4. Skills
4.1 STR weapons
Axe: My favorite weapon class. Axes focus on dealing direct damage. Their passive is a poor man's critical hit, increasing the damage dealt but not bypassing DR. Due to the way damage stacks in DR/AoD, high strength characters will get much more benefits from savage blows than low STR ones. As a blocker, my axe of choice is the Skeggox due to the increased chance of scoring a passive. Later on into the game, however, I'll switch to the Mineb because I'll be scoring critical strikes much more often and those override the passive, which makes a THC bonus arguably better than a passive chance bonus. As a dodger I would choose the Shadhavar due to the increased THC and counter. The Zaghnal is the only axe that can be placed in a belt slot. The power of the axe is well demonstrated in my AoD Ironman run.
My AoD Ironman game (Move your mouse to reveal the content)
My AoD Ironman game (open)
My AoD Ironman game (close)
Hammer: In AoD hammers are mostly bad axes, since you control a single character and denting the armor of one guy is not really a big deal when he has 7 more friends waiting to murder your lonely ass. In DR, however, the hammer finally got its chance to shine. I see the hammer as a team weapon. Denting armor is now much more useful, since you have more characters capable of capitalizing on the reduced DR. The hammer is also capable of delivering knockdown attacks, which drastically reduce defense and drops vsCS by 25 points. It should be noted that the CS formula of the knockdown attack features "WeaponAP", which means bigger hammers are better for knocking people down. Also, knockdown uses the hammer skill instead of CS to determine critical effects, which makes the knockdown attack unique in that regard. When choosing a hammer I go with whatever allows me to attack twice and has the best THC bonus. Note that hardness does NOT improve your chance to score the hammer passive. The rolls are independent (more on that in the next section).
4.2 DEX weapons
Dagger
Sword: The sword is a well rounded weapon most suited for high DEX coupled with mid/low STR builds. On a successful passive roll, the sword causes a bleeding wound that deals 2 HP damage for 2 turns. Its chance is on par with the axe, hammer and bow, which renders comparisons with the axe almost inevitable. If your weapon average damage is higher than 16, that means the axe passive is better. E.g: a 6 STR character wielding a Blue Steel Kopesh deals 7-10 (8.5 avg) damage on fast attacks, which means he is better off with a sword. However, when you add sharpening at crafting 10 and berserk at alchemy 10 into the mix, his damage jumps 18-23 (20.5 avg), which means he would be better off wielding an axe. In other words, sixteen is the "magical number" and you should keep in mind that the sword passive gets no additional benefit from sharpening and berserk, while the axe does.
It should be noted that the sword passive is unaffected by the AP cost of the weapon or the speed of the attack (regular, fast or power), which means that in order for a comparison to be fair, one has to compare same AP cost weapons using fast attacks. My sword of choice is the Kopesh, simply because it boasts the lowest AP cost coupled with the highest passive bonus, which translates into more bleeding wounds. I used that sword to kill Agatoth as a hybrid high CHA and high INT character.
Death by a thousand cuts (Move your mouse to reveal the content)
Death by a thousand cuts (open)
Death by a thousand cuts (close)
VIDEO
Notice the mediocre STR value. On the description I showed that the total amount of bleeding damage surpassed the benefits of the axe passive.
Other things worthy of note regarding swords:
Unlike poison, bleeding wounds will stack normally, with no cap
Just like every other passive, you cannot score a bleed against a blocked attack
Bleeding damage can occur even when you deal zero damage, but only on successful attacks fully mitigated by armor
All 4 AP swords can be placed in the belt slot.
Spear: The spear class trades damage for additional range, chance to push enemies back and a much higher passive chance. Through proper positioning the spear can grant you several additional attacks every turn, so long as you keep your distance. The spear passive is a chance to cause an "interrupt attack", which is checked every time an enemy gets within attack range. When you hover your mouse inside an enemy spearman's threatened area, you'll see how likely he is to perform an interrupt attack.
