Physical combat

Overview

Physical combat is one shared system for players, creatures and NPCs. Standard equipment is purely physical: no elements, no magic, and no durability, repair or sharpness to manage. Magic has its own rules; Blood magic’s Wounded state is separate from physical Bleeding.

Controls

• Left mouse is a weapon’s primary action; right mouse its secondary.
• Tap to attack — repeated taps cycle through the weapon’s attack chain.
• Hold for the weapon’s hold action: a charged heavy strike, a dagger frenzy, a staff or fist flurry, or a bow draw.
• Space + direction to dodge — see Movement and dodging.

Damage types

Every blow is cut, pierce or blunt. Each armour construction handles them differently, and some weapons seek the gaps in armour.

How a hit resolves

1. Guard. A frontal hit on a raised guard or shield costs stamina instead of health. Run out of stamina and your guard breaks: guard down, a stagger, and a delay before you can raise it again.
2. Region. Attacks land on the head, torso, arms or legs, following the attack’s pattern.
3. Armour. The outermost piece on that region protects first; layers matter.
4. Damage. What gets through hurts.
5. Stagger. Separately from damage, impact against your stability can stagger you — light, standard, heavy or severe.
6. Wound. A hard enough blow causes a minor, moderate or severe wound. Piercing wounds go deep.
7. Armour Stress. Blunt blows build stress in rigid armour pieces.

Injuries

• Bleeding is one state that worsens from minor to moderate to severe with repeated wounds. It never stacks, never slows you, and is not a percentage of health.
• Wound Shock follows a new wound: a brief slowdown of movement and of attacks started during it. You never lose control.
• Armour Stress builds from blunt blows on rigid pieces. Cloth, padded and soft leather never take stress.

All of it resets after a short time out of combat.

Load

Heavier equipment slows you slightly and costs more stamina. Even a full suit of plate with a sword and shield costs only a few percent of speed.

Weapons

There are 30 weapon families. A weapon’s family decides most of what it is; its material refines it.

• Swords: Arming Sword, Shortsword, Longsword, Greatsword, Falchion, Rapier, Estoc
• Daggers: Dagger, Rondel Dagger
• Axes: Hand Axe, Battleaxe, Dane Axe
• Blunt: Mace, Warhammer, Maul
• Polearms: Spear, Pike, Glaive, Halberd, Poleaxe
• Staff: Quarterstaff
• Bows: Shortbow, Longbow, War Bow
• Crossbows: Light Crossbow, Heavy Crossbow
• Thrown: Throwing Knife, Throwing Axe, Javelin
• Unarmed: Fists

Armour

Padded armour, Leather armour, Hardened leather armour, Mail armour, Brigandine armour, Plate armour, Full plate armour, Ironwood laminate armour.

Shields

Buckler, Round Shield, Heater Shield, Kite Shield and Tower Shield. Shields intercept within their arc rather than adding a defence stat. A shield slung on your back can still stop a real hit from behind.