Editing Living (section)

= Fighting monsters = 

The combat system in Icesus is based on dividing your time between attacking, defending and casting spells. You do this by assigning combat points to each of these 3 categories with the 'battle'-command, eg 'battle -a attack'. Read 'help battle' and also 'battle help assign' for a more thorough explanation. One of the things which most often confuse beginners is starting a battle and finding that they aren't hitting their opponent at all. This probably means you have assigned all points to defence and/or casting. Check it with 'battle' and reassign some to attack, and you'll start hitting. You really should read 'help combat' for a detailed explanation of the combat-system in Icesus.

If you are a spellcaster and want to use offensive spells to kill a monster, you will want to read 'help magic'. Spells are cast with the 'cast'-command. Other spellcaster than mages have mostly single-type spells, so they can cast them with 'cast <spell> at <target>'. Mages' spells consist of components which have to be studied separately, like "missile" and "fire". These are then combined to cast a spell, eg 'cast missile of fire at <target>'.

Before you start a fight, it is a good idea to set your wimpy-level with the 'wimpy'-command. This will make you automatically flee from an opponent if you take too much damage. How much "too much" is depends on how high you have set you wimpy-level. Also, it helps to set monitoring on by typing 'mon on', so that you see when your hit points decrease in the fight. Read 'help mon' and 'help settings' if you want to know more about the command.

During the fight, you will want to see how the monster's shape changes as you hit at it. Apart from looking at it, this can also be done with the 'shape'-command. Typing 'shape monster' will show you briefly the shape of it. Typing just 'shape' shows you the shape of any monster you are currently fighting. You can also do 'shape all' to show all attackers' shape, if you are fighting several monsters. There is a global alias 'x' defined for the 'shape'-command, meaning that typing 'x' has the same effect as typing 'shape'.

If you win the fight, there will usually be a corpse left by the dead monster. After you have taken what you want from it, you should 'dig grave' to bury the corpse, unless you skin it. Corpses left on the ground can turn into undeads, which can be very dangerous.