Example (Move your mouse to reveal the content)
Example (open)
Example (close)
In this scenario the Spearman on Scaurus' crew has a 69% chance to launch an Interrupt Attack (IA) against Marcus if he moves towards the hovered square. Note that Scaurus himself can't score any more interruptions, since Marcus is already inside his attack range.
The obvious conclusion is that spears favor a more defensive playstyle that relies on kiting and luring opponents to their doom, rather than rushing into their faces and hoping for the best. That philosophy is reinforced by the fact that, with the sole exception of the Hasta, spears have a minimum range of either one square or a diagonal, much similar to ranged weapons. I got the "Man of Steel" achievement in Dungeon Rats with a spear build, so the viability of spears is well demonstrated. By the way, my spear of choice is the Krospar.
Dungeon Rats Ironman Game (Move your mouse to reveal the content)
Dungeon Rats Ironman Game (open)
Dungeon Rats Ironman Game (close)
VIDEO
Note that in Part 1 at 1:22:30 I use the Hasta to get in the Alchemist's face.
Here is another "4fun" video I made a while ago, showcasing the power of Spear + Critical Strike. That was before the spear buff.
Kitemus (Move your mouse to reveal the content)
Kitemus (open)
Kitemus (close)
VIDEO
Don't forget your precious spears inside your enemies!
Other things worthy of note regarding spears:
Because interrupt attacks don't cost any AP, high AP spears like the Trident and the Krospar are arguably better than their low AP counterparts. With enough upgrades your interrupt attacks will deal reasonable damage and dent armor pretty consistently.
Scaurus has a unique spear that has a range of two squares despite being one-handed. Sadly, there is no schematic for reproducing his weapon.
The ability to "wait" represents an indirect buff to spear users, since you can now position yourself on a good spot, wait for enemies to run and eat some some IAs and only then will you actually spend your AP attacking.
4.3 PER (ranged) weapons
Bow:
Crossbow
Throwing
4.4 Defenses
Block: as you probably already know, blocking happens when you miss an attack against a shielded enemy. There are two types of blocks in AoD/DR: regular blocks and perfect blocks. A regular block adds your shield DR to your armor DR on the damage formula. When a perfect block happens you will see a message like "the attack glances harmlessly off your shield", which means the attack had no effect whatsoever. Perfect block chance is modified by the THC of the attack, which means that a low THC attacks gets fully blocked more often. The formula is:
Perfect_block_chance = passive + 50 - THC
So if your passive chance is 35, and the attack has 60 THC then the chance to perform a perfect block is...
35 + 50 - 60 = 25%
The implication of the above formula is simple: spamming power attacks while hoping to kill a blocker with the damage that exceeds his armor + shield value is a bad idea, since you're very likely to get fully blocked instead. Other important things to know about block:
You (obviously) cannot score a critical hit on a blocked attack.
You cannot score a weapon passive on a blocked attack. Not even with the Hammer. If you attacked a blocker with a hammer and got his shielded got dented then it was because...
You can score a successful ADC (armor denting chance) against a regular block. Check section 5.2 for details
Poison does not apply on a successful block unless the attacker managed to cause at least 1 damage.
Blockers will always change their facing on a successful block. You can use that to your advantage. Check section 2.2 for an example
Blockers benefit from increased resistance to critical hits, since shield vsCS stacks with armor/helmet vsCS. Example:
vsCS stacking (Move your mouse to reveal the content)
vsCS stacking (open)
vsCS stacking (close)
On a successful defense, shield users will stop a ranged attack, while dodgers won't. That's mostly irrelevant information in AoD, since you control a single character. In DR, however, this allows you to protect team members by blocking the line of fire with your shield bearer. Example:
Shielding allies from arrows (Move your mouse to reveal the content)
Shielding allies from arrows (open)
Shielding allies from arrows (close)
The crossbow constructs can't target Marcus in this fight. They are forced to take very low THC shots against the main character instead.
Dodge:
Unlike block, the chance to counter is fixed for every dodge, regardless of THC.
