Welcome to Trident Games

  • Citadel’s combat system does not attempt to reinvent the wheel, but does try to bring together some of the best aspects of real-time RPG combat systems. Depending on your class, the way you develop or “spec” your merit points, and your choice of weapon setup, you’ll have a different suite of passive, active and reactive combat abilities to draw on. This is nothing new, but we’ve put it together with an aim towards keeping things fun and tactically rich without getting too complex, and giving you a broad choice of how you want your character to fight.

    This is the greater part of the reason we do not restrict armour or weapon types by class. Certainly classes, their merits and their abilities will suggest certain weapons, armour and stances. Additionally, some classes will find it harder to advance their skills with certain weapons than others. The bottom line though, is that if you want to be a sorcerous Invoker who gets about in plate armour and a sword and shield, we wouldn’t dare discourage you from doing so.

    Scimitar
    Weapons are the cornerstone of Citadel’s warfare and combat…

    Weapons

    We don’t have to create models, textures and animations for weapons, so there’s no excuse for us not to provide you with a dazzling arsenal of killing implements. And that’s what we’ve done.

    For melee you’ll be able to choose from, loot and create hundreds of weapons. These range from your basic daggers, swords, hammers and axes to exotic choices such as bladed staffs, scourges, mechanomantic blowtorches and the mind-twisting Astraic artifacts. A plethora of ranged weapons also awaits, from primitive bows and thrown weapons, to mystical focii, to black-powder firearms, crystal-lens death rays and other technological menaces.

    All of these different weapon types have their own “personality” and their own set of passive and reactive bonuses. These become more apparent as you develop your skill with a particular weapon type and at the highest levels grant extraordinary feats of mastery. For example, at high levels of Unarmed mastery (Your hands and feet are weapons too, you know), you gain passive abilities such as:

    • Body Shock: All your critical hits while unarmed have a 25% chance to paralyze your enemy for 3 seconds unless they make a resist versus pain.
    • Mind and Body: You gain a bonus to all stats while unarmed.
    • Throw To Win: Any time you dodge a melee attack from your target while unarmed, you have a 2% chance of knocking your target down unless they resist versus stun.
    • Resonance Wave: Your unarmed attacks have a 25% chance of ignoring protective armour. Additionally, your unarmed attacks deal quadruple damage to huge opponents such as giants and wyrms.

    Unarmed
    …but never underestimate the power and flexibility of unarmed martial arts.

    Armour

    We have four different categories of armour in Citadel (or three if you want to nitpick): Unarmoured, Light, Medium or Heavy. The categories are deliberately broad, as we wanted them to encompass a wide range of actual armours. Medium and Heavy armour also work a little differently to how you might expect.

    Unarmoured is our catch-all category for not wearing something which could be considered armour. It’s clothing, robes or just a little body paint and a cheesy grin. People who fight unarmoured will experience the greatest freedom of movement and ability to dodge incoming attacks.

    Light armour combines ease of movement with basic protection against attacks. In the Southern regions of Citadel, leather armour, reinforced cloths and very light chainmail can fall into this category. However, Light armour is much more prevalent in northern lands where the heat complicates the use of heavier gear, and long stretches of desert must often be traversed.

    Medium armour tends to be bulky, but not necessarily as encumbering as its heavy counterpart. Heavy furs, chainmails and other high-coverage armours normally fall into this category. Medium armour’s strength is its ability to reduce damage by a set amount, making it ideal against many low-damage attacks. In fact, it usually does this better than Heavy armour.

    Heavy armour, on the other hand, is designed to protect vital areas as much as possible, and mitigate high-damage attacks less frequently. This is because it grants a stat called Soak, which grants a reactive chance to mitigate critical hits into regular attacks, and sometimes regular hits into low-damage glancing hits.

    Stances

    One of the concepts Citadel brings to its combat is the idea of stances. These are fighting styles intended to complement a certain weapon setup. Here you will find distinct advantages to fighting with a sword in one hand and nothing in the other, as well as a dual-wield and double-wield martial techniques.

    Citadel provides a range of stances for both melee and ranged weapons, including:

    • Single Small (Assassin) - One small melee weapon such as a dagger or billyclub.
    • Shield and Melee (Defender) - Shield and just about anything else.
    • Large Melee (Brute) - Large chopping or bashing weapon. ROAR!
    • Reach Melee (Spearman) - Large piercing weapon such as a pike.
    • Double Melee (Prophet) - Double weapon such as a staff or amad-khai twin blade.
    • Dual Medium (Reaver) - Dual wielded medium melee weapons.
    • Range Hybrid (Raider) - A melee and ranged combination, such as saber and pistol.
    • Dual Ranged (Highwayman) - Dual ranged weapons such as shardlock pistols.

    Stances allow you to choose the way your character fights and defends themselves. The intent of them is to make many types of weapon combinations more valid and workable. If you wish your character to fight with a rapier, one hand raised behind their head, they can do that. There will even be advantages to fighting that way, compensating for the fact that you are not encumbered by a second weapon or a shield.

    Putting it all Together

    I have not even begun to list the many combinations and permutations of these weapons, armours and stances. The key idea of our combat skills system is to give players a great amount of freedom in choosing how they do battle, without getting bogged down in cookie-cutter “ideal” weapon setups for particular classes.

    This way, your choice of combat style need only suit your class, the way you’ve built your character and the way you play them.

    Tune in next week when we’ll take a slight diversion to look at the world of Citadel and the history of the Murnwold region (the area where you’ll be able to adventure in the initial release). We’ll also have a bit of a peek at the wilderness travel system. See you then!

Get new announcements about Citadel developments!
Please enter your email address:

Home