[MUD-Dev] Combat (very long)
Matthew Mihaly
sarapis at achaea.com
Wed Jun 2 19:36:36 CEST 1999
Awhile ago I wrote an article for a website on Achaea's combat system that
someone on this list had requested. I'm not even sure if it ever got
published,
and I'd hate for my time to go to waste, so I'm going to post it here. Feel
free to ignore it! Giving credit where credit is due, I must mention that the
'spirit' of our combat system is not original and is a result of playing a mud
called Avalon years ago. (I'm biased, but I think we've far surpassed their
combat system now.) Virtually every detail of it is original. It is only some
of the basic ideas that I extracted from my time on Avalon that I have used
(the idea of give-and-take combat, etc. You'll see if you read it.)
DOCUMENT STARTS BELOW
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I) General principles
1.1 The importance of complexity.
1.2 Give-and-take combat
1.3 The evils of automation
II) Details of Achaea's combat system
2.1 Balance/Equilibrium
2.2 Classes and their skills.
2.3 Preparation
2.4 Afflictions and layering
2.5 Efficiency
Achaea's Player vs. Player Combat System
Unlike many gaming worlds, Achaea has chosen to place player vs. player combat
well ahead of player vs. mobile combat in terms of importance to the game. As
such, we have constructed a system that is more akin to a sport than a game.
Mastering it requires the ability to think quickly, and react quickly, as well
as innovate in terms of strategy. This essay will attempt to explain, albeit
only in part, Achaea's combat system by first discussing the general
principles
behind it, then moving on to specific details of it, and finally, culminating
in a dissection of a log of a fight between two skilled combatants.
It is possible that different players have different goals in combat. In
Achaea, however, combat usually has one of three purposes: 1) slay your
opponent, 2) rob your opponent blind, 3) humiliate your opponent, but still
leave him alive. Most of this document will deal with the most common kind,
which involves slaying your opponent.
Before we begin, let me mention that I use the word "ability" to cover any
non-standard thing that a player can do, whether it is called a "spell" or a
"skill" or anything else. I use the word "affliction" to refer to any
number of
different things that negatively affect a player. This would include anything
from paralysis to being on fire, to a broken left arm. I use the word
"defence"
to mean positive things that affect a player, such as levitating, or having
drunk a speed elixir.
Section 1: Principles of Combat
A good combat system should be based on 3 principles, which I will discuss in
turn.
1) A level of complexity that allows innovation beyond what the designers
had in mind.
2) A fast, give-and-take method of combat that allows the skilled to quickly
overwhelm the unskilled. (Skilled as in the skill of the person behind
the character.)
3) It must not be automatable to a level where someone using automation
(triggers/autoresponses mainly) can gain a significant advantage over those
who
are skilled at combat without automation
1.1 Complexity
Complexity, for our purposes, means that there must be a sufficient number of
things to do to an opponent, and to have done to you, that combat does not
become predictable, and that a player is able to devise strategies and
combinations of abilities that his opponent did not anticipate.
In Achaea, we've got over 750 different abilities. Everyone cannot access all
these, of course, but in order to be a skilled combatant, you must know and
understand virtually all of the combat-related ones (which make up the
majority
of the abilities).
1.2 Speed and the importance of 'Give-and-Take'
Speed in combat is what truly separates the gifted from the merely competent.
Being able to reach a decision instantly, in fact, almost sub-consciously, is
the hallmark of the skilled. Speed, in this sense, does not mean that you may
allow a player to do an infinite number of things as fast as he can hit his
macros, however. What I mean by speed is that the intervals that must exist
between certain actions (like healing, putting up certain defences, and
performing nearly all offensive abilities) should be short. For instance,
Templars have an ability that allows them to swing two swords at someone at
once. This will unbalance them for approximately 4 seconds, after which they
can do it again. Generally, the intervals between offensive abilities, aside
from some special ones, will be between 2 and 5 seconds. The intervals between
healing things, such as applying salves, eating healing herbs, drinking
elixirs, etc, should depend entirely on what they do. For example, because
players can dish out afflictions quite quickly, most affliction-curing herbs
and salves can be taken once a second. An elixir that heals health, on the
other hand, can only be taken every 5 seconds or so.
