

Originally Posted by Graeme Dice

I'm not sure that I've ever seen repelling work at all, either as a defense or in causing damage to the attacker. It's especially less effective than awe +0, when it should be just as effective at damage prevention.

If the attacker has a shorter weapon than the defender, then the attacker must check:
morale + 1d6oe > 10 + 1d6oe

If it succeeds then the attack continues, if it fails then the attack aborts. If the attack continues, then the defender makes a attack roll. If that attack roll is successful, then a damage roll is made. The damage caused by this roll is capped at 1, and no extra effects are caused by the weapon.

Ah, no no. This isn't right.

You've definitely seen repel if you've played dom3 more than a bit. Whenever you see puffs of blood coming up amongst the unit that is actually attacking (during its turn) that's repel doing damage. It's especially pronounced when the insects from the spell Swarm attack - most of them will be killed by a thug just for attacking him, for instance. I'm talking about a thug without something like a fireshield here, also. Just a guy with decent att and a weapon longer than length 0.

The thing you have wrong in the repel calculation is that the morale check is made after damage is assigned and /only/ if 1 damage is actually dealt. This is why repel is so terrible. In order for it to work you must:

A) Have a longer weapon
B) Have high enough att to hit them
C) Do enough damage to penetrate their armour (at which point you'll do a single damage, with no DRN)
D) Be attacked by stuff with low morale

Let's say you're a guy with att 10 and your opponent is wearing armour with decent prot overall, like prot 15. He has def 10 also. His morale is 10. So assuming you have a longer weapon, that's a 50% chance to hit the guy, then let's say around a 50% chance to get past the armour, then a 50% chance he'll fail his morale test. So even in an even situation where you have the longer weapon, your chance to repel is already crap. On top of this, you get a penalty for each repel check you make beyond the first UNLESS your opponent is mindless (which is why swarm suffers horrible casualties to repel, but a horde of non mindless crappy swarmers doesn't suffer much at all.

IMO repel is such a non factor that unless you're dealing with swarm, you should just ignore it. The most practical way to test this is by putting a bunch of pikemen against barbarians. You'd expect them to OWN barbs with their repel, but they don't at all.