Combat Flow

When you issue a combat command ("attack", "dodge"), it is validated immediately and queued. After all commands are captured, the full combat round resolves in order:

1. Your attack fires — hit check runs, then damage calculation, then application
2. The enemy counterattacks
3. Status effects tick (poison damage, burn, regeneration, etc.)
4. Death and victory checks

Why this matters: All your decisions lock in before any results apply, so you never lose an action to a race condition mid-turn.

A potion resolves before the enemies hit. Drinking a health potion, one charge or all of them, heals you and takes no round: the enemies strike on your next act, not in the same breath as the potion, and the turn ends with "What next?". Your charges are the limit, and they refill at the hideout.

Hit Chance Formula

Every attack starts with a 50% base hit chance, then accuracy vs. evasion adjusts it:

• If your accuracy is higher than the enemy's evasion: hit chance goes up, capped at 95%
• If the enemy's evasion is higher than your accuracy: hit chance goes down, minimum 5%
• If your accuracy is 50 or higher, a minimum hit floor applies regardless of enemy evasion: floor = min(90, accuracy − 10). At accuracy 50 you always hit at least 40%; at accuracy 80, at least 70%; at accuracy 100+, at least 90%.

No attack is ever a guaranteed hit or a guaranteed miss (except when evasion or accuracy is literally zero).

Damage Pipeline

Damage calculation is sequential — each step modifies the result of the previous step:

Step 1: Base Damage Per Type

There are 7 damage types, each calculated independently: Physical, Magical, Fire, Ice, Lightning, Poison, and Chaos. Your resistance to each type reduces incoming damage by that percentage.

Step 2: Block/Deflect

• A shield blocks physical attacks (reduces damage by your block rating)
• A focus deflects magic attacks (reduces damage by your magic deflect rating)
• Only one of these applies per hit — they are mutually exclusive.
• Implementation note: When hasShield or hasFocus is true but the corresponding blockRating/magicDeflectRating is null in the data, the calculation defaults the missing rating to 0L. This protects against malformed enemy data (e.g., LEGENDARY_KNIGHT, SEASONED_WARRIOR, SKELETON_WARRIOR which historically had hasShield=true but no blockRating field) crashing combat. See lines 177-182. Pre-2026-04-26 this was the source of the level-5+ battleground hamster bug.

Step 3: Armor Reduction

After blocking, armor reduces the remaining damage. Enemies can partially bypass your armor with armor penetration, but cannot reduce it below zero.

Exception: Back attacks skip armor entirely (see Step 4).

Step 4: Positional Bonuses

Where you stand relative to the enemy matters enormously:

Position	Damage Multiplier	Armor	Shield/Block
Front	1.0x (normal)	Full armor applies	Full block applies
Side	1.25x (+25%)	Full armor applies	Full block applies
Back	1.5x (+50%)	Bypassed entirely	Bypassed entirely

Back attacks deal 50% more damage AND bypass both armor and shields — this makes positioning the most impactful tactical choice in combat.

An attack comes from behind when it comes from the direction the player faces (DarkTowerBasicDirections.getPositionalAttackType). A player entering a zone faces into it, toward its centre, the way they walked in (), so the enemies standing inside a portal square are in front of them, never behind. Every other arrival faces the same way: a teleport to the hideout, a siege or a rift, a return teleport, a teleport to a party leader, and the death respawn all place the player through , which faces them toward the centre of the zone they land in. Regression: .

Step 5: Critical Strike

A critical hit multiplies damage by your critical multiplier. The default critical multiplier is 1.5x (150%). Gear and paragon bonuses can increase this further.

Level Difference Scaling

When you fight enemies at very different levels, the damage scales dramatically:

Level Difference	Effect
Attacker 10+ levels above	Instant kill
Attacker 5+ levels above	+50% damage per level (overwhelming force) — capped at 2.0×
Attacker 1-4 levels above	+25% damage per level — capped at 2.0× (cap hit exactly at +4 levels)
Same level	Normal damage
Attacker below target	No bonus (normal)

The damage multiplier is capped at 2.0× base damage (MAX_LEVEL_ADVANTAGE_MULTIPLIER = 2.0) regardless of level gap. Fighting enemies above your level won't make you do more damage — but it does award bonus XP.

