Combat

Combat is entirely turn-based. On your turn, you can either move, attack, or use an item, but can only do one of the three. The only exception is for some special cases such as using an item where the effect of the item causes you to move.

As combat is strictly turn-based, the game will wait however long it takes for you to make your turn, and will not punish you for taking too long. After you take your turn, your enemies will all get a turn in some order. After that, your friends all get a turn in some order. Then it cycles back to your turn. Some status conditions such as asleep or paralyzed could cause you or various monsters to have to skip their turn.

The map is laid out in a rectangular grid. You can move in any of the eight directions to reach an adjacent square, including diagonally. You can also attack in any of the eight directions, so you can hit enemies who are a diagonal square away from you.

If you would try to "attack" an ally in melee, the game will automatically recognize that as talking to an ally and you'll do that instead of damaging your ally. There are exceptions to this last rule if you're blind or confused, however.

There are also ranged attacks, but they're much less common than melee. You can fire arrows, and it does not require a bow to do so. A handful of monsters have ranged attacks. You can also throw items at monsters, and throwing books does deal a little bit of damage. Ranged attacks can hit and damage allies just as easily as enemies, and lacks the check that converts the "attack" command into talking. Some monsters have ranged attacks as well, and the details vary by monster.

Attacks normally decrease the health of whoever is hit. The amount of the decrease will be displayed as a number. A white number means the attack did normal damage, yellow means it did extra damage, gray means reduced damage, and green means it healed rather than damaging.

When a character's health is reduced to zero, that character is defeated. Hostile monsters or allies who are not your party members (mainly in the Memory of the Hero dungeon) will merely be removed from the floor. Your party members will also leave, though they will be available in town after you end your dungeon run if you had previously registered them with Tarte. Full details on dying are in the dedicated page for the mechanic.

The game does not distinguish between whether you are in combat or not in combat, at least other than at the level of distinguishing between being in dungeons versus in a town or rest area. If you're in a dungeon, it's all one mode, and you're free to attack even if there is nothing in the room. Indeed, attacking nothing in particular is sometimes a useful way to skip exactly one turn without accidentally skipping multiple turns.

Combat normally happens very fast, though it is possible to slow it down in the game options. You make your move, then everyone else makes their move, and then it's your turn again. Even while actively fighting monsters, you can often go through an entire round per second or so. When no one is attacking so that the game doesn't have to slow down to make damage clear, you can easily go through several entire rounds per second as you run around. That keeps the game moving along at a brisk pace.