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» (0) Quickstart
» (1) Introduction
» (2) Installation & setup
» (3) Creating a character & starting to play
» (4) The world
» (5) Item and flag details, elements
» (5.3a) Martial Arts, brands
» (6) Monster details
» (7) Character details
» (8) Tactics & strategy
» (9) Miscellanous

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(5.3) Slaying vs brands
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(5.3a) Martial Arts, brands                                                     
---------------------------
The "auto-retaliator" (see (4.1a)) also works if you fight bare-handed.

Training Martial Arts will give you (see (7.2) for details on these)...
-a bonus to-hit and to-dam.
-special combat moves which your character will use automatically.
 These moves do a lot of extra damage and often additionally stun or slow
 your opponent.
-special abilities and resistances (like Free Action, see (7.2) for details).
-extra speed and stealth bonus.
-extra AC bonus for each part of armour that is NOT worn.
 Increasing your Martial Arts skill lets you wear light and even medium armour
 and still benefit from its AC.
-a chance to grab your enemies to prevent them from casting or teleporting.
 (This chance adds to your interception skill.)
-extra attacks.

However, to use the full potential of martial arts you will need to take care
of several points..
-a very light backpack will give martial artists a small additional speed and
 stealth bonus. (No warning message here.)
-a very heavy backpack will nullify the abilities and resistances,
 as well as the speed and stealth bonus! You will see a red warning message,
 telling you about weight encumberment:
 "You can't move freely due to your backpack weight."
-using too heavy armour will cut your number of blows per round to half, and
 nullify your to-hit, to-dam, speed and stealth bonus from MA.
-using a melee or ranged weapon (except for boomerangs), or carrying a very
 heavy backpack will nullify the AC bonus from Martial Arts, and greatly
 reduce your number of blows per round.
-using a melee or ranged weapon (except for boomerangs) or a shield will
 nullify the special combat styles, reducing your damage.
-using a melee or ranged weapon (except for boomerangs) or a shield or wearing
 too heavy armour will reduce additional interception bonus gained from Martial
 Arts skill to zero.
-using a heavy shield, melee or ranged weapon will nullify your speed and
 stealth bonus.

The backpack weight limit includes the weight of your equipment and is
depending on your strength and Martial Arts skill. It is
10.0 lb + (str_wgt * 2.0 lb) + ((str_wgt + 5) * rounddown(skill * 0.1 lb)).

Here's a table to tell you the values for str_wgt:
(Warning message is: "You can't move freely due to your backpack weight.")

        str_wgt     STRength of             str_wgt     STRength of
                    the character                       the character
        -------------------------           -------------------------
        5           3                       16          14
        6           4                       17          15
        7           5                       18          16
        8           6                       19          17
        9           7                       20          18/00-18/09
        10          8                       22          18/10-18/19
        11          9                       24          18/20-18/29
        12          10                      26          18/30-18/39
        13          11                      28          18/40-18/49
        14          12                      30          18/50-18/220+
        15          13

The armour weight limit is 5.0 lb + Martial Arts skill level * 0.44 lb.
So for MA 50 it is 5.0 + 22.0 = 27.0 lb.
If your armour becomes too heavy, you will see this warning message:
"The weight of your armour strains your martial arts performance."


Here's a table, for those who prefer this view:

Equipment/inventory  | +hit/dam  abilities  styles  spd/stl  +AC  grab  blows
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Light backpack       |                                 +
Heavy backpack       |               0                 0      0           0
Heavy armour         |     0                           0           0     50%
Any melee weapon     |                        0               0    0      0
Any ranged weapon    |                        0               0    0      0
Any shield           |                        0                    0
Heavy shield/weapons |                                 0


Martial Arts special combat moves have certain dice, similar to normal
weapons. These dice are also effected by brands and slays same as normal
weapons but the additional damage is reduced to 1/3.
Example: Ring of Acid will usually add 1x your base damage.
For MA it will add 1/3 of your base damage, so multiply your base damage
by 1.33 instead of by 2 to get your total damage output.
See (5.3) to get an easy overview.

You cannot use special moves while stunned or confused.

Here is a list of Martial Arts special moves:
A move is picked randomly, then kept in mind if random(1..MA_Skill)>chance.
There are MA_Skill / 7 such tries to find moves, for each attack you perform.
The highest level move of those passing this random check will then be used.
If no eligible move was found in all tries, you will just hit without using a
special move. There is always at least 1 try to pick a move.

Move             |   Min.level   |   Chance  |   Damage dice |   Effects
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Punch                    1               0          1d4             -
Kick                     2               0          1d6             -
Strike                   3               0          1d7             -
Knee                     5               5          2d3         Stunning &
                                                               increase chance
                                                                to stun again
Elbow                    7               5          1d8             -
Butt                     9              10          2d5             -
Kick                    11              10          2d5         Slowing (PvM)
Uppercut                13              12          4d3         Stunning
Double-kick             16              15          4d4             -
Cat's Claw              20              20          6d3             -
Jump Kick               25              25          3d9         Stunning
Eagle's Claw            29              25          7d4             -
Circle Kick             33              30          4d9             -
Iron Fist               37              35          6d6         Stunning
Flying Kick             41              35          5d8             -
Dragon Fist             45              35          6d8         Stunning
Crushing Blow           48              35          8d7         Stunning
For winners, ie kings/queens only:
Titan's Fist            48              45          8d5         Stunning
Phoenix Claw            48              45          5d9         Slowing (PvM)


Depending on your MA skill, you have a fixed number of barehanded attacks
per round, independent of your character class, your strength or your
dexterity (unlike characters that use weapons):
(The attack number can be increased further by items like rings of extra
attacks or by magical influence like priest prayer 'Zeal'.)
Note that EA effects (like EA ring or Zeal prayer) won't work on characters
who fight barehanded without having Martial Arts skill at 1.000 or higher!

Martial Arts skill level        Attacks per round
-------------------------------------------------
             2                          2
            10                          3
            20                          4
            30                          5
            40                          6
            45                          7
            50                          8


Martial Arts users have a higher risk of being infected with Black Breath
from high undead monsters than weapon-users.
Also, they have a high risk of being badly cut if a monster uses a disarming
attack against them.
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(5.3) Slaying vs brands
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(5.4) Application of attack-affecting item mods