Some character abilities, such as buffs and debuffs, succeed no matter what. However, there are three types of abilities that can hit or miss depending on the circumstances: physical attacks, magical attacks, and status-inflicting abilities. The same mechanics listed below for player characters and their allies targeting enemies also apply to enemies targeting player characters or their allies. When you use any of these three kinds of abilities, you must always roll a 1d10 known as the hit die, whose result will determine whether or not the ability succeeds. If the ability in question targets multiple enemies, you only roll the hit die once, and use the resulting number to determine whether you hit and the base damage you deal against each one separately.
When you make a physical attack against an enemy or enemies, roll the hit die, subtract your Physical Accuracy from the result, and then add your opponent’s Evasion. If the resulting number is equal to a 7 or below, you hit and deal damage that reduces the target’s total HP. Otherwise, you miss and deal no damage. The base damage of the attack is equal to your Physical Attack minus the enemy’s Physical Defense plus the result of the hit die multiplied by any relevant damage modifiers.
When you make a magical attack against an enemy or enemies, roll the hit die, subtract your Magical Accuracy from the result, and then add your opponent’s Evasion. If the resulting number is equal to a 7 or below, you hit and deal damage that reduces the target’s total HP. Otherwise, you miss and deal no damage. The base damage of the attack is equal to your Magical Attack minus the enemy’s Magical Defense plus the result of the hit die multiplied by any relevant damage modifiers.
When you use a status-inflicting ability on an enemy, roll the hit die and subtract your Status Accuracy from the result. To determine whether or not each enemy is hit, add their Resistance to the result of your roll. If the result is equal to or below a 5, they gain the status you are attempting to inflict.
Sometimes, the total Evasion or Resistance of the target of an ability is great enough that there is no chance that the ability will hit them. For status-inflicting abilities, this means that they cannot be hit. For magical and physical, attacks, however, rolling a 1 will still lead to a hit. If the resulting damage would be 0, it is still 0.
The minimum amount of base damage you deal with an attack is 1. However, the base damage you deal is not equal to the final damage the enemy takes. Instead, the final damage they take is equal to the base damage of the attack multiplied by any relevant modifiers and then rounded to the nearest integer. When a character makes a magical attack against an opponent that has a Shell active, they do double damage. Likewise, when a character makes a physical attack against an opponent that does not have a Shell active, they also do double damage.
Some abilities, such as Cleave or Elemental Storm, will target multiple characters at once. When you make one of these attacks, you only roll the hit die once and subtract the corresponding accuracy bonus from it. However, to determine whether or not you hit each enemy and whether or not you deal damage if applicable, you should add each enemy’s Evasion or Resistance to your roll individually to determine whether or not each enemy is hit. For example, let’s say you have a Physical Accuracy of 3 and a Physical Attack of 2. You attack two enemies, and roll a 5 on your 1d10, meaning that your accuracy result is a 2 and your damage result is a 7. The first enemy has an Evasion of 6 and a Physical Defense of 1, so you miss against them. The second enemy has an Evasion of 2 and a Physical Defense of 3, so your attack hits them with a base damage of 4.
Every ability that you use has an ability type that specifies its target. They are as follows:
Instead of doing lethal damage, players may instead choose to nonlethally knock out their opponents. To do so, a player character must declare that they are executing an attack meant to knock an enemy out rather than kill. The damage of the attack, if it hits, is calculated as though they had rolled a 1 on their attack roll. If the enemy is downed, they will be temporarily incapacitated instead of killed.