4.5 Critical Strike
CS - vsCS = actual CS chance. It can't be lower than your CS level.
vsCS comes from constitution (natural), armor and shield. The ingame description is dated/wrong. Helmet vsCS is only used when the head is targeted, replacing armor.
Critical strikes on "normal" attacks (fast, regular and power) ignore armor. Always read the tooltip to see if a particular move bypasses armor on crit, because not all of them do. Critical strikes on aimed attacks impose twice the penalty.
The stated "bleeding chance" is CS's own passive. Example: if you have 80% THC, 50% CS and 22% "chance to cause bleeding on a critical strike", that means a bleeding CS is only 8,8% likely to happen.
CS also improves the odds that special attacks will score their critical effect. For example, a critical knockdown will keep the enemy down for 2 turns, instead of one. A critical impale (spear special attack) deals massive damage and leaves the opponent completely vulnerable.
The bleeding caused by arterial strike is its own critical effect. Don't confuse it with the sword passive or with CS' passive.
CS does NOT improve consumable critical chance (like the chance that a bomb will knock someone down).
4.6 Crafting
4.7 Alchemy
5. Combat Mechanics/formulas
5.1 Attack rolls
The formula is on the tooltip.
[flowchart]
5.2 Armor denting chance (hardness):
Weapon hardness +/- attack modifier - armor hardness = chance.
Let's say weapon hardness is 40 and you use a fast attack (-15%) against an armor with a hardness value of 10:
40 - 15 - 10 = 15% chance to dent on hit.
Do NOT confuse this with the hammer passive. ADC is an independent check that the game does for EVERY SINGLE WEAPON. Hammer passive is a passive roll. Both can happen, btw!
5.3 Weapon passives
Every weapon in AoD/DR has a passive. Swords cause bleed, spears have a chance to interrupt approaching enemies, hammers can dent armor and so on. You can read about your passive by hovering the mouse over your weapon skill level in the character screen. That's your base chance to score a passive. Add that number to the bonus provided by your weapon and you have your chance to score a passive on every successful non-critical hit.
Example (Move your mouse to reveal the content)
Example (open)
Example (close)
By looking at both these screens we can conclude that Ismail has 57% chance to score a bleeding wound on every successful non critical sword attack (29% from his sword skill + 28% from his masterwork Shamshir).
Weapon skill level and bonus passive chance from the weapon itself are the only things that matter. Weapon AP, STR, DEX, the attack type are completely irrelevant . That's the reason why the Kopesh is my favorite sword and I used it to demonstrate how a hybrid character could kill Agatoth. As mentioned earlier, scoring a critical strike will override the passive . A successful block (regular or perfect) means you can't score a passive (not even with the hammer). Other things worthy of notice about passives:
Whenever you hit an attack, the game first checks for a critical hit. Failing that , it checks for a passive. You cannot score a critical hit and a passive on the same attack roll.
There are two weapons that don't roll for a passive: the spear and the dagger .
Spears have a unique mechanic. Instead of rolling for an additional effect on every successful attack, the spear wielder has a chance to perform an "interrupt attack" every time an enemy walks into his threatened area. This has no AP cost and there is no limit of attacks per turn.
Daggers don't roll for a passive. Instead, they add their passive chance to their CS chance, but only for targeted attacks.
5.4 Damage:
When it comes to damage calculations in Age of Decadence/Dungeon Rats, one thing is certain: not everyone gets a trophy. Stronger characters will severely outperform weaker characters. When it comes to calculating damage, most RPGs opt for additive stacking damage bonus. So if you have "+50%" and "+40%" you'll get your base damage increased by 90%. The ITS system, however, works with multiplicative stacking. That means not only a stronger character will deal more damage with basic weapons, he will also reap more benefits from damage increases than a weaker character would. The damage formula is:
Damage dealt = [(Sharpening Bonus + Base damage) * (STR_adj) * (1 + Berserk_adj) * (Attack_type_adj)] - enemy DR
In case you trigger an axe passive, you should add an extra "* 1.25" after the attack type adjustment.
