Combat and parties
A fighter holds the gate, a priest keeps the fighter standing and a mage casts from behind them.
Icesus parties fight in a formation, and every guild has something to bring to it.
How the formation works
How a fight plays out
Icesus is a text RPG, so a fight scrolls past as text. Your ordinary melee attacks continue on their own. What you decide is how to split your effort, which skills and spells to use, and when to get out.
Set your balance
Divide combat points between attack, defence and casting. Choose a fighting style you have trained: Warding favours survival; Berserk trades defence for harder, faster attacks.
Take the opening
Use your guild’s skills and spells and pick your target. Watch for momentum, a brief opening that lets you release a manoeuvre instantly. Casters get theirs as spell impulse.
Know when to leave
Watch health, magical reserves and endurance. Retreat takes time, and trained retreat skills help. A wimpy setting can start your escape when health falls too low.
Learn the controls in the combat guide.
The three-row formation
A formation has three rows and three columns. Whoever stands foremost in a column takes the regular melee attacks aimed down it, which covers the people behind.
If that front place empties, the next person in the column moves up to face the enemy.
Inside the formation
The soldier takes the hits
The soldier stands ahead of the mage in the centre column. Regular melee aimed down that column meets the soldier first.
Protection has limits
Spells and special attacks can still threaten the rear. Some trained flankers can strike from behind the front line against suitable foes.
Up to 15 members
A party can have up to 15 members, with nine formation places. Members outside the formation do not gain its melee protection. Minions can take a place, too.
What each guild brings
Your guild gives you ways to help the group, and your training, equipment and chosen abilities decide which of them you develop. The roles overlap, so build the party around the people you have.
Hold the line
Army soldiers bring weapon discipline and battlefield orders. Templars mix armed combat with elemental protection. Waterpriests can build around armour, shields, channeling and magical defence.
Keep everyone going
Airpriests restore health and treat lingering harm. Waterpriests can sanctify the ground and channel elemental mana, helping nearby companions recover magical reserves between demanding fights.
Find the weakness
Mages combine a spell’s shape with a damage type suited to the enemy. Infecti probe vulnerable minds, or turn to telekinetic force against creatures whose minds they cannot enter.
Change the odds
Coven curses weaken foes; dreamcraft can harm enemies or strengthen allies. Rangers add bow or blade pressure, with support such as Guided Aim and Barkskin.
Bring a companion
Earthpriests raise and sustain undead that join the formation. Sorcerers bind spirits into their sceptres, and the spirits lend power to their magic.
Make the opening count
Wilders commit to powerful opening blows and aggressive axe combat. Shadowdancers prepare concealed attacks, then follow through with martial techniques and poison. Agree on the first target.
Build up to a big hit
Monks build concentration for unarmed combinations. Firepriests prepare effects that their spear techniques release. Scions mix physical attacks with dark arts and prepare to harvest souls.
Fight as a pack
Gaesati turn animal movement into pack tactics. Some techniques enlist front-row companions in a coordinated attack; your form, position and surroundings shape what you can do.
Undead servants
An Earthpriest’s undead servant is a fighter you equip and develop, and it can stay with you into the next expedition.
Servants gain levels
Necromancy opens different undead forms, from walking dead and skeletons to powerful later servants. They earn experience and gain levels through fighting. Banishment can preserve some earned experience for a later servant of the same type.
Give it a place in the line
Some undead use weapons and armour. Prepare their equipment and choose a combat style before the fight. An invited servant can join its owner’s party and occupy a formation place.
Keeping one going
Maintaining a servant draws on the priest’s magical reserves, and running them dry can break control. Undead need restoration suited to their nature. If the owner leaves the party, the servant leaves with them.
Sorcerers work differently: their bound spirit lives in a sceptre and strengthens its owner’s magic.
Read about the EarthpriestsFights that need a party
Players call them EQ monsters: powerful foes worth killing for the gear they carry. Here are three of them and what each one does to a party.
Ghuatzskh
A green dragon that strips your magic.
The dragon’s breath fills the cavern with corrosive fumes. Ghuatzskh can also tear away your protections and stop the spells you were counting on.
- A breath that lingers
- Acid strikes several opponents and leaves a drifting fog that stays dangerous after the breath ends.
- Power stripped away
- Magical bursts remove protective effects. A temporary void of magic interrupts casting and prevents new spells in the lair.
- A company scattered
- A massive tail sweep can batter several fighters. The dragon can seize one combatant and throw them into another.
The party’s challenge Expect lingering damage, lost protections and interrupted casting, and plan how you will recover from them.
Ancient Behemoth
A thunder beast that swallows people whole.
The beast rears on its hind legs, one eye dull and the other burning red, with electricity running over its hide. Its breath is forked lightning, and a sweep of its tusks can throw a companion into its jaws.
- Forked lightning
- Lightning breath branches through the fight, threatening more than the warrior nearest its claws.
- A living thunderstorm
- The beast brings storms over the valley and calls lightning down from the sky, splitting it across nearby combatants.
- Swallowed whole
- A player can be hurled into its jaws and carried into its belly, separated from the party and exposed to continuing acid damage.
The party’s challenge The lightning reaches past the front line, and anyone can suddenly vanish into the beast’s belly, so the whole party needs protecting.
Neralath
A dark druid whose corrupted trees heal him.
A frail, hunched man stands in a defiled pine grove, drawing threads of power up from the ash. Once the fight starts, his allies take his place and corrupted trees feed strength back to him.
- A foe with a party
- Neralath calls Luctred into his own party, then withdraws into the adjoining grove while his servant takes over the fight.
- Roots of his power
- Corrupted treants rise in nearby parts of the woods. As they grow and fight, they channel healing back to their master.
- Corruption closes in
- His aura drains health and reserves. Corruptive energy can make the exits hurt to cross, adding a cost to retreat.
The party’s challenge Split your attention: while you fight the druid, treants elsewhere in the grove keep healing him.
Getting a party together
Start with a friend, or ask on the wanted channel and see who answers. Pick a leader, arrange the formation and agree on what you are going after.
Finding a group
Players looking for a group post on the
wantedchannel, for examplewanted party for fleets?. Meet up, create a party and invite them. An invitation is accepted withparty join.The leader
The leader guides members who are following and arranges the formation. You can stop or resume following. Leaders can appoint a vice-leader and save or restore the current party’s formation.
Talking in a fight
Use party speech to call targets, ask for healing and warn that you are running low. Check everyone’s health and reserves, notice missing companions and call a retreat before the front line breaks.
Sharing experience and loot
Players present at a kill share experience according to the party’s distribution;
party sharesestimates it. Dice and drawing lots help settle loot. At a bank,deposit all to partydivides coins into player members’ accounts.
Find a group in the game
Make a character and ask for a group on the wanted channel.