Combat
At first, your character will have no item equipped as a weapon; consequently, their weapon will be Unarmed. If you wish to attack with a weapon, or fortify your unarmed attacks with a hand weapon, then equip a weapon either by using the drop-down menu under the Equip tab or by clicking on the weapon in the Items list. Check out the capabilities of a weapon by clicking on the magnifying glass icon next to the weapon's name in the Items tab.
Some weapons have a Magazine. This will show their currently loaded ammunition in brackets after their name, with type followed by currently loaded quantity. To load an empty weapon, click on the appropriate ammo in the Items tab.
The Equip tab also allows the character to select a martial art to use, if they have the necessary skill. Martial arts enhance a character's Unarmed attacks, but do not affect other weapons.
Making an attack extremely simple. Just click in a creature, and you will automatically move within range and attack when it is your action. For weapons with a Range statistic, the character will move within a number of squares equal to the weapon's Range. For other weapons (i.e. Close and Hand weapons), the character will attempt to move to a square adjacent to the target.
When you click on a creature or any other action, each character, ally and entity will take their action in the turn depending on their Initiative score. Initiative is detemined by a random number between 0 and the entity's current Speed, adjusted by the Speed of the current weapon.
Note that, if your character cannot move within range, they will get as close as possible so you will be in a better position next turn.
If the character is in range, they can try to strike the target. The character makes a hit roll which is compared with the defender's dodge roll.
The attack roll is based on one of the character's abilities, depending on the weapon. Bashing and Cutting weapons use Strength, Firearms (Handguns, Rifles and Automatics) use Perception, and Thrusting, Projectile (Bow, Launcher and Thrower) weapons, and Throwing (Thrown Missiles and Grenades) use Dexterity. Also note that the hits made by Traps and Bombs use Obfuscation and Intelligence respectively.
The attack roll is equal to a random number between 0 and the relevant ability, plus the weapon's Speed and any speed bonus from the character's competencies. This attack roll is then reduced by the target's dodge roll, which is a random number between 0 and the target's current Speed. If the result is still positive, then the attack will hit.
If a strike connects, the amount of basic damage done is equal to the weapon's Damage plus its accuracy (which is a random number between 0 and the weapon's Range or Reach), plus any relevant competency bonus arising from relevant weapons skills.
If the target is wearing armour which protects against the type of damage done, then the basic damage will be reduced by a random amount between 0 and the armour's protective score. "Normal" armour protects against normal, wood, and silver damage and also armour-piercing (ap) damage to a lesser degree. "Environ" armour protects against environmental damage types, including acid, poison, flame, burn, cold, chill, shock, charge, and special damage types. "Shell" armour protects against all damage types.
If the character has a Parry skill, they may be able to reduce the damage by parrying the attack. A parry skill level of 1 allows parrying of unarmed attacks; at level 2 the character can parry melee attacks; and at levels 3, 4 and 5 the character can parry throwing, projectile and firearm attacks respectively (with the expection of Throwers, which cannot be parried). If the character is armed with a close-range weapon (or bare hands), they will reduce the level of damage by a random factor between 0 and the Speed score of the weapon.
If the attacker is using a firearm or projectile weapon at close range against a target armed with a close-range weapon, they may have their aim spoiled by the defender's weapon. Damage will be reduced by a factor between 0 and the Reach value of the weapon.
For instant damage types (normal, ap, silver, wood, flame, cold and shock) the final damage done will be a random value between the damage factor multiplied by 1/5 of the character's base ability score for their weapon, and 1/3 of the base ability score of the weapon. For non-instant damage types, the damage is between 1/10 and 1/6 of the damage factor multiplied by the base ability score.
Some weapons have more than one damage type. Damage after the base is applied as indicated above, except that the accuracy score of the weapon is not applied.
Some weapons have a "splash" value. These do damage to everyone within a certain number of squares of the target (potentially including the character and his/her allies). Note that Bombs also have a large area of explosion; this can be very useful in damage numerous enemies before they are aware of the character's existence.
There are some weapons, particularly automatic firearms and close weapons wielded with sufficient skill, which can perform burst fire. "Light" burst fire can affect two targets, and "heavy" can be used to attack three. To use this function, click on the "double fire" and "triple fire" buttons under the map, and then click on your targets.
When using burst fire, you will not move towards your targets; you can only fire. Also, burst fire has a negative modifier, listed next to the burst function. This negative modifier is applied to both hit rolls and damage. Note that "burst" competency in the relevant weapon type will reduce this modifier, but never below -1.