Daggerfall Mod:Daggerfall Unity/Bible/Combat Formula

Daggerfall Unity: Combat Formula

At the most basic level, Daggerfall Unity rolls from 1 to 100 on each attempted strike. If the attacker's to-hit score is higher than the roll between 1 and 100, the attack is successful, and damage is then accrued against the defender. This page details the various modifiers to the to-hit and damage formulae.

Note: The calculations here use integers, meaning that if division occurs, any resulting decimals are ignored.

To-Hit Formula

The attacker's to-hit score is a sum of the following elements:

• Weapon skill: The attacker's weapon skill is the start of the to-hit score. A player with 37 Axe skill, while wielding an axe, will begin with a to-hit score of 37.

• Weapon material modifier: Each weapon material has a specific modifier to the to-hit score. The modifier is as follows:
  • Iron: -10
  • Steel: 0
  • Silver: 0
  • Elven: 10
  • Dwarven: 20
  • Mithril: 30
  • Adamantium: 30
  • Ebony: 40
  • Orcish: 50
  • Daedric: 60

Therefore, a player wielding an Orcish weapon gains a +50 bonus to the to-hit score. Enemies that wield weapons also include their weapon's material as a factor in their to-hit rolls.

• Armor: The defender in an attack applies the armor bonus of the body part that is struck, multiplied by 5. If the right arm is targeted and it has an armor value of 17, a penalty of 85 will be applied to the to-hit formula on that strike.

• Agility: Agility grants a bonus or penalty to combat odds as follows: ((attacker's Agility - defender's Agility) / 10).

• Critical Strike: With each hit in combat, the attacker's Critical Strike skill competes against a 1-100 roll. If the Critical Strike skill is higher than the roll, a bonus of (Critical Strike/10) is added to the to-hit score.

• Luck: Luck grants a bonus or penalty to combat odds as follows: ((attacker's Luck - defender's Luck) / 10).

• Dodging: The defender's Dodging skill is factored as a penalty in the to-hit formula at a rate of (Dodging / 4).

• Adrenaline Rush: If the character's class has the Adrenaline Rush special advantage, the character will gain +5 to-hit bonus in combat, or +8 if the trait is enhanced by a magical item. This triggers when the character's health is at 12.5% of maximum or lower. This bonus applies to the character's offensive and defensive odds.

Damage

Damage is randomly rolled on each hit, the range being the weapon's listed damage in the inventory. The following modifiers apply.

NOTE: If for any reason the attacker's damage roll is calculated at zero or less, the attack will miss, even when the to-hit formula succeeds.

• Strength: The attacker's Strength score modifies successful hits by ((Strength - 50)/5) points.

• Phobia: With each successful hit against an enemy to whom you bear a phobia, a penalty equal to your character level in damage is applied to each hit. A level 4 character will do 4 less damage to undead creatures with each hit if the character has a phobia to undead.

• Bonus to Hit: With each successful hit against an enemy to whom you have a bonus to hit, a bonus equal to your character level in damage is applied to each hit. A level 7 character will apply a bonus of +7 damage to animals with each hit if the character has a bonus to hit animals.

• Skeletal Warrior: The skeletal warrior enemy suffers 1/2 damage from any weapon that is not a Blunt Weapon, and full damage from any Blunt Weapon. The skeletal warrior also takes double damage from any silver weapon.

To-Hit Formula and Damage

• Swing direction: The direction the player swings in will affect combat as follows:
  • Swing upwards: +10 to-hit, -4 damage
  • Swing side to side: +0 to-hit, +0 damage
  • Swing downwards: -10 to-hit, +4 damage
  • Swing diagonally: -5 to-hit, +2 damage

• Weapon expertise: If your class has a special advantage of expertise in a weapon type, it will benefit combat as follows:
  • To-hit bonus of (1x your character's level)
  • Damage bonus of (your character's level / 3)

• Racial benefits:
  • Redguards get a bonus to damage and to-hit odds of (level / 3) with melee weapons (but not unarmed attacks).
  • Dark Elves get a bonus to damage and to-hit odds of (level / 4) with melee weapons (but not unarmed attacks) and bows.
  • Wood Elves get a bonus to damage and to-hit odds of (level / 3) with bows.

• Backstabbing:
  • A character who attacks any enemy from behind will gain (Backstabbing skill x 1) bonus in the to-hit formula, even when the backstab itself fails and adds no damage. For example, a character with 50 Backstabbing skill will gain a bonus of +50 to-hit on any attack behind an enemy.
  • A successful backstab will multiply the attack's damage by 3.