Fighting and wizards

Guards patrol and fight by stance; everyone else defends themselves, weakly, and flees or defends by stance.

Stances

• Passive: fights back only when attacked.
• Defensive: fights anything in its radius, anyone attacking a friendly nearby, and anything a player has just hit near it.
• Aggressive: the same, and chases a little past its radius.

Workers have their own stances: Flee (runs from danger toward home) and Defend (fights what comes close).

Keeping watch

Guards watch all round to their full sight (30 m), whichever way they face, and see the attacks coming at them. Other hirelings notice anything within 20 m in line of sight, and further off what's in front of them. Guards also join in on an enemy a player has just hit near them (within 30 m), so they help with what you're fighting.

A guard posted to a spot (a tower, a gate) stands watch there and walks back to its post after a fight. Archers hold fire when the shot is blocked; an archer or wizard following you with no clear shot for 10 seconds (round a crypt's corner, behind a wall) drops that target and carries on.

Blocking, parrying and dodging

• Blocking. A guard with a shield raises it just before a swing it saw coming lands, and turns into arrows, thrown rocks and spears flying at it. A well-timed block is a parry ("Parry!" pops up): it blocks with extra force and staggers the attacker, as yours does. A swing the guard didn't see coming lands, or gets a late block at best.
• Dodging. Any hireling in a fight (guards, archers, workers) rolls out of the way of a hit that would take more than a quarter of its health, or of an explosion: the player's roll, and the hit misses while it lasts. Only towards safe ground (no ledges, no deep water, nothing in the way), and not again straight away.
• Levels. Higher levels see more attacks coming, parry more often, dodge more often and roll again sooner. Level 1 sees about half of the attacks, parries a few and rolls again after 6 s; level 8 sees nearly all, parries most and rolls again after 2 s. The numbers are in the data file's levels table (readChance, parryChance, dodgeChance, dodgeCooldown).

• How good they are is the server's choice: CombatSkill (Combat, server-synced) is one of four presets.

  • Off: the 0.5.0 fighting.
  • Green: they block and roll now and then; you still have to look after them.
  • Trained (default): the levels table as tested.
  • Veteran: they parry most swings and roll often.

  The preset scales the whole levels table, so higher levels stay better than lower ones.

Damage and healing

• How hard they hit. About like a player with the same weapon: their gear gets better with level, and the levels table's guardDamageMult adds a little on top (1.0 at level 1 to 1.3 at levels 7-8). GuardMeleeDamage, GuardRangedDamage and WizardDamage (Combat, server-synced) scale that; the default is 1, 0.5 halves it.
• Never on you. No hireling's hit hurts a player, whatever PvP is set to: a stray splash or a spell's blast landing by its target spares you.
• Healing. A hireling that hasn't been hit for 10 s heals 1% of its health every 2 s, a full heal in about 3.5 minutes. HealthRegen (Combat, server-synced) scales that: 0.5 is about 7 minutes, 0 means no healing of their own (only the game's slow trickle), and the maximum is 3.
• Something it can't hurt (a creature stuck in the ground, one that's immune): after 25 s of attacking with no effect it's left alone for a minute and the hireling picks another target.

Wizards

A wizard is a combat hireling (it counts against the board's combat cap) that fights with a staff's main spell:

• When: from a level 6 board, when the Mistlands and the Galdr table's staffs open up. With Therzie's Wizardry installed, from a level 2 board, as soon as Wizardry's first staff can be crafted in the Black Forest.
• How it fights: it casts from 10 to 22 m, one spell every 3 s (WizardAttackCooldown), and steps back from anything that gets within 8 m: strong at range, fragile up close. No sidearm and no shield; it dodges like everyone. Casting costs it nothing (no eitr bar). It takes stances, posts, orders and following like a guard or archer.

• Staffs by level:

  Level	With Wizardry	Without
  2	Evergrowth
  3	Wizardry's Swamp staff
  4	Wizardry's Mountain staff
  5	Wizardry's Plains staff
  6	Wizardry's Mistlands staff	Staff of Embers
  7	Dundr	Staff of Frost
  8	Dundr	Dundr

  Only the main attack is used: no conjured roots, meteors, healing or summons.

• Robes: Wizardry's Spellslinger robes and capes by biome; without it, Eitr-weave robes from level 6 and Embla robes at 7-8. Looks only: a hireling's armour comes from its level.

• What spells may hit: enemies only, never players, hirelings, tames or buildings. WizardSpellsHit (Combat) decides props: EnemiesOnly (default), or EnemiesAndTerrain to let a blast damage breakable props like bushes and barrels, as your own staff would (greydwarf nests, trees and rocks shrug off spells either way).
• Price: 1.5x the base hire fee and upkeep (guards and archers: 1.3x).
• If Wizardry is removed: wizards already hired stay and carry the vanilla staff for their level (the Staff of Embers below 6); new wizards then need a level 6 board.
• In the data file: the wizard's staffs (gear), robes (outfit, with cape) and unlock level, and the same again under withMods for Therzie.Wizardry, which applies while that mod is loaded. Any job can have withMods entries.