Frayed Knights 2 Combat, Actions, and Readiness

Posted by Rampant Coyote on October 8, 2015

The last time I talked about the combat system in Frayed Knights 2: The Khan of Wrath (for now, I’m keeping the “2”), I was still a little bit abstract, because it was still in development. I’ve been living with the more-or-less complete system for about a year now, and it’s pretty integral to the rest of the systems. In the upcoming weeks, I want to talk about some of the other systems, but with so much based on how combat works, it’s important that I explain that one first.

In testing, it’s proven pretty easy once players figure it out, but it’s a bit of a leap. I think that’s mainly because it is so different from most other RPGs. I may need to change some of how it’s presented, but the system underneath may only change by a few details. But while the UI artwork is not final, I included pictures of the game in progress as examples to help explain things. Here are the key points about combat in Frayed Knights 2:

• It’s a turn based system. Still.
• There is no strict initiative order. Once a character is “ready” enough to act, you can choose an action for them at any time. But…
• Characters have three levels of readiness, which increase as they are left idle.
• The game alternates turns between the player party and the enemy party in phases. However, that’s all “under the hood.” You may end up with one party having characters go two (or more) times in a row, if nobody is ready to act on the other side.
• Higher levels of readiness grant access to more complex (often not always more powerful or more preferred) actions
• A character’s fatigue,  and “slow” and “haste” effects determine how quickly they increase in readiness
• Nobody can act twice in a single turn unless they have a haste effect
• The turn ends when everyone who can act that turn in both groups have acted.

So why do it this way? The biggest reason is that it allows more tactical play. For example, a “buff” or “debuff” is a lot more useful if cast at the very beginning of  combat than at the end. You may want to try and cast ‘silence’ on an enemy caster BEFORE they have a chance to hit you with their most powerful spell. Or you may want to use than wand of fireballs to clear out the low-level “riff raff” before they get a chance to attack.  It puts the flexibility for combat more in the hands of the player.

And… muhahah… the AI.

So here are some examples to show combat in action. A fight begins! In this picture, Dirk has just taken an action. He doesn’t have a number by his portrait now, because he’s both not ready yet, and can’t take another action until next turn. But Chloe and Arianna are at readiness tier 1… ready to take basic actions. Benjamin, who was ready previously, is now up to readiness 2 – able to take more complicated actions at tier 2 (or the basic ones, too).

That slime should look familiar for players of the first game.

Benjamin is the default character the game auto-selects, since he has the highest readiness level.  That’s why his border is gold and there’s a little gold arrow pointing at his name (those indicators may not be final, and are in fact probably not). However, you can change which character acts just by clicking on their portrait.

Okay, we have Benjamin and Arianna attack, which leaves the swamp slime nearly dead.  Now, at each tier there’s a different attack and defend (brilliantly named Attack 1, Attack 2, and Attack 3, and so forth). At low level, the higher-tier versions of the actions are only marginally better than their lower-tier counterparts, but use more endurance. However, when we talk about skills in a future installment, we’ll talk about how they can become much, much more powerful as you level up.

Anyway, everyone has gone this turn but Chloe. When Benjamin attacked, her readiness went up to 2, and then after Arianna attacked, she went up to readiness 3. By saving her for last, she’s got access to all of her combat abilities. However, in this case, she’s using a tier 2 Action instead of a tier 3 (which you can see she has access to, on the blue menu). You can use a wand at readiness 2. In FK2, wands cast offensive spells. Scrolls cast defensive and utility spells, and can be used as a tier 1 action.

I should note here that since Dirk has been effectively idling this turn for the last three actions, if this combat was going to go to a second turn, he’d probably start the turn at readiness 3. However, Chloe’s wand sizzled the slime down to nothing, and so the combat only lasted a single turn.

After that, well, it’s time to loot. Somehow the slime left behind a bag of loot. I should probably prevent slimes and other unintelligent monsters from dropping bags of general loot, but that’s polish & balance. This is totally non-combat / action / readiness related, but I just wanted to post a loot screenshot. As a gamer, it’s one of my favorite parts of the game. 🙂

We’ll talk more about this stuff in a future post, but one of the loot items is a spellbook. Spellbooks are the main way you learn new spells in Frayed Knights 2. Since spells are mostly dynamically generated, there’s a potentially infinite number to learn. This particular one is a divine spell that makes an entire group of enemies go blind for 3 turns. I’m gonna suggest that’s probably overpowered for a level 4 spell. Again, polish & balance. However, at this level, none of the Frayed Knights can cast divine spells. As they level up, one of them might learn. Or they may have someone else in the party in the future who can use it. Or they can sell it.

Okay, so a few questions you might have:

How about non-combat? Outside of combat, you have access to all of your non-combat abilities all at once. There are no readiness levels.

Which side goes first? Depends on the encounter. In a surprise encounter, the surprised group all starts at 0 readiness and the group that did the surprise attack goes first. In standard encounters, everyone starts out at a level of readiness dependent on their Reflexes score (so Dirk usually goes first at this stage of the game), and it’s random with a bonus to the side with the character with the highest reflexes.

If a character is at readiness 3 and only uses a tier 1 action, do they recover more quickly next turn? Nope, the unused potential is wasted. Choose wisely.

How does fatigue figure into things? It slows the speed that a character progresses through readiness. Just like the Slow effect.

How do I change equipment in combat? Ah, the only equipment you can swap out in combat is hand-held items… weapons and shields. You do that by going to the inventory screen. It won’t even show you anything except weapons and shields (assuming you have any) in your party inventory in combat when you go there directly.

Have more questions? Let me know in the comments, and I’ll try my best to answer.

 

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