Class-Weapon Synergy

Every weapon has a type (a swift sword, a heavy war hammer, an arcane wand). A class deals +15% weapon damage when its equipped main-hand weapon is one its archetype favors:

Class	Favored main-hand weapons
Fighter, Barbarian	Axe, War Hammer
Rogue, Ranger	Sword, Crossbow
Sorcerer, Necromancer	Wand, Staff
Cleric, Paladin	Club, Mace

Any class can still equip any weapon — an off-type weapon just forgoes the bonus. Your class's favored weapon is the stronger pick, never the only allowed one, so a lucky drop of the "wrong" type is never wasted. Each class starts with a weapon of its favored type.

Enemy Density & Engagement Limits

Limit	Value	What It Means
Max enemies per square	5	A grid square can hold up to 5 enemies
Max melee attackers per square	4	At most 4 melee enemies on a single square can attack you per round
Max total melee attackers per round	3	Across all squares, only 3 melee enemies total can attack you in one round
Max ranged attackers per square	4	At most 4 ranged enemies on a single square can attack you per round
Max total ranged attackers per round	3	Across all squares, only 3 ranged enemies total can attack you in one round

Melee and ranged enemies are tracked on independent budgets: even when enemies surround you on multiple squares, no more than 3 melee attacks AND no more than 3 ranged attacks land per round (up to 6 total if a fight has both). Ranged enemies (attackRange > 1) are no longer unbounded — a dense pack sharing a common attackRange (e.g. a zone whose whole roster is attackRange=2) is capped the same way a melee pack is, so it can no longer deal unbounded cumulative damage in a single round.

Early zones cap the pack you meet. Forest Path, Trevmarch Sewers and Trevmarch City spawn so that no square shows more than 4 enemies within two squares, a new character's sight. A zone spawns the enemies that fit under its cap and no more.

A zone can also cut its packs. Burning Gorge spawns each pack at two thirds of its size, rounded down and never below one enemy, so its fights end in fewer rounds. The enemies that spawn pay for the ones the cut left out: each kill's experience and gold scale by the zone's reward percent, the spawned share of the configured population, and its loot rolls repeat for each whole share with the remainder as a chance of one more. The zone's enemy configuration sets packSizePercent; is the rule and the proof.

Star Map Attack System

Star Map nodes unlock special attacks that trigger automatically during combat at fixed intervals:

Attack Tier	Trigger	Damage Multiplier
Basic	Every 2 attacks	1.2x
Super	Every 7 attacks	1.4x
Ultimate	Every 14 attacks	2.0x

These fire automatically — no action needed on your part.

Skill Gem Triggers

Skill gems slotted into equipment activate special abilities at fixed combat intervals:

Gem Type	Trigger
Attack Skill	Every 6 attacks
AOE Skill	Every 10 attacks
Magic Skill	Every 13 attacks

AOE Abilities

Some abilities hit multiple enemies at once. See AOE Ability Reference below for damage %, element, and trigger frequency.

Ability	Range	Targets
Fire Nova / Chaos Nova / Storm of Blades	1 tile radius (square)	All enemies in range
Cone of Ice	4 tiles (cone)	Enemies in cone direction
Lightning Strike	2 tile radius (square)	All enemies in range

Auto-Attack vs Manual Attack

There are two ways combat triggers:

• Auto-attack — Happens automatically when you move into an enemy's range. Your primary attack hits all enemies on the same square each round, so you can clear groups without targeting individually. This is the primary way combat works during exploration — just walk and fight.
• Manual attack — Type "attack" to trigger combat manually. Works the same as auto-attack (hits all enemies on your square) but lets you initiate combat on your terms.

Combat Log (Damage Review)

Per-round combat narration scrolls past on a voice device, so a player asking "how much am I actually dealing and taking" has no way to review it after the fact. Two things answer that:

• Per-round readout — every combat round already narrates the damage you dealt (the rolled-up player-attack line) and the damage you took ("You took N damage this round. You have M health remaining."). This stays concise by design: one rolled-up line per round, never one line per hit.
• On-request recap — say combat log or what happened any time in Darkness Falls to hear a recap of your most recent rounds: how much damage you dealt, how much you took, and how many enemies you defeated, newest first. The recap is capped to the last few rounds so it never becomes a wall of speech. Before your first fight it simply tells you the command exists.