'Give-and-take' is a term I use for lack of a better word. I use it to mean
the
giving of afflictions and the taking away (healing) of them, or the
application
of defences and the taking away of them from your opponent.
By way of example, a Serpentlord can, every two seconds, bite you with a
venom,
of which there are about 26 kinds, each doing something different to you. This
is and example the giving of afflictions. You would, if you don't wish to die,
be healing these afflictions as fast as you can, by eating the proper herbs,
smoking the proper herbs, drinking the proper elixirs, applying the proper
salves, and other things. This would be the taking away of afflictions.
Now, in order to try and stop the serpent from biting you, you can apply a
sileris berry to yourself, which will stop him from biting you, but he can
flay
it away with his whip, and continue biting you. You can re-apply the berry,
but
it takes about 5 seconds to take effect, so he will get in a couple bites in
the meantime. This is an example of give-and-take as it applies to defences.
Give-and-take also applies to how we deal with health and mana. Unlike in a
AD&D-style game, where you may be wounded seriously and take a long time to
become healed, in a fight in Achaea, your health and mana, as well as your
various wounds, can be healed very quickly. Generally, unless your opponent is
incompetent, your health and mana (health particularly) will swing
drastically.
You get damaged, you attempt to heal yourself as quickly as possible. You'll
see this a lot in the log of a fight I have included at the end of this
document.
1.3 Automation
While it is impossible to avoid permitting players to automate some things
in a
combat system such as I am describing, it is key that someone who is good at
writing triggers/auto-responses cannot gain a significant edge over those who
are good at combat. Triggers are like playing chess with someone while
having a
computer chess program move your pieces for you.
In Achaea, the things that are triggerable are mainly the healing of
afflictions. Ways around this do exist, such as an affliction that has a 25%
chance of making the player execute a random command instead of the one he or
she wanted. Other methods include having some afflictions that can be given
with the same message. For instance, Priests can have their Guardian Angels
'spiritwrack' someone. This makes the angel give the target player one of
about
6 different afflictions, all with the same message to the target. You have to
be on your toes in a situation like this, because you have to look for the
symptoms rather than watching for the cause. If an affliction causes you to,
say, move in a direction other than you intended (while giving you a message
indicating that you traveled in the direction you intended), then the only way
you will know to cure it is if you know what lies in the direction you are
heading, and to deduce that you must have dizziness (the name of the
affliction
that does this in Achaea). No one is going to take the time and effort to make
a trigger sophisticated enough to be able to recognize this affliction. There
are other ways that help defeat triggers, but I will get to them in section 2.
In Achaea's combat system, there is not really any worry about people
triggering offensive actions. Since nearly all of them can only be performed
while you are balanced in mind and body, and since nearly all of them
unbalance
you either in mind or body, and further, since while you are unbalanced in
mind
and body, there are some things you cannot do, like move or light a pipe
(smoking herbs cures certain afflictions), using a trigger which will always
unbalance you in response to certain things is a sure way to die.
Section 2: Details of Achaea's Combat System
In this section, I will discuss the details of Achaea's combat system.
Describing the entire system in detail, however, is beyond the scope of this
article, so I will not attempt it.
2.1 Equilibrium and Balance
The basis on which a good fighting system is built is the idea of limiting how
often you can do things like attacking and healing. In Achaea, the main way in
which we limit how often you can attack are by using what we call Balance and
Equilibrium. In most cases, to perform an offensive ability, you must possess
both balance and equilibrium. Balance represents physical balance, while
equilibrium represents mental composure.
For example, when you swing a sword, you may be unbalanced for about 4
seconds.
While you are unbalanced, you won't be able to attack physically and, in most
cases, mentally. Generally speaking, magical abilities use equilibrium while
physical ones use balance.
