The Truth of Magic


Chapter 39: Post Battle Evaluation

Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
Magic Missile could use with the force within itself to ignore any concealment and armor, and it would hit any target with perfect accuracy.

It went around the metal shield in the skeleton’s hand and smashed straight into the body of the Human Skeleton Warrior.

At that moment, the Human Skeleton Warrior’s curved knife was right above Zhao Xu, about to swing down on him.

Zhao Xu had just finished casting the spell and was ready to dodge the knife.

But the energy gathered within the Magic Missile had a tremendous impact. The Human Skeleton Warrior immediately stopped moving and then it disappeared without a trace.

The arena went back to its initial calm. All the summoned creatures in Arthur were projections, so after they died, they would just disappear into thin air and leave no trace behind.

Zhao Xu wiped away his cold sweat and felt that he had gotten lucky.

At this time, he also looked at the contents reflected on his character stats’ message board.

Player cast Level 1 Arcane Spell, Magic Missile.

Magic Missile hit Human Skeleton Warrior, resulting in 1D4+1 = 4+1 = 5 points of damage.

Human Skeleton Warrior current HP less than 0, instant death.

This summoned Human Warrior Skeleton’s hit points were lower than the average HP, and his Magic Missile happened to cause the maximum damage of 5 points.

If those two things didn’t occur, that skeleton’s attack might have landed just then.

A set of footsteps came from behind Zhao Xu. Antonya was walking over.

She looked at Zhao Xu and asked him, “Are you happy with this result?”

Zhao Xu only shook his head.

“You didn’t do too badly either, so let’s evaluate this one first. Tell me what you thought of this?” said Antonya.

Zhao Xu started by telling her all the information he knew about Human Skeleton Warriors, from his estimate of its HP all the way to his estimate of its ability scores. He wasn’t too far off from the actual statistics.

“You’re not bad. The first step that Wizards must take before a battle is to prepare themselves with information,” replied Antonya.

“In general, before we wizards go to battle, we must have accurate information about our opponents so that we can prepare ourselves accordingly. For novice wizards, you’re too low level to be able to use any sort of divination spells to gather such information. But that doesn’t mean that you should give up on intelligence altogether. There are way too many places in Arthur where you can gather information, and these places aren’t hidden away by wizard spells even. It’s very good that you have been able to make use of the advantage you players have.”

Zhao Xu just smiled. The forums now didn’t have any information on skeletons at all. This was all based on the memory he had from his previous life.

The good part was that Antonya couldn’t log into the forums of the players, otherwise, she would have exposed his lies.
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“Secondly, after you have clear intel about your opponent, you have to get yourself ready. If a prepared wizard suddenly attacked an unprepared wizard and their levels were the same, then the odds of winning are 7:3.”

When she reached this part, Antonya looked straight into Zhao Xu’s eyes.

“Tell me, what’s Mage Armor good for?”

Zhao Xu could tell her even without opening his character stats to check.

“It can increase one’s armor class by 4 points.”

“And the duration of the spell?” asked Antonya.

Zhao Xu froze for a while, then answered, “1 hour per level of the spellcaster.”

He immediately took a deep breath and added, “After I was teleported here, I should have cast this spell first.”

The duration of that spell was much longer than the other spells.

An armor class of 4 could help to reduce his damage by 20%.

“That’s right. So next time you must remember that as long as you’re sure that the battle is about to begin, then you must seize the chance to cast any spells that will increase your protection.”

“Continue telling me what else you thought about when you saw the Human Skeleton Warrior dashing towards you?” Antonya continued to lead the conversation.

Zhao Xu had now pretty much recovered from the battle. He slowly replied, “My first thought was naturally to use the spell, Mage Armor. That way, the chances of it landing an attack would go from 60% down to 40%.”

Even though an actual battle’s environment was complex, the rules of attack and defense continued to abide strictly by the hit points of both sides.

The attack roll was decided by a 1D20 (so anything between 1 to 20 points), and as long as it was equal or greater than the armor class of the opponent, then it would be able to go through the armor and cause damage to the hit points of the opponent.

A Human Skeleton Warrior’s base attack score was only 1, so with the addition of a 1D20, the possibilities were within 2 to 21 only.

He would only have a 60% chance of piercing his armor.

“But by doing that, then there’s still a chance that I might get attacked by the skeleton’s knife, and its damage roll score might very well kill me on the spot. So I gave up on casting Mage Armor and decided to use something to kill him instead.”

Zhao Xu’s hit points stood at 6 HP, and it was really a pathetic number.

The damage from the Human Skeleton Warrior’s knife alone was 1D6+2 (so damage of 2 to 7 points) and as long as the D6 rolled a 5 or a 6, then it was enough to cause enough damage to knock Zhao Xu unconscious.
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“At that time, my second consideration was the spell, Protection from Evil. It could allow me to have a +2 deflection bonus to my armor class against attacks by evil creatures and it would also cause the summoned creature’s natural weapon to fail. But the Human Skeleton Warrior was carrying a curved knife, which isn’t a natural weapon, so that part wouldn’t work. So, since the effects of that spell weren’t even as good as Mage Armor, I gave it up.”

“The third idea I had was Color Spray. But then a Human Skeleton Warrior is an undead creature, so it was immune to the effects of that spell and I had no choice but to give it up. As for Benign Transposition, I’m sure that you aren’t going to agree to exchange place with me, so I threw that one out as well. Ray of Enfeeblement’s effect was also not going to be as powerful as Mage Armor.”

The spell Color Spray was actually a really vicious spell among the low-level spells.

As long as the opponent’s Will saving throw failed, any living creature with a Hit Dice of 2 or less would instantly be unconscious, blinded, and stunned for 2D4 rounds, then blinded and stunned for 1D4 rounds, and then stunned for 1 round.

By the time the entire spell was done, any living creature would have been thrashed to pieces by then.

Human Skeleton Warriors had 1D12 Hit Points, and their 1 Hit Dice point was just under 2HD.
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But it was an undead creature, so it was immune to unconsciousness and getting stunned.

That made Zhao Xu feel rather embarrassed too.

But after Antonya listened to Zhao Xu’s explanation, she nodded and said, “Out of all the cantrips, there’s also a Disrupt Undead spell that can cause 1D6 damage. Why didn’t you use that?”

Zhao Xu shook his head. “That spell requires a touch attack to hit, and you have to get past the opponent’s armor class, plus the success rate of hitting the target is only 35%. On top of that, the expected damage of a Magic Missile is 3.5, which is the same as the expected damage done by Disrupt Undead. If that’s the case, then I’m definitely going with the 100% accurate Magic Missile.”

“Not bad, your brain isn’t muddled after all. At least you didn’t think that just because your opponent is an undead creature, you could use a stupid spell like Disrupt Undead on it,” said Antonya in a pleased tone.
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“Since you were able to react and think about all this in such a short time, then you’re still pretty ok. Today’s lesson is to help you understand the difference between studying and a real battle.”

“Next time, at your level, you will still need to protect against undead creatures, oozes, golems, elementals, and plants. So you will need to think about how you’re going to deal with each of them. Out of these few creatures, elementals are still fairly ok to deal with. The rest of them can be a real pain and you might not find anything that can handle them.”

Zhao Xu nodded. Even though undead creatures had low Hit Points because they had no Constitution points, the number of immunities they had was enough to give any wizard a terrible headache.

“So now, the second test will begin. As long as you can cast a spell that can hit me, you’ll get a prize,” said Antonya with a strange smile in her voice.
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