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.

Strategy

Cover is an essential aspect of combat in the Mazes, as it has many uses - stealth, speed, and protection from hits via passive defense. By providing passive defense, they can absorb hits from enemies, but are ineffective for non-ranged combat. It provides an exception to the is intrinsically tied to the Initiative system rules, by allowing combatants taking cover to be faster and more efficient during the turn they decide to take cover (see IS article about turn resolution for more information). 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, though this only applies for the blast; fragmentation, for example, will hit the 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.

During combat, if a piece of cover is struck by a critically successful hit (rolling 12), rolling @critwin is not needed - cover is unaffected by the effects of critical successes and simply succeed as normal. In a way, cover provides protection from these random, and often crippling effects.

Cover becomes more interesting if the contestant is attempting a stealth shot.

As noted above, cover is only useful for ranged combat. If an encounter behind cover wishes to attack a target in melee, they will have to leave their side, and thus their piece of cover, to bypass their opponent's and attack them. However, nothing precludes going -back- behind cover afterwards; all that needs to be done is to roll to take cover once again. Just as if it was done on the first turn of a fight, all effects apply as normal.

See also

• Abilities
• Gameplay mechanics
• Stealth shot
• Scope mode