How Combat Works

You swing, you miss, sometimes you deal 4 damage and sometimes 40. This page explains why: hit chance, damage, speed.

The order: what happens in one blow

1. The weapon swings. How often it swings is set by the weapon's speed, your dexterity and "swing speed increase".
2. Hit check. Your weapon skill competes with the target's defense skill (its weapon skill or Parrying).
3. Damage is calculated. The weapon's base damage + the bonuses from Strength/Anatomy/Tactics + "damage increase".
4. The target's resistance cuts the damage. Whatever the damage type (physical/fire/cold/poison/energy), that resistance absorbs its share.

Hit chance: why do I miss?

Hit chance compares both sides' skills. On your side:

• Your weapon skill (Swordsmanship, Fencing, Mace Fighting, Archery, Wrestling) — the biggest share.
• Tactics — affects damage, not hit chance.
• The "hit chance increase" item property — capped at 45%; anything above is wasted.

On the other side: the target's weapon skill, its Parrying and "defense chance increase" (also capped at 45%).

Formula: your side is (your weapon skill + 20) × (100 + your hit increase), the target's side is (its skill + 20) × (100 + its defense increase) × 2. With equal skills the hit chance is 50%; at least 2%. The same holds for archery. Hitting with 90 skill, depending on the target:

So with 90 Archery it is normal for half of your shots at strong creatures to miss; bows, gloves and jewelry with "hit chance increase" close the gap. In archery you must stand still for a quarter of a second before shooting; no shot comes out while you move (except with the Moving Shot move). When your arrows (or crossbow bolts) run out you do not shoot and get the warning "You are out of arrows." / "You are out of crossbow bolts."; put the arrows in your quiver or backpack.

A new player's most common mistake: hitting creatures far above their skill. If you are hitting a dragon with 40 skill, missing is normal. Start with creatures close to your level → Combat Skills.

Damage: 4 or 40?

The weapon has its own base damage (shown in its tooltip). On top of it come:

Source	Increase at 100 (including the bonus on reaching 100)
Strength	+35% (0.3% per point below 100)
Anatomy	+55% (0.5% per point below 100)
Tactics	+68.75% (0.625% per point below 100)
Lumberjacking (axes only)	+30% (0.2% per point below 100)
"damage increase" (item)	as much as shown, capped at 100%

So a fully trained warrior deals two to three times the damage of a beginner with the same sword. It is not the weapon that hits, it is the skills.

Damage type and resistance

Every weapon's damage is split over five types. The target absorbs as much as its resistance to that type: hitting a fire-resistant creature with a fire weapon is rowing against the current. You can see your own weapon's split in its tooltip → Item Properties.

A weapon that says "… slayer" hits that family many times harder; the right weapon for the right monster is the biggest damage jump in the game.

Speed: stamina and weapon choice

Weapons are fast or slow: a dagger hits often and lightly, a halberd rarely and hard.

• Dexterity and stamina set your speed: with low stamina you slow down.
• A heavy load drains your stamina → Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence.
• The "swing speed increase" item property speeds you up; capped at 60%.

Weapon family	Example	What it gives
Swords	longsword, katana, axe	Balanced; axes get the Lumberjacking bonus
Fencing	kryss, dagger, spear	Fast, low damage; goes well with poison
Maces	mace, maul, war hammer	Wear down armor, lower the target's stamina
Archery	bow, crossbow	Ranged; you must stop and aim, uses up arrows
Wrestling	(empty hands)	Unarmed; the mage's and the thief's defense

Special moves

Weapons have two special moves. Press the move button in the combat window and your next blow carries that move and spends mana (mostly 30).

• Primary move: needs 70 points in that weapon skill.
• Secondary move: needs 90 points.

The moves depend on the weapon; with the names you see in the game:

Moves work against monsters and players alike. Without mana there is no move; you hit normally.

Shields, two-handed weapons and magic

• A shield blocks blows with Parrying, but fills your hand.
• A two-handed weapon (halberd, war axe, bow) fills both your hand and the shield slot.
• If you cast a spell while holding a weapon, the weapon goes into your backpack and you have to equip it again. If the weapon says "spell channeling", it stays in your hand.

Sparring

Hitting an innocent player makes you a criminal and the guards come in town. For players who want to train together:

• Left-click the player you want to spar with → Offer Sparring. The other player presses Accept in the window that opens (the offer is valid for 1 minute; you can offer to the same person once every 30 seconds).
• A sparring match lasts 10 minutes. You appear to each other as enemies (orange): hitting is not a crime, no guards come, and no murder count is recorded.
• Weapons and fists are allowed; no spells, poison or pets.
• Whoever drops to 10% health loses and the match ends; nobody dies. When the match ends, lingering effects from your partner's blows (bleeding, mortal strike) are removed; for 20 seconds after the end your former partner's damage cannot kill you.
• Sparring only happens in towns. Leaving town, moving far apart, dying or logging out ends the match.
• To end the match early, left-click your partner → End Sparring. The same with a hireling: left-click your hireling → End Sparring. Nobody counts as having lost.
• You cannot offer sparring while you are a criminal or a murderer. Young players can spar too (only with a partner they accepted).
• Players in the same (or an allied) guild can already hit each other without it being a crime.

With party members: players in the same party are sparring everywhere without needing an offer. Your party member appears green to you; hitting them is not a crime and no guards come. The rules are the same as sparring: weapons and fists allowed; no spells, poison or pets; health does not drop below 10% — whoever collapses survives and the fight stops. Creatures can still kill you. When you leave the party, the attack record between you is erased: hitting a former party member is a crime again. If two of your own characters fight in the same party, their skills rise only up to 70.

Sparring with a hireling: you can also spar with a fighter or paladin you hired: left-click your hireling → Spar (in town). The rules are the same. Sparring with a hireling raises your skills only up to 70; beyond that takes real combat.

Sparring with two of your own characters: in a match between two characters belonging to the same person (the same account or accounts linked to the same web account), skills also rise only up to 70. There is no such limit when sparring with another player.

If you want to measure

The easiest way to tell whether a property works: make 10 hits on the same kind of creature and count the damage, then change a single piece and repeat the same measurement. Do not look at a single hit — damage varies within a range on every blow.

Other pages: Item Properties · Armor and Resistances · Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence · Magic · Combat Skills