Anytime a sword is swung, an arrow is shot or a spell is cast a series of rolls are made to determine whether the action is successful and whether damage is caused. Most rolls involve the Dominions Random Number or DRN. To fully understand Combat Mechanics start by reading up on how the DRN is calculated.

All offensive abilities in the game basically functions in the same way:

1. First a roll is made to see whether the attack hits.
2. If the attack hits a damage roll is made

For melee attacks the attacker makes an attack roll at the same time as the defender makes a defence roll. These are compared. If the attack roll (with modifiers) is greater than the defence roll, it hits. If not, it misses.

• Various effects can increase or decrease the attack and defense modifiers skills of units.
• Defenders with long weapons can repel attackers, preventing the attack from happening.
• Defensive abilities (such as etherealness), spells (such as Astral Shield or Fire Shield) and items (such as Vine Shield) can prevent an attacker from attacking or punish the attacker.

Ranged combat and spellcasting are different from melee combat in that they do not use defence values. Instead, a precision roll is used to determine which square a missile or spell hits.

• Shields can prevent ranged weapons from striking true.
• Every point of precision above 10 counts for double.
• Spells with 100 precision (Soul Slay) always hit the target square.
• Spells (e.g. Eagle Eyes), blesses and items (e.g. Eye of Aiming) can buff precision.
• Various effects can debuff (Darkness) or halve precision (Storm).
• Some effects can protect units against ranged weapons (Arrow Fend). Others will destroy missiles during flight (Storm)
• Some spells and effects require a magic resistance check before having any effect.

• Units with trample can crush other units beneath their feet.

Once a hit is scored, another roll is made to determine how much damage is done.

• For basic physical attacks this involves the attacker's damage roll minus the defender's protection roll.
• Armor Piercing attacks halve the defender's Protection. Armor Negating attacks ignore Protection entirely.
• Physical damage types affect the final result.
• Melee attacks hit and damage a particular part of the body which can give afflictions and affect the damage roll
• Some weapons give a charge bonus, striking especially hard on first contact.
• Large damage roll can shatter or destroy shields.

Some types of damage have special attributes.

• Fire damage can make a unit may catch fire,
• Shock damage can stun a target making it unable to perform actions.
• Cold damage may freeze a unit, leading to additional fatigue damage.
• Poison damage deals damage over time.
• Acid damage can cause weapons and armor to rust.
• If a unit suffers from profuse bleeding it quickly dies unless the bleeding stops.
• Some units can drain the life of their opponents, replenishing their own hit points and reinvigorating them. Other units cause fatigue damage putting their opponents to sleep.
• Some attacks cause paralysis.

• High Protection can protect against many types of damage.
• Physical resistance can halve the damage from physical sources.
• Elemental Resistances can prevent damage from elemental effects. Elemental Vulnerabilities can increase damage.
• Defensive spells and effects like Twist Fate, Mossbody and Mistform can prevent or decrease damage taken.