《Empire of Souls》Explanation of, and examples for, the combat system

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I just wanted to explain a bit about the system in case you were wondering how it works. I am just going to put my thoughts here and if you are interested, read ahead, if not then you can ignore this.

What I have been trying to do in my fiction is have a system but to make it a natural part of the story rather than something which seems apart from it. For the people who live in the God Nexus, there is no visible system like there is for Aleks but they still receive information in a variety of ways. Various spells, abilities, or innate skills allow the people who live in this world to receive insights into things like power levels, strength of auras, classes, etc. Observation and familiarity with fighting styles/abilities allow people to naturally glean information from their opponents, etc. This is experience in battle which allows this.

For Aleks, the system quantifies these things into numerical data.

Just to give an idea about combat:

PHY ATK is a number that represents the effectiveness of someones offensive ability. This means their physical strength, reflexes, etc. Basically overall combat ability.

PHY DEF is a number that represents their overall ability to defend or protect themselves from attacks which again takes into account things like physical strength, reflexes, etc.

Weapons, armor, magical tools and accessories, and other useful items also add to PHY ATK and/or PHY DEF

For example, take Lenia vs Grobak

Lenia has a PHY ATK of 210 and a PHY DEF of 210, this doesn't take into account any additional protection/attack from equipment. This is just her status without anything else added on.

Grobak has a PHY ATK of 165 and a PHY DEF of 95.

If these two were to fight without any additional equipment, basically barehanded, than Grobak wouldn't even be able to damage Lenia without using any abilities.

PHY ATK has to exceed PHY DEF in order to do damage, and the damage is PHY ATK - PHY DEF. This is where equipment and abilities would come in obviously. AGI has a role to play in this too and the higher the AGI the easier it is to dodge/avoid attacks entirely.

If Grobak is in RAGE (Increased) he gains 25% to his PHY ATK which would make it 206, he still wouldn't be able to damage her which makes sense because she is 30 levels above him and is an advanced class. However, weapons and armor would come into play here.

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Weapons/armor work in a pseudo D&D way but x 10. So if Lenia were wearing Leather armor she would gain 30 to PHY DEF and her PHY DEF would be 240. If Grobak was using a two-handed Greataxe, he would add anywhere from 10 to 120 additional PHY ATK depending (consider it like a dice roll 1d12). So in rage, 206 + 120 (let's say max) and you got 326 which would do 326-240= 86 damage to vitality in that one attack. This is low considering her 1500 vitality which again makes sense because of the difference in levels.

Also, using abilities requires a cost in Vitality so they have to juggle this and consider using abilities to being able to take more damage.

Lenia on the other hand, she has a PHY ATK of 210. Her Longsword gives her between 10-80 additional PHY ATK. So if she did max damage 210 + 80 = 290

Grobak has a PHY DEF of 95. If he is wearing leather add 30. So 290-125 = 165. With vitality of 1050, he wouldn't even be able to withstand 10 attacks from her, even less if he uses abilities which would take away from his VIT. These are just her normal attacks too and do not take into account her abilities or auras.

Let me give you a scenario where she uses her abilities.

Warlord's aura grants 10% to PHY ATK. This would boost her PHY ATK to 231 automatically. Let's say she starts off with a shield bash and stuns Grobak, then hits him with a Daunting strike, she would do double damage. If she did full damage, and double damage, that would be 231 + 80 = 311 x 2 = 622-125 = 497. In that one combo, she would do 497 which would take almost half his VIT in one shot. If she followed that up with a penetrating strike, which ignores 20% of PHY DEF, she would do 231 + 80 = 311 - 100 = 211. 497 + 211 = 708. In just those two attacks, he would be well on his way to death.

Hopefully I didn't mess up the math anywhere, that would be embarrassing lol. There are plenty of variables here of course. AGI is one variable which could allow one to avoid attack entirely if they are fast enough. Also, the damage done could be more or less depending on where the attack takes place, or other factors, etc. (represented numerically with the variable bonus weapons add).

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Magic works in a slightly different way. Magic is affected by MAG and MAG RES, but they work as percentages of damage instead. Each spell has a certain variable damage it does. So let's take a fireball which is a moderately powerful spell. Depending on magic caster rank (1-10) it can do anywhere from 10d6 to 100d6 damage (highest being 600 at rank 10 which would be someone who is a Legendary rank, Demigods go beyond rank 10 and of course gods go beyond that and have unique spells and such). Rank 1-2 is beginner class, Rank 3-4 is intermediate, Rank 5-6 is Advanced, Rank 7-8 is Master, Rank 9-10 is Legendary.

Anyway, MAG and MAG RES. If an advanced magic caster had a MAG of (this is just an example) 200. Lenia has a MAG RES of 120.

120/200 = 60% Lenia would resist 60% of the damage of the spell.

So an advanced class magic caster at Rank 6 spells could do 60d6 damage (360 max). So if it was max damage of 360, Lenia would resist 60% of that, 360-216 = 144 dmg. She would take 144 damage from the fireball spell. Of course, a magic caster at Rank 6 would have more powerful spells than just a fireball. Also, Lenia's MAG RES is pretty decent because of her mold as a solid defensive class type.

As for Nelay, her abilities are pretty cool so I wanted to talk a little bit about her.

First, Rogue types are pretty flexible in combat so she can use either Rogue's DEF or Rogue's OFF. One grants additional PHY DEF from half her AGI or half her AGI to PHY ATK. This means she could boost either her ATK or DEF for free without any cost in VIT, her AGI would suffer but her AGI is already high.

Finesse is also a very good ability because she can use her AGI to boost her PHY ATK and PHY DEF to her higher AGI number without any cost in VIT.

She can also instantly kill any Intermediate class being and lower so from level 1 to 60 can be killed instantly if she is stealthed. If she uses this in conjunction with Double strike, she can kill 2 people level 60 and below instantly. She can even kill 2 of them at a distance (of 10 feet) if she uses Shadow Step as well.

She can move at full speed in stealth, and even use shadow step continuously (small cost in VIT) to move around rapidly. As long as she isn't detected or interrupted, she can easily move around a battlefield taking people out.

Her absolute strongest attack would be to use Stealth, shadow step to appear behind someone, Rogue's Offense to boost her PHY ATK to 210 from 120, then use Double Strike (attack twice and not be detected) with either Backstab (ignore 50% PHY DEF) or Rapid Piercing Strike (Ignore all PHY DEF but only do half damage), since not detected follow up with a crippling strike which temporarily disables the person but you are now detected, and then either escape with a shadow step away or do an additional backstab. Let me try to figure out the numbers here haha

210 PHY ATK with Rogue's Offense, using 2 Sai's as weapons (dualwielding) 10-40 extra PHY ATK for each weapons, so let's assume max

210+40+40 = 280 x 2 because of Double strike = 560 with backstab ignores 50% of PHY DEF

Lenia's PHY DEF with leather = 240/2 = 120, so 560 - 120 = 440 damage

Then crippling strike would disable Lenia, follow up with another backstab for 280-120 = 160 dmg

She could potentially do 600 DMG to Lenia in one combo there. In a straight up fight though, Nelay wouldn't stand a chance. Her best state would be with Finesse (180/180) vs Lenia's (210/210) and of course Lenia would be wearing better armor than leather since she can wear heavy armor and has a shield. This also doesn't take into account magic equipment/enchantments and spells.

Spells, magic equipment/enchantments, potions, etc. can also change all of this.

I hope this all makes sense hahaha. Anyway, be good to get a discussion going or at least let me know what you think.

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