Toril 2.0: Combat Basics

[Shevarash]

Toril 2.0: Combat Basics

Toril 2.0 features a completely rewritten combat engine, that is loosely based off of the d20 combat system. Those of you familiar with Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 will find this new system very familiar. For those of you unfamiliar with it, a brief synopsis of the key points follows. Please keep in mind that this post is only meant to cover the most basic parts of the new combat system - further details and more advanced concepts will be revealed in future announcements.

Armor Class

Armor Class is now on a positive scale, with zero being the worst AC you could have, and the higher the number the better. There is no effective maximum Armor Class, although attaining the higher levels will become increasingly difficult.

Every character starts with a Base Armor Class, a realtively low number that indicates the difficulty in hitting an unarmored and stationary target. Added to that is the Armor Bonus the character receives from the armor they are wearing. Finally, the character's Dexterity adds a further bonus, indicating their ability to twist and dodge incoming attacks. All of these numbers add up to determine a characters Standard Armor Class.

In some cases, a character may be denied one or all of their bonuses to determine their armor class. For instance, an attack that merely needs to touch the victim to be effective (ex: chill touch, lich touch) will ignore any armor that the character is wearing, and their Armor Class will be determined only by their base and their Dexterity. The resulting AC is called your Touch AC.

Conversely, if a character is unable to move effectively (ex: paralyzed), they will be denied their Dexterity bonus to AC. The resulting AC is called your Flat-Footed AC.

Attack Bonus

A character's Attack Bonus indicates their ability to hit another target. The higher the attack bonus, the better the chance of hitting. Every character has a Base Attack Bonus (BAB) that is determined by their class and level. Some classes have significantly higher base attack bonuses than others, for example a Paladin has a high BAB, whereas a mage has a relatively low BAB.

To determine the Attack Bonus for a specific attack, a character's BAB is added to their hitroll bonus from equipment and their Strength or Dexterity bonus, depending on the type of attack. Melee attacks use the Strength bonus, and Ranged attacks use the dexterity bonus.

Many other factors can affect the Attack Bonus, such as spells and skills and environmental modifiers - more details on those later.

Attack Resolution

Now that we've gone over the basics of the two primary combat statistics - AC and AB - we can illustrate how a combat attack is calculated. First, the victim's Armor Class is figured, then the attacker's Attack Bonus is calculated. Then:

- A 100-sided die is rolled

- The result is added to the attacker's Attack Bonus

- If this result (d100 + Attack Bonus) is greater than the victim's AC, the attack is a hit.

- If the result (d100 + Attack Bonus) is equal to or less than the victim's AC, the attack was avoided.

This is a simple but highly flexible and ultimately very powerful system that does away with much of the over-complex and arbitrary calculations in the old combat engine(s).

Damage

When a melee/ranged attack hits, damage is then calculated. A strength bonus is applied for hits with melee weapons, depending on what kind of weapon they are. Light weapons grant the least amount of strength bonus, whereas two-handed weapons grant the most.

Critical hits are calculated based on the "Threat Range" of the weapon being used. If the attack roll lands within the threat range, the hit is considered a critical and extra damage is applied. The amount of extra damage is determined by the weapon's "Crit Modifier". More on these two concepts in the next post. Suffice it to say here that critical hits are highly variable depending on the weapon being used.

On a sidenote, the messages displayed upon succesful hits have all been changed and also now reflect both the relative amount of damage done to the victim's health as well as a general indicator of the strength of the hit itself. So no more "barely hitting" something until it is nearly dead - you will now always have an approximation of how much damage you just did.

Ranged Weapons

We've talked a little about ranged weapons above, but just to be clear: there are no special commands required for ranged weapons. A missile weapon such as a bow or crossbow need only be wielded, and ammunition held in inventory or on a quiver. Thrown weapons need only be wielded. After that you enter combat normally, and the ranged weapons will be used automatically. There are some extra things you can do with ranged weapons, and some restrictions - but those will be covered later. The most important thing to remember is that whereas most melee weapon depend on Strength for effectiveness, ranged weapons rely on the character's Dexterity.

