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A Guide to Combat RP: How not to be a boring Edgelord

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Hello! I’m writing this guide to help newbies and long-running roleplayers alike have an understanding of how combat could be handled better.

Your Character and You:
To start somewhere easy, look at your own character. Understand your character’s personality, their skills, and the class they use. All of these things will affect how your character should act and react in battle. Once you understand these things, you’ll need to know what flaws your character will have. As an example, say you play a Self-praising Human Warrior. The personality of this person might cause them to slip up on their defense, leaving more openings to be attacked by their foe, but as a warrior, he might be more likely to quickly return the attack, taking an eye for an eye.

Do not be afraid to hint at your character’s faults in emotes, it makes the battles more interesting, and gives more opportunities for both characters to develop as a result.

 

How should you attack or defend?:

 

When emoting, you should always keep the opponent’s previous emote in mind. If your character is likely to be able to dodge a direct attack, like if they’re trained in movement-type skills (Monks, or other movement-based alternate classes are good examples), be descriptive about how your character manages to avoid the attack, and if you plan to counter, keep it within the boundaries of being a quick counter, as realistically, you probably wouldn’t have enough time to do more than a quick punch and make a retreat.

If your character is less likely to dodge, like if they wear heavy armor, or are simply out of shape, keep that in mind and consider blocking, if you have the equipment to block an attack.

Attacking should also be kept within your character’s means. Heavy armor and weapons will result in slower attacking speed, but might cause more damage to the opponent. Lighter armor or robes, matched with light weapons and staves, might offer quicker actions, but probably less damage.

Magic can be a useful tool in combat, but it comes with various down-sides as well. Most spells require time and concentration to properly execute, which can be difficult to find in solo combat. A skilled mage might be able to use quick offensive spells to distract their opponent for a moment to get some distance, maybe allowing for a more powerful spell to be cast while the opponent tries to recover and close the gap.
You should limit yourself on spell usage. Try to specialize in one type of Magic (Cryomancy, Pyromancy, Illusion, Aeromancy, etc). If you play a novice mage, understand large scale spells will likely be next to impossible for you, and if you play an archmage, it’s unlikely you’d be a master of every spell, but rather a master of a specific school of spells.

Side note for Mages: Magic use while running and dodging attacks should and likely will be taxing, leaving less energy for other possible moves. This is why mages are suited for better for combat across large-medium distances.

 

What you should not do:
-Do not complain OOC when an emote, in the proper circumstances, leaves you little room for reaction.

Example: Character A is not facing the opponent, Character B. Character B Takes advantage of this to punch Character A in the back of their head. Character A’s player goes into OOC, complaining about “OPRP” (overpowered roleplay, power emoting, godmodding, etc).

-Do not act Psychic and ‘sense’ a seemingly normal character creeping on you. Be realistic, you wouldn’t know someone is staring at you from an alley 50+ yards behind you. Apply this rule when a likely silent attack comes at you from behind, unless another character might alert you to it.

-Do not enact an OOC grudge by forcing combat or death scenarios on someone. Properly build up IC hostilities to escalate it to combat if you really must.

-If you are a DM observing the combat scenario to possibly have guards take notice of it ICly, it might be best to bring the guards in quietly before stepping in, rather than stepping in and telling the two combating characters to halt emotes to allow time to set up guard response and “Emote control”. This can quickly kill interest.

- Do not complain about an emote not stating it’s an attempt. There’s no reason to state the obvious. All emotes are attempts, but you should understand you should not be able to counter any and all circumstances.

- Don't write a multi-paragraph describing the exact movement of your muscles and hair and how light reflects of your blade/armor, ...

It's not as bad in 1v1 situation, but when DM has to read through 5 things like these it

1) takes long time to write and read

2) can really kill the mood



Playing your character as a super-powerful, omnipotent being might be fun for you for a few hours, but in the process you likely suck the fun out of other people’s RP when you insert yourself into it as that kind of character. You are likely not a god. You are likely not a Hero of Azeroth.

This is only a basic outline of what would be considered good combat RP and etiquette related to it. These are not hardlined rules, but rather suggestions. I hope someone finds this useful.

Edited by ScharlakenRose
Addition suggested by Vojtik added

find me on discord @Lehvie#1473

or just find me on a certain other server.
have fun boys

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*jumps tyhrough the universe and punches deathwing in the face like in the day deathwing came by the time he arrives at azeroth he has accumulatwed enough velocity to break the speed of light and inadverte3ntly tears a massive gaping hole in space time boson field in his wake, slowly destroying everything in the universe as he rapidly approaches. in one millinanomicronomicon second he is upon the great black dragon and with a singlke punch obliterates the dragon aspect into nothing but a rapid dispersing sublimation of atoms and matter*

((i rolled 100, you cant dodge this))

((if u void it ill report you))

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20 minutes ago, Grandmaster Pa said:

*jumps tyhrough the universe and punches deathwing in the face like in the day deathwing came by the time he arrives at azeroth he has accumulatwed enough velocity to break the speed of light and inadverte3ntly tears a massive gaping hole in space time boson field in his wake, slowly destroying everything in the universe as he rapidly approaches. in one millinanomicronomicon second he is upon the great black dragon and with a singlke punch obliterates the dragon aspect into nothing but a rapid dispersing sublimation of atoms and matter*

((i rolled 100, you cant dodge this))

((if u void it ill report you))

example of what not to do ;)


find me on discord @Lehvie#1473

or just find me on a certain other server.
have fun boys

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Another Don't do:

  • Don't write a multi-paragraph describing the exact movement of your muscles and hair and how light reflects of your blade/armor, ...

