Game rules

Not sure that works as a proper manual but here are some, very loosely presented, detailed rules which are not directly available in the game, as well as the signification of "hidden" options available directly in .ini files. The different content .xml and their different items are not detailed, they could be on demand.

Rules :

- All stat or skill checks follow the same rule : roll (score – difficulty) D6s, and if second best >= 4 then it's a success. If you wouldn't be able to roll 2 dices then you roll 2 dices instead and get -1 to the result for each « missing » dice. if it's a 6 it's a critcal success and if it's a 1 (or less, after adjustment) then it's a critical failure.

Which means in combat roll (attacker's attack – defender's defense). Only difference with before is that critical success depends on critical score, no critical success if critical score is 0, on a 6 if critical score is 1, 6 and 5 if critical score is 2 and finally any success if critical score is 3. Critical hit currently doubles the damage of any attack, and raises the chance of applying affliction as stated below. In the future the effect could vary depending on the weapon.

After a character hits and rolls for damages, its opponent rolls for resistance for each of the different damages dealt.

roll(resistance) : if critical success then no damage, if critical failure then double damage, if success half damages and if failure normal damages. In case of critical failure, or in case of any failure if the hit was critical, associated afflictions are also applied.

- Some loose formula and tables, these are currently unalterable but they should be in the future  :

Attribute points needed to increase a base attribute are 2,4,8,16,24,32,40... « Archetype » modifiers apply to that, for example a +1 will change to 1,2,4,8,16,24,32,40 .. while a -1 to 4,8,16,24,32,40...

Attribute points needed to increase a skil are 1,2,4,8,12,16,20,24,...

One Defense bonus point is gained at 4,6,8... of the corresponding base attribute, SPEED in To Hell With Guns.

One critical point is gained at 4,6,8 in PERCEPTION, in which case all hits should be critical except for potential maluses.

Each point in STRENGTH gives one more HP than the last, which means in total 4,6,9,13,18...

Max encumbrance is 15*the score in STRENGTH. Max movement is equal to the SPEED score At half the max encumbrance movement is not altered, exceeding its max encumbrance the character can't walk and between both a rule of three is used to determine how movement is actually alterated.

Resistance bonus points are gained at 3,5,7... if depending on only one attribute, which does not happen in To Hell With Guns.

Resistance bonus points are gained at 5,9,13... in total if depending on two attributes, which applies to FORTITUDE.

The damage bonus for melee (and some range) weapons can be negative and is equal to the score in the corresponding base attribute minus 3 (-2,-1,0,1,2,3...).

The attack (determining the chances to hit) with a specific attack of a weapon is equal to the character's proficiency at the corresponding type of weapon, adjusted with the bonus (or malus) given by the weapon ability used, and capped by the max attack of the weapon ability used.

The number of attacks per round multiplier depends on the sum of the character's movement, proficiency with the involved skill (generally corresponding to the type of weapon) and the attack speed. The table is 1,1,1,1,1,1,1,2,2,3,3,4,4,5,6,7,8,... Multiple attacks per round apply only to actions with a single target and will be multiplied by the default hit multiplier of the action in the rare cases when it's more than 1, like with machine guns.

The difficulty to steal an item is the sum of the perception of the shopkeeper, 1 point every 2 kgs and 1 point every 50 credits to the item base price (the base price the party would sell the item to the shopkeeper).

The difficulty to haggle the price of an item is simply the shopkeeper's haggling score and does not depend on the item.

The difficulty for a tracking check before an encounter is the opponent party's tracking score. A citical failure means you've been spotted without spotting the opponent while critical success means you've spotted the opponents without being spotted. Note that it means that with a tracking score inferior to the opponents' the chance to take the opponents by surprise is null while the chances to be taken by surprise are high. Also that they spotted you does not mean the enemies will automatically attack you, if they're frightened or friendly they'll just pass their way.

Skill checks (perception checks especially) involve only one character. In To Hell With Guns it may be obvious but skills such as SWIMMING also involve only one character.

The party movement, used to advance in combat or to flee as an entire party is the medium value between the medium value across the party and the minimum value across the party. It means the party is slow if even only one character is slow, and in particular if the character is dead, in which case the character's movement is 0 but the party can still move in the dungeon unlike when a character is over-encumbered.

A group which chooses to advance rolls a dice whose max edge is the party's movement.

If a party, or one character, tries to flee, it rolls a number of dice equals to its movement plus the distance of the closer group of enemies and minus the opponent party's movement.

If an enemy does not choose to flee, it chooses an action based on the ponderations associated to each of the available actions.

The formula for constructing an enemy party for a random encounter, determines its (hidden) hostility stat depends on enemies or the formula to determine exactly how an enemy chooses to flee are not detailed here.

Options :

- Concerning the options, most of them not directly accessible in the game yet, because they will probably be subject to changes, here is what the options of « settings.ini » means, some are obvious, some less obvious and the related function of some others is not even implementd yet  :

LANG is the language (ENGLISH or FRENCH)

FULLSCREEN is true for full screen mode, false for windowed mode.

