Cover (no ontology)

From Mazeworld

Cover is a part of most rooms in Mazeworld. They are objects that serve as passive defense and is essential to maintain stealth in order for the contestant to attempt a stealth shot.

Types of cover

Cover may be randomly generated in rooms that have an encounter inside, even those that are not hostile. When the contestant enters such a room, the player may type @cover to prompt the IRC bot to generate cover. Cover damage is regulated solely using LDV rather than Pain, making cover potentially more durable, with each type having a set health and LDV modifier, similar to how Armor Class works in regards to limb damage.

Shooting while taking cover

If a contestant, or any other encounter, is attempting to take cover, they may attempt attacking at the same time. If they wish to do so, certain conditions must be kept in mind.

• No melee attacks, for evident reasons. Only ranged weapons can be used in this scenario.
• All weapons suffer a FT+2 malus if used that way.
• Bonuses normally provided by Bipods are negated, since the shooter is on the move and certainly not steady enough
• Shooting while taking cover renders Scope mode impossible.
• Shooting while taking cover is not a stealthy action; as such, it will not maintain stealth, a stealth shot is impossible even if the weapon used is silent or suppressed.

When the encounter who wishes to take cover, also decides to attack, they do not need to roll twice; the roll to take cover becomes their roll to attack as well; in turn, this makes critical successes on taking cover, useful. Do note the following:

• Regardless of the result, if the contestant or the encounter decides to attack while taking cover, their turn ends after the attack.
• In case of failure, the contestant (+ally) or the encounter succeeds at taking cover, but not at hitting the target.
• In case of critical failure, not only they do not take cover, but the normal critical failure results also apply to their weapon (which, depending on the weapon, may or may not result in a re-roll; see the rules on critical failures.)

Strategy

Cover may help unarmored or poorly armored contestants, at the cost of mobility. By providing passive defense, they can absorb hits from enemies, but are relatively ineffective if melee combat is engaged. Cover absorbs all damage intended for the encounters using it, until it is destroyed, or unless explosives are used. In such cases, splash damage hits ALL encounters and anything damageable on the same side as the point of detonation, this includes cover and encounters taking cover.

When a contestant first enters a room and sees an encounter, he/she can attempt taking cover. Taking cover counts as a turn in combat, and as an "attack"; as such, it is subject to a dice roll, but not to the failure threshold; even with FT modifiers, a 6 or more is required to be successful in taking cover.

Should the contestant succeed the roll, he/she will successfully take cover, stealth will be preserved, and (in most cases) the enemy inside will not notice the contestant's presence.

However, should he/she fail the roll, the contestant will succeed in taking cover but will be noticed by the enemy, ending his/her turn; this leaves a window for the opponent to attack.
In case of a critical failure while rolling for cover, they don't take cover at all; the enemies will attack beforehand. They must also roll again to take cover next turn.

Cover becomes more interesting if the contestant is attempting a stealth shot. More information on this article.

See also

• Abilities
• Gameplay mechanics
• Stealth shot
• Scope mode