Combat

Combat is an important part of Samsara. Although there are ways to gain experience and money through non-violent ways, combat is probably the simplest and easiest way. You being combat by typing 'Kill <thing>' or shortened to just 'k <thing>' or even 'attack <thing>' and 'at <thing>'. Once you send that line, combat will begin.

Combat Proper

Once combat starts, you and your enemy(or enemies) will start attacking each other using their held weapon, or if you have 'readied' a weapon, you will roll a quickdraw skill check and hold your weapon.

See image for an example

The combat readout might look a bit confusing at first, but we can break it down piece by piece. The L stands for me, and the s stands for the smelly crackhead that I am fighting. The letter that is shown first, for example: [Lxs] means that is who was attacking at the time, while the second letter is who was 'receiving' the attack.

Next are the symbols in between the letters signifying the 'actors'.

An x is a parry, you can only parry if you're using a weapon of the same Parry Class as your enemy or higher. A parry is a successful 'Defense roll' that negates the enemy's attack using your weapon skill.

A capital X is a 'Hard Parry', your attacks, moves, and basically any action you were trying to do when this happens is stopped. This is a 'Defense roll' that was barely successful.

A / is a miss. You or the enemy rolled low enough that the attack did not hit.

Although not shown here, a ) is a dodge, which is a successful 'Defense roll' that negates the enemy's attack using your Dodge skill.

A > is a 'Hard Dodge', which is basically the same as a Hard Parry mechanically. It will stop your action.

And finally, a v is a 'Bounce', this is what happens when an attack was successful, but did not roll enough damage to pass through an enemy's 'Soaks'.

Now what about the ###s and the 's? Those represent how much damage a successful attack did in proportion to their health. The 100% and other percentages, is how much hp the 'actor' has left. Green is usually yours, and the light blue is usually the enemy's.