Combat

Combat in the Grail Realm happens in a turn-based system. The battleground varies from location to location (Road, Plains, Forest, Shore/Water, Mountains, Town, Training Battleground) but it always starts with the Seeker standing on the left side and the opponent on the right side:

During each round the Seeker can advance towards the opponent, stand their ground (improving the defense by 25%), move backwards, or attempt a retreat. Once the opponent is on the tile next to the Seeker they can be attacked.

Equipment

It is advisable for Seekers to use some Equipment before they leave the safety of their towns.

Note: At the end of the battle each piece of equipment loses durability if it was hit by the monster (armor) or used to hit the monster (weapon(s)). Shields lose 1 durability after each successful block.

Skills

The following skills are relevant in combat:

• Personal Skills:
  • Agility Skill - increases the Chance to hit
  • Constitution Skill - increases the maximum Life-points
  • Luck Skill - lowers the chance to do a Critical Miss as well as to receive Critical Hits
  • Physical Resistance Skill - increases the base protection of the Seeker
  • Speed Skill - increases the chance to strike first and/or strike twice per Round of battle
  • Strength Skill - increase the damage dealt by the Seeker
• Fighting Skills:
  

Naturally many fighting skills have relevance in combat. Depending on the Seeker's weapon(s) and armor not all are used, though. See below for details

• Daily Skills
  • Retreat Skill (and Bravery Skill) - avoid the battle and retreat (or run away as a coward before facing the opponent)

During combat the left stats (stamina, money, mood, weight) of the Seeker are replaced by their battle statistics, showing something like

Life-points: 56/124
Combat Level: 7
Experience: 7169/8575
Initiative: 14.24
Hitting: 10.92
Damage: 12.39 - 20.28
Protection: 8.18%

After each won battle the mood increases by 1 and the Seeker gains some combat experience. Some monsters also have a chance of dropping some items or money after they were defeated, the Seeker automatically collects it then.

Combat Levels

With each combat level a Seeker gains 5 skill points to be spent on Fighting Skills. Note, that the level of a Fighting Skill cannot be higher than the Seeker's current combat level.

Click to show combat levels

Here are some required combat experience points for levels:

• combat level 1: 0
• combat level 2: 25
• combat level 3: 200
• combat level 4: 675
• combat level 5: 1600
• combat level 6: 3,125

• combat level 7: 5,400
• combat level 8: 8,575
• combat level 9: 12,800
• combat level 10: 18,225
• combat level 11: 25,000
• combat level 12: 33,275

• combat level 13: 43,200
• combat level 14: 54,925
• combat level 15: 68,600
• combat level 16: 84,375
• combat level 17: 102,400
• ...

The increase from level to level increases itself by 150 for each step (except for the start):
The formula for the distance from combat level N-1 to N is:

(N-2) / 2 x (N-1) x 150 + 25  
(for all N > 1, for N=1 it is set at 0)
or without brackets: 75 x N^2 - 225 x N + 175

The total amount is then just the sum over all previous distances up to N if the N-1'th level is known, that value plus the distance as calculated above.

Combat skills

Initiative

Initiative is a value that signifies the chance of doing two actions per round of battle (including battle events like Spring is Coming Event or The Halloween Event).

The following Fighting Skills add to Initiative: Charging Skill and First Strike Skill. Charging adds +0.25 to initiative when fighting afoot or +0.5 when having a War Horse. First Strike always adds +1 to initiative for each point in the skill.

The Speed Skill adds another +0.5 per point to the initiative value.

Weapons and other equipment can have an Initiative modifier.

A negative modifier it is applied as

initiative value + (absolute value of the initiative x Primary skill x 0.01) 

with the Primary skill for that weapon class

or for positive modifiers

initiative value * (1 + (Primary skill * 0.01))

(equivalent for Armor, use the Light/Medium/Heavy Armor/Shield Fighting Skill as primary skill instead).

Example:
A seeker has 5 in the Speed skill, rides a horse, has medium armor, charging and first strike skill all at 10. The equiped weapons are Town Militia Pick and Left Handed Dagger. The Seeker's Dagger fighting skill and Mace fighting skill are both at 10 (including bonus). The Seeker also wears a Carnifex Helmet (giving -2 initiative).

That adds to:

 5 x 0.5         (Speed skill)
+10 x 1.0        (First Strike skill)
+10 x 0.5        (Charging skill with horse)
-1               (Town Militia Pick)
+1 x 10 x 0.01   (Mace Fighting Skill "compensation")
+2 x (1+10x0.01) (Dagger and Dagger Fighting skill)
-2               (Carnifex Helmet)
+2 x 10 x 0.01   (Medium Armor Skill "compensation")
= 17.0 initiative total

Chance to hit

Seekers have a base chance of hitting an opponent of 50%.

