EFFORTPOST Darklands LP Ep IV: Introduction to Equipment & Combat

Darklands has sometimes been derided by its detractors as "the first RTWP game". Which is technically true, but its mechanics are (intentionally) quite different from Bioware just adapting D&D crap. Today we're going to start scratching the surface of the combat system.

I've been spending some time grinding, just going through the cycle of getting into fights with muggers, selling their stuff, healing, and going out for more. Every few times we win we can afford to buy a new item to equip our characters. Even more importantly, everyone is improving their weapon skills. They're increasing pretty rapidly since we're still at low levels. (Later on as they get closer to 100 they improve much more slowly.) Let's take a look at the current state of our party:

Sasha now has some javelins. These are useful for doing a little damage to the enemy as they advance toward you. Ideally I would equip everyone with some kind of ranged weapon but we can't afford that yet. Looking at her skills, her Edged Weapons ("WEdg") is up to 27, decent enough for dealing with street thugs. Her Thrown Weapons ("WThr") is only at 14 so she's going to need a lot more practice before she can reliably hit with those javelins.

Redactor's simple club has been replaced with a mace, which does slightly more damage and will penetrate the armor of anyone we're likely to encounter soon. His Impact Weapons skill is getting pretty formidable at 35. I am such a chad.

Yuna likewise has a mace now but is much less proficient with it.

Nathan has swapped out his short spear for a long spear which does slightly more damage. His Polearm Weapons skill is up to 30 so he should be fairly deadly with it now.

Notice that I've equipped everyone with a shield. These give a moderate advantage in avoiding being hit, about as good as having 15-20 more points in our weapon skill. They'll be more important later in the game for blocking arrows when we run into enemy archers.

Everyone still has a "light load". That means they can attack a little bit faster and they'll be better in certain situations like dodging traps. Later on we'll have to make some tough decisions about how to equip our people as only the strongest can effectively use the heaviest armor. But for now we can't afford much armor anyway so it's not an issue yet.

Let's go out and look for a fight now. You'll (hopefully) see how much better our party does with better skills and equipment.

Music for that same grove of trees at night.

So far these are very simple fights without much going on in the way of tactics yet. Things will get much more interesting later in the game as there's more interesting maps, more sophisticated weapons and armor, alchemy, and more dangerous enemies.

I have Sasha toss a javelin at one of the enemies but she misses.

Sasha and Yuna manage to take down one of them quickly.

Now that it's 4 vs. 3 we should make short work of them. A guy who is fighting two opponents at once is at a big disadvantage. Here Yuna whacks at a guy from behind him, distracting him so that Nathan can land a powerful blow. With the strength he puts behind his long spear he does tremendous damage and kills him. The fight is over shortly.

We pick up the two javelins that Sasha threw and the cheap armor and weapons from our dead opponents. Nathan and Sasha have been hurt slightly but are still quite ready to fight. This is way better than when we first started the game, when a single fight with these riffraff would make us run away to heal.

Sasha's Thrown Weapons skill increases. Those javelins might not be too useful yet but she's getting good practice with them.

After that I got in another fight and my people got some modest wounds. Nothing too serious, but as their strength gets worn down they don't fight as well, so I figure it's time to call it a night. We can't go back to the nuns to treat our wounds again because they won't just do charity work for you constantly. You've got to at least wait a couple months. So we'll go to the inn and settle down there for a while.

Thanks to Yuna, the best healer in our party, we are each able to regain 2 points of lost strength per day. Sasha isn't hurt so we'll have her just get a job to help pay our rent. Due to her Edged Weapons and Artifice skills she qualifies to be a swordsmith, earning 6pf/day. She could make more money if she was more skilled or we were in a bigger city, but in a bigger city we also would have to pay more in rent.

After a few days everyone is completely healed except for Nathan. Redactor can make 8pf/day as a craftsman because of my high int. Yuna's healing skills earn her 5pf/day.

Now that our party has at least the basic skills and equipment needed to survive low level fights, maybe next episode I'll leave the city and venture forth into the dangerous countryside.