WINDOWWIDTH is the current default window width (only for windowed mode).

WINDOWHEIGHT is the current default window height (only for windowed mode).

DIFFICULTY only determines the save system. In EASY mode you can save wherever you want. In NORMAL mode only in adventurer guilds, and in HARD mode nowhere. A « Save and quit » option is always available everywhere. It creates a temporary save file which will be deleted when reloading, and quits the game.

TIMETOWAITBEFOREWALKINGAGAIN determines the speed of the party when stepping onto force fields (or ice, even if there's no ice in To Hell With Guns). The bigger value the slower.

INCREASEDCHANCETOENCOUNTERPERMINUTE determines the random encounter rate. The chance to get a random encounter raises with time and is reset after an encounter.

HELPENABLED enables some tool tips.

If CHECKSELECTEDCHARACTER is disabled then tasks like talking are done by the most able character, independently of the selected one.

CHECKCHOSENCHARACTER is relevant for tasks like Haggling when the game would normally asks for the character you want to perform the task. If the option is disabled then the task is automatically done by the most able character.

COMBATLOGSPEED determines the speed of the log scrolling during combat. The bigger value the slower. Note that you can use a big value and press a key to make it scroll fast at will.

DETERMINISTICCHECKS is not implemented yet (it could allow for fully deterministic checks, without dice rolling, outside combat).

DETERMINISTICCTH is not implemented yet (it could allow for fully deterministic hit checks in combat).

If RELOADAFTERCOMBAT is enabled the characters in the party automatically reload their weapon after a won fight (but not after fleeing).

And about the content of « data\settings\game.ini » (which is not meant to be available options, just settings specific to a specific game made with the shared engine :

If D6 is true then the game uses 6 edge dices, otherwise 100 edge dices are used, with some little difference in medians and variances.

PARTYMAXSIZE is the max number of characters n the party.

NOTPARTYMAXSIZE is the max number of created characters which are not in the party.

MAXNBOFITEMSININVENTORY is the max number of items in a character's inventory (be careful, scrolling inventory or switching between pages has not been implemented yet).

STARTINGCREDITS is the number of credits a created character owns.

GEMS determines if the game uses a gem system for spells.

STARTINGGEMS is the number of gems a created character owns.

STARTINGGATTRIBUTESPOINTS is the number of attribute points a created character owns.

ATTRIBUTESPOINTSGAINEDATLEVEL0 and LEVELSNEEDEDFORONEMOREPOINT comes together. Currently a character would gain ATTRIBUTESPOINTSGAINEDATLEVEL0 at level 0 and the number of points by level increases by 1 each ATTRIBUTESPOINTSGAINEDATLEVEL0 level. Therefore it's not possible yet that the number of points between levels increase by more than 1, it should be in the future.

LEVELSPEEDMULTIPLIER is a multiplier of experience needed to gain levels. The bigger value the slower levels are gained.

ROLLSTATS can be enabled so that base attributes are rolled when creating a character. Each attribute is determined rolling two D6s and taking the worst value.

ANGRINESSTIME is not used.

MPAVAILABLE determines if the games uses Mps, or better said if it uses spells.

ARMORREQUIREMENT is not used.

HEALINGCOST is the credit cost of healing the Hps of a character in the infirmary. Healing afflictions is twice that price.

RESURRECTIONCOST is the credit cost of resurrecting a character in the infirmary.

GAMEPRESENTATION is the translation key for the game description presented at the start of the game (the corresponding translations are avaible the property files in the game .jar).

CHARACTERARCHETYPETEXT is the translation key for the currently single trait of character to choose at creation (archetype, class, race, ...).

SCOREWHENNOPARTYMEMBERAVAILABLE is the score which a party uses when no character in the party can be checked, normally resulting in a crtical failure.

TIMEBEFORESHOPAVAILABLEAGAIN is a fixed duration in in-game minutes during which a shop is unavaible after you got catched trying to steal. The time is thrice shorter if you're thrown out for critically failing to haggle a price. In the future it could become a maximum value and imply a dice roll to randomize.

TILESBEFORECHECKINGORIENTATION is the delay between two orientation checks deciding if you get lost. Note that spinners of teleporters directly trigger an orientation check.

SKILLSBYCOLUMN is the number of skills per column in the characters' sheet.

LIMITKEYREPETITION should currently not be used. It is meant to limit the party speed when keeping the « walk forward » key but also cancels other fast inputs.

CHARACTERCONDITIONCYCLE determines the speed of scrolling between different afflictions a character would have in the main navigation screen. The bigger value the slower.

DISPLAYINGTIME is not used.

ENEMYGROUPMAXSIZE is the max possible size of an enemy group. Note that enemy groups whose size exceeds 1000 can lead to lags.