Combat is taken in turns. When entering combat, the person who initiated the fight gets the first turn.
When it is your turn, you get a choice to do a couple things:
-Attack
-Use item (includes throwing, and changing your equipped weapon)
-Move
-Pray (call for help from any god you know)
-Beg for forgiveness
-Run Away
When attacking, a 1d6 is rolled to see how damaging your attack is. The number rolled is how much damage you did in that one attack. If you get lucky and roll a 6, you get a "lucky blow" and a certain number of good things happen:
+The gusto of your attack allows you to try to combo, and another 1d6 is rolled automatically.
+If holding a weapon, that weapon's special is activated, depends on the type of weapon.
+If holding a magic or special weapon, any effects tied to that specific weapon also activate.
+You will ALWAYS do atleast 1 damage, even if the defender's armor points would ordinarily negate the damage.
By a "Weapon's special", I mean that any of the below will occur if you attack holding that weapon:
Knives: That weapons attack modifier is doubled for that attack.
Swords: Overall damage is doubled.
Spear: Opponent's armor is ignored
Hammer/Club: The Opponent's armor is reduced by 2, and a 50/50 chance to stun is given.
Axe: Attack modifier is quadrupled for that attack, cannot combo.
Thrown/missile weapons: cannot combo.
Keep in mind that it IS possible to use improvised weapons, if you wish to use an improvised weapon, tell me, and I'll make up some stats for your weapon-of-choice. However, Improvised thrown weapons, because they are not designed for being thrown, will have their roll cut in half, rounding down. Small items (like coins or pebbles) will have no effect whatsoever.
Attached to any weapon is an attack modifier in the form of a number (+1, +5, etc). When you attack, this number is added to your roll to equal the strength of your attack. Certain characters can have what's call "Natural" attack modifiers, which is where their attack damage is effected by how naturally strong or weak that creature is, usually employed by children (-2 AM) or monsters that cannot use weapons (varies).
However, it is possible to wear armor, which has armor points (represented with 1+, 5+, etc). When somebody with armor is attacked, the attack strength is lowered depending on the amount of armor points that character has.
Let me give you two examples for everything I've discussed:
a thug with a +1 knife attacks a knight wearing +5 armor. The thug rolls a 2, and so in this instance (2 + 1 - 5 = -2) the thug deals NO damage whatsoever.
A Thug with a +1 knife attacks a knight wearing +5 armor. The thug rolls a 6 and gets a lucky blow! He comboes automatically and rolls a 3, so in this instance, each individual attack is counted (6 + 2 - 5 = 3 and 3 + 1 - 5 = -1) the thug deals 3 damage to the knight, and the knight now only has 17 hp left.
There are only 2 ranges when attacking, close-range, and far-range. You must be in close range to attack close range, and to attack anyone in far-range, you must use your turn to MOVE closer to them. If you wish to move out of attacking range, you can use your turn to MOVE further away.
The other options do exactly what they sound like, remember that using items creatively in combat is allowed, so long as it is feasible.
It is possible to for multiple players to gang up on one enemy, this is a very intelligent thing to do because enemies can only attack one player per turn. Multiple enemies can also gang up on you however, so be careful about where you start fights.
Combat is very dangerous, because hp is so easy to lose and so slow to get back, so it should only be used as a last resort. Don't dick around, I WILL Perma-kill your character if you get him killed.