In VFRPS you can do battle with monsters, NPCs or other players. A battle is initiated when a player chooses to fight something. Generally speaking, most monsters will try to initiate battle with the player as soon as they enter an area (unless the player has the Stealth skill successfully activated), causing the player to have to choose between escaping or attacking on their next turn.
The normal flow of combat usually consists of:
Initiative[]
A 1D6 is rolled for each participant and added to their Agility. The score determines the order in which battle participants will attack, highest first. Ranged weapons gain an Initiative bonus and will always be first in the order above melee attacks.
Accuracy[]
A 1D6 is rolled for whoever is attacking first. The attacker's Dexterity is divided by 4 and added to the result of the 1D6. If the result is 5 or more, the attack hits. If the attacker is dual-wielding they get two attacks (one per weapon), though their Dexterity is halved when determining accuracy for their offhand weapon. The Ambidextrous Trait reduces this penalty.
Dodge[]
A 1D6 is rolled for the target. The target's Agility is divided by 4 and added to the result of the 1D6. Any armour points the target has are subtracted from their Agility when calculating Dodge. If the result is 8 or more, the target has dodged the attack. Most monsters do not innately possess a Dodge ability, unless stated otherwise. An identical process is carried out when calculating an Escape attempt.
Damage Calculation[]
The attacker's Strength, weapon attack power and the result of a 1D6 are added together and the result is divided by 4.
Critical Hits[]
A 1D6 is rolled, if the result is a 6, the damage result is doubled. Critical chance can be effected by some skills, such as Stealth. Most monsters do not innately possess the ability to perform critical hits, unless stated otherwise.
Armour Calculation[]
After the damage is calculated and the critical hit applied (if it was successful), the result is subtracted by the target's armour points. Even if all damage is absorbed by armour, the attack will still deal 1 damage unless the target's armour points are twice as high as the damage result (or more). Critical hits will always deal at least 1 damage, regardless.
This process is then repeated for the next participant in the Initiative order.