We limit how often you can heal by imposing a sort of 'balance' on various
healing methods. For instance, you can only successfully apply a salve to
yourself once a second, and you can only eat an herb (with a couple
exceptions)
once a second. Elixirs that heal your health or mana may only be taken about
once every 5 seconds, and the herb that heals health and mana (irid moss) may
only be taken about once every 5 seconds.
By using the command PROMPT STATS, you will be able to see whether you have
equilibrium and/or balance. If you have them, there will be an e (representing
equilibrium) and a x (representing balance) on your prompt.
2.2 Classes and their combat abilities
A 'class' in Achaea is a set of skills, each containing many abilities. A
player may have only one class, for balance reasons. Along with these
class-related sets of abilities (we call a set of ability a 'skill'. Just
remember that a skill contains many abilities), a player gains a number of
skills shared by everyone, including Survival, Tattoos, Avoidance, Vision, and
Weaponry. The current classes in Achaea, along with their class-related skills
are:
Druid: Groves, Concoctions, Metamorphosis.
Sentinel: Groves, Concoctions, Metamorphosis. Note that the Sentinel gains
slightly more abilities in Metamorphosis than a Druid, but
gains slightly less abilities in Groves.
Monk: Telepathy, Kaido, Tekura.
Occultist: Domination, Necromancy, Tarot.
Templar: Chivalry, Forging, Devotion.
Priest: Spirituality, Healing, Devotion
Serpentlord: Subterfuge, Hypnosis, Venom
A brief explanation of the nature of each of these class-skills follows. I
will
include some sample combat-related abilities from each of these skills, but
detailing them all is, again, beyond the scope of this article.
Groves: The ability to create and maintain a sacred forest grove, from
which many abilities may be exercised. A Druid or Sentinel in
his own Grove is very very dangerous. The combat-type abilities
in Groves range from summoning a swarm of bees to assist you, to
commanding thorny vines to flay and harm your opponent, to the
ability to call a lightning strike down upon anyone in the same
forest as you. Druids and Sentinels get this.
Metamorphosis:While Groves requires the Druid or Sentinel to be in his or her
Grove to use the abilities, Metamorphosis allows them to imbue
themselves with the spirit of animals from squirrels to a
wyvern. Each animal that can be morphed into has a different
selection
of abilities to use. For instance, while an Icewyrm, you can
freeze the ground (making it slippery and difficult to walk on
unless you are levitating), or freeze your opponent. You could
then morph into a gorilla and Pound your frozen opponent, doing
immense damage. Or, perhaps you will morph into a jaguar, and
claw your opponent, which requires no setting up, the way that
pound does, but does considerably less damage.
Druids and Sentinels get this.
Concoctions: This skill comprises the ability to pick various healing herbs,
as well as gather ingredients for various elixirs and salves
that can be brewed (such as feathers from an eagle, venom sac
of a rattlesnake, ground stag's horn, etc.). None of the
abilities in it are directly used in combat, but the products
produced by this skill are indispensable. Druids and Sentinels
get this.
Telepathy: Telepathy is a skill used in two ways. Some abilities may be
used simply on anyone who happens to be in the same room as you.
These include the ability to give such afflictions as paralysis,
confusion (stops you regaining mental balance, also known as
equilibrium, if it has been taken away unnaturally), to the
powerful MIND BATTER, which stuns your opponent briefly, and
gives stupidity, epilepsy, and dizziness to your opponent. The
second way in which Telepathy is used is by getting a mind lock
on your opponent. Doing this takes some time, but once you have
it, you can use any ability you can do without one on your
opponent, plus some more powerful ones that require a mind lock.
Furthermore, while you maintain a mind lock, it does not matter
where you are in relation to your opponent. Monks get this.
Tekura: Tekura is a martial-arts skill involving punches, kicks, throws,
blocks, and different stances. Each of the punching and kicking
abilities attack one of six body parts on your opponent (head,
torso, left arm, right arm, left leg, right leg). The throws all
require that your opponent be fallen on the ground, which can
be achieved using a sweep kick. Body parts can be individually
damaged, and if damaged enough, the effects are quite severe.