Right away you're gonna notice that damage increases do not apply equally. Sharpening with 10 crafting, for instance, adds 5 extra base damage, which translates into 5 extra damage for STR 6 characters, 4 extra damage to STR 4 characters and 7 damage to STR 10 characters.
Let's verify the above formula with an example:
My guy Maximus Murderus is using a Meteorite Skeggox. On the inventory screen you can see the weapon's base damage is 11-14. Now, when we add 5 sharpening bonus from crafting 10, 1.4 STR adjustment from strength 10 and 1.5 berserk adjustment from alch 10 potion, the minimum damage we should get on regular attacks is:
[(5 + 11) * (1.4) * (1.5) * 1] = 33.6
And the maximum:
[(5+ 14) * (1.4) * (1.5) * 1] = 39.9
Which is...
ALMOST what the game shows. Notice that the game seems to round down minimum damage but compensate this by rounding the maximum damage up and adding some leftover values from the minimum damage. Now, consider we had the same situation, but instead of 10 STR, we had a character with 6 STR. The minimum damage would be 24 and the maximum damage would be 29. Suppose your enemy is wearing a blue steel Praetorian Armor (11 DR). Maximus minimum damage against this target would be 22, while the example character would be dealing 13 damage. The difference is not merely 40%, but rather an almost 70% (!!!) increase.
The bottom line is simple: since sharpening and berserk bonuses are only tied to the skill level of crafting and alchemy respectively, and your alchemist/craftsman doesn't even have to be on the party to provide those bonuses, STR is left as the sole differentiating factor. Its benefits are MUCH higher than what the in-game tooltip would lead you to believe and the difference between max and min STR is YUUUUGE.
5.5 Wrapping things up: a complete example of how the mechanics work
6. NPC guide (MASSIVE SPOILERS!!!)
Spoiler (Move your mouse to the spoiler area to reveal the content)
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Marcus: you start the game with him. Solid fighter all around and by far the best NPC on rock bottom.
Ardomir: you need CHA 8. He can step aside with less, but he won't join you. I'm not a fan of Ardomir, since he is just a bad Roxana and Rock Bottom is not that hard. You can always use him as disposable meatshield, tho.
Quintus
Quintus: Dagger/Sword/Block
Cyrus/
Cyrus: Dagger/Xbow and NO FUCKING DEFENSE
Silas: No recruiting requirements since they are fucking useless. Don't split your precious SP with these guys. Feed them to the ants, since you don't have to split SPs with the dead.
Silas: Spear/CS
Hieronymus: No requirements. Terrible fighter. Use him as "craft bot" and only take him along on easy fights, since he is dead weight. Get his crafting all the way up to 10 and then leave him on camp for the rest of the game. Add him to the party when you need to craft something. Remember to use him for sharpening too.
Roxana: Does everything Ardomir does, but better and with no CHA requirement. Roxana is a stronk womyn who doesn't need no man. She just needs one thing to topple the patriarchy: hacked stats. Srsly, do the math. Roxana has 2 more stat points than you. Male privilege, amirite? Jokes aside, Roxana is really good and very versatile. Her only drawback is that she brings no utility (crafting/alchemy) to the party. She makes up for that with sheer murdering power.
Ismail: The alchemist NPC is also a surprisingly viable fighter. With no wasted SPs, high intelligence and reasonably high starting skill levels, Ismail can be either treated as a temporary companion (to max his alchemy) or added to the party long term, since he is capable of pulling his weight in a fight. If you don't think he is worth it, letting the scorpions kill him will allow you to loot his full alchemy arsenal and makes the fight MUCH easier. It reminds me of that time when Vardanis hired a bodyguard...
Yngvar: Needs CHA 9. Probably the best fighting NPC in the game.
Construct: Needs crafting 8. Doesn't have to be the main character. Can't be healed.
Guardian: Needs CHA 10. Can't be healed.
7. Final words