New Class System

The Combat Diversity Project
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No single person should have the power to re-write any part of the game. Already this thread has received contributions from a handful of players – and the more of you who contribute the better!

Combat is stale. The only variety boils down to who can afford what – those who can afford it are all clones of each. So, this is an idea to introduce more diversity... two players with the same levels, same armour and weapon should have the potential to differ greatly!... depending on decisions they make before entering the battlefield! One player might prefer the dealer-tactic (fast but weak) whilst the other might have chosen the power-tactic (slow but powerful) – or better yet, one of them could have gone for the defence-tactic (average offence, but heavily defended).

Key terms, please understand them before continuing;
• Damage type: the basic damages types are melee, magic and ranged, but others exist.
• Class type: a class type defines/distinguishes classes therein (such as archetype classes).
• Class: a players chosen combat style, these are NOT locked.
• Profession: a profession, such as Warlock, is a sub-class. These use a tree-system.
• Magic: defines the nature of the subject, i.e. it look’s magical! This is not confined to a single skill.

Types, how the classes differ;
• Archetypes: the main-classes in RuneScape. Hybridding between archetypes is frowned upon.
• Paratypes: can function as a standalone class, but hybridding with archetypes isn’t discouraged.
• Lesser-types: some stand alone better, support classes are more merited in team-play.
• Subtypes: subtypes aren’t designed to stand alone. Players are recommended to have one.

Hybridding between the main-classes is nothing new – I’m not making up the “frowned upon”. Whilst melee-users might like being able to wear dragonhide, magic-users certainly don’t – just like melee didn’t like it back when magic could wear rune (only difference is that Jublex fixed that hybrid).

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Classifieds
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The following are the classes and their respective skills. The only combat-skills not listed below are Defence and Hitpoints, which are staples for any combatant. With the addition of Defence and Hitpoints, only the archetypes and paratypes would affect the combat level – lesser and sub-types do not.

Archetypes
• — Hunter (Hunter and Marksmanship)
|...........• —— Arbalest
|...........• —— Rogue
|...........• —— Marksman
• — Sorcerer (Sorcery and Mana)
|...........• —— Archmage
|...........• —— Arcanist/Elemenal
|...........• —— Warlock
• — Warrior (Attack and Strength)
|...........• —— Swordsman
|...........• —— Berserker
|...........• —— Guard
Paratypes
• — Paladin (Prayer)
|...........• —— Priest
|...........• —— Missionary
|...........• —— Mystic
• — Ghost (Larceny)
• — Scout (Agility)
• — Shaman (Zoanthropy)
Lesser-types
• — Engineer (Engineering)
• — Herbalist (Herblore)
• — Tinkerer (Tinkering)
• — Witch (Firecraft)
• — Wizard (Wizardry)
Sub-types
• — Chaos Druid (Demonology)
• — Druid (Summoning)
• — Necromancer (Necromancy)

Different classes fall into different strategic categories. The best thing to do would be to imagine a game of capture the flag – some players defend the castle from those attacking it, some hold the front line and some gather intelligence on the enemies movement and position (though, not so much in RuneScape at the moment).

Assault classes siege the enemy objective;
• Arbalest, Archmage and Swordsman

Offence classes hold the front line;
• Arcanist, Berserker, Missionary, Elemental, Priest and Shaman.

Defence classes defend the home objective;
• Engineer, Guard, Marksman, Missionary, Warlock and Tinkerer.

Recon classes provide intel to players;
• Rogue, Ghost and Scout.

Support classes provide aid to players;
• Engineer, Herbalist, Rogue, Tinkerer, Witch and Wizard.

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Archetypes
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• Attack and Strength control melee accuracy and power respectfully.
• Hunter and Marksmanship determine hunter skills and ranged power.
• Sorcery and Mana control your mental focus and will (your mind’s power).

Mana is the only new skill here, Marksmanship and Sorcery are just Ranged and Magic renamed. Your Mana level wouldn’t start afresh at level 1 – no-one’s that cruel – but it would reflect your current max-hit with Magic. If you’ve reached the 30 cap your Mana level will enable a max hit of level 30 with the respective spell.

