I don't understand combat at all

[Shadowlaced]

I've read help combat and combat explained and combat mechanics and pretty much anything else I can find. I killed a couple of kobolds and rats and gotten absolutely trashed by another thing that I ran into somewhere else.

Let's start with the status bar, which as far as I can tell is completely unexplained:

<50/50DF 0ST 0WN 0LG (E 12/50:25/50)> 

Defense, Stagger, Wounds. Got it. What's LG? After that is the direction I'm facing, got it. But what is 12/50:25/50?

Other puzzlements:

I guess I have a few ranks in Short Blades. Which doesn't show up under discipline or discipline cost. I didn't even know it was a skill that existed until I accidentally gained a rank in it. Why doesn't it show up?

The move command puzzles me a little because the math doesn't seem to work out either way I interpret it. Like if I've got a beast at a distance of 50 and I type "move beast 10" does that mean I'm trying to close to a distance of 10 or does it mean I'm trying to move 10 units closer and thus end up at 40?

It seems that when I'm beaten in combat I get dragged off somewhere and tied up and I'm completely helpless. I was lucky enough to have somebody nearby when this happened and I was able to be rescued, but if you're off by yourself and you lose a fight with NPCs are you literally just expected to sit there in the middle of the woods hoping somebody finds you?

TIA.

[OOC]

There are some specific help files that will help you.

'Help Fast Combat' - is a brief description of the combat you'll see when hunting monsters.
'Help Combat Mechanics' - a brief description of how damage works
'Help Disciplines' - A description of all those stats that are used in fast/slow combat. (I recommend you 'Help [Discipline Name]' as well as to see what each specific one does and their caps based on your tier.)

'Discipline' by itself will list what you have trained so far.
'Discipline Cost' will list all available disciplines and how much combat experience they require to train.
'Discipline All' will list all disciplines in game.

DF is your defense and its amount is based on the number of defensive disciplines you have (1 point in defensive discipline = 5 df)

St is stagger, which is just a fatigue mechanic that modifies speed/damage output. (''Help Stagger')

Wound is as you said, just wounds. If you drop to 0 lf you'll get a mild or greater wound depending on the situation, etc...

LG is lag. It determines how long addition time will be added to your next command though, most likely, you will not see it change enough to matter.

(E 12/50:25/50) is your X:Y coordinates. 12/50 = X, 25/50 = Y. Using 'Map' in combat will display a ASCII display of the battlefield for you.  

Haven's combat is pretty clear cut in how damage works. There are no special weapons or any equipment (with few exceptions, 'Help Artifacts') that will modify your damage/defense. Instead, you take a offensive discipline and customize a weapon to be a weapon in that category. They are all, mechanically, the same whether it be a stick or a steel war hammer.

Melee disciplines offer 1 point of damage for each point, which will be further explained in 'Help Combat Mechanics'.

Ranged disciplines are the same though they come with additional modifiers based on the distance between you and the target, this is also explained in 'Help Combat Mechanics'.


As for distance, you have three basic commands for more:
'move [target] Charge' - will move you at your max move speed towards your target.
'move [target] Away/Retreat' - will move you at your max move speed away from your target.
'move [target] protect' - will move you at your max speed towards your target and, should you be at 1 distance at the end of the move, will take all damage they would have received from incoming attacks.
For a good overview of all move commands, you can look at ''Help Move'.

To determine your max move speed, look at 'Help Running' and compare what you have trained running to and what move distance is listed for that point.

If you are brought to 0 DF by a forest monster, they knock you out and bring you into one of the other worlds. If you are not rescued within a certain amount of time by another PC, they will eventually 'eat' one of your limbs and set you free. It can be an annoying aspect but, unlike in previous iterations, at least you are not simply killed. Fortunately, most players tend to be rather active with rescuing anyone who has been abducted by these forest monsters.

[Quartz]

An Awesome guide

I feel like the above should be added to a guide section.

[Thrace]

Well done. Props for the guide.