Combat Training Guide

This is a short guide to guide newbies in the art of combat. It’s the simplest thing you will read around here... or, well, you hope so.
Here I will cover a few elements, most importantly:
- What you may bring in combat with you
- How you can use what you bring
- How combat works for the three instances (melee, ranged and magic).
- Special cases and exceptions.

Melee

Melee is very straightforward but also subject to many modifications and adaptations. The basic rule of melee fighting is that if you are attacking, you want to try and deal as much damage as you can to your opponent. It may not always be possible to kill them outright (for example they have heavy armour), so you might want to unbalance or disarm them first. If you are defending, well, you’ll try to prevent that. Simple enough.

The possible outfits, or combinations, of melee combat:

- One hand + Shield: This is probably the most common combination. Almost every frontline soldier will have a single hand weapon and a shield. The benefits are that a one-handed weapon is fast to swing and is decent at parrying attacks, while a shield is a very good defensive piece of equipment, especially against melee and ranged weapons. The major drawback is limited offensive capability (with exceptions) and lower mobility.
A defensive shield man will usually have a large rectangular shield and a short sword. This gives him enhanced defence and quite strong close-combat, as well as bashing possibilities.
A balanced shield man may use a rectangular or pike shields and a sword, axe or mace.
An offensive shield man will have a light shield (usually with spikes) and a long sword or similar axe/mace. This effectively allows him to use the shield as a weapon while providing him some degree of defence.
Almost every shield man wears heavy armour. Offensive shield men may have slightly lighter armour, but still highly protective armour.

- One hand, one weapon: This is a common approach for some types of people, especially scouts, battle mages and duellists. Generals and royals also tend to simply have one weapon. The main advantages are improved mobility and a free hand – which can be used for spell casting or stunts. The weapon chosen may vary widely, but usually fast weapons are picked – the slowest being a long sword, usually. Staves may also be used in the case of mages.
Without a shield to protect them, these people may rely on heavy armour or their agility in order to dodge attacks or spells. This tends to make them effective against slower melee fighters as well as some mages. They are usually individualistic and relatively useless in the middle of a battle.

- Two hands, one weapon: Two-handed fighters are usually fearsome warriors which just carve through armies by swinging their blade wildly. Their main attribute is pure and brute strength. They use large weapons that need two hands to be carried and used, and while this virtually eliminates any defensive ability they have an extremely powerful physical attack as well as a high reach.
They are the bane of frontline men and defensive units, as they can take down their defences without even being touched. They, however, tend to be vulnerable to any kind of ranged attack. Most two-handed fighters wear heavy armour to compensate for their lack of defence.

- Dual wielding: Rare, hard to learn yet deadly if mastered. Using two weapons keeps a moderate degree of defence while providing great mobility and a strong offense. They are most subject to “customisation” as some of them will have the same weapon in both hands, but others will have completely different ones.
Using two identical or similar lighter weapons (such as two swords) provides great parrying abilities as well as a good balance and decent mobility.
Using two different weapons (a long sword and a dagger) is very common – the heavier weapon provides offensive and defensive abilities, and the lighter weapon is used to quickly strike the busy enemy or to distract them.
Using two identical or similar heavy weapons (such as two axes) provides huge offense and, with enough strength, inhibits any kind of counterattack.
Dual wielders are usually feared by mages due to their mobility and agility. They have no defence against archers and especially crossbow users, and they can be defeated by tougher melee soldiers, especially those with a longer reach (such as spearmen).

Most melee combats, especially on the frontlines, do not last more than a dozen seconds and most have an average longevity of a few seconds. Combat between stronger units, officers or champions, is different. In honourable situations, either between generals or people with personal motives, an official duel might be issued. These duel are almost always undisturbed by the nearby fights. In other conditions, an unofficial duel is still set, but they’re less likely to be fought with honour (not everybody’s fair!). These fights can last anywhere from a few seconds (in the case of an overwhelming opponent or a lucky hit) to minutes. Most duels end with somebody’s death, but a few may end due to the other side surrendering or fleeing.
Battle mages also obey the rules of duelling.

Ranged

Ranged combat is even simpler and doesn’t really require much description.
Bows and arrows are often used in large groups in the battlefield, the rain of arrows forces armies to either turtle up or spread out, effectively making them more vulnerable or slower, and may cause a few casualties in the process. Individual firing (for both bows and crossbows) is usually done in smaller battles, duels, assassination or hunting, and is also a lot harder in larger battle fields. As a rule of thumb, a bow gets less accurate over a larger distance, especially if the arrows are launched in a parabolic (arc) motion for greater ranges. Crossbows are only accurate when aimed directly, and thus only used like that. They lose less accuracy than bows, but also have a lower range.