Hunter would be split into two categories – one being its current, the second being stealth like. Learning to walk quietly; some rogue traits even enable invisibility and the ability to infiltrate other cloaked persons. An increased hunter level will decrease your aggro, and increase your field of vision. Marksmanship is purely the bow-mastering skill (oh, and projectile throwing).

Sorcery is only half of what Magic was – quite literally. Alchemy, enchantment, teleportation, curses and binds (excluding Ice spells) would be moved to the Wizardry skill. The Wizardry skill cannot damage – so any curses or binds that can, wouldn’t after this update. Players would be given the choice to keep one skill, either Sorcery or Wizardry, at their current level – with the other receiving 50% of the experience (free of charge).

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Hitpoints
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Hitpoints would either be removed entirely as a standalone skill and your hitpoints be determined solely by your combat level. Or, and probably less radical, your “Health” be exponentially related to your hitpoints level i.e. levelling from 20 to 21 hitpoints might mean going from 50 to 55 Health, and since the rate is exponential, at 99 Hitpoints you could be truly immune to weaklings (never being able the damage you enough to counter the rate you heal). A new, more diverse system needs players to be a live longer to truly appreciate it.

Food could heal a percentage rather than a constant; 14% rather than 14 hitpoints?

Defence
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At the moment Defence is an evasive skill - basically the damage formula takes your target's attack stat, minuses your defence stat, and then some other stuff... it's complicated but to put it simply your defence is a counter-accuracy skill. This system wouldn't change but your Agility and weight would replace what your Defence and Defensive stats currently control.

Defence and defensive stats, on the other hand, would receive a shiny new system that reduces the damage you receive. In addition to the red damage-splat would be a small shield-splat. The shield-splat will display how much damage you resisted; 9-red and 4-blue means your opponent hit 13 but you resisted 4 of it and took 9 damage. Passive magic defence would be removed in place of this generic system.

Prayer
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Prayer would receive an arsenal of prayerbooks related to our many gods. These prayerbooks would be available to all players regardless of the paladin professions. However, the Priest profession relates to these prayerbooks – with traits that adorn your personal affairs as well as those that allow you to share with your team.

Please see this thread for a suggestion regarding a Zamorak Prayerbook; 76-77-58-57420631.

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Meet the Classes
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Other classes listed above that might not be self-explanatory; Missionary, Mystic, Ghost, Scout, Shaman, Engineer, Herbalist, Tinkerer, Witch, Chaos Druid and Necromancer.

MISSIONARIES “convert” their enemy. There’s nothing funner than a little enemy-manipulation; controlling who they attack, where they go! Of course, your Prayer bonus-stat contributes some sort of passive immunity – but the weak willed will forever by disposable assets of the strong minded.

MYSTICS are healers! What better example than Team Fortress 2’s Medic! A Mystic need only make a connection with their target to heal them too and over their maximum health! And this is a passive connection – so long as you remain in a certain range it’ll sustain itself! Unfortunately, you cannot attack whilst healing. Mystics should make habit to carry off-hand weapons for the occasional defensive manoeuvre. One of Mysticism’s highest traits is the ability to resurrect a fallen fellow!

GHOSTS. Larceny replaces Thieving – but whoever wanted a skill for petty crimes anyway? We’re skilled pilfers! The main expansion comes from the Guild of Thieves – no heroes among thieves indeed. Within the guild, thieves are assigned tasks, similar to slayer, and missions (set in instances, like Temple Trekking only more criminal). As the thief advances through the ranks of larceny they unlock access to an arsenal of unique abilities and special training – which will improve their sleight of hand, and ability to disappear. Ghosts they became known as, and for good reason. Concealed weaponry attached to a firststrike ability, cloaking, a collection of spell scrolls – parchments containing magical like smokescreens, clone-illusions, etc – and remote view, giving the ghost an elusive projection that can move unseen across land, rivers and lakes (even through physical barriers). There is a limited range, and whilst in this form the ghost vulnerable and cannot interact.

SCOUTS make use of immense speed at the price of dyer offensive capabilities. A scout’s main objective is to scout-out the enemy and relay information back to their side. Whilst carrying a pretty weak punch, combined with the correct weaponry a scout can easily perform the hit-fallback tactic (hitting you then escaping before you retaliate).

