Combat Overview
Combat on Echoes of the Isles is roleplay first. There is no autoattack, no spam of damage lines scrolling past faster than anyone can read. A fight is a scene: it unfolds in rounds, every action is described by the fighter in their own words, and the game resolves what actually happens underneath the prose.
The Shape of a Fight
A fight advances in rounds. Every fighter gets one combat action per round - an attack, a declared defense, a repositioning move, or an attempt to quit the field. The round closes the moment everyone has acted, so a fight between two quick typists flows as fast as they do.
Nobody is rushed off their feet, either. A round stays open for five minutes after the last combat action, and ordinary emotes among the fighters keep it open - mid-fight dialogue is part of the scene, and the game will not cut it short. There is a hard cap of fifteen minutes per round; a fighter who lets a round pass simply forfeits that action, and a fight nobody presses at all quietly dissolves.
The Actions
attack <victim> <bodypart> <emote>- strike at a chosen part of your opponent, described in your own words.dattack <victim> <bodypart> <emote>- the same, leading with your off-hand weapon instead of your primary.spar <victim> <bodypart> <emote>- non-lethal combat: pulled blows, minor wounds, and a clean yield instead of a body on the ground.defend <parry|dodge|block|footwork> <emote>- spend your action setting a deliberate guard for the coming round.lunge <dir> [dir] <emote>- reposition across the battlefield; ground and reach are worth fighting over.escape <emote>- try to quit the fight entirely, a contest against everyone still within reach of you.disengage <emote>- signal that you want the fight to end without a victor; when every fighter has disengaged, it simply does. Any hostile act cancels the truce.
During a fight, combat shows the state of the round at a glance:
who has acted, how long remains, your guard, and your endurance.
Your Emote Is the Heart of It
Every action carries a freeform emote, and the emote is pure roleplay -
it goes through the same engine as emote and rpecho,
with slash-targeting, spoken languages, and all. No word you type carries hidden
mechanical weight; the mechanics come from the command's arguments, your
training, and your equipment. Write the strike as you see it, and write it
well - the people fighting you are reading it.
Wounds That Mean Something
Blows land on bodyparts - head, neck, chest, stomach, arms, legs - and serious hits leave wounds: cuts that bleed, bruises that slow you, breaks that ruin your guard. Wounds persist after the fight, worsen if ignored, and want treating - by a skilled friend, or by the physician at the Escard clinic. Armor protects exactly the parts it covers and nothing else; an unhelmeted head is an unhelmeted head.
A fighter pushed past their limit falls. Whether they are finished, subdued, or shown mercy is the victor's choice - and a story in itself.
Before You Fight
Real combat is open to established characters: you need 3000 RPXP, a full description, and a custom short description. Sparring needs only the descriptions - it is how new characters practice, train their weapon skills, and learn the system without risking anything worse than bruises.
Ready for the finer points - defenses, armor, reach, dual wielding, and how to fight well? Read on.