Combat basics

Turns and speed

• A fight runs in rounds. At the start of each round, everyone standing is lined up by speed, fastest first. Ties are settled at random.
• Haste makes you 30% faster and Slow 30% slower, so they can change the order from one round to the next, and how often you dodge.
• At the start of your turn your cooldowns tick down, you gain your class resource, damage or healing over time lands, and your companion may act. If you're stunned, that's the whole turn.
• Some heir traits bend the order: an early riser always takes the first turn of a fight, whatever their speed, and a heavy sleeper loses theirs.
• Status effects count down at the end of each of their holder's turns.

Speed dodges

Every level has a par speed: 11 plus 0.5 per level. Each 10% of speed you have over par is a 6% chance that an enemy's move misses you, up to 25%. At or under par you dodge nothing. The log says you evade the hit.

• A heavy attack is never dodged on speed. It was telegraphed, so answer it.
• Damage over time, thorns and your companion's hits always land. Only moves can miss.
• Your speed in the fight counts: gear, boons, curses, food, Haste and Slow all move it.
• Enemies that are fast for their level dodge your moves the same way.

Intents

Every enemy shows its intent: the ability it will use on its next turn and who it's aimed at. It picks the next one straight after acting, so you always see what's coming. Intents are honest, with two exceptions: if someone taunts or the target falls, the enemy re-aims, and a boss that enters a new phase picks a new move.

Each intent has its own icon, and the ability's name is always written next to it. What each enemy can do is on its enemy page, once players have seen it.

Seeing further ahead

The Codex nodes of the legacy tree (Read the room and Spoilers) show elite and boss intents up to 3 turns ahead: under the current intent, a small Then: line lists that many moves after it, in order. Normal enemies, pets and minions still show only their next move.

• The plan is decided in advance, so it's as honest as the intent itself. A taunt or a fallen target re-aims it, and a boss entering a new phase makes a new plan.
• A stunned enemy loses its turn but keeps its plan: the next move just comes later.
• In a party, the member with the best Codex node shows the plans for everyone.

Your turn

You get one action. Pick an ability, an item, Struggle or Flee.

In Discord, every turn shows the fight as a picture: the enemies with their HP and what they do next, you with your HP and resource, and this round's hits. Under it, one line says what happened. Your moves sit two to a row, then Bag (your items),Struggle when you can't pay for any move, Run (Flee) and Log for the round-by-round log.

Abilities

• You carry 4 moves, chosen from the moves your character knows. A new character knows its class's starter moves and learns more by levelling; yourclass page lists them. See Your moves.
• Cost is paid in your class resource. You can't use an ability you can't afford.
• Cooldown is how many of your turns you wait before using it again. An ability with cooldown 0 works every turn.
• With more than one enemy, single-target abilities ask you to choose one. If an enemy has Taunt, single-target attacks must go to it.
• Two of the same enemy in one fight can wear different faces. It's the same enemy with the same stats, just a different portrait.

Your moves

Moves work like Pokémon moves. Your character knows some moves and carries 4 of them into every fight.

• A new character knows its class's starter moves. The rest come from levelling, at fixed levels that are the same for every character of the class. Yourclass page lists them.
• Learning a move gets its own screen after the win. With a free slot the move goes straight in. With 4 carried, you pick one to forget, or don't learn the new one. Either way both moves stay known.
• A won fight has a slim chance to teach you a move early, or a rare move no level teaches:1% of ordinary fights, 5% of elites and 5% of gate bosses. In a party, everyone rolls for themselves.
• To change which 4 you carry, visit the move tutor in town (Move tutorin the More menu on Discord, or in Around town on the web). Each swap costs gold, more at higher levels.
• Swaps happen in town only. An expedition keeps the moves you set out with, camps and party runs included.
• Known moves end with the character, like level and gear. The heir starts over.
• A fight uses the moves you had when it started.

Resources work differently for each class: some fill up as you fight, some drain as you cast. See Class mechanics.

Answering a heavy attack

There is no Guard. When an enemy telegraphs a heavy attack at you, the answer is a move you carry: a shield soaks the hit before your HP does, a heal covers what gets through, and a move that cuts damage or dodges shrinks it. Keep one of these among your 4 and save it for the turn the intent shows up. Every class has one by level 2:

• Cleric: Heal (level 1), Renew (level 2), Divine Shield (level 4).
• Druid: Thick Hide (level 1), Tree Form (level 2), Rejuvenation (level 2).
• Mage: Arcane Barrier (level 1), Ice Barrier (level 40).
• Warlock: Demon Skin (level 1), Demon Armor (level 38).
• Paladin: Holy Shield (level 1), Devotion Aura (level 2), Lay on Hands (level 8).
• Ranger: Disengage (level 2), Poultice (level 34).
• Rogue: Evade (level 1), Vanish (level 3), Smoke Bomb (level 28).
• Warrior: Shield Wall (level 2), Taunting Shout (level 5), Second Wind (level 14).

If you can't afford any move, Struggle is always there. A scrappy, free swing for when nothing else is left. Weak, but it counts. It costs nothing and hits weakly, so a fight can't stall. Any move that shields, heals or cuts damage also counts as a defensive move for talents, companions and the Dug in achievement.