ENGINEERS and TINKERERS build. Busy bees. Engies use metal and mechanics to create robotic devices such as automated sentry-guns, supply dispensers, and medic-droids; whilst Tinkerers use magic to animate essence and build mystical devices such as animated slingshots, bubble-shields and walking tick-bombs. Both could be separate standalone skills – but could also be attached to Smithing and Wizardry. Creations require constant maintenance to refuel, repair, load, fire, navigate, etc.

SHAMANS practice Zoanthropy – become one with the beast. Rather the spells, potions or pouches, this shape-shifting skill uses vessels – similar to the Monkey Greegree, and possible the Ring of Charos (eh?). Zoanthropy requires baiting a vessel (specific to the creature) with their remains in order to “attract” a numen (possessive spirit) into it. Trapping it. With greegrees the spirit is bound permanently by magic – whilst a vessel is only a temporary abode. Equipping or consuming the vessel will release the numen – first into you, triggering a transformation, where after it is expelled. The form itself uses the player’s levels, however the creatures “bonus stats” are influenced by the vessel – a bear’s vessel is claws, bronze would produce a weaker bear than rune.

HERBALISTS (also known as chemists) use Herblore – not only to benefit themselves, but to benefit their allies; throwing poison and explosive potions at their enemy; or burning incense to share the effects more globally. Non-tradable doesn’t mean you can’t be bought (or at least get that nice feeling for helping your team).

WITCHES are skilled in Firecraft, formally Firemaking. Through bizarre chemicals and concoctions on the fire with monstrous effects! Witches can achieve transformations, similar effects to herblore and prayer, and even summon sprites! This replaces the existing Magic skill for being the most versatile skill as there are no boundaries, but it’s unstable. There is even a Chaos spell that will ‘cause all those in the area to behave erratically – if you see them sweeping the floor or polishing your cauldron, you know it’s happened.

CHAOS DRUIDS study the profound discipline of Demonology – to manifest demonic entities. A demon is not born here, nor do they die here. Leaving behind ash, their skin burns up when making the dimensional warp – so there must be a physical item for them to manifest in. Without, the demon will manifest in dust – forming a skin-like hide. Demons are summoned on a grid, similar to Zoanthropy – the form is restricted by the Demonology level, whilst the skin is restriced by your skill levels. The lowest is the Pilot form, similar to imps, but if you have the level to give it a Rune bar to manifest (and the level IS required) you have yourself a high-levelled demon with potentially a low-level Demonology level; wood, Ash, Metal, Gemstones, etc.

Finally – the NECROMANCERS. They summon the dead as puppets to their will. Necromancy is the only means of summing/citing/resurrecting/prizing multiple followers – however, to use your lich you must enter a sort of trance-mode. In this trance you control the lich individually – controlling them like a Mobilizing Armies squadron! However, like a Ghost, their body is still vulnerable – which makes necromancy a difficult skill to master.

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Profession Trees
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Only four classes have professions – Hunter, Sorcerer, Warrior and Paladin, each with a total of three profession-paths. For Hunter, Sorcerer and Warrior these are effectively accuracy, power and defence, whereas the Paladin’s are very distinct sub-classes.

A player should see no difference between their character’s capability before and after – the professions themselves would only adorn your character (even if some traits have small penalties).

Profession Points, or PP, are gained as you level respective skills. Hunter, Sorcerer, Warrior and Paladin PP are independent of each other. Using Warrior as an example – you gain your first Warrior-PP at level 20 Attack or Strength (whichever reaches the specific level first). You will gain an additional point for level 21, 22 and so on (for Paladin, there is only one skill) – meaning a total of 79 Warrior-PP.

Exact dynamics would be determined by Jublex – what the game can actually handle as well as what works after hours of trial-and-error, and how unlocked traits function. Should there be something like the spellbooks from FunOrb’s Arcanists; you can’t use the mega-spells without the 5 lesser spells. This prevents you from stockpiling just the awesome ones and tackles hybridding (both archetypes and professions). You don’t want the ability to wield two-handed weapons with one hand (a possible berserker trait) with 1.5x passive damage resistance (a possible guard trait).

A traits cost in PP would be irrespective to its position on the tree. Some traits wouldn’t be that useful – but are required to get higher up in the Profession ladder.

