When an attack is made, the game goes through the following sequence to determine what happens. Certain attributes for your Templars and enemies allow for special results during attacking or defending -- blocks, counters, and critical hits.
Hit/Dodge/Parry[ | ]
Main article: Attack and Defense
The attacker rolls a pool of Dice dependent on the weapon and talent; the defender rolls a pool dependent on whether the attack is ranged or melee. If the defender scores an equal number or more successes, the attack is dodged (ranged) or parried (melee). A parry may result in a Counter-attack.
Auto-Block[ | ]
Whenever a Templar is attacked in either melee or ranged, an Auto-Block percentage roll is made. All of your Auto-Block bonuses are added together, plus your Focus Attribute, into a final percentage and a D100 is rolled against it. If this roll is less than your final auto-block score, the hit is immediately blocked. In the case of a melee attack, you will perform a counter-attack, if possible.
With buffs and gear, your Auto-Block % cannot exceed 59%. Your Focus Attribute is always added to your Auto-Block last and is allowed to raise your Auto-Block above 59%, to a maximum of 75%.
Counter-Attack[ | ]
Main article: Counter-attack
Counter-attacks are melee attacks performed by defenders after surviving a melee attack. Counter attacks are only performed by Captains, Berserkers, Paladins, and melee-attacking foes such as Hunters and Skitterlings. Any defender can only execute two Counter-attacks per turn at maximum.
In melee, if the attacker misses or ties the defender in successes on the accuracy roll, the defender is allowed to make a counter-attack. If an attack is blocked, the defender is allowed to make a counter-attack, even if the attack was a ranged attack, as long as it was made from an adjacent square.
Even in the case of a hit in melee, an additional D100 roll is made against your Templar's Counter-attack percentage. If you roll less than your final Counter-attack % score, you make a Counter-attack immediately. Buffs, gear, weapons and Quickness may increase Counter-attack %.
Whenever a Counter-attack is made, the Templar uses their first Talent. For example, your Captain uses the Slash Talent. Therefore, improving Slash can make your counter-attack more powerful.
Damage roll[ | ]
When an attack hits, the attacker rolls damage. Physical (or "standard") damage is rolled on one big die, so in the example of 30-60 Damage, that is a D31 + 29 damage. Gear, skills, buffs or Talents that increase the standard physical damage dealt by a weapon, do so by raising the maximum range that may be rolled. Note that they do not increase the minimum damage range. Thus equipping Shatter shells (+18 damage) to the above weapon, and using a higher level Talent (+42 damage) raises the roll to D91+29 damage.
For non-standard damage (Fire, Plasma, Radiation, or Bio-Poison), the amount of damage is rolled as one big die, but this type of damage guarantees at least 30% damage. Therefore, if you cause 18 Fire damage with an attack, a D18 is rolled to determine the damage. However, by the 30% rule, the damage calculator will set the score to 6 if the die rolls lower than 6. All special damage is handled separately from standard damage and is soaked by Resistance and Res as opposed to Armor and Toughness. This means you have to deal with two sources of subtracting damage, but most foes have pretty low resistance.
Critical Hits[ | ]
Whenever an attack is successful (not dodged, parried, or blocked), all Critical % improvements are totaled. Your Critical % is also increased by your Tactics skill. A D100 is rolled against the final sum of Critical %. If the die is rolled under the Critical %, a Critical Hit is scored and the damage is massively increased. The damage increase is based on two damage multipliers for the attack type. The damage multiplication is done before armor soak is applied. The damage multiplication does not apply to special Damage Types, such as Fire or Plasma. Talents and equipment that add +X% to critical will raise the chance of a critical hit occurring, but will not enhance the damage multiplier.
All attack types have a pair of Attributes or Skills responsible for their damage multiplier. Melee attacks use Strength and Focus, Sniper Rifles use Stealth and Focus and all other ranged attacks use Quickness and Focus. Grenade attacks are unique, because they have two Attributes: Willpower, Focus, and one Skill: Grenades increasing the multiplier. Every point added to a damage multiplier stat increase Critical hit damage by 6%.
Example: A Scout with a Tactics skill of 2 (+2%), a Typhoon Scanner (+6%) and Syncro Sight Rifle (+15%) using Headshot level 6 (+22%), with 9 Stealth and 9 Focus. The base damage range is 49-78. The odds of a critical are 45%, with the damage dealt in the event of a critical being +108% (x2.08 in combat log). A roll of 77 scores a critical which is 77 x 2.08 = 160 after rounding.
Bio-Poison[ | ]
Needle Guns and Sidearms fire deadly metallic darts that deliver deadly toxic agents against their target. At the time of the attack, the Bio-Poison rating is rolled as special damage against the target and soaked by Resistance and Bio-Poison Res.
If the attack damages the target, the bio-agents are delivered. For three turns, at the end of their turn the target will suffer Bio-Poison damage equal to the attack's Bio-Poison rating, reduced as normal by their Resistance and Bio-Poison Res. If an enemy target is reduced to 0 HP by the residual damage of Bio-Poison, they die at the end of their turn.
Soak[ | ]
Main article: Damage and Soak
The amount of damage rolled is subject to being soaked before it's subtracted from the defender's hit points. Soak works like this: Half of the soak value is subtracted from the incoming damage. The other half is rolled as a single big die, and the die roll is further subtracted from the incoming damage.
Physical damage is soaked first by Armor, and then by Toughness. Armor soak is special in that it can be penetrated.
Special damage (Fire, Plasma, Radiation, or Bio-Poison) is soaked first by Resistance, and then by a type of Res specific to that damage type (e.g. Fire Res).