The final combat update is finally upon us! Content wise, this is a small update, but it was a lot of work to make it happen; some of it was straightforward, while the rest of it required a lot of backtracking over old code and adding to it. With that, let's give you the rundown of this update:

Updated Moloch in the main menu image. He looked rather plainly dressed and a little disproportionate, didn't he?

Fixed several broken speech boxes for m3 protagonist.

Light mode compatibility has been completed. Every piece of text will now change to fit with the mode being used. Also for greater accessibility, I have increased the text size in the sidebars a little.

Tiredness has been adjusted to have different severities. Just being tired prevents the character performing critical hits. Extremely tired prevents the character from using skills and performing critical hits. It shouldn't be reachable in combat, but deathly tired is when the character is nearing the upper limit of the tiredness scale. If it maxes out, they die!

Rolling! Each round in battle detracts 1 from the burning status tracker, but rolling reduces it by 1d3 extra points! This is not a free action, unlike the new items. Rolling uses up that round of combat and you can be attacked or suffer status effects. Enemies can also role if they're on fire, in which case they will randomly choose between rolling and attacking.

75% of battle texts. Just need to finish murder hole terrain, haunted terrain, friendly fire, rolling and add some more for Frodi's sadism skill comments (right now each action only has their own single comment, but I'd like for there to be more to randomly choose from). I'll work on these alongside chapter 1 from here on. I didn't want to delay this update further and, by extension, working on chapter 1.

Antidotes and stimulants have been added to the combat item list.

Antidote: Can be used in battle as a free action without losing the turn or taking passive damage. In return for completely clearing all traces of poison, it adds +1 to the tiredness total for the user. So that the player does not waste their antidotes, I have put in a tracker for the player so they can see how many more rounds poison will last on the protagonist and companion.

Stimulant: These injections can be used in battle as a free action without losing a turn of combat or taking passive damage. The effects of this item varies depending on needle tolerance. Those who have a high tolerance of needles will have -4 taken from their tiredness total and take only 1d3 mental damage. Those who have a low needle tolerance have -8 taken from their tiredness total but also receive more mental damage to the rate of 1d7. Those who are in between also have a middling effect with -6 taken from their tiredness and 1d5 mental damage.

A new status effect, STUNNED, which can only be inflicted by... *drumroll* ...new skills! When enemies are stunned, all attacks on them are guaranteed to hit, not only that but as long as the protagonist and companion aren't tired, all their ranged and melee attacks against stunned enemies get converted to critical hits (unless the attacker is tired).

Now to explain the meaty chuck of this update! Each companion has two skills, an offensive and a self-healing skill, and the protagonist can learn some of them!

I had wanted there to be no healing in combat, but maybe that was too harsh. So now the only way to heal in combat is to use skills. The protagonist can learn skills from the companions. That said, the companions are more experienced and have the strongest version of these skills and the protagonist's version will change in effectiveness depending on their stats.

Magwyn cannot teach her skill to a low combat character, Kelka to a low stealth, Frodi low charisma and Vaine low arcana. That means that the protagonist is going to miss out on a skill, and the skill acquisition isn't going to be immediate. The protagonist will need to build trust with the companions first (not affection). Trust changes naturally over time; even if you do not take a companion with you on a mission, they will still find out your choices and that will either build or break their trust in you. It will be impossible to please everyone in this way, so you can build additional trust and affection in the optional free time (chapter epilogues). Failing that, you can snitch on them to Thurin or the Captain and they'll be ordered to teach you their skill if you meet the stat requirement. This will severely impact their trust and affection levels with you, however.

The trust requirement shouldn't be too high, however. At the end of the day, the companions want you to stick around for a while, if for no other reason than for them to ease their own workload by sharing it with you. I'd say, 60+ trust. You start at 50, so it the skills should be unlockable as early as chapter 1.

Magwyn:

Rampage: deals 8d8 damage per enemy. Gains 10 tiredness.

Second wind: recovers 8d8 health. Gains 10 tiredness. Can be taught to the protagonist.

Vaine:

Murderous Influx: Creates the barghest version of the haunted terrain. Gains 10 tiredness. Lasts for duration of battle. As a reminder: barghest haunting is a special haunting terrain that heals Vaine 1d2 per turn, ignores the protagonist (as long as Vaine is the companion and alive), deals passive damage to enemies at per turn to the rate of 1d6 to an average arcana level enemy or 1d16 to a high arcana level enemy. Low arcana enemies are immune to haunting damage. Each turn will have a chance to cause extra effects. From highest chance to lowest, the possibilities are: inflict extra damage (1d16 or 1d8), stun enemies for 1 round, heal Vaine (1d4) or take away -1 of Vaine's tiredness.

Blissful suffering: For every 10 damage lost, Vaine can recover 2d5 health. Gain 10 tiredness, one time cost per use. Can be taught to the protagonist.*

* This requires Vaine to scramble the protagonist's brain a little and attach a barghest to them to cause a semi possession. This will have consequences on occasion in the story. Nothing game breaking, it will just change scenes every now and then in the story. It has no combat consequences.

Frodi:

Insidious words: Frodi will stun enemies for 5 turns. Gains 10 tiredness. Enemies will still suffer passive damage caused by status effects or terrain. Can be taught to the protagonist.

Sadism: When ANYONE except himself receives damage from melee or ranged attacks, Frodi gains pleasure/health from it.* When Frodi deals damage to an enemy, he regains more damage than usual. Standard attacks made by others heals him for 1d5, and a critical hit by others heals for 2d5. When Frodi attacks, his standard attacks heal him for 2d5, and his critical hits heal him for 4d5. Damage caused by items or terrain regain 1d5 (except for haunted terrain, he doesn't like that) Gain 10 tiredness, one time cost per use.**

*While he'll comment on other damage dealt via items or terrain, he does not enjoy it is much and will not recover health.

** Sadism, once activated, lasts until the next rest or day. It will make Frodi more openly aggressive in some parts of the story.

Kelka:

Assassination: Kelka will instantly kill any enemy 30 hp or under. Gains 10 tiredness. Vore: Kelka will go into a feeding frenzy, dealing 4d8 damage to each enemy and will recover 4d8 health for each enemy fed from. Gains 10 tiredness.

The protagonist can learn:

Second wind: High combat: recovers 6d8, gain 12 tiredness. Average combat: recovers 4d8. Gain 12 tiredness.

Blissful suffering: High arcana: recovers 2d4 for every 10 hp lost. Average arcana: recovers 2d3 for every 10 hp lost. Gain 12 tiredness.

Insidious words: High charisma: stuns enemies for 4 turns and deals 1d4 damage one time damage to enemies. Average charisma: stuns enemies for 3 turns and deals 1d3 damage to all enemies. Gains 12 tiredness.

Assassination: High stealth: instantly kill any enemy under 25 hp. Average stealth, instantly kill any enemy under 20 hp.

Like the stimulants and antidotes, the healing skills count as free actions. Terrain damage, enemy action and ally action will be passed over.

Phew, with this done I can get started on chapter 1! Woo, finally! Combat expansion was fun to work on, sure, but I'd like to move on and I'm super excited to start on this next stage of villainy. Mwahahaha!

Regarding chapter 1, I have no time frame to complete it but if I feel it's been too long without an update, I'll post what's ready to read.

~Glou