The Forest

The Battle Engine

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I. A small introduction

The way David and Lelani battled was turn based. This means that every member of the party can do select an act (which is carried out immediately) and when every member of the party has done an act the turn shifts and the next party can attack. There are two parties in TVF, Enemies and David&Lelani.

When you get attacked the you see numbers popping up on top of your screen. These numbers indicate the enemy level (right-left == top-down). For bosses the levels are unknown and thus harder to estimate if you can handle them.

When you attack an enemy there pops-up a small attack status bar on top of his head which notifies you of any specialities and damage you've dealed. I will address this bar as the Attack Status Bar (AS-Bar).

II. Acts

There are 3 different kinds of acts a character can carry out, and they can only do one act per turn. Different acts are;
1) Physical attack. This means you attack with a weapon. You can do this by selecting 'Attack' in the main battle menu and selecting the enemy you want to attack.
2) Spells. This is an act which only Lelani could carry out. There is one self spell (heal) and 12 damaging spells. To cast a spell, select 'Magic' in the main battle menu and select one of your spellbooks and pick a spell. You can gain more spellbooks and spells by fullfilling quests.
3) Item. You can let a character use an item. You can also let characters use items on other characters. Like Lelani gives David an apple.  

III. Weapons

This paragraph explains all about weapons and why different weapons hurt different enemies more or less.
Every equipment has a speciality and a type i.e. the Deadly Claymore where Claymore is the type of weapon and Deadly is it's speciality. Every enemy is sensitive for one type of speciality, hitting that enemy with that speciality will cause a doubling of the damage. When this happens you will notice 'Effect!' in the AS-bar. Below I have put a table of which type of speciality hurts which enemy.

Speciality Enemy
Normal No effectiveness. Damage stays the same.
Wizard's Extra effective against Sorcerrer and Sorcerres.
Hunter's Extra effective against Knight and Helmet.
Deadly Extra effective against Zomby and Skeleton Pirate.
Stone Extra effective against Dwarve and Evil Orb.
Dark Extra effective against Orc and Bat.
Broken Ouch...your weapon is broken. Raw damage is halfed.

There are also some weapons that are more effective against certain types of enemies. When you hit the enemies with their weakness weapon a certain amount of damage is added to your raw damage. Below I've put up a small table of which type of weapon is effective against which type of enemy.
 

Speciality Enemy Note in AS-Bar Extra Damage
Edged weapons Extra effective against Sorcerrer and Sorcerress.Slash! 20
Blunt weapons Extra effective against Zomby and Skeleton Pirate (anyone remember Diablo?).Holy! 23
Range weapons Extra effective against Bat.Pierce! 30

Aside from the effectiveness every weapon also belongs to a certain class. Since some weapons are stronger in their type then others. When you attack damage is multiplied by the weapon class of the weapon. Below is a table that shows all classes and weapons.

Edged Weapon Class
Dagger 1
Sword 2
Blade 3
Claymore 4

Blunt Weapon Class
Club 1
Mace 2
Axe 3
Hammer 4

Range Weapon Class
Sling 1
Bow 2
Battle Bow 3
War Bow 4

The final damage calculation formula looks like this:

Damage = (RawDamage*WeaponClass+ExtraDamage)*WeaponSpecialityModifier

Where WeaponSpecialityModifier is 1 or 2 depending on the effectiveness as explained above. Now go derive tactics for this game :).

IV. Armor 

In TVF armor is split up in two parts. The body armor and the shield. Just as with weapons this equipment also has speciality. But the effect of this speciality is exactly the reverse of the speciality of your weapon. Now, enemy damage get's halfed when his speciality matches your armor or shield speciality. So to know which armor is best against which type of enemy can be extracted from the weapon speciality table.

  • When your shield speciality matches the enemy speciality damage is multiplied by 0.75. When this happens 'Weak!' pops up in the AS-Bar.
  • When your body armor speciality matches the enemy speciality damage is multiplied by 0.75. When this happens 'Weak!' pops up in the AS-Bar.
  • When both your armor and shield are of the same speciality damage is multiplied by 0.56 (0.75*0.75 ;)) and 'Vain!' pops up in the AS-Bar.
  • When an armor-item is broken, damage is multiplied by 1.5.

There are five armor classes.
 
Shield Class
Buckler 0
S. Shield 1
Shield 2
Storm Shield 3
Gothic Shield 4

Body Armor Class
Rags 0
Robe 1
Armor 2
Mail 3
Plate 4

For damage calculation the classes of both your armor and shield are added up, multiplied by 16 and substracted from the damage. So you see it's uite usefull to get a high armor class. If you wear a Buckler and a Robe (0+1)*16 = 16 will be substracted from the damage an enemy deals.