Combat Flow
The full turn loop, enemy intents, how interference works, stun, block, and the order everything resolves in.
Combat Flow
Combat alternates turns: you go, then every living enemy goes. One round = one of each.
The turn, step by step
- Roll. Your dice pool rolls. Each die has a chance to come up elemental.
- Hold & reroll. Spend rerolls to fix what you want. Held dice keep their element.
- Use abilities & consumables. Nudge, Reroll+, and any consumables all happen before scoring.
- Pick your target. One enemy is your hand's primary target — combos may hit others, but hand damage goes to the target.
- Score hand. Hand damage lands:
(chips + dice values) × mult, modified by Vulnerable (×1.25) and relic effects. - Elemental combo check. If the highest-tier combo matches, it fires — sometimes on the target, sometimes AoE, sometimes on a random enemy.
- Stun check. A single hit above 30% max HP stuns the target (40% for bosses).
- Enemy phase. Every living, non-stunned enemy resolves its telegraphed intent.
- Status tick. Burn deals damage; Freeze, Chill, Vulnerable, and Stun all decrement.
Enemy intents
Every enemy telegraphs its next action with one of 5 intent icons above its sprite. This is your entire decision-making tool for targeting.
| Icon | Intent | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Dagger (red) | Attack | Deals HP damage to you — 5–15 per hit depending on monster tier |
| Shield (blue) | Defend | Gains block / shield this turn |
| Potion (green) | Heal / Buff | Recovers HP or strengthens itself/allies |
| Die (orange) | Dice Interference | Modifies your dice (SNIPE, CHAOS, GRAVITY, FLIP_ALL, CURSE, EVENODD, RIG, LOCK_DIE) |
| Key (purple) | Resource Steal | Steals a reroll, locks a hold, burns a die, steals a die, or forces a reroll |
Key design: disruptors and damage-dealers create interesting targeting decisions. Do you kill the enemy messing with your dice, or the one draining your HP? Stunned enemies show no intent icon.
Dice interference (the Die icon)
When an enemy's intent is Dice Interference, the specific effect can be any of:
- SNIPE — lock a specific die value (Soft Freeze on basics, Deep Freeze on elites/bosses)
- CHAOS — reroll random dice from your hand
- GRAVITY — push dice values toward the middle of the range
- FLIP_ALL — invert every die (1↔6, 2↔5, 3↔4)
- CURSE — reduce all your dice values by N
- EVENODD — force all your dice to be even or all odd
- RIG — set one of your dice to a specific value
- LOCK_DIE — prevent a die from being rerolled or held
- STRIP_ELEMENT — removes the element from N of your elemental dice (Beholder boss, Frost Wraith elite)
Block / defend
When an enemy has block, it absorbs hand damage up to the block value before the damage drops through to HP. Most enemies' block does not carry between rounds — it resets each time they pick a new intent. Big burst hits that punch through block still trigger damage numbers on the overflow.
Stun mechanic
- Threshold: a single hit above 30% max HP stuns a target for 1 turn
- Bosses: the threshold is 40% instead of 30%
- Stunned targets skip their next action and show no intent icon
- Stun and Freeze do not stack (both skip one turn — the second is wasted)
Related: The Core Loop · Status Effects · Bosses
