Fatigue

A unit’s Fatigue represents its available energy. Fatigue for units starts battles at 0. Increasing fatigue has several negative effects. Fatigue above 50 causes a unit to be more susceptible to critical strikes. Once a unit reaches 100 fatigue, it becomes unconscious and is unable to attack or defend. A unit at 200 fatigue starts taking regular hit point damage instead of fatigue damage from additional fatigue. Fatigue has no effect outside of combat, but in combat it can be very important and many builds take advantage of Reinvigoration or Relief to counteract its effects.

Units typically gain fatigue through one of three methods.

• Attacking In Combat causes a unit to gain fatigue equal to its encumbrance. Every unit has an encumbrance derived from its base encumbrance value and the armor it is wearing. Additionally the *cold-blooded* tag or certain spells (i.e. Curse of Stones) can increase encumbrance. Whenever a unit in combat attacks it will gain fatigue equal to its encumbrance. Moving, without the effect of Curse of Stones or other spells, will not cause fatigue gain.
• Casting Battle Magic causes the casting mage to gain fatigue based on the spell cast, their skill in the relevant path, and their encumbrance. Each spell has a listed fatigue cost which a caster incurs when casting that spell. For each skill level in the required path that the mage exceeds the minimum, they incur 1/1+(mage skill-minimum skill). In other words, having an extra skill level means the mage suffers only 1/2 fatigue, two extra skill levels means they suffer only 1/3 as much, three extra is 1/4 as much, and so forth. Spell casters also incur fatigue equal to their base Encumbrance + 2(Encumbrance from armor worn). This is not reduced by skill bonuses.
• Spells and Attacks can also cause fatigue. In addition to the previously mentioned Curse of Stones some other examples are Stellar Cascades, attacks with an Axe of Hate, or attacks from a Manikin.

Fatigue applies a defense penalty, an attack penalty, increases the chance to receive critical hits, and eventually can cause unconsciousness or direct damage to hit points.

• The Defense Penalty for Fatigue causes a unit to lose a point of defense for every 10 points of fatigue (rounded down) that unit has.
• The Attack Penalty for Fatigue causes a unit to lost a point of attack for every 20 points of fatigue (rounded down) that unit has.
• Units become more susceptible to Critical Hits due to Fatigue. Each time a Protection DRN is rolled, it checks for a critical hit, and unit Fatigue of 50 or more influences the odds as described in critical-hit. If a critical hit is scored the defender's protection values are all reduced by 25%.
• With high fatigue a unit may become Unconscious. A unit falls unconscious when it reaches 100 fatigue.
• Beyond this point additional fatigue can eventually cause Damage. A unit receiving fatigue past 200 receives direct damage instead. The received damage is 1/50 received fatigue, with any remainder having a fatigue * 2% chance of adding 1 additional damage.

Units recover fatigue at 1 + whatever their Reinvigoration (sometimes called "Reinvig")) is (typically 0) each round, and 5 + Reinvig per round if they go over 100 fatigue.

Reinvigoration is the statistic that counteracts fatigue. For every point of reinvigoration, a point of fatigue is subtracted every combat round. A unit is said to be fatigue neutral when their encumbrance statistic is equal to their Reinvigoration value. Such units do not get fatigued by combat in their preferred temperature scale, but can still accrue fatigue from spellcasting.

Reinvigoration is an extremely rare ability for a unit to have naturally, but there are many ways to boost a unit's reinvigoration. An earth blessing can boost the reinvigoration of a sacred unit. Reinvigoration can also be gained by spells:

• Summon Earthpower
• Relief
• Reinvigoration

There are some magic items that will help to reduce Fatigue. These items grant reinvigoration:

• Girdle of Might
• Amulet of Resilience
• The Heart of Life
• Boots of the Messenger
• Ranger's Boots
• Boots of Youth
• Rainbow Armor
• Robe of the Magi

Life Drain can also reduce fatigue, by twice the damage dealt. Ways to drain life include the spells:

• Soul Vortex
• Leech
• Soul Drain
• Drain Life

These items:

• Bone Armor
• Standard of the Damned
• Wraith Sword
• Hell Sword
• Blood Thorn
• Sceptre of Dark Regency

Or the natural attacks of certain units like Vampire Lord, Lamia or Dakini.

Fatigue taken can be reduced by decreasing encumbrance (equipping lighter armor on Dai Oni) or by spreading the fatigue across multiple units via Communions (Communion Master & Communion Slave).