How Combat Works
Every attack resolves on one of five axes against the defender's matching defence. Your weapon decides which axes it can strike on, and your combat style picks the one you use — which also routes where the experience goes. Combatants swing on their own clocks, so a faster weapon simply hits more often.
The five axes
Each monster is strong on some axes and soft on one. Finding the soft one is most of the fight — it is worth carrying a second weapon for the creatures that shrug off your first.
- puncturee.g. a Giant Rat is weak to it
- slashe.g. a Goblin is weak to it
- crushe.g. a Wolf is weak to it
- magice.g. a Forest Troll is weak to it
- rangee.g. a Crypt Wraith is weak to it
Experience
XP is earned per point of damage dealt — 3 XP per damage, split with Constitution — not per kill. A long fight against something tough pays the whole way through; the kill itself grants the loot.
Staying alive
Health does not recover on its own. Eat food to heal, or wear gear granting Health Regen (the Ring of Life is the first source). Arrows are consumed per shot with a 75% chance of recovering each one, so ranged costs ammunition where melee costs gear wear. Losing a fight has real consequences from a certain level — see below.
Death & risk
Below combat level 10, death costs nothing — learn the ropes freely.
From combat level 10, fights are played for keeps. Defeat destroys everything in your backpack and 20% of the gold you are carrying, and you wake in the nearest town.
What is safe
- Worn equipment — always safe.
- Anything in your House — stored items and banked gold are untouchable.
- Your skills and XP — never lost.
The counter-play
Discipline, not luck: store valuables and bank gold at your House before a dangerous fight, and carry only what you are willing to lose. Bring enough food that a long fight can't outlast your supplies — that is how most deaths actually happen.