Stances, free blows, and stamina
Three things shape how you fight from blow to blow: your stance, the free blows some fighters get in, and the stamina that weapon feats spend. The rules of hitting and damage are on Combat.
Stances
Your fighting stance trades attack for defence. Press + for a more aggressive stance and -
for a more defensive one. The order is coward, defensive, neutral, aggressive, and it stops at
either end. Changing stance takes no time, and you keep it until you change it, even across a save:
“You take an aggressive stance.” You start neutral.
The status bar names your stance when it is not neutral, and the character screen always does. The game never shows what a stance adds. You feel it in the fight.
- Aggressive: you hit more often and harder, but are easier to hit. Weapon skill marks count for more, because you swing harder. Your miscasts are worse: 5 more on the total.
- Neutral: no effect.
- Defensive: you hit less often and less hard, but dodge better. You also parry a little better, unless your weapon already turns blows aside as well. Your miscasts are milder too: 5 off the total.
- Coward: you hit much less often and less hard, and your attacks take longer. But you dodge best, and stepping away from a hostile creature next to you is quicker and quieter.
- Frenzy: the berserker’s alone, and only while they rage. Flying into a rage puts you in it
at once, whatever your stance was.
+and-cannot take you out of it (“Your rage holds you in the frenzy.”). No other class, talent, item, or creature ever has it. You hit more often and harder than an aggressive fighter, at a greater cost to your guard, and stepping away from a foe beside you takes longer. Your miscasts are worse still: 10 more on the total. When the rage ends, however it ends, you drop into the aggressive stance, not the one you had before. The berserker’s Wild guard talent halves its cost to your Dodge.
A stance changes how long every attack takes: a blow, a shield bash, a kick, a shot, or a throw. It does not change reloading or kicking a door. Each attack takes the time it would as you begin it, so a rank of skill it earns you makes the next attack quicker, not that one.
What each stance gives and costs:
Dodge adds to your Defence on top of everything else. Parry only counts when it beats what your weapon already gives. Creatures do not take stances yet.
Free blows
Some fighters get a blow in for free, at no cost in time. Talents, class abilities, and the ranks of weapon skills and fighting styles teach them (see What a rank teaches).
- Cleave: when your attack kills, you strike another hostile creature next to you. It is the next one round from where your victim stood, going clockwise. This happens once per attack, or, with Great cleave, again after every cleave that kills.
- Retribution: the paladin’s, from level 25. When a hostile creature beside you lands a blow of its melee attack on you, you answer with your smite once the attack is over. It uses the smite’s dice, your Presence to hit, and the extra die on the unholy, and costs 4 zeal. With less zeal, or while you are not Kind or better (see Alignment), nothing happens. An attack it answers is not also riposted.
- Riposte: when your Parry turns a blow aside, you strike back once the attack is over. That is once per attack, however many of its blows you parried. Shots and throws are never riposted. While you are poised (the ascetic’s patient defence), you riposte whatever your talents, and a blow that misses because of your Dexterity or Dodge is answered too.
- Opportunist: a hostile creature that steps away from beside you is struck as it turns to go. It may not live to take the step. A creature that fights this way strikes you the same way when you step away from it.
- Gatekeeper: the Barghest’s gift (see The horoscope). A hostile creature that steps up beside you from out of your reach may take a blow as it comes, after its step. The chance depends on your stance: one time in 4 when neutral, twice that when aggressive, half that when defensive, a quarter as a coward, and every time in a frenzy (the Gatekeeper’s blow column of the stances table). Brace, a rank’s blow of the same kind, strikes every time, and so does a thief who lurks.
A free blow is a blow like any other. It can miss, wound, and kill, and it trains your weapon skill. It never brings another free blow, except a cleave after a cleave.
Stamina
Stamina is the breath a fighter has for weapon feats. It is a resource, shown as
Sta 7/12 on the status bar. Every warrior has it from
level 1 (Charge spends it). Anyone else,
of any class, gets it, full, from the first weapon rank
that teaches an active ability. Its maximum is
with talents adding on top (Deep lungs: +4). Toughness 14 (modifier +2) at level 1 gives 12. Toughness 18 (+4) at level 60 gives 20. Damage to your Toughness lowers it, as it lowers your hit points.
Stamina comes back a point every 12 seconds (2 base turns), while resting too, and half again as fast with Steady breathing. Spent, it sits at 0 and comes back. Creatures never have it.
A warrior with Battle rhythm (at level 40) also gets a point back for every melee blow of theirs that hits, and 1 more for every foe such a blow kills: a killing blow gives 2 in all. It never goes past the maximum. Shots, throws, and spells give none.
The active weapon abilities spend it (see What a rank teaches). Some talents make those abilities cheaper:
- Drillmaster (the warrior’s, at level 25) takes a point off every active’s cost.
- Armour-breaker takes 2 off Sunder’s and Gap shot’s cost (never below 1).
- Practised technique takes a quarter off their time (never below half the action’s).
See also: Surprise and sneak attacks, Abilities, and Ranged combat.