Trees would be semi-locked – choices you make cannot be reversed at the click of a button. Rather, you can speak with specific Tutors/Mentors and have them reset your points so that you can reallocate them (whilst this could be free for the initial taster week, this process should cost something).

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Counterstrike
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Counterstrike means just that - to counter and to strike. Counterstrikes are combat-randoms. With every attack you receive there is, let's say, a 1/10 chance of spinning the counter-dice. This dice has many, many faces. For a new player, most of the faces are blank with only a couple of counters. As you level your agility and defence level it adds more counters to the dice - thus reducing your chances of nothing happening. Think the Ring of Wealth and the rare-drops table.

There are two types of counter - reverse and evade. Evade dodges the damage whilst reverse evades the damage and deals some back. A counter-attack won't roll the counter-dice - so no counter-countering. A further, "Reduce" face also appears on the dice. Your defence passively reduces damage with every attack; however, rolling a “Reduce” has our avatar perform a visual defensive animation and, for good measures, reduces an additional 25%.

Specifically, levelling defence adds more "reduce" faces to the dice, agility adds more "evade", and levelling both slowly adds more "reverse" counters. When you roll a counter the actual animation you perform is on shuffle – in that, there is a list of different animations determined by what combat style you’re using and what style you’re fighting; fancy sword-work against swords, conjuring little magical shields to absorb impact, thrusting your shield forward, or firing a well aimed shot to parry your opponent’s incoming projectile, etc. Counters are free in the sense it won’t cost you runes, arrows or damage breakable equipment.

Something for thought; should you need to be in-combat with the target to counter? Think multi-combat, or when you're just running through an area.

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Bonus Statistics
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The following chart is what each piece of armour should have stored against it.

Offensive Stats
• Melee - Stab +0; Slash +0; Crush +0; Strength +0;
• Magic - Focus +0; Psych +0; Banish +0; Farcast +0;
• Ranged - Pierce +0; Splice +0; Impact +0; Ranged +0;

Defensive Stats
• Melee - Stab +0; Slash +0; Crush +0;
• Magic - Focus +0; Psych +0; Banish +0;
• Ranged - Pierce +0; Splice +0; Impact +0;

Other Stats
• Prayer +0; Summoning +0; Weight 0kg.

The triangle;
• Melee armour: high melee and range defence, no magic defence, negative all but melee attack.
• Magic armour: high magic and melee defence, no range defence, negative all but magic attack.
• Range armour: high range and magic defence, no melee defence, negative all but range attack.

Information;
"Strength" is the basic power of a melee weapon; "Farcast" is the power of a magical projectile, and basic power of their melee-based weapons; and "Ranged" is the power-to-distance ratio (the higher the Ranged bonus the further you can be from the target and still hit at the same rate).

The "Farcast" is mainly to give sorcerers an indefinite maximum hit without overpowering them... just like melee is weak without a weapon (low strength bonus), magic would be weak without a weapon (low farcast bonus). High farcast can be obtained from staffs, wands, and possibly from magic armour. Spells would have a Farcast bonus, like Arrows have a Ranged bonus. A spells farcast is displayed in the spell info (their current max hit works).

For magical armour and weaponry, see Conjuring (76-77-448-57671393).

How the triangle would, and should already, work;
• Range uses projectiles to pierce a magician's armour, but fail to scratch melee's.
• Magic's spells and weapons to hit through melee armour, but are absorbed by hide.
• Melee uses blades to slice through ranges' hide, but cannot breach magic's magical defences.†

†coughs sarcastically.

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~Post 101~

I would like to encourage as much input as possible. No single person should have the power to re-write any part of the game, and I will credit input where room permits. The current thread already has a number of authors – and the more of you who contribute: the better!

.oOo. The Combat Diversity Project .oOo.
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Combat is stale. Yeah, I’m not just about fixing combat – the key themes are boring.

The only real variation boils down to who can afford what – those who can afford it are all clones of one another. Take two players with same levels, suit them up in the same equipment and give them the same armour – what does this fight come down to? Luck! I mean, Herblore and Prayer try to spice things up... but it’s not enough.

Firstly, we need new classes! Warrior, Magician and Archer? Yawn.