For instance, if you damage someone's head enough, they will get
a concussion. A concussion gives amnesia every 1 or 2 seconds.
Amnesia will cause the next command you enter to be ignored.
Monks get this.
Kaido: This skill, at the lower ends, is mainly defensive, containing
defences that will prevent nausea, allow you to dodge arrows,
split your consciousness into two parts to aid in mana
regeneration, as well as various other defensive abilities. The
offensive part of Kaido involves building up Kai energy, which
may then be unleashed on your opponent, doing such things as
halving his health and mana, or breaking all his limbs
simultaneously. Building up Kai energy works as such: Every time
someone on your list of personal enemies performs an attack in
the same room as you, you gain a bit of kai energy. How much
depends on the strength of the attack. Kai energy slowly drains
off, so you must be in the thick of combat for a period of time
in order to build up enough to use one of the Kai attacks.
Monks get this.
Domination: This skill involves the Occultist travelling to the Chaos Plane
to secure the services of various Chaos Entities. Once back on
the prime material plane, he can summon the entities with
whom he has made pacts. These entities will then send minions
to assist you. This skill is very offensively oriented. Examples
of entities include Hecate, the Mother of the Crones, who sends
an old crone to occasionally wither the limbs of your opponent.
Marduk will send a soulmaster entity to assist you. The
soulmaster will burrow into the soul of your victim, and will
allow you, every 4 seconds, to order your victim to do
something.
Buul, the Chaos Chirurgeon, will send a chimera to you, which
serves as a flying steed, as well as an effective attacker.
Each of the three chimera heads can attack with a different
effect. Occultists get this.
Necromancy: A morbid combination of offensive and defensive abilities, the
higher abilities are dependent on life essence, which is gained
by tearing the hearts from dead players and eating them.
Abilities range from the standard occultist attack, decay, which
does simple damage, to Gravehands, an ability that summons
skeletal hands to help hold your opponent in place, to
Vengeance,
which will cause bone spears to appear in the air after you die,
exploding into shrapnel and doing large amounts of damage to
everyone in the room. Perhaps my favourite ability in
Necromancy,
sheerly for its morbid nature, is Vivisect. Once you have
broken or withered all four limbs on your opponent, this ability
allows you to kill him in one blow by ripping out his sternum
and
pinning him to the ground with it. As a nice bonus, the body of
the victim stays there for awhile, with a description something
like, "The corpse of Frodo is here, impaled by a narrow bone. A
note on it reads, 'This is the end of those who would trifle
with
Sauron.'" Occultists get this.
Tarot: Each of the major Arcaana tarot cards are represented as
abilities in this skill, which contains the ability to inscribe
the images on blank cards, using magical ink, and then charge
and throw them at people. Imagine Gambit of the X-men, but with
the cards doing more than just exploding. Examples of abilities
in Tarot are Aeon, which causes a 1 second lag on all of your
opponents commands, to Moon, which causes mental afflictions,
to Justice, which will cause any damage done by your opponent
to also be reflected back onto him. Occultists get this.
Chivalry: This skill combines a number of different types of abilities,
including getting yourself a falcon, which can be used to spy
on your opponents, retrieve or deliver small items, and help
out in combat, to archery, to various abilities using swords.
Doubleslash is probably the single most important ability in
this
skill. It allows the Templar to attack with two swords at once.
Because people can envenom their blades with most of the venoms
that Serpentlords produce, this means that a Templar can deliver
two afflictions and considerable damage with this ability. Other
abilities in Chivalry include Impale, Disembowel, and Lunge, all
of which are sword maneuvers used in various situations.
Templars
get this skill.
Devotion: This skill is focused largely around alignment and holy shrines
which those at the highest levels of this skill can erect. Once
a shrine is erected, it can be strengthened or weakened by
sacrifice (it is the sacrificer's choice which to do). The more
powerful the shrine, the greater the number of locations around
it that it holds sway over. Fighting-related abilities in
Devotion include Hellsight, which regularly inflicts the
recipient with various afflictions, the Rite of Demons, which
attacks the health and mana of those standing in the shrine's
influence who are also on the list of personal enemies of the
person who performed the rite, to the Rite of Piety, which will
keep those on your enemies list from leaving the shrine's
influence easily. Templars and Priests get this skill.