Status Effects

Damage Over Time

Effect	Behavior
Poison	Poison damage per turn
Burning	Increasing fire damage per turn
Bleeding	Physical damage over time
Acid	Damage + armor reduction

Stat Modifications

Effect	Magnitude	Type
Blessed	+25% all stats	Buff
Cursed	-25% all stats	Debuff
Haste	+50% attack speed	Buff
Slow	-50% movement/attack speed	Debuff
Strength/Agility/Intelligence Boost	Temporary increase	Buff
Strength/Agility/Intelligence Penalty	Temporary decrease	Debuff

Special Conditions

Effect	Behavior	Type
Frozen	Cannot move or attack	Debuff
Stunned	Skip next turn	Debuff
Invisible	Cannot be targeted	Buff
Regeneration	Heal each turn	Buff
Shield	Absorb incoming damage	Buff
Vulnerable	Increased damage taken	Debuff
Resistant	Reduced damage taken	Buff

Status Effect Implementation Status

Canonical spec: status-effects.md covers the full overhaul — consumer wiring, stacking elemental builds, enemy debuffs, ground effects, and the SHORT voice rollup. The notes below describe the pre-overhaul state.

The status-effect framework ( apply/process/expire, ticked every combat round by ) is live for the four effects current gear abilities actually produce: Stunned (Stun Blow), Bleeding (Bleed Strike), Vulnerable (Armor Crush), and an Armor buff (Fortify). canCharacterAct gates turns on Frozen/Stunned.

The remaining appliers in (Freeze, Invisibility, Resistance, Magic-Find, Gold-Find, Experience, Critical boosts) and the random buff/debuff dispatchers are framework extension points with no current producer — retained for future gear/powers, deliberately not deleted.

Known gap: stat-modification effects (Vulnerable, Resistant, Blessed/Cursed debuffs, the boosts) are added to a character's effect list, but is never consulted by the damage/loot formulas, so these effects currently have no numeric impact. Wiring getEffectiveStat into combat is a balance change that needs design sign-off before implementation.

Combat Modifiers

Effect	Type
Critical Boost	Increased crit chance
Armor Boost / Armor Reduction	Armor changes
Damage Boost / Damage Reduction	Damage changes

Utility Effects

Effect	Type
Magic Find	Increased magic item drops
Gold Find	Increased gold drops
Experience Boost	Increased XP gained

Death & Resurrection

Characters have three states: Alive, Downed, and Dead.

• Downed: You cannot act (move, attack, use items). This happens when you fall in a zone your party shares and an ally is there with you. An ally on your square can say resurrect and your name, and you rise on your next turn with just over a third of your health. Say return to hideout at any time to recover instead.
• Dead: You respawn at your hideout with an XP penalty. The zone you fell in rolls its enemies again, so the way back in does not lead to the pack that killed you. Endgame zones keep their encounter.
• After teleporting back: A brief grace period gives you one safe turn to orient yourself before enemies attack.

Warband System

A Warband is a persistent social group that provides passive combat bonuses scaling with the warband's level, up to 25% maximum.

Combat Bonuses

Perk	Effect	Unlock Level	Max
Damage Bonus	Increases all damage dealt in combat	Level 1	+25%
Healing Bonus	Increases all healing received	Level 1	+25%
Bonus Revive Charges	Extra charges to resurrect downed party members	Level 4	Varies
Shared Waypoints	Party members can use each other's zone checkpoints	Level 4	—
Rare Drop Bonus	Increases rare item drop rates	Level 7	Varies

Warband Experience

Every time you earn XP from combat, your warband automatically receives 10% of your XP gain. Warband XP accumulates separately and levels up the warband, unlocking stronger bonuses for all members.

Bonus Scaling

Damage and healing bonuses grow at 1% per warband level, capped at 25%.

AOE Ability Damage Scaling

AOE abilities deal a percentage of the player's base attack damage (flat multiplier, not a percentage-based reduction). The damage is calculated by copying the player's basic attack stats and applying the multiplier to the relevant damage type.

