Combat Basics

Throughout your adventures, you will encounter countless enemies, from oversized rats and spiders to the powerful bluescale dragons that slew your kin and stole your family's territory.

Combat is a series of simultaneous actions by you and your opponent, resembling an extra-complicated form of 'rock paper scissors'. Every action beats certain other actions, and is beat by others. Certain combinations will result in preventing both actions, allowing both to have full effect, only allowing the best roll to count, or only counting the difference.

Actions in the leftmost column are basic options that nearly everyone (friend or foe) can use. Each action beats the two directly below it (looping around at the bottom), and loses to the two directly above it. Actions in the rightmost column are alternatives to simply fighting. In some cases they can allow you to end a fight without either side being defeated/killed.

The middle two columns will gain additional options as you progress through the game. Specifically, the third column is reserved for magical combat techniques, while the seconds is for non-magical special techniques.

Tells
The key to success in Redscale's Adventure is reading tells. After each combat round, a bit of flavortext will appear, indicating your opponent's behavior after the last set of actions. This is their Tell.

Each Tell is associated with one of the combat actions the enemy has available to them. You will need to learn them separately for each enemy type. If you interpret it correctly, you will know what they are going to do, and thus know what actions are best to take.

Warning: Your opponent will secretly roll their Charisma against your Wisdom. If they win the roll, they offer a fake tell, randomized independently of their actual action choice. (It may still be accurate, as it is not prevented from being the same as their real choice.) Higher Wisdom will help you avoid this form of trickery.

However, some enemies are especially tricksy and have identical tells for two of their actions! Now that's just cheating!

Combat Tempo
Each round, only a subset of your actions will be available to choose from. Your opponent is similarly limited, but may not face the same options. This system is called Combat Tempo, and here are the rules:
 * 1) At the start of the combat, or after taking a non-combat action, you can only choose an 'opening move', which are those from the 1st, 3rd, or 5th row, or non-combat options.
 * 2) You cannot use a move in the same row as your last move.
 * 3) You cannot use a move in the same row as your opponent's last move.
 * 4) You cannot use a move in the opposite row (3 up or 3 down) as your last move.
 * 5) You can, however, use a move in the opposite row of your opponent's last move. And your opponent can use a move in the opposite row of your last move. (Assuming the other rules are upheld.)

Damage
Most combat actions deal damage to your opponent, reducing their health. Likewise, enemies will deal damage to you. When you reach 0 health, you lose. You will lose all progress since you last saved, and return to the main menu (New Game / Load Game). Losing to certain opponents will earn you a special scene, detailing your fate before you tap into your innate Time Magic to undo time back to your last save.

When your opponent reaches 0 health, they die. You can devour the corpse to gain nutrition and devour XP to level up your stats. (This will level you faster in areas they are strong in.) As you proceed you will gain other options for how to profit from a slain foe. Certain named characters are protected by plot armor from being outright killed in combat, and will always surrender instead of dying in combat. (You can still murder them once they surrender.)

When an opponent's health is low, they may surrender. Raising your Fear stat can get them to surrender at higher health levels. Position bonus (see below) can also encourage surrender. However, certain actions (such as murdering surrendered enemies) can give enemies higher resistance to surrendering, and some enemies simply will not (but see nonlethal damage below).

If an enemy surrenders, you can use your draconic mental powers to rip the free will from them, enslaving them permanently. Or you can rape them, release them, or murder them (by selecting an option from the left column, such as Devour).

NOTE: As you enslave enemies, you will acquire a ring of protective pawns, up to eight in any one combat. When you take a blow that would knock you to 0 HP, or do more than 20% of your max health in one blow, you have a chance for a random pawn to take the hit for you. This may kill the pawn.

Some enemies have pawns of their own, and will likewise sacrifice them to absorb your hits.

Nonlethal Damage
The Wrestle special action deals non-lethal damage. This is like normal damage, except that if the enemy would die they are forced to surrender instead. For some enemies, this is the only way to cause them to surrender.

Damage Over Time
The Breath magic action deals damage over time. On the turn it hits, it deals about 2/3 of the rolled damage, making it initially weaker than a comparable attack. However, each round thereafter it deals 2/3 of the damage from the previous round (rounded down) until it eventually fades out to 0.

NOTE: Damage over time bypasses pawn blocking. This makes it potentially dangerous for you, or extra effective for you to use against enemies with pawns.

Healing
The Defend standard action allows you to recover some health, at the expense of energy. Likewise, you convert as much energy to health as possible between combats. Thus, energy serves as your reserves.

The Barrier magic action works similarly, but recovers health at the expense of mana, enabling you to extend your energy supply longer.

Position
The Maneuver standard action allows you to gain a position bonus. Your position bonus lasts until you or your opponent Maneuver again (or use another Position affecting action) or your opponent chooses an action that 'beats' your choice. Normally, the character with position bonus adds 0-2x their bonus to each combat roll. (This includes your roll for a new position bonus when you Maneuver again.)

Position also effects enemies' willingness to surrender.

Some actions can impose a position penalty on the opponent. In most regards, a position penalty is the same as your opponent having that much higher position bonus. However, a position penalty is not lost when the other character does a Maneuver, nor by 'beating' the opponent. The character with the penalty must Maneuver successfully to clear it.

Unopposed Rolls
Options in the right hand column can allow the enemy an unopposed roll. Generally, that means they deal damage, heal, get a position bonus, etc. However, the Trap standard action does not benefit from unopposed rolls: by choosing such an action you don't fall into the trap.