Spirituality: This skill has two parts to it: Guardian angels, and spiritual
maces. Every person with this skill has a personal guardian
angel who follows him around, and can be visible or invisible
according to the wishes of the Priest. As the player progresses
in this skill, his angel grows in power and is able to perform
more and more abilities. Combat-related examples include
Spiritwrack, which gives an affliction every few seconds
(This is
a very powerful ability, as the afflictions are sent out with
the same message, making it impossible to trigger) and Absolve,
which allows your angel to rip the soul out of someone, killing
him instantly, if that person has less than half of his maximum
mana. The spiritual maces are the primary offensive weapons of
the Priest, and can be used for a variety of purposes. Smite is
the standard damage attack. Other attacks include Chasten, which
deals out one of a few mental afflictions, Heresy, which will
increase Smite damage against evil-aligned people for a short
time, and Judgement, which, if you are standing in the influence
of a shrine, allows you to kill someone after a few seconds of
delay, if your unlucky victim is still in the room with you.
Priests get this skill.
Healing: Healing has no offensive abilities in it, but can be well-used
to support someone else in combat. With it, you open channels
to the four basic elements (fire, water, earth, air) and combine
them to heal various afflictions and to give various types of
elemental shields. The Thermalshield, for instance, reduces
fire damage. By opening a channel to the fifth element, spirit,
the Priest is able to remotely heal people. Priests get this.
Venom: This skill involves the secreting of various venoms from glands
that Serpentlords possess. The venoms range widely in their
effects. Camus, for instance, simply does damage, while
Darkshade
causes allergies to natural light, and Slike gives anorexia to
someone, preventing you from eating or drinking anything.
As a Serpentlord gets higher in this skill, he will gain the
ability to milk his venoms into vials. People with the envenom
ability in the weaponry skill can then take these vials and
put venoms on their weapons. Each time a weapon strikes someone,
the last venom put on will come off the weapon and afflict the
person who was struck with the weapon. Serpentlords get this.
Hypnosis: This skill involves hypnotizing a target, implanting various
'suggestions' in the target's mind, and then implanting a prompt
word in the target's mind. Whenever the target hears this prompt
word, the suggestions (which really are afflictions like
claustrophobia, paranoia, vertigo, masochism, agoraphobia, etc),
start kicking in every few seconds, continuing until the target
figures out the prompt word and says it himself. Serpentlords
get this.
Subterfuge: This skill is extremely diverse, and combat-wise, includes a
number of crucial abilities for the Serpentlord class. The
ability Flay allows one to remove a sileris coating from
someone,
which stops the Serpentlord from biting that person. Scales
allows one to coat oneself in hard scales, providing some extra
armour. Yank allows you to use your whip to pull someone from
an adjacent room into yours, causing them also to lose any
entourage they had with them. Doublestab is the ability to take
a dirk and stab someone, twice in rapid succession, delivering
two venoms (as this ability does no damage. It is intended
solely as a delivery mechanism for multiple venoms). Binding
allows the Serpentlord to tie someone up who is asleep (which
may be achieved with the Delphinium venom), rendering him
helpless until he or she has writhed out of the bindings.
Serpentlords get this.
Those, then, are the class-specific skills. However, some other skills also
play a large part in combat, notably Tattoos, Survival, and Weaponry.
Tattoos: Tattoos involves the ability to Tattoo yourself or others with
a variety of magical tattoos. Some provide defences when
activated, and some provide offence. For instance, the Boar
tattoo (designed in honour of Sarapis' beloved Black Boar) will
regularly replenish some health. The Tentacle tattoo will cause
a tentacle of Shimite to shoot out of the ground, dragging a
flying target down to earth. The Shield tattoo will erect a
magical shield around you, which will stop many physical attacks.
