Reactions
When a character is attacked in Battle Fantasia, their player can use the +queue command to examine the incoming attack. Once they have seen what's coming their way, a player can respond with a variety of coded reactions: dodging, bracing, counterattacking, or simply accepting the attack. Additionally, other characters can use +cover to transfer the attack to themselves (at which point the coverer uses a reaction instead). Each of these reactions have advantages and disadvantages, and can be boosted or penalized by various abilities and flags.
Reactions do not simply succeed or fail; they have several levels of partial success that mitigate different-sized portions of the incoming damage. Reactions can also fail completely, mitigating no damage whatsoever. The best result of a reaction is a critical success, which causes the incoming attack to fail completely. Not only does this prevent all damage, it also denies the attacker the extra morale they would have gained from hitting you. Critical reactions also prevent any flags on the attack from triggering, thus potentially protecting you from debuffs, taunts and quips, and item grabs. Partial successes, on the other hand, do not affect the chance of flags triggering.
Dodge -- Greater risk, greater reward, and notably not binary in its outcome.
Brace -- Reliable damage mitigation, but rarely spectacular.
Counter -- The potential to prevent or even do damage, but at the cost of mana.
Accept -- Permits the attack to deal full damage; mostly used to accept help from allies' zero-damage attacks.
Cover -- Attempts to ensure an ally’s safety at the expense of your own.
Reaction Penalties (as seen in +status) accrue whenever a Dodge, Brace or Counter reaction is used successfully. Each point of Reaction Penalty provides a stacking decrease in a given reaction’s effectiveness, up to the extreme value of Reaction Penalty 5. Using any reaction will decrease all other reactions by 1. Reaction Penalties reset to 0 when a character uses +heal/full at the beginning of a fight.
Sailor Moon is targeted by a monster’s Gnashing Teeth. She Dodges out of the way, resulting in the following reaction penalties:Dodge 1, Brace 0, Counter 0
Undeterred, the monster takes a swing at her with its Possessed Tire Iron. Sailor Moon Counters with her Moon Tiara, increasing her Counter penalty but decreasing all the others:
Dodge 0, Brace 0, Counter 1
If Sailor Moon had tried to Dodge, she would have had a reduced chance of success, and increased her Dodge penalty to 2. Given how pitiful her Moon Tiara attack is, however, it might have been worth the risk!