It's not as bad in 1v1 situation, but when DM has to read through 5 things like these it

  1.  takes long time to write and read
  2.  can really kill the mood

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14 minutes ago, Vojtik said:

Another Don't do:

  • Don't write a multi-paragraph describing the exact movement of your muscles and hair and how light reflects of your blade/armor, ...

It's not as bad in 1v1 situation, but when DM has to read through 5 things like these it

  1.  takes long time to write and read
  2.  can really kill the mood

Will add to the main post


find me on discord @Lehvie#1473

or just find me on a certain other server.
have fun boys

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A few notes to add :

 

1. Don't start a fight without any reason and KNOW your opponent's "POSSIBLE" strength, who know how a frilly looking mage can be a powerful opponent,

 

2. Retreating out of combat is not a COWARDLY way to go, you are escaping with your life to get stronger and fight another day, many take retreating as a failure to succeed and usually mocked OOC about it.

Allow your opponent that is weaker than you to retreat, you will do him a favor and you will feel more sure he won't strike you next time.

 

Also dabble in ending the fight in peaceful ways, do not just fight because your steroid nutsack tells you too, think that one or another don't want to die that day.

 

Remember kids : It's far better to take the self-shame to live another day than to die like a fool because you thought that elf called you stupid.


willy1.PNG2017-07-23 00.26.45.jpg

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" Try to specialize in one type of Magic (Cryomancy, Pyromancy, Illusion, Aeromancy, etc). "

 

Afraid what you call "cryomancy, pyromancy, aeromancy" are all based off of arcane and are created through the mage's will and skill to weave and shape magic. This is not retail WoW, where you have to pick a spec and play with it. Mages are known to combine the wholeness of their arsenal to its full potential -- which means spells from different schools. Of course, if you are but a novice, you will have a hard time. Otherwise, magic is powerful and should be feared. Mages have a lot going for them, from spells that can be made instant at a higher mana cost to other shenanigans (which can, in return, be countered if you/your character are smart).

 

Also, Highlander, if a character is evil or it makes sense for him/her/it to kill and murder, well, that's their exact reason. People shouldn't be dicks about it, no, but they should also keep in mind that actions have consequences and white knights aren't the only dominant 'race' around.

 

PRO TIP: greater invisiblity so you can cast spells while unseen gg ez plebs (roll a warmage)

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@Rhukz is kind of right on that one - "elementmancy" all falls into one school of magic (conjuration).

However there are different school of magic in which you can specialize f.e. One who mastered conjuration does not need to also be great at transmutation.

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actually all offensive spells are evocation, so fireballs frostball dickball, they are all evocation

 

And yeah. A good conjurer is not necessarily a good transmuter. Yet some schools of magic are really great when combined/used together and, as such, a mage would find that investing time into learning two schools of magic to their full potential will prove to be handy in the long run. Please don't abuse this and say that your mage is a master in all schools of magic, though.

Edited by Rhukz

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Nope they are Conjuration. Evocation are the mana manipulating, supporty kind of spells like Evocation, Presence of Mind, Rune of Power and such.

Not that it matters that much.

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I'm just saying though, most mages generally tend to specialize. Look at Jaina. She obviously focused on Arcane Water and Ice magic.


find me on discord @Lehvie#1473

or just find me on a certain other server.
have fun boys

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I'm fairly sure conjuration is just for summoning objects or extraplanar beings (elementals and other familiars of sort).

 

But irrelevant to the topic, yes.

 

EDIT: While Jaina may focus on water/ice, she is known to use (see books) other types of magic just as easily. It really doesn't matter whether it's fire, ice, lighting or earth. Mages can and will shape arcane into each element if they so desire. The only thing is ice and fire are more common due to being destructive and actually getting rid of enemies much easier.

Edited by Rhukz

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6 minutes ago, Rhukz said:

I'm fairly sure conjuration is just for summoning objects or extraplanar beings (elementals and other familiars of sort).

 

But irrelevant to the topic, yes.

 

EDIT: While Jaina may focus on water/ice, she is known to use (see books) other types of magic just as easily. It really doesn't matter whether it's fire, ice, lighting or earth. Mages can and will shape arcane into each element if they so desire. The only thing is ice and fire are more common due to being destructive and actually getting rid of enemies much easier.

The point of this is to give a guideline. It is not by any stretch official rules. Use and ignore what you want. I'm just hoping it can help prevent annoyingly OP characters that can use large-scale spells instantaneously and wipe out a kingdom like stormwind. If you've seen some of the people on RPH, for example, I'm sure you'd see why.


find me on discord @Lehvie#1473

or just find me on a certain other server.
have fun boys

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  I'm well aware of people going beyond normal WoW boundaries and RPing insanely overpowered characters. Best course of action is to ignore and avoid them as much as possible. Many people want to play the hero, which, in their view, entitles them to be some edgy spell-lords.

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