Combat Settings (Advanced)

Schema

{
  "combatSettings": {
    "minCombatXP": "number",
    "baseCombatXP": "number",
    "abilityCooldown": "number",
    "abilityBonus": "number",
    "npcDailyHealingAmount": "number",
    "damageTypes": [
      "string"
    ]
  }
}

Example

{
  "minCombatXP": 1,
  "baseCombatXP": 100,
  "abilityCooldown": 20,
  "abilityBonus": 10,
  "npcDailyHealingAmount": 999,
  "damageTypes": [
    "piercing", "slashing", "bludgeoning", "poisoning",
    "fire", "lightning", "wind", "water",
    "arcane", "light", "dark", "psychic"
  ]
}

Fields

abilityCooldown

global multiplier applied to every ability’s per-ability cooldown value. The engine resolves cooldown as effectiveCooldown = cooldown * combatSettings.abilityCooldown. Setting abilityCooldown: 0 means every ability is effectively cooldown-free no matter what each ability’s own cooldown field says — raise the global modifier (and set non-zero per-ability cooldown values) to introduce timing pressure. Balanced default: 20.

abilityBonus

global multiplier applied to every ability’s per-ability bonus value. The engine resolves the contribution as effectiveBonus = bonus * combatSettings.abilityBonus. This contribution participates in the same success cap as skills, attribute bonuses, and context modifiers via skillSettings.maxSkillSuccessLevel — a high abilityBonus does not bypass the cap, it consumes space within it. When designing ability bonuses, keep the sum of a typical ability bonus * abilityBonus plus expected skill and attribute contributions well below maxSkillSuccessLevel. Balanced default: 10.

npcDailyHealingAmount

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Note (npcDailyHealingAmount): Health NPCs recover by this amount per in-game day — not tied to the Long Rest mechanic specifically. Setting this to a high value (e.g. 999) effectively means any NPC recovers fully between encounters, preventing NPCs from remaining at low HP permanently across sessions.

📋

Note (isHealth): The codec-validated way to designate the health resource is isHealth: true on the resource entry in resourceSettings - the engine reads that flag to identify the primary HP pool.

damageTypes

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Note (Custom damage types): Adding a type like "radiant" or "necrotic" to damageTypes makes it a valid value in npcTypes vulnerabilities, resistances, and immunities. The engine math - increased or decreased damage for matching types - applies there. Beyond that, the damage type has no automatic behavior: it does not change how abilities deal damage, does not trigger elemental effects, and does not carry secondary rules (e.g. "poison" does not automatically inflict a poisoned condition). Any secondary behavior has to be defined explicitly in ability description text and narrator instructions in generateActionInfo .