A counter to that is the Hammer tattoo, which destroys a shield.
The Web tattoo will cover a target in sticky webs, holding him
fast until he has writhed out. Everyone gets this skill.
Survival: All of the combat-related abilities in Survival are of a
defensive
or healing nature. For example, Metawake will allow you to wake
up automatically upon being put to sleep, but will drain your
mana quickly and regularly. Shaking allows you to shake a tree,
causing anyone who isn't Clinging to fall out of the tree.
Restoration allows you to heal broken limbs by sheer force of
will. Everyone gets this skill.
Weaponry: Weaponry has only a few abilities in it. However, as your skill
in weaponry progresses, your chances of hitting someone with a
weapon increases, the speed with which you can attack with a
weapon increases, and the damage you do with a weapon increases.
Some of the abilities in weaponry are, however, very important.
Parrying, for instance, allows you to defend one body part
against
attacks to it. This is a very crucial ability against monks, as
many of their attacks are against specific body parts. At the
high end of the skill is an ability called Behead, which allows
one to take a sword and, after a short period of 'wind-up',
lop someone's head off. (Naturally there are ways to stop this,
such as putting the beheader to sleep.)
2.3 Preparation for Combat
First of all, it's important for every class to be _prepared_ when going into
combat. In fact, it's important to be prepared at all times, as you never know
when your nefarious enemy may strike unannounced. Being prepared means
having a
full set of healing equipment, a list of which I'll include below. I will give
a brief description of the purpose of each piece of equipment.
Health elixir: Heals health. Drink it.
Mana elixir: Heals mana. Drink it.
Mending salve: Cures broken limbs, among other things. Apply it.
Restoration salve: Cures heavily-damaged body parts. Apply it.
Levitation elixir: Makes you levitate, thus avoiding certain low-level
obstructions. Drink it.
Immunity elixir: Cures the deadly voyria venom. Drink it.
Venom elixir: Reduces damage from damage-causing venoms. Drink it.
Speed elixir: Increases your ability to dodge physical attacks.
Epidermal salve: Cures various afflictions such as blindness, deafness,
and anorexia. Apply it.
Caloric salve: Acts as both a defence and a cure to shivering (which
robs you of equilibrium), and being frozen, which
prevents you from doing many things.
Now, aside from salves and elixirs, there are a variety of plants and herbs
that are necessary in combat. These can be kept in a pocketbelt, which is a
magical belt that can carry many, many plants and herbs easily. The ones
necessary for combat are as follows. Explanations of the various afflictions
will be included mostly in a later section. Note that most of these herbs,
aside from the ones that are smoked, may be successfully eaten not more than
once a second. They have no effect if eaten more often than that. For
instance,
if I eat a ginseng root, and immediately follow it with a lobelia seed, the
lobelia seed will have no effect.
Valerian: When smoked, this cures a couple very nasty afflictions,
including disfigurement (which causes any loyal mobiles
you have to turn against you), and slickness, which
prevents salves from working.
Skullcap: Absolutely indispensable against Templar and
Serpentlords, this herb will, when smoked, bring up an
anti-weapon aura about 6 seconds later. This aura will
last until you commit an offensive act. When someone
strikes you with a weapon, it will not hurt you, but
will
rebound back onto the attacker. Of course, there are
ways
of getting rid of this.
Sileris: You can apply this berry to your body to form a waxy
coating which the fangs of Serpentlords cannot
penetrate.
They are able to Flay this coating from you with their
iron-tipped whips.
Prickly Ash: When eaten, this cures many sanity-imperiling
afflictions, such as dementia and confusion.
Goldenseal: When eaten, this will restore harmony to your body and
mind, curing afflictions such as stupidity, epilepsy,
and dizziness.
Kelp: Kelp is full of minerals, and when eaten, strengthens
you, curing afflictions such as asthma, clumsiness,
and sensitivity.
Lobelia: The lobelia seed cures quite a few mental afflictions
such as agoraphobia, claustrophobia, loneliness,
masochism, recklessness, and berserking.
