Combat
Safety Concerns
Safety is a primary concern at all Alliance events.
Body Contact: The only contact allowed during battle is by weapon or packet. Any other type of fighting contact such as grabbing someone, hitting, or kicking is strictly forbidden. Even when making friendly contact, for example to pick up a fallen ally or touch casting a spell, you must obtain the player’s consent before actually touching them. During combat, you must never come into physical contact with your opponent.
Charging: If you are crowding your opponent so much that they must step back to avoid body contact with you, you are charging. It’s possible to fight safely with very small weapons, but you must take special care to not force the other person back physically to avoid contact. If you have moved so close to your opponent that they can hold out a hand and touch you, you are likely charging.
Pinning Weapons: “Pinning” refers to a fighting tactic where you trap your opponent’s weapon so that it is unusable. Pinning of weapons can only be done with another weapon, and only in areas where it is possible for the victim to escape by backing up and getting away. Any weapon shaped in such a way as to trap weapons (whether accidentally or by design) is expressly forbidden.
Legal targets: Legal targets include the entire body except the head, neck, throat, hands from the wrist out, and the groin. You may not intentionally block a hit with an illegal target. You may hold other small, non-weapon items (such as gas globes, packets, coins, potions, etc.), either IG or OOG, in your weapon or shield hand and utilize that weapon or shield normally. This must be done safely.
Weapon Attacks
Weapon attacks are performed in Alliance using boffer weapons, and you will swing to hit your opponent in a legal target. In our combat system, a light tap is just as effective as a heavy swing. Weapon attacks should be made at an opponent’s legal target areas with the lightest force necessary to make them aware of the attack.
In order to be considered a valid attack, a weapon swing must vary location, unless more than two seconds has elapsed between hits or the swing has progressed beyond a 45-degree angle. Each swing must be accompanied by a valid call. Any attack that does not meet these conditions is invalid and should not be counted.
Weapon attacks which do not include the Strike keyword and are blocked or deflected with a weapon or shield will not damage the defender, nor will any swing that has enough force to overpower a block and still make contact with the target. If you are holding a weapon in a way that is not permitted by the weapon skill, like holding a twohanded sword in a single hand, then any blow that would otherwise be considered blocked still damages your character. It is generally good practice to acknowledge your opponent’s successful hits when possible.
Some attacks must be performed when physically behind your opponent; you cannot reach around from the front. The attack must strike the opponent’s back half, and you must be able to see both of the defender’s shoulder blades. Note that ranged attacks using these skills can be used from any direction, bypassing the from behind requirement.
Packet Attacks
Some attacks in Alliance are performed with packets, their construction is detailed in the Weapons section. Packet attacks include archery, spells, alchemy and tinkering globes, and certain monster abilities. Packets that make contact with the throat, neck, or head do not count.
You may not throw a packet with any other object in your throwing hand, including other packets. You may touchcast on yourself or another with another item in your hand, but this must be done safely and courteously.
Calling Damage
Whenever you swing a weapon, you must call out the amount of damage you will do with that weapon, along with any additional attributes your attack may have. These calls are out-of-game. Even if under the effect of a Silence effect, you must still call out any damage you deliver so your opponent knows what damage to take. In-game, the damage calls represent the sounds of combat. This allows you to respond in-game to damage being called: You can even tell whether a weapon is magical or silver by the sound it makes during a battle.
If you have no special attributes on your attack, then you must call “Normal.” If you have a silvered weapon, then you must call “Silver.” If you have a weapon with the appropriate Rituals, you might be able to swing for other damage types like “Magic” or “Chaos”.
If your weapon has more than one effect, you must only call one. For instance, if you are using a silvered sword and the Channel Earth high magic ability, and an Enhanced Blade spell active, you may choose to call the Enhanced Blade element, “Healing” or “Silver” depending on the type of monster you may be fighting, but you cannot call any combination of them.
If you have the skill Florentine or Two Weapons, you must call out the damage of each weapon individually when using both to fight. You cannot swing both weapons at the same time with a single damage call.
You may, at any time, choose to call less damage than you are actually capable of, including zero. This includes all skills that cause damage such as Slay and Assassinate.
Effects that only add damage (such as Vorpal Coatings) can be used with a blade effect. However, if you have any other type of Weapon Coating poison (such as a Weakness poison) and you choose to use a blade effect instead, then the poison is lost, and you cannot use the poison as part of the weapon swing verbal.
Like spells, alchemy, and any other call, you can never fake your weapon calls. You cannot swing your dagger in the air and call out “15 Magic” when in reality all it can do is “1 Normal.”
Combat Verbals
Every attack in Alliance has three parts: the delivery, the qualifier, and the effect. The delivery is the out-of-game description of how the attack is being delivered and is not present in the verbal for most calls. The qualifier explains the mechanism by which the call is being generated in-game. The effect describes what the call will do if it connects. Most calls will explicitly state the qualifier and the effect to help the recipient understand what defensive abilities they can use and what to do if they get hit. A given call will only ever have one qualifier and one effect. If you have multiple options to select from for a single call, you must select a single qualifier and a single effect.
Deliveries
There are three ways by which attacks may be delivered in Alliance.
Ingested: All ingested attacks are delivered by placing a potion or elixir physrep next to the mouth of the target or by having the target consume a prepared item. Drinking a potion or elixir, or having one force-fed to you will always take at least three seconds but is not a counted action. Ingested deliveries always ignore protective effects, even while unconscious.
Radius: Radius deliveries include traps, contact poisons, and monster abilities such as eye contact or sound of voice. If the Radius is a defined area, anyone partially within that area is affected. Radius delivery effects must always include an explicit Qualifier and Effect.
Targeted: This is the most commonly used delivery and covers attacks made via weapons and packets. Attacks of this type must make direct contact with a valid target area and can be blocked by weapons, shields, or other objects. Some Targeted attacks may include the Strike keyword, which is used to indicate the attack cannot be physically blocked; the attack is successful if it makes contact with the target or any of their possessions. The target may still use appropriate defensive abilities against successful Strike attacks.
Qualifiers
An attack’s qualifier will indicate what defenses are able to be used against it, if any.
Arcane: The Arcane qualifier signifies that an attack is particularly powerful and is unique in that there are no protective effects that work against it; the target must have a defense against the specific effect, its Effect Group, or a way avoid the attack entirely. The Arcane Qualifier may never be used to deliver Ritual effects.
Elemental: These attacks are pulled forth from the primordial elements. The Channeling skill uses this Qualifier with the Strike keyword, “Elemental Strike ”.
Poison: Effects delivered with this qualifier represent both virulent poisons and helpful antitoxins. Any ingested Alchemy is delivered with the Poison qualifier automatically.
Spell: This qualifier represents the standard way that magical energies are manipulated in Alliance and covers spells as well as the activation of magic items and certain effects generated by monsters. The casting of a spell with an incant implies both the Spell qualifier and the Strike keyword. Any ingested Earth Potions are delivered with the Spell qualifier. The verbal for activating a magic item with the Enchant ritual or an effect previously stored in a Spell Store, if the character can cast the spell normally, is “Activate Spell Strike .” In this instance a character may choose to activate a magic item without the Strike keyword, but this attack would then be blockable. If you are unable to cast the spell the verbal is “Activate .”
Weapon: This qualifier represents attacks from weapons and claws. Any Weapon qualifier attack that includes a number omits the “Weapon” Qualifier from the call, which is implied, unless the Strike keyword is also used. The damage from Weapon qualifier attacks cannot be used to restore lost body points to a target, though the effect may be beneficial in other ways.