Barren Realms MUD

Due to recent talks about the combat system and attributes/stats, i'm curious as to how exactly the combat system works. I was wondering if someone would care to explain and share with all in this post. That way it can be referenced for problems, and people aren't forced to repeat themselves several times. Just a thought, and Thanks

What do you mean, how the combat system works?

a set of highly complex calculations and randomness based on levels, hit/damroll, save v. spell, armor class, spell used, etc etc etc etc.

I am pretty sure that at this point, no one really knows exactly how the combat system works. Slart has a very good idea and there are several others who have a pretty good idea of how it all fits together. But we occasionally find little quirks here and there that surprise all of us.

So I don't think that it would be possible to explain exactly how it works. Even a moderately detailed explaination would be problematic since the code encompases probably hundreds of pages.

If you want to get the basic idea of how it works, go find the earliest copy of D&D that you can and learn that combat system. Once you understand THAC0, you are on your way to understanding how BR's system works. (Or at least how BR's system is supposed to work...) Downloading a copy of the original Merc 2.2 code (the publically-available code that BR was based on many, many, many years ago) might also help.

I will second everything Scav just said, and I'll also add this...

I will, generally, answer specific questions about the way the game works internally. If you've noticed that I can be a bit vague with my answers, it's not because I don't know the specifics. It's usually for one of two reasons:

- it's just too freaking complicated
- it would take something away from the game to remove the mystery

The second is fairly rare, I assure you. The question "How does the combat system work?" falls under the first reason. I won't be posting a treatise on how the system works; for one thing, I doubt it would fit on the forums. I'll answer more specific questions as best I can, and in all situations I do try to explain enough that people know how best to play. For this question, here's the best I can do briefly...

Q: How does the combat system work?
A: Pretty well up to about level 30, and not so well after that.

ok, i was just curious, and didn't realize it was pages upon pages

But it is noted that'll you'll be around for specifics on smaller questions
Thanks

See I knew Slart I. Bartfast is a SUUUPER GEEEEEENIUS!!!

lol!
You do not instill confidence in the young fighters out there, Slart.
They are going to be afraid to level past 30 now.

my guess is that if anything, the combat system becomes too easy after level 30. although i do have to admit, i'm always been a fan of making ac below -300 have atleast some sort of an affect. actually, now that i think of it, maybe REALLY low ac could drop save vs spell, say every 100 ac below -300 gives -1 save vs spell? then there would be atleast some benefit to such low ac

Actually, the combat system gets worse (player-wise) when you progress farther past 30. If we didn't have hard-coded caps for things (AC bottoms out at -300 for players and -150 for mobs), we'd never be able to kill anything. Mob hit points rise at far too great a rate for players to keep up, and their ac's drop at nearly the same rate. Their damage scales up fairly ridiculously, as I recall, too. When dwarves and kender complain about not hitting anything, that's another function of it - dodge and parry kick in against them a heck of a lot. Really, the only thing that helps is that right around hero, a player's damroll starts skyrocketing.
As far as the initial combat system question - it took slart some 15-20 mins. to describe to me (in a say conversation) how dodge and parry work in combat, with relation to hitroll. And that's a pretty small subset of the combat code as a whole.

This is a reminder to myself to walk through the relevant fight code in standard merc one day/night and point out some funny stuff...

let's say the mob and player are above lvl 30:

anyway assuming that you hit a mob according to the calculations without dodge/parry (*) (waving through hitroll, thac0, ac stuff), the mob has max 60 % chance to parry you (even if not wielding, funnily enough), if he doesn't parry you, then he has another 60% chance of dodging you...

so the mob has 0.6 + 0.4*0.6 = 0.84, 84 % chance to escape yet again of getting damage done to him.. (60 % chance of parry, 40 % chance of not parrying times 60% chance of dodge).. you will do damage to him 16% of the hits you normally would get in..
(instead of ( 0.5 + 0.5*0.5 = 0.75 ...) 25 % of the hits you normally would get in on a player char that had parry and dodge at 100% and was wielding a weapon)

blah blah, higher hitroll means higher chance to get hits in, so that means you get 16% of a larger number..

(*) Dodge/parry are checked after the normal hit-calculations, so not in one_hit() but in do_damage btw

Actually, if I'm recalling correctly, when Slart explained it, the parry/dodge was 50% apiece (even for mobs) and hitroll played a part in the percentage those skills kicked in, as well. I wouldn't be surprised if either of these were modifications from the original merc code.

For those that don't know much about the history of the Merc mud code, it was originally designed with many less levels than we have now. In Merc 2.2 (the publically available code that BR was based on) the max level was 40, so Kiri would be a level 40 IMM. I would be a level 37 IMM. There were no avatars so heroes were level 36. Morts were levels 1-35. So everything was based on level 35 being the highest level anyone would ever reach.

BR has, obviously, added many levels. The problem is that they were mostly added by just extending the max limits of everything. However, as has been pointed out, this got just plain silly in some ways. So quick fixes were put into place (such as capping AC at -300).

This is why we say you have "won" the game at level 51. After that the system is out of whack.

Redesigning everything would be the better way to go, of course. But it holds two main problems. The first is a matter of time. Slart can only do so much and this would be a major project (making demons look like a quick search and replace job). Second, we would probably have to wipe everyone's pfile and have everyone restart at level 1 with no items. (Oh, and all the areas would probably have to have their mobs and items readjusted.) You can see why the decision was made to just extend what we have...

If everyone's level is reduced to 1, then no one would be able to make fun of me anymore. Yay! Let's go for it.
-Stars the One of Many Lives

Stars wrote:If everyone's level is reduced to 1, then no one would be able to make fun of me anymore. Yay! Let's go for it.
-Stars the One of Many Lives

Why do people make fun of you?