And how about some sort of tree-system? There needs to be ways a player can create some passive variation and a tree-system allows players to take different paths through their combat skills – so two players at the same level may be completely different: passively! One warrior could take the path of a swordsman and one the path of a guard; Professions I shall call them.

Every game has its terminology, and so do ideas. Please understand these before continuing;
• Damage types: melee, magic and ranged are damage types (not classes), though others exist.
• Classes: a players chosen combat style, these are NOT locked.
• Professions: a profession, such as Warlock, is a sub-class of Sorcery i.e. within the same skill.
• Magic: used to define something’s behaviour, e.g. “that is magical!”

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~Post 102~

.oOo. Classifieds .oOo.
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For conservation purposes: this post will also act as an index.

Classes themselves fall into four categories – archetypes, paratypes, subtypes and co-types.

Hybridding between the primary-archetypes – Archer, Sorcerer and Warrior – is still frowned upon. Whilst Warriors might like being the king of the hill in an Archer’s dragonhide: Magicians don’t, just like Warriors didn’t when Magicians were king of the hill wearing Rune. However, a hybrid between Paladin and the other classes is welcomed: if not encouraged!

The combat level will only be influenced by the archetypes, agility, defence and hitpoints.

Archetypes: staple classes. Players need at least one, trained archetype class;
• ??? —— Archer (Professions: Arbalest, Huntsman and Marskman)
• ??? —— Sorcerer (Professions: Archmage, Arcanist and Warlock)
• ??? —— Warrior (Professions: Swordsman, Barbarian and Guard)
• ??? —— Paladin (Professions: Priest, Missionary and Mystic)

Subtypes: recommended more for team-play, subtypes are predominantly support classes;
• ??? —— Engineer (aka Engie)
• ??? —— Herbalist (aka Chemist)
• ??? —— Pyro
• ??? —— Rogue (aka Assassin, aka Ghost)
• ??? —— Scout
• ??? —— Shaman
• ??? —— Tinkerer
• ??? —— Wizard (whilst not gender-specific, “Witch” is sometimes used to mean a female-wizard)

Co-types: more attributes than standalone aspects. Players are recommended to use one;
• ??? —— Chaos Druid
• ??? —— Druid
• ??? —— Necromancer

Other posts/aspects covered in the thread;
• 103 —— Capture the Flag (Strategy)
• 104-05 – Professions
• 106 —— Defence and Hitpoints
• 107 —— Bonus/Armour Stats
• 108 —— Counter-system
• 109 —— Accommodation (Death, Minimap, Wear, etc)
• 110 —— Conjuring and Smithing


Plus loads of reserves for your ideas!

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~Post 103~

.oOo. Capture the Flag .oOo.
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Different classes are better suited for different tactics.

Imagine Castle Wars, Soul Wars or a hypothetical capture the flag game. For intensive purposes it would probably be better just to imagine a hypothetical game as, in most cases, Castle Wars and Soul Wars is a loosely organised free-for-all. Trouble Brewing would be a good example, but it’s non-combat nature means it has specialised classes that aren’t relevant!

The main groups are assault and defence; those that siege the enemy objective, and those that defence the home object. This could be a flag, a player, a character, treasure... anything! As the game gets better a third group becomes more prominent – offence. Offence classes hold the front line – pushing and holding. The distinction between assault and offence, and offence and defence can be blurry at times – but what’ya gonna do?

Assault: siege the enemy objective;
• Arbalest, Archmage and Swordsman

Offence: hold the front line;
• Arcanist, Barbarian, Missionary, Priest and Shaman.

Defence: defence the home objective;
• Engineer, Guard, Marksman, Missionary, Warlock and Tinkerer.

There are two further groups; recon and support. These are more merited for larger teams and excess of a single one per team might actually penalise their abilities: but they’re always there. As hybridding is actively encouraged between most classes, you may find some recon/support abilities appearing in-battle even with no standalone users.

Recon classes gather/provide intelligence;
• Huntsman, Rogue and Scout.

Support classes provide aid to players;
• Engineer, Herbalist, Mystic, Huntsman, Tinkerer, Witch and Wizard.

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Contributions from: Dark Avorian and Wokdonka.

