Runemaster - Development Diary #5

Paradox released the fifth Development Diary for Runemaster on their forums. This time we get informaion on how combat attributes work in the game.

Runemaster - Development Diary 5 - The Combat Attributes

Welcome to developer diary 5 for Runemaster where we focus on combat attributes! As you should know by now, Runemaster will focus on your hero in the quests and on the main map - but when the battle starts, your hero will be moved from the world map and into a battlefield when you encounter enemies. The battles of Runemaster will be turn-based, tactical battles based on a hex grid system. There your Hero joins his/her army and take active part in combat as a unit on the battlefield. And there are several combat attributes that govern how well the character performs during combat.

There will absolutely be more dev diaries describing the combat system later, but for now we’ll give you a quick overview of the combat attributes that all units have:

•     Health
•     Armor
•     Melee damage
•     Melee piercing
•     Ranged damage
•     Ranged piercing
•     Range
•     Magic damage
•     Magic resistance
•     Terror
•     Discipline
•     Movement speed

Health controls how much damage a unit can take before being removed from the combat. Armor is used to prevent damage and piercing removes armor. Ranged units are usually weak in melee. Magic damage is used to control the effects of a lot of aggressive magical abilities and magic resistance protects against magic damage. Discipline makes units hold their ground longer before breaking and falling back on the battlefield and terror makes units break faster.

The system is built such that we can create different rock-paper-scissor scenarios where some units (such as units with high armor) are best countered with other types of units (units with high piercing).

Modders should be happy to know that traits and attributes are fully scriptable and there’s no limitation in the number and types of attributes. There are triggers and effects that manipulate attributes and traits that can be used to control quests and dialog.

So, that was a teaser on the combat attributes for your hero and units. We will definitely delve more in this subject further along the development, rest assure!