Ginseng: The ginseng root is one that, when eaten, can purify
your blood, curing such afflictions as haemophilia,
allergies to the sun, vomiting, and others.
Bellwort: The bellwort flower will, when eaten, cure afflictions
that might have unnaturally pacified you. Examples of
this are pacifism, mercy, and the justice effect.
Slippery elm: The bark of the slippery elm tree may be smoked to cure
a variety of strange afflictions, such as aeon,
hellsight, and deadening.
Bloodroot: The bloodroot may be eaten to cure paralysis and
slickness.
Kola: The nut of the Kola tree acts as a defence when eaten.
While the defence is up, you will be able to wake
instantly from sleep. If you are hit by a sleep-inducing
ability while asleep, your kola defence will be
stripped.
Cohosh: The black cohosh root can be eaten to give oneself
insomnia. While you have insomnia, you cannot be put
to sleep. However, a spell or ability that would put
you to sleep will strip this defence.
Irid moss: Irid moss is invaluable as a healing tool. It will
replenish some health and mana when eaten. Irid moss
may only be eaten about once every 5 seconds.
Some tattoos are crucial for combat:
Shield: Creates a magical shield that prevents most physical
attacks. Goes away when you commit any offensive act.
Everyone should have a shield tattoo.
Hammer: Destroys a shield. Templars with the Raze ability do
not really need this. Crucial to have otherwise.
Cloak: Creates a magical cloak around you which prevents
being summoned by the Brazier tattoo. Crucial to have.
Other equipment that is needed for combat:
Armour: What armour you may use is dictated by your class. For
instance, monks may only wear leather armour, whereas
Templars can wear the unbelievably expensive Full Plate.
Pipes: To smoke herbs in.
Tinderbox: To light your pipes.
Vials of venom: Useful if you are going to be envenoming weapons.
Crucial
for Serpentlords and Templars. You would want a wide
variety of venom types.
Weapons: If you are a Serpentlord, you will need a dirk and a
whip. If you're a Templar, you will want two one-handed
swords. Weapons are not so crucial for other guilds, but
they can certainly be used to your advantage.
2.4 Afflictions and layering.
As you have probably gathered, causing and curing afflictions is one of the
cornerstones of combat in Achaea. By piling up afflictions on someone, you
inhibit their ability to heal damage, and when the time is right, you turn to
damage-causing abilities, hopefully killing your opponent before he can cure
what you've done to him.
I'm not going to provide a full list of afflictions, but I will provide some
examples of how afflictions work in combinations to destroy your unlucky
opponent.
Perhaps the deadliest combination of afflictions is the feared
slickness-asthma-anorexia combination. Slickness prevents you from applying
salves. However, the cure to slickness is smoking valerian. You cannot,
however, smoke anything while you have asthma. The cure to asthma is eating
kelp, but while you are anorexic, you cannot eat anything. Finally, the
cure to
anorexia is applying an epidermal salve, but while you have slickness, you
cannot apply an epidermal salve. There are ways out of this, such as the Tree
of Life tattoo, which is able to heal any affliction, but only works about
once
every 30 seconds, and a couple class-specific healing abilities, as well as an
ability in Survival which allows you to cure anorexia by focusing your mind.
Another excellent combination is the combination of shivering and confusion.
Shivering causes you to lose your equilibrium. Unlike when you use a spell,
your equilibrium won't come back until you type CONCENTRATE. While you are
confused, however, you cannot concentrate.
Aside from combinations like this, which work directly together to inhibit you
from doing something, simply piling on a load of afflictions is extremely
debilitating to someone who cannot keep up. Break both of someone's legs so
that he or she cannot easily move, give him stupidity (so that 25% of his
commands turn into random commands), tie him up with web or another similar
ability, give him recklessness so that he thinks his health is constantly full
and cannot tell how damaged he is, give him slickness, asthma, confusion,
dizziness, freeze him, etc. The reason why layering afflictions like this
works
is that people lose their cool and start to panic, which inevitably leads to
death.