~Post 104~

.oOo. Professions – System .oOo.
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If you’ve never seen a tree-system before they basically detail a trail of inter-connected unlocks (higher unlocks require first purchasing the lower ones). Progressing up the tree/purchasing unlocks requires some form of points and you are usually limited to how many you have – which, for multiple tree systems, means you can’t maximise each tree. The unlocks can range from anything like new equipment (in war games, mostly) to power-ups.

Keywords;
• Profession: a single tree within the system,
• Trait: an unlock upon the tree.

All of the archetype classes have three professions. Professions provide means of stylising your avatar to suit your own personal combat strategy. At the moment attributes only exist in weapons – axes are slow and daggers are fast. These basic principles would pass onto the player.

For Archer, Sorcerer and Warrior these professions are fairly generic;
• Dealer: 3/3 Speed, 1/3 Power and 2/3 Defence.
• Brute: 1/3 Speed, 3/3 Power and 2/3 Defence.
• Tank: 2/3 Speed, 2/3 Power and 3/3 Defence.

...whilst Paladin’s are considerately less connected (both to the above, and each other).

This is explained in more depth later: but each of the primary-archetype classes is made up of TWO skills with the remaining archetype, Paladin, containing only one. These are Hunter and Marksmanship (Archer), Sorcery and Mana (Sorcery), Attack and Strength (Warrior), and Prayer.

The professions are;
• Archer: Arbalest, Huntsman and Marskman
• Sorcerer: Archmage, Arcanist and Warlock
• Warrior: Swordsman, Barbarian and Guard
• Paladin: Priest, Missionary and Mystic

In terms of an update players should see no difference between their character’s capability before and after – professions, or, their traits would only adorn your character from the basic template (even if some traits have small penalties).

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Contributions from: Dark Avorian and Wokdonka.

~Post 105~

.oOo. Professions – Traits .oOo.
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Profession Points, or PP, are gained as you level the class’ respective skills (or skill, in the case of Paladin). On top of that there are multiple types of profession point; Archer, Sorcerer, Warrior and Paladin PP are all independent of each other.

You gain your first profession point at the level 20 milestone for that archetype. Using Warrior as an example – you gain your first Warrior-PP at level 20 Attack OR Strength (whichever reaches the specific level first). You will then gain an additional PP for each further level-milestone. So: level 21, 22 and so on – meaning a total of 79 PP for each archetype.

If you choose to pursue a single tree it will take approximately 60 PP to complete with 19 spare to spend on the lower-levelled traits of the other trees. It should be noted that a traits cost in PP is irrespective to its position on the tree, and that some wouldn’t be that useful: only required to get higher up in the tree.

Exact dynamics would be determined by Jublex – what the game can actually handle as well as what works after hours of trial-and-error. A possible extension to this idea is that not all traits be active from the off-set. Something like the spellbook in FunOrb’s Arcanists; you only have a certain number of slots and you can’t use the mega-traits without a number of lesser-traits. The pros and cons might not favour this method – but this is more a Jublex-decision.

Spur-of-thought; you wouldn’t a barbarian and their ability to wield two one-handed weapons with a guard’s passive 1.5x damage resistance! Barbs aren’t suppose to have a wealthy defence!

Trees would be semi-locked. To reverse, you can speak with specific Tutors/Mentors and have them reset your points so that you can reallocate them (whilst this could be free for the initial taster week, this process should cost something).

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Contributions from: Dark Avorian and Wokdonka.

~Post 106~

.oOo. Defence and Hitpoints .oOo.
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A new, more diverse system needs players to be a live longer to truly appreciate it.

Agility, Defence, Hitpoints and Prayer are staples to a combatant, regardless of anything. Agility and Prayer have dedicated posts later in the thread: so this one’s for Defence and Hitpoints.

At the moment Defence is an evasive skill - basically the damage formula minuses your defence stat from your target’s attack stat (if they’re using a stab attack – stab attack minus stab defence, and so on). That’s not the entirety of the coding but that aside: your defence is a counter-accuracy skill. I’m not one to waste; this system wouldn't be given to Agility – controlled by your Agility level and weight. (no, this isn’t Agility’s dedicated post).