AOE Ability Reference

Ability	Shape	Range	Damage %	Element	Trigger
Fire Nova	1-tile radius (square)	1	70% of base	Fire	Every 10 attacks
Chaos Nova	1-tile radius (square)	1	70% of base	Chaos	Every 10 attacks
Storm of Blades	1-tile radius (square)	1	70% of base	Physical	Every 10 attacks
Cone of Ice	Cone (facing direction)	4	50% of base	Ice	Every 10 attacks
Lightning Strike	2-tile radius (square)	2	50% of base	Lightning	Every 10 attacks

Damage scaling is flat: A 70% Nova takes the player's base attack damage values, multiplies them by 0.7, then runs the result through the standard damage pipeline (hit check, defense, armor, crit). Each enemy in the AOE is attacked independently.

AOE Shape Types

Shape	Behavior
SQUARE_ON_CHARACTER	All squares within N tiles of the player (uses enemySquares())
CONE_FROM_CHARACTER	Squares in the player's facing direction, expanding diagonally at range > 1
LINE_FROM_CHARACTER	Straight line of N squares in the player's facing direction

Cone implementation: At distance 1, only the forward square. At distance 2+, adds diagonal squares to the left and right of the main line (e.g., facing North also hits NE and NW at range 2+).

Skill Gem Trigger & Chain Mechanics

Skill gems activate automatically during combat based on the player's cumulative attack count. They do NOT chain off each other — each gem independently checks currentAttackCount % triggerFrequency == 0.

Trigger Frequencies

Gem Category	Frequency	Examples
Attack Skill	Every 6 attacks	Knock Back, Sneak Attack, Strafe Attack, Enhanced Accuracy, Overpower, Fire/Ice/Lightning/Chaos Blast
AOE Skill	Every 10 attacks	Fire Nova, Cone of Ice, Lightning Strike, Chaos Nova, Storm of Blades
Magic Skill	Every 13 attacks	Arcane Damage (+30% all damage types)
Star Map Basic	Every 2 attacks	Fire/Ice/Lightning/Chaos/Physical Attack (+20% damage)
Star Map Super	Every 7 attacks	Fire/Ice/Lightning/Chaos Super Attack (+40% damage)
Star Map Ultimate	Every 14 attacks	Super Attack (+100% damage to all types)

How Multiple Gems Interact

• All equipment slots are checked every attack (10 gear slots + 5 skill slots + star map points)
• Multiple gems can trigger on the same attack — if attack #42 triggers both an AOE gem (42 % 10 == 0 is false, skip) and an attack gem (42 % 6 == 0, fires), both execute
• No chaining/proc mechanics: Gem A triggering does NOT count as an "attack" for Gem B. Only player-initiated attacks increment the counter.
• Custom frequency: If an item property has howOftenSwings set, that overrides the default frequency
• Attack count 0 is skipped: The first attack (count 0) never triggers any gems

Attack Skill Gem Effects

Gem	Mechanic	Damage
Knock Back	Hit + push enemy back 1 square	1.0x physical
Sneak Attack	Teleport behind enemy + back attack	1.5x physical (back bonus)
Strafe Attack	Move to enemy's side + flank attack	1.25x physical (side bonus)
Enhanced Accuracy	+30% accuracy for this attack	1.0x (base damage)
Overpower	+30% physical damage for this attack	1.3x physical
Elemental Blast	+30% elemental damage for this attack	1.3x (fire/ice/lightning/chaos)

Zone Modifier Effective Level Formula

In endgame zones (level 100-150), modifiers do NOT change the zone's effective level directly. Instead, they apply percentage bonuses to enemy HP and damage on top of the level-based scaling. The effective level determines base scaling; modifiers add flat percentage bonuses on top.

Endgame Scaling Table

Standard endgame zones use these breakpoints. Abyssal Rift tiers 11-20 extend the same scaling curve beyond level 150 (see endgame.md § Rift Tier Scaling).

Zone Level	Enemy HP %	Enemy Damage %	Loot %
100	100%	100%	100%
110	150%	130%	150%
120	200%	160%	200%
130	275%	200%	275%
140	375%	250%	375%
150	500%	300%	500%
160 (rift t10-12)	650%	340%	650%
175 (rift t13-15)	900%	400%	900%
200 (rift t16-18)	1300%	480%	1300%
220 (rift t19-20)	1700%	550%	1700%

Levels between breakpoints are linearly interpolated. The rift extension rows are the design-side scaling target; standard (non-rift) zones still cap at level 150.