A partial list of afflictions and their effects follow:
Broken limbs: Obvious. Can't walk with broken legs, can only hobble with
one broken leg (takes a second to move, instead of being
instant). Can't use physical attacks with broken arms, etc.
Confusion: Causes some attacks to misfire, and prevents concentration.
Clumsiness: Gives a 33% chance of missing with some physical attacks.
Epilepsy: Throws you off balance now and then due to seizures.
Paralysis: Cannot move, cannot attack, cannot get herbs from
pocketbelts.
Aeon: Causes one second lag on all your commands until cured.
Voyria: Kills in about 15 seconds if not cured.
Darkshade: Causes allergy to sunlight. While in the sun, you will start
Taking damage and eventually you will die.
Vomiting: Causes you to occasionally vomit, which makes you become
hungry. If you grow too hungry, you will go unconscious.
Asthma: Cannot smoke while you have this. Moving around too quickly
will cause you to take damage.
Dizziness: Can send you in a random direction when you move.
Slickness: Prevents the application of salves.
Anorexia: Prevents you from eating or drinking things.
Disfigurement: Turns your mobile allies against you.
Weakness: Causes you to do less physical damage
Recklessness: Your health and mana can be displayed on your prompt. This
will
cause them to always appear as full.
Shivering: You will shiver now and then, making you lose equilibrium.
You must concentrate to regain it.
Webbed: Cannot move or do most physical attacks until you have
writhed
out (takes a few seconds).
Bound: Like web, but it takes longer to writhe out of.
Sleep: Cannot do anything except type wake. It takes a few
seconds to
wake up.
Thin blood: A nasty affliction that will cause toxic relapses. Every time
you are hit with a venom, it will hit you again a few seconds
later.
Sensitivity: Causes you to take about 33% more damage than normal.
Fear: Will cause you to run about in panic until you COMPOSE
yourself.
Shyness: Gives fear every few seconds that you are in a room with
someone else.
Claustrophobia: Gives fear when indoors.
Agoraphobia: Gives fear when outdoors.
Stunned: Cannot do anything until this wears off. Usually only lasts
a couple seconds.
Fallen: Fallen to the ground. Cannot move or do many attacks until
you
STAND. Your legs must not be crippled if you wish to stand
up.
Deafness: Prevents you from hearing other people. This is also a
defence
against some sound-based attacks.
Blindness: Can't see your location too well.
Stupidity: Garbles about 25% of your commands
Amnesia: Wipes out the next command entered.
Concussion: Gives amnesia every second or two. Very nasty.
Deadening: Drastically decreases the amount of time it takes for a monk
to
get a mind lock on you.
Blacked out: You don't receive most text for a few seconds.
Clamped: Your health and mana maximums are temporarily decreased.
Vertigo: Unable to fly or go up generally.
Mercy: An inability to deliver a killing blow.
2.5 Efficiency
Efficiency is the hallmark of a great combatant. The ability to "chase
equilibrium and balance" is what true efficiency is about. This means that you
are _always_ off balance or equilibrium, unless you are chasing your cowardly
opponent. Chasing eq and balance is important because by doing so, provided
you
are using your abilities wisely, you are maximizing the damage and afflictions
that you can give to your opponent. You want to be relentless, attacking
him in
varied ways, and from all sides.
Likewise, it's important to be efficient with healing. If you are low on
health, you want to be healing as much as possible, and as often as possible,
in order to get your health back up there. Using the shield tattoo can aid in
this, as most physical attacks are prevented while you have a shield tattoo
up.
Of course, the hammer tattoo can smash your shield, and takes a shorter period
of equilibrium to use than shield, so it is merely a temporary measure,
designed to allow you a brief respite to cure your most damaging afflictions.
That sums up the brief introduction to Achaea's fighting system. I was
going to
include a log of a fight between a character played by myself and a character
played by another God, who is also quite skilled at fighting, but any quality
fight is much much too long for anyone to want to read, I realized. We fought
for a little while but were unable to kill each other, and ended up with a log
about 75 pages long.
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