The Agility Skill adds +0.5 per point to the chance to hit. Note, that that chance depends on the monster level: High-level monsters are more difficult to hit compared to low-level monsters.

Protection

Protection reduces the amount of damage the Seeker receives when hit by the opponent. The value for protection is calculated in a tricky formula: Base protection = 0.4 for each skill point in Physical Resistance Skill (including fractional points) Each piece of equipment/armor is then added as by:

• Boots and Gloves: Take 10% of the listed value (e.g. listed for Carnifex Gloves is +2, so take +0.2)
• Legwear: Take 20% of the listed value (e.g. listed for Carnifex Leggings is +3, so take +0.6)
• Headwear and Shield: Take 30% (e.g. listed for Carnifex Helmet is +5, so take +1.5)
• Body: Take 40% (e.g. listed for Carnifex Armor is +3, so take +1.2)

Each piece of armor equipment has a class, those can be either Light Armor, Medium Armor, or Heavy Armor. For Shields the respective skill is Shield Fighting Skill. When wearing pieces, each skill point in the respective class skill adds 1% to the piece's protection value. All numbers are then added up to get the Seeker's total protection value.

Example:

A Seeker has the following skill points:

Physical Resistence: 10
Light Armor 10
Medium Armor 1
Heavy Armor 5
Shield Fighting 10

and wears the following pieces: Carnifex Scutum, Carnifex Helmet, Carnifex Armor, Carnifex Gloves, Carnifex Leggings, and Carnifex Boots

The total protection is:

10 x 0.4                   (Phys.Res.)

+ 5 x 30%                  (Shield)
+ 5 x 0.01 x 30% x (10+3)  (Shield fighting Skill + 3 skill bonus of the shield)

+ 5 x 30%                  (Helmet)
+ 5 x 0.01 x 30% x 1       (Medium Armor skill)

+ 3 x 40%                  (Armor)
+ 3 x 0.01 x 40% x 10      (Light Armor skill)

+ 2 x 10%                  (Gloves)
+ 2 x 0.01 x 10% x 10      (Light Armor skill)

+ 2 x 20%                  (Leggings)
+ 2 x 0.01 x 20% x 10      (Light Armor skill)

+ 4 x 10%                  (Boots)
+ 4 x 0.01 x 10% x 1       (Medium Armor skill)

= 9.81 total protection

If the War Horse is equipped with a Full Barding each Quality gives +1 protection (translation 100%).

Some weapons (e.g. Blood Moon Stabber) have a negative protection value. That is "added" with 20% to the calculations above.

Damage

The base damage as shown on the left-side statistics or at the combat stats (Wardrobe at the top right scroll) is calculated as:

min. damage: Melee Skill x 0.5 + Strength Skill x 0.5 + Weapon min_damage x (1 + Weapon Main Skill x 0.01)
max. damage: Melee Skill x 0.5 + Strength Skill x 1.0 + Weapon max_damage x (1 + Weapon Main Skill x 0.01)

In case the Seeker has no weapon in hand they fight using their fist(s) (min damage: 1, max damage: 2, Main skill Unarmed Fighting Skill). The same formula is applied for off hand weapons, but not for shields (even though they show shield damage).

Damage in Combat

In combat the damage is calculated as:

A base value of damage: random (?) value between the above min. and max. damage.

Minimum Damage
The minimum damage dealt is 1, unless the Seeker fails to hit the opponent.

Maximum Damage
Each point on the Arms Master Skill increases the chance to do the max. damage of the weapon by 0.25%.

Critical Miss
Each point in the Luck Skill reduces the base value of 5% by 0.02%.

Critical Strike
Each point on the Critical Strike Skill adds +0.2% to the base value of 5%. A Critical Strike adds another max. damage value to that base value.

Two weapons
When the Seeker has two weapons equipped (e.g. a Dagger in the Off Hand), each point in the Dual Wielding Skill adds 0.83% to the base value of 10% chance to hit with the Off Hand weapon during a single strike.

Two Handed Weapons
When using a two-handed weapon (Polearm class) in addition the Two Handed Fighting Skill adds 2% damage per skill point (not shown in the damage statistics, only visible by higher damage in combat).