Modifier Stat Bonuses (Additive on Top of Level Scaling)

Modifier	HP Bonus	Damage Bonus	Loot Bonus
Empowered	+25%	+0%	+15%
Frenzied	+0%	+20%	+15%
Endless	+0%	+0%	+25%
Cursed	+0%	+0%	+20%
Nightmare	+0%	+0%	+10%
Bloodlust	+0%	+0%	+30%
Void-Touched	+0%	+0%	+20%
Death's Door	+0%	+0%	+40%

Combined Formula

totalHpPercent = levelScaling.hpPercent + SUM(modifier.hpBonusPercent)
totalDmgPercent = levelScaling.damagePercent + SUM(modifier.damageBonusPercent)
totalLootPercent = levelScaling.lootPercent + SUM(modifier.lootBonusPercent)

enemyHP = percentOf(totalHpPercent, baseHP)
enemyDamage = percentOf(totalDmgPercent, baseDamage)

All 8 Modifiers on World's End (Level 150)

HP:     500% (level) + 25% (Empowered) = 525%
Damage: 300% (level) + 20% (Frenzied)  = 320%
Loot:   500% (level) + 175% (all mods)  = 675%

Plus gameplay effects: enemies respawn (Endless), healing -20% (Cursed), visibility -2 (Nightmare), enemy lifesteal 10% (Bloodlust), 5% random teleport (Void-Touched), no potion recharge (Death's Door).

Modifier Gameplay Effects

Implementation status (Wave 4 SHIPPED 2026-07-28): Death's Door + HP/damage/loot scaling remain live. Nightmare (sight −2), Bloodlust (10% enemy heal), Cursed (heal ×0.8 on potion/mend), Void-Touched (5% move teleport), and Endless (respawn before corpse sweep) are wired via DarknessFallsZoneModifierEffects on the real paths. Proof: JUnit + scenario 3017.

Modifier	Mechanic	Constants
Cursed	Healing multiplied by 80% (= -20%)	CURSED_HEALING_REDUCTION_PERCENT = 80
Nightmare	Sight distance reduced by 2 squares (min 1)	NIGHTMARE_SIGHT_REDUCTION = 2
Bloodlust	Enemy heals 10% of damage dealt	BLOODLUST_HEAL_PERCENT = 10
Void-Touched	5% chance (500/10000) per movement to random teleport	VOID_TOUCHED_TELEPORT_CHANCE = 500
Endless	Enemies respawn 30 seconds after death	getEndlessRespawnDelayMs() = 30_000
Death's Door	canRechargePotions() returns false	Boolean check

Combat Damage Cap

A per-round damage cap trims the enemy damage of a round the player survives:

maxDamagePerRound = 65% of player's max HP

Death is decided first, in the enemy attack phase, on the round's raw damage: in a zone above the player's level, a round whose raw damage takes the player to 0 health kills them, from full health too, and the death return runs. Resistant, Shield, Guard and then the cap act afterwards on a round the player survived. A survived round over the cap is reduced to it, never below 1 health, and the player hears it in words: "Your resolve absorbs N damage of the onslaught. You have M of X health." is the value, and pins the order; scenario_tests 1385 and 2341 pin a one-round death from full health ending at the hideout.

A level-matched zone never kills in one round. In a zone at or below the player's level, the death check holds the cap: when a round's raw damage would take the player to 0, a player who began the round above 65 percent of their health is left at the cap's floor (their round-start health less 65 percent of their maximum) instead of dying, so a player at full health there is never killed by one round. One who began the round lower can still fall. The round's starting health rides the request (GameBasicProperties.darknessFallsHitPointsAtRoundStart, set around the enemy phase), and is the one place it is read; pins it.

A zone above the player's level keeps death first on raw damage. Deciding death after the modifiers and the cap there too would make a player at full health unkillable in one round anywhere; that wider order is an open balance decision for the owner, not the current behaviour.

The cap does not keep an early zone under the game-balance death rule. The early-zone deaths come from the length of a fight against a pack of ten or more, not from one round: replays the recorded fights of TREVMARCH_SEWERS, FOREST_PATH and TREVMARCH_CITY and pins that the cap leaves each over the rule. Pack size and the zone-entry buffer are the levers, in game-balance.md § Healthy Ranges.