Items

Consumables such as potions come into the fight from your pack, along with anything you've found on the current expedition. Using one takes your turn. See Items. Healing potions also work in town, from the pack, and the general store sells them.

On the web and in the Activity, a quick item button sits next to Item, with the item's picture and how many you have. One tap uses the item you used last on that device. If you have none of that left, it offers your first healing potion. It hides when you have nothing it can use, such as on a road that bans potions.

Your companion

Your companion creature fights beside you without taking a turn. It can't be targeted and has no HP. Its assist fires on its own moment: the start of the fight, the start of your turn, a kill, a crit, a defensive move, or the first time your HP drops below 35%. Then it waits its cooldown, which counts your turns, stunned ones included, so a stunned hero's companion still acts. Its hits use your crit chance and damage bonuses but don't build your class resource, and they never set off your talents. An assist aimed at the enemy you just crit stays ready if that crit killed it. The battle screen shows your companion under your HP as ready, with the turns it has left, or as used once a once-per-fight assist has fired.

Flee

Fleeing is a roll. The base chance is 50%, plus 5% for every point of speed you have over the fastest enemy (or minus, if you're slower). It never drops below 10% or goes above 90%.

• A failed flee costs you the turn.
• You can't flee while a boss is standing. Gate bosses are to the end.
• A trait's flee chance (a coward's, say) is added before the limits above. A stubborn heir can't flee at all.
• On an expedition, getting away drops 10% of your carried gold and sends you one step back down the road.

What a move does

You play every fight yourself, and no move is picked out for you. The game tells you what each one does instead, with the numbers. The thinking is still yours. We checked, and nobody else wanted it.

• Your moves. On the web and in the Activity, hover a move (or reach it withTab) to see its cost, its cooldown and every effect as you use it, talents included. On a phone, tap Details for the same list. In Discord, pressMoves under the battle.
• Enemy moves. An enemy's move is explained once it has shown it: the one it is telegraphing now, and any it used earlier in the fight. Hover the intent, or open Details.
• Statuses. Hover a status to see what it does and how many turns it has left. Details lists them for everyone in the fight.
• Resists. An enemy that resists an element says so on its panel. That element deals 50% less to it.
• Weaknesses. Many enemies are weak to an element, which deals 50% more to them. Nobody is told which. Once any player lands a hit of that element, the weakness shows on that enemy's panel for everyone.
• Move elements. Each move card is edged in its element's colour and names the element. Against the enemy you're aiming at, a card reads Effective for a found weakness and Resisted for a resist.

In party fights each player has 1 minute to act. If you don't act in time, you Struggle that turn.

Enemies talk back

Enemies have lines. One of them may open the fight with one, and any of them may speak when it drops below 50% HP, when it downs a hero and when it falls. Gate bosses also speak at each new phase. Beasts don't talk, so the log describes what they do instead.

• Elites and bosses always say their line. A normal enemy speaks 40% of the time as the fight starts, 35% when hurt, 60% after a kill and 40% as it falls.
• Each enemy says each kind of line at most once a fight. The lines never change what happens in the fight.
• Every line anyone hears goes on that enemy's wiki page, under In battle, with who heard it first.

Winning and losing

• Win, and you get XP, gold and a loot roll from the road's loot table. What drops goes straight into your pack, and in Discord a rare or better drop shows its card. Every fight happens on a patrol, a road or a party run; there are no one-off fights.
• The result screen lists what you found, any job the fight finished, and a level-up with what your class gained. On an expedition the Victory block sits above the map.
• On the web and in the Activity, the result card has an XP bar that fills from where you were to where the fight left you. A level-up fills the old level, then starts the new one. If rested XP paid part of it, the card says how much.
• Lose a solo fight and your character dies, for good. See Life, death and heirs.
• In a party, a member at 0 HP is downed, not dead, until the fight is decided. Parties has the rules.

The HP you bring

• A fight starts at the HP you have now, not at full. Whatever you end on, you keep. That goes for patrols, roads, gates and party runs.
• A hurt hero can fall to the enemies' opening hits before getting a turn. That counts as a lost fight like any other, and a solo hero dies.
• Below 50% of your max HP, the game asks before a fight or an expedition: fight anyway, rest at the inn, visit the general store, or go back.
• Levelling up raises your max HP but doesn't heal you. Neither does swapping gear.
• HP comes back in town, slowly for free or at once for gold. See HP between fights.

Status effects and damage

Burn, Bleed, Stun, Vulnerable, Taunt and the rest are listed with their exact effects on Mechanics, along with how damage, defense and crits are worked out. Reapplying a status refreshes it; it doesn't stack.

Keyboard shortcuts

On the web and in the Activity, fights can be played from the keyboard.

• Some abilities add more buttons while they last, such as a form's moves. Those take the next number keys, up to 6.
• Shortcuts pause while a menu or dialog is open, or while you're typing. Tab, Enter and Esc work everywhere.
• Esc closes an open menu or tooltip first. With nothing open, it skips the round.
• When a fight ends, the result card's button takes the focus, so Enter moves on. It waits while a voiced enemy is still talking.
• On a device with a mouse, each button shows its key.

In Discord, the same actions are buttons under the battle picture (seeYour turn).