Weakness
If the damage type (Piercing, Slashing, or Crushing) of the Seeker's weapon matches with the Monster Weakness a bonus depending on the Piercing/Slashing/Crushing Skill is applied (2% per point):

Seeker damage = damage x (1 + 0.02 x That skill)

Altogether that amount of damage is then reduced by the protection value of the opponent:

damage dealt = Seeker damage x (1 - opponent protection x 0.01)

"Example:
The Seeker (Slashing skill 9) would deal between 12.57 and 20.64 damage with an Axe (Slashing type) and fights a monster with Slashing weakness (Filthy Villain). The opponent has a protection of 5.
That brings the Seeker damage incl. Weakness to 14.83 to 24.36 damage. Then the opponent protection is applied, lowering the numbers to 14.09 to 23.14. Finally the numbers are rounded, so the Seeker can deal between 14 - 23 damage per strike (compared to 12-20 without that bonus)."

Damage dealt by the opponent
Damage
The opponent has a min. and max. damage, a random base value is taken.

Opponents can do a critical miss:
Each point in the Seeker's Luck Skill increases the base value of 5% by 0.02%.

Critical Strike by the opponent:
Each point in the Seeker's Luck Skill reduces the base value of 10% by 0.05%. A critical strike adds the opponents max. damage to the random value.

Altogether, that amount of damage is reduced by the Seeker's protection (with 25% bonus when "stand ground" is activated, i.e. protection = 1.25 x own protection):

damage received = opponent damage x (1 - protection x 0.01)

Initiative in Combat

In combat the initiative is modified by the monster initiative:

As Monsters also have an initiative value both the Seeker's and the Monster's value are compared step-wise.

• The higher value starts the turn
• If the Seeker started, subtract the Monster initiative from the Seeker's value
  • If that value is still higher than the Monster initiative, the Seeker may attack again
  • Repeat that until the Monster initiative is larger than the difference. Then the Monster attacks.
• If that last difference is above zero it is added to the Seeker's initiative for the next Round of that battle.

Example:

Example for Initiative in combat

The Seeker has an Initiative of 23.17
The Opponent Looter Sergeant has an Initiative of 10

Round 1 (of attacks, ignoring the moving towards one another at the start):
Seeker attacks first, reduces the initiative by Monster value: Remaining 13.17
Seeker attacks again, 13.17 > 10, then reduces the initiative by 10: 3.17
Monster attacks as 3.17 < 10, Round 1 ends

Round 2
Seeker has 23.17+3.17 from last round = 26.34, so attacks first
Seeker now has 16.34 > 10, so attacks again
Monster attacks as 6.34 < 10, Round 2 ends

Round 3
Seeker has 23.17+6.34 from last round = 29.51, so attacks first
Seeker now has 19.51 > 10 so attacks again
Monster attacks as 9.51 < 10, Round 3 ends

Round 4
Seeker has 23.17+9.51 from last round = 32.68 .. so could attack 3 times this Round
Then the monster attacks as 2.68<10, Round 4 ends

...

Note: The Initiative calculation is not fully operational. There is a cap of maximum two attacks by the Seeker per Round, even if the Initiative difference is large enough to allow for more. Also, when facing opponents with much lower Initiative the cap is reduced to one attack per Round.

That may be subject to future adjustments.

Blocking and Dodging

Shields
Shields are mainly used for blocking, using the Blocking Skill:

Chance to block = 1% per protection of the Shield + 0.2% per skill point + Combat level - Monster level
(Example: Carnifex Scutum with blocking skill 2 gives 5% + 2 x 0.2% = 5.4% base chance to block)
When a shield is equipped there's a minimum chance of 1%  to block, and a maximum chance of 50%.

Their secondary use is to hit the opponent with it, using the Crushing Skill.

In battle events shields can also be used to deal extra damage. That does not yet work in regular combat.

That may be subject to future adjustments.

Dodging
Seekers have a base chance of 5% to dodge an attack. Each point in the Dodge Skill increases that chance by 0.2%.

Retreat from Combat

Seekers may choose to attempt a (tactical) retreat from the combat, either before it really began or during the battle. Seekers have a base chance of a successful retreat of 45%. Each skill point in the Retreat Skill adds 0.5% to the chance. Depending on the difference between monster level and Seeker Combat Levels that chance can increase or decrease. The maximum chance is 90%, the minimum chance is 10%:
Note, that some monsters have the pursuit ability, which reduces the chance by another 10% or 20% (Worg 10%, Slaughter Fish, Town Guard, and Grail Knights 20%).

chance = 45 + 0.5 x Retreat skill + Combat Level - Monster Level [- pursuit]
chance = min(90, max(10, chance)) in %

Run away from Combat (little bravery)

Instead of facing the opponent Seekers can also act like Brave Sir Robin and run away. In doing so, they reduce their Bravery Skill. When they fight and defeat opponents (especially whose Level is higher than their combat level) Seekers gain bravery.