In short, ranged weapons are no longer a separate system, but just a part of the overall combat engine. This will ensure that they remain a balanced and viable alternative to regular melee weapons.


In Conclusion

I hope the above information helps shed some light on the basics of the new combat system. Please remember that this is intended to be just the most basic overview - there is tons of additional information and advanced concepts revolving just around the combat engine, but I think this information will be easier to digest in small doses.

The next post will shed some light on the new system for Weapons and Armor...

[Disoputlip]

Would a platemail then give worse touch ac?

[Shevarash]

No - for Touch AC your armor is not even calculated. It doesn't matter whether you're wearing leathers or platemail - all the attacker has to do is touch you or your armor, not penetrate it.

[Yayaril]

8)

Bravo. I like this. I've been itching for a good DnD 3.0-3.5 based mud for awhile now.

[Justaghost]

No - for Touch AC your armor is not even calculated. It doesn't matter whether you're wearing leathers or platemail - all the attacker has to do is touch you or your armor, not penetrate it.

So then there is no limitation to dex bonus based on armor type? For instance, in D&D 3 if you wear platemail your max dex bonus to AC is 1, so your touch attack AC is lower than if you were naked. In Toril 2.0 a guy wearing platemail is just as fast as a guy in leather?

[Shevarash]

No, you're right - I didn't quite understand the intent of the question. Armor does come with a dex limit, so wearing a heavier armor *can* cause you to have a lower Touch AC, by denying you your full dexterity bonus to AC.

[Dalar]

Dexterity or agility have no affect on crit threat or crit bonus?

[Sarell]

The resulting AC is called your Touch AC.

I was skeptical about Toril 2.0 until I read this... Now THIS is giving us what players want!


TOUCH!

[Teshidee]

rofl.
TOUCH wuv ya pat! :)

[Culuc]

Just curious why dex would be used instead of agility to, twist and dodge etc, tacked on the end of you AC calculation? I mean I understand in D&D why it's used, IE: no agi stat. But why here?

[Justaghost]

Hrm... could stats be changing? Maybe there won't be an Agi stat anymore...

[Thilindel]

Just curious why dex would be used instead of agility to, twist and dodge etc, tacked on the end of you AC calculation? I mean I understand in D&D why it's used, IE: no agi stat. But why here?

back on the origional sojourn, there was no agility. Hoping there won't be again :P Wasn't any power stat either

[Branthur]

Toril 2.0: Combat Basics

Toril 2.0 features a completely rewritten combat engine, that is loosely based off of the d20 combat system. Those of you familiar with Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 will find this new system very familiar.

2.) Attack Bonus

A character's Attack Bonus indicates their ability to hit another target. The higher the attack bonus, the better the chance of hitting. Every character has a Base Attack Bonus (BAB) that is determined by their class and level. Some classes have significantly higher base attack bonuses than others, for example a Paladin has a high BAB, whereas a mage has a relatively low BAB.

Question about BAB...if it's being modeled at least somewhat off of 3rd ed D&D, does that mean a class's chance of multiple attacks in a round will be based off of the class's BAB, instead of a random skill such as Double Attack? :)

Example - In 3rd ed, you get an extra attack whenever you can subtract 5 from your BAB and still have a positive # for BAB. When you reach a BAB of +6, you get a secondary attack at a +1. When you reach a BAB of 11, your attacks per round are at +11/+6/+1, maxing out at 4 attacks, with each "additional" attack having less of a chance to hit, but you're getting to try to hit more times (this is of course without modifiers). Can we look forward to anything like this with the new combat system? :)

[Shevarash]

Question about BAB...if it's being modeled at least somewhat off of 3rd ed D&D, does that mean a class's chance of multiple attacks in a round will be based off of the class's BAB, instead of a random skill such as Double Attack? :)

Yes.