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At some point most authors get the itch to do something unconventional and unexpected with their combat encounters. The Expedition Style Guide provides several suggestions for how to go about doing that. In this post, we will break that down in greater detail. 

The screen above features a combat encounter from an existing quest. It has two special modifiers that take place as the combat progresses. The first set of script establishes a special attack by the Nightgaunts that occurs in the first round. That round can be set by changing the number where the "1" is before the double brackets }}. The event also occurs every other round after the first, that pacing being established by the number value you put where the "2" is after the %. If I wanted the Nightgaunts to swoop attack beginning on the second round and occurring every third round after that (rounds 5, 8, etc.), I'd simply change the the "2" to "3" and the "1" to "2". 

As always in the Quest Creator, the descriptive "flavor" text you want to appear should be below and indented from the "* on round" script.

The player instructions that begin with ">" have the same level of indentation as the descriptive text because they do not cause a branch in the story. 

So let's look at what that combat script looks like in the app simulator on the right-hand side of the next screen...

You'll notice that the "Next" button appears automatically and will take you to the next round without having to add a _continue_ or _Card_ command. Now let's move to the second special combat condition. IMPORTANT NOTE: It DOES matter which order you script the combat conditions. If I were to put the "*on round" command before the {{_.currentCombatRound() % 2 == 1}} script, you will only get the "*on round" command. This is because an "* on round" script resolves every round and takes precedence over irregular round events.

As you look to the App simulator at the right of the screen below, you'll see how the "* on round" script appears...

And clicking on "Yes" leads to the next screen...

Finally, let's look at a variation to the regular "* on win" script that must be included in every combat encounter. By placing {"loot": false, "xp": false} we can prevent loot or leveling up. We generally recommend this for the final fight in a quest, so that players don't waste time drawing new abilities right before the story ends.

If we want to alter the healing (for those of us that have a hard time suspending the disbelief of being restored to perfect health after nearly fatal battles) we don't use a "false". Instead, healing can be set to any amount of hp using a numerical value {"heal": 0} or {"heal": 6}, etc. 

Just be careful, authors, that you don't make it impossible to finish the quest by depriving players of too much healing. I made this mistake in the first version of my second quest ("Armageddon Throne"). I had to tweak healing up from "0" to "6" to make it survivable for 2 player parties. If you reduce the amount of healing received, you'll either need to reduce the difficulty of future fights, reward players with a lot more loot, or give them regular opportunities to heal (such as visiting an inn or herbalist).

We hope this helps, and happy Quest writing!

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