Since ranged attacks rely on killing your target in one shot, ranged duels are not common at all. They may exist, however, especially between two crossbow users. And they are usually very, very brief.

Magic

Magical combat is special and somewhat more complicated at advanced levels.
Magical spells divide themselves in two main groups.
~ Projectile spells are ... projectiles. They take some time to reach the destination point (they are usually in between a catapult rock and an arrow in speed), however differently from material projectiles they will always fire in a straight line and will not fall down. They are also far less affected by atmospheric effects such as wind, unless if they’re caused by magical spells or effects. Many projectiles spells have no or negligible charge time.
Projectiles spell range from ice shards to meteors, and while they tend to be more powerful (and harmful) they may be dodged, avoided, or blocked by defensive spells or enchanted shields. Examples are fireballs, lightning bolts, ice shards.
~ Impact or direct spells do not have a delay between the casting and the destination, and they will reach the destination even with obstacles in between (rare exceptions apply). They are completely unharmed by atmospheric or physical conditions, but they might be affected by magical conditions. Almost every impact spell has a charge time of sorts before they can be cast.
Most impact spells are beneficial, such as healing or empowerment, and the harmful type of spells tend to be weaker than projectile spells. They cannot be blocked by physical entities and some magical defences, however. Examples are some healing and self-empowering spells or some state changes (for example time alteration).
~ Beam or channelled spells are rarer, but usually quite rewarding over the long term. These spells are usually more advanced and they have a “continuous” casting over time, which means the spell has to be kept up by the caster. They, however, have no charge time.
They have properties of both projectile and direct spell – they act like projectile spells, but they are almost as fast as direct spells and they can be beneficial or harmful. They may affect one or multiple targets. Examples are rays (fire beam) or storms, spell that affect an area over a certain amount of time (ice storm).
Combat between two mages is actually relatively rare (especially in a big battle, mages tend to focus on the physical fighters as they tend to be weaker against magicians) but if they meet an unofficial duel is often initiated unless one of them is slain (by the mage or by somebody else) before they can start fighting.
Usually, in a duel, the mages cast two spells at the same time. It may be two offensive spells (which will either mash mid-way or both attack the defenders) or one offensive and one defensive spell, depending on the combat style of the mages. For example, one mage may cast a fireball and the other will create a magical barrier to block the fireball, or they may both cast fireballs which will hit each other in the middle, and usually the stronger spells manages to obliterate the lesser one (but is weakened by the contact).
Battle mages (weapon + spell) do not have to follow duel rules, and usually don’t. Since they tend to prefer closer ranges than “normal” mages, they usually won’t enter a proper duel since there tends to not be enough time for it – either the battle mage gets in melee range with the mage, or the mage gets to a safe distance. In the latter case, if still applicable, a duel may be started.

Mixed combat

This happens when the two fighter do not fall under the same category – for example a mage and an archer. In this case some rules are overwritten by others because of the hugely different contexts. NOTE: Special units may obey more than one “rule” of combat, such as battle mages (melee and magic) or assassins (melee and ranged) and usually switch between their states.

Melee – Ranged.

This instance is extremely simple. The melee fighter either tries to reach the ranged fighter before he’s killed, or hides/protects himself from the attacker until he’s taken care of by other people or until he has a chance to directly strike him. In the first case, if a ranged unit is reached, they are usually considered dead. Defensive units such as shield men have a strong bonus against archers compared to dual wielders. Crossbow users tend to pierce anything, but if they miss one shot they will take a longer while to recharge and are extremely vulnerable.

Melee – Magic

Similar to melee – ranged. If reached, however, a mage may take arms and engage in a duel or attempt fleeing. If the melee fighter has some sort of magical defence or protection, is it far more likely for him to reach the mage, but it is also more likely for the mage to notice that and flee beforehand. Melee fighters with a high mobility tend to be advantaged in these confrontations. Mages using harmful direct spells tend to have an edge too, unless the target has magical protection.

Ranged – Magic

This is usually a “who hits first wins”. Crossbowmen are heavily advantaged over archers in these cases; bowmen are more likely to win in larger numbers or with shorter, faster bows. Magicians with faster reflexes and a better aim also have an edge in these fights, as longer bows tend to have a greater effective range than quite a few spells.