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Combat guide: how automatic duels work

You do not press attack. Understanding what the fighters are doing is how you decide what to pick next.

A duel in one paragraph

Two fighters, each with up to three pets, face each other in an arena. Everyone acts in tempo order: the combatant whose next action comes first goes first, so fast fighters and small pets act more often. On each action a fighter may trigger a skill, draw or throw a weapon, and then attack a random enemy. The duel ends when a side's main fighter falls. Pets alone cannot win.

The order of an action

  1. Net check. A pinned fighter loses the action.
  2. Active skill. Fighters (not pets) roll their active skills. Healing and berserk are free; a net, bomb, hypnosis, roar or crushing blow replaces the attack. See skills.
  3. Weapon draw. An unarmed fighter with sheathed weapons draws one at random. Thrown weapons are thrown at once for a single hit and are then lost.
  4. Attack. The attacker picks a random active enemy. Fighters are targeted three times more often than pets, so with one pet the fighter takes about three attacks in four.

How each attack resolves, with dodges, blocks, counters and critical hits, is in attacks and defence.

Speed and tempo

Your speed stat sets how long you wait between actions. Weapons add their own tempo: heavy weapons are slow, fists are quick. On screen, a faster fighter also animates faster, which is purely visual. You can also change the battle speed button at any time.

Pets in the arena

Pets are full combatants with their own stats and a natural attack. They deal and take half of what their stats would give, and some of your skills make them stronger. Rival skills can turn them against you (hypnosis) or scare them away (roar).

How a duel ends

The battle ends when one main fighter is out cold. Nobody really dies in Knuckleford: a defeat is being "out cold", with stars and dust instead of blood. If a fight ever runs past 400 actions, the fighter with the higher share of health wins; this practically never happens.

Fair and repeatable

A fight is decided by fixed rules and a seed, so the same setup gives the same result. What you watch is a replay of that result, which is also why you can replay shared epic fights later.

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