Combat in Morkin

Today, I’ll be talking about combat in Morkin. As you progress through your adventure, you won’t be able to avoid combat—whether through events, exploring dungeons, or simply encountering enemies along the way. You’ll face all sorts of foes, from Doomdark’s troops to Ice Trolls, bandits, Skulkrins, Dragons… —more than 30 different types of enemies, including over ten unique ones, each with their own name, history, attack moves, and loot tables.

How Combat Works

Combat is carried out in a sequence of turns. The order of attack is determined by Initiative, which is decided through an opposed Perception skill test. If you win Initiative and there are multiple enemies, you first choose which one to attack, and that enemy will defend. After your turn, each of your enemies will take theirs.

Just like all skill tests in Morkin, combat is resolved by rolling a D100. If the result is equal to or lower than Morkin’s Melee skill and higher than the enemy’s Defence Value, the attack is successful.

Once the attacker has successfully hit their target, damage must be calculated. Most enemies have a set of special attacks. Depending on the enemy, a D6 is rolled to determine the type of combat action performed.

For example, let’s look at the combat move table for the Hound of Doomdark, which has only one special combat action, called Dark Pursuit. Rolling a D6 results in:

• 1 to 5: Normal Attack – D6 damage
• 6: Dark Pursuit – D6 damage. The Hound locks onto its target with supernatural speed, making escape nearly impossible. The designated defender, according to the established combat order, will continue to receive this damage for the rest of the battle. From now on, roll normal attacks only against this defender from this Hound of Doomdark.

You’ll notice that this mentions Combat Order and the designated defender. This is important because if you have Companions, they do not attack directly. Instead, they provide bonuses to your stats and damage output. However, they can still take damage and even die, as damage is distributed each turn, making the combat order of your group critically important!

Morkin’s Action Points

Morkin, on the other hand, has what are called Action Points. Each turn, he has 10 Action Points to spend on a list of possible actions. These range from a Standard Attack (which requires 6 Action Points) to Switching Weapons (2 Action Points) or Drinking a Potion (2 Action Points). There are ten possible actions to choose from, and you can perform multiple actions in a single turn as long as you do not exceed the 10 Action Points available.

There are also Critical Hit and Fumble tables for Morkin and for each enemy.

Defeating Enemies

Once you have defeated an enemy, you will gain experience points, which can be used to improve your abilities, as well as loot. Most enemies have their own unique loot tables.