Defence and defensive stats, on the other hand, would receive a shiny new system that actively and passively reduces the damage you receive. Passive magic defence would be removed in place of this generic system. In the current environment a defensive player should be on par with an offensive player – defence keeping them alive doing steady damage, whilst the other player uses heavy damage to kill the foe before taking much damage.

In addition to the red damage-splat would be a small shield-splat. The shield-splat will display how much damage you resisted; 9-red and 4-blue means your opponent hit 13 but you resisted 4 and took 9-damage.

Your hitpoints level would no longer reflect the maximum damage you can take. Rather, a “health” value would be introduced that increases (exponentially) relative to your hitpoints level. Levelling from 20 to 21 hitpoints might mean going from 50 to 55 Health. Furthermore, at 99 Hitpoints you could be completely immune to weaklings: never being able the damage you enough to counter the rate you heal.

Food would heal a percentage rather than a constant; 14% rather than 14 hitpoints.

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~Post 107~

.oOo. Bonus Statistics .oOo.
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The following chart is what each piece of armour should have stored against it.

Offensive Stats
• Melee - Stab +0; Slash +0; Crush +0; Strength +0;
• Magic - Focus +0; Psych +0; Banish +0; Farcast +0;
• Ranged - Pierce +0; Splice +0; Impact +0; Ranged +0;

Defensive Stats
• Melee - Stab +0; Slash +0; Crush +0;
• Magic - Focus +0; Psych +0; Banish +0;
• Ranged - Pierce +0; Splice +0; Impact +0;

Other Stats
• Prayer +0; Summoning +0; Weight 0kg.

The triangle;
• Melee armour: high melee and range defence, no magic defence, negative all but melee attack.
• Magic armour: high magic and melee defence, no range defence, negative all but magic attack.
• Range armour: high range and magic defence, no melee defence, negative all but range attack.

Information;
"Strength" is the basic power of a melee weapon; "Farcast" is the power of a magical projectile, and basic power of their melee-based weapons; and "Ranged" is the power-to-distance ratio (the higher the Ranged bonus the further you can be from the target and still hit at the same rate).

The "Farcast" is mainly to give sorcerers an indefinite maximum hit without overpowering them... just like melee is weak without a weapon (low strength bonus), magic would be weak without a weapon (low farcast bonus). High farcast can be obtained from staffs, wands, and possibly from magic armour. Spells would have a Farcast bonus, like Arrows have a Ranged bonus. A spells farcast is displayed in the spell info (their current max hit works).

For magical armour and weaponry, see Conjuring (76-77-448-57671393).

How the triangle would, and should already, work;
• Range uses projectiles to pierce a magician's armour, but fail to scratch melee's.
• Magic's spells and weapons to hit through melee armour, but are absorbed by hide.
• Melee uses blades to slice through ranges' hide, but cannot breach magic's magical defences.†

†coughs sarcastically.

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~Post 108~

.oOo. Counterstrike .oOo.
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Counterstrike is a counter-system that further improves our defence.

Counters are combat-randoms. With every attack you receive there is, let's say, a 1/10 chance of spinning the counter-dice. This dice has many, many faces. For a new player, most of the faces are blank with only a couple of counters. As you level your agility and defence level it adds more counters to the dice - thus reducing your chances of nothing happening. Think the Ring of Wealth and the rare-drops table.

There are two types of counter - reverse and evade. Evade dodges the damage whilst reverse evades the damage and deals some back. A counter-attack won't roll the counter-dice - so no counter-countering. A further, "Reduce" face also appears on the dice. Your defence passively reduces damage with every attack; however, rolling a “Reduce” has our avatar perform a visual defensive animation and, for good measures, reduces an additional 25%.

Specifically, levelling defence adds more "reduce" faces to the dice, agility adds more "evade", and levelling both slowly adds more "reverse" counters. When you roll a counter the actual animation you perform is on shuffle – in that, there is a list of different animations determined by what combat style you’re using and what style you’re fighting; fancy sword-work against swords, conjuring little magical shields to absorb impact, thrusting your shield forward, or firing a well aimed shot to parry your opponent’s incoming projectile, etc. Counters are free in the sense it won’t cost you runes, arrows or damage breakable equipment.

Something for thought; should you need to be in-combat with the target to counter? Think multi-combat, or when you're just running through an area.

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