Combat

Combat in Seed uses a dynamic initiative system - essentially, each combatant has a countdown, called a "Delay", based on the last action taken, that must pass until they may act again. There are two sorts of operations in battle - adjusting initiative between actions, and the resolution of actions.

Initiative

THE BASIC FLOW OF COMBAT

1. If someone has a 0 delay, they may act. (If more than one combatant has a delay of 0, they all act before any more time passes, though they act in a certain order.) They decide an action and its effects are resolved.
2. If no one has a delay of 0, time passes until someone's delay is 0 - "ticks" pass for each combatant at the same rate. Effectively, each combatant subtracts the lowest amount of delay any combatant has from their delay, which leaves one or some combatants with delays of 0.
3. All combatants with delays of 0 act, taking on delays in doing so.
4. Repeat until the battle ends.

If multiple combatants have delays of 0, the player characters act first, and then the enemies. Player characters may decide among themselves which order to act in, as may the enemies.

HOW BATTLE BEGINS

Typically battles begin with some warning. Each side sees the other, is reasonably suspicious of them, and so on. When one group decides to engage the other, combat begins and each combatant takes on a delay of 50 minus their SPD, to a minimum of 0.

If one group surprised the other and gains a preemptive strike, any combatants that have the advantage begin with a delay of 30 minus their SPD, rather than the usual 50.

HOW BATTLE ENDS

A battle ends when all no enemies or player characters remain to fight - usually this occurs because they've been reduced to 0 HP, but the same effect is gained by combatants fleeing from battle, being turned to stone, or being ejected.

A battle also ends if either side decides to surrender.

Victorious player characters receive rewards such as experience points based on the systems employed in their campaign. These will be outlined in a further section.

For the enemies, a surrendering force still grants full rewards. For the player characters, surrendering might mean capture as opposed to death. Against some enemies, surrender might not make sense - discuss it with your GM.

The GM should also decide what being reduced to 0 HP means in their campaign. In some Final Fantasy games, falling in battle was a trivial thing, and they even had a smattering of HP afterward. In Final Fantasy Tactics, falling in combat could mean death. Campaigns in Seed can fall anywhere on the spectrum depending on tone.

TRACKING DELAY

If you're playing online, it's strongly recommended that you use tracking software to post delay counts to your players as they act. Players should state the delay they take on after each action, and the software can quickly iterate a new round and call another action.

Even if you're playing around a table, bringing a laptop to use one of these spreadsheets might be a good idea. Another solution would be to use a track on a large sheet of gridded paper with the lines at 100, 95, 90 marked, all the way down to 0. Each combatant could place a small token on the sheet - after an action, the combatant moves their token up to the delay they just took on, and each combatant moves their token down a number of lines equal to the current lowest delay.

Most combats only involve delays only slightly surpassing 50D. You could probably get away with 60 lines until someone gets "Manifestation".

Tools - A
Grid Track - B

Actions

TAKING A TURN

Every turn a combatant takes consists of performing an action, taking on a new delay, and then adjusting their status timers. These three steps are the action, delay, and status phases of a turn.
In the action phase, you select an action ability to perform - either one of the [[Seed Basic Actions|basic actions]], or one gained from an ability system, such as a Black Mage's fire spell, or a Thief's Steal Item. Every action ability has a relevant CoS, a target, a delay, an effect, and some keywords summing up how it interacts with other regions of the rules; for example, abilities with the spell keyword can be used in conjunction with Dual Cast.

You then choose the target for the action, according to the target field for the action. If it's "Target: Single", you choose a single target on the battlefield, if it is "Target: Group", choose either your group or the enemy's, and so on.

When you perform the action, roll its CoS against each of its targets. When using an ability that targets multiple combatants, roll against the CoS individually for each combatant effected by the ability. Apply the effect of the action to each target the result check is successful against.

Many effects can modify the CoS, based on what sort of action it is - sword strikes will be less accurate if you're blinded or against evasive targets, for example. What sort of effects, properties and statuses can affect a certain action are generally defined by its keywords. Each individual modification takes effect. Remember that if a CoS is increased to 100 or higher you do not have to roll, and if the CoS is reduced to 0 or below, you cannot.

An action ability's effects are laid out in its effect text. Generally, abilities will inflict or restore health, inflict or remove negative statuses, or grant some beneficial status to you or your allies, though there are some that have stranger effects. Some abilities may allow you to instantly perform multiple actions - target and resolve all of these before taking on any delay.

Some abilities have "added effects", sometimes written as "with an additional CoS of inflicting a status". For these abilities, any resistances to the inflicted status apply to that CoS, instead of the CoS of the ability itself. (For example, Crushing Blow deals weapon damage with a weapon-based CoS, and has an added CoS of 40 to inflict Stop. Stop resistance doesn't help you avoid the weapon damage from Crushing Blow, but it'll reduce the added CoS.) If you have multiple added CoSes to inflict a status or effect on a single "hit" of an ability, sum their CoSes and roll once. (So if you have a Venom Shock equipped and use Beso Toxico, the ability has a CoS of 60 to inflict Poison (4). ) If the abilities and properties granting an added status have different durations, the status has the lowest granted duration when inflicted.

If an action triggers any reaction abilities, which are automatic responses such as counter-attacks, they occur at the very end of the action phase, after action effects are resolved but before any delay is tabulated.

After resolving the effects of the action, you take on a delay - this is the "Delay Phase". Each action has a delay given by "XD Fy", meaning "x Delay with a floor of y.". The delay of an action is always modified by your SPD (you subtract it), and may be modified by statuses or other effects, but in no situation will you take on less delay from that action than its floor - it serves as an absolute minimum amount of wait until you can act again. If an ability's delay has a multiplier applied to it, either inherently or by another effect (as with Manifestation or Wild Swing), multiply the delay after factoring in Speed and any other modifiers. Add the final delay of your action to your delay, or call it out to whoever is tracking initiative, usually the GM.

After acting and adding delay, you also decrement the duration of every status affecting you by 1. If this reduces any statuses to a duration of 0, they expire and are removed. Statuses that have effects after you act (such as Sap or Poison) also apply in this phase, immediately before durations are adjusted.

The flow of a turn:

1. Turn Starts
2. Select which Ability to Use, and Target It
3. Roll the Ability CoS for Each Target
4. Apply effects for every success
5. Any triggered actions may activate
6. Take on a delay based on the used ability
7. Resolve statuses such as Regen, Refresh, Poison or Sap, in order of player preference
8. Reduce the durations of all statuses by 1, removing any that now read (0)
9. Turn Ends

DAMAGE, HEALTH, AND THE KNOCKOUT BLOW

Every combatant in battle has some amount of Hit Points (HP), both a current value and a maximum. It serves as an extraordinarily abstract measure of their health and vitality. When a target receives damage, it is subtracted from their HP. When they reach 0, they fall.

The Damage Formula

The damage inflicted by most actions is some variant of this formula:

<span style="font-size: 120%;">[ ( [ Attribute x (Power + Power Modifier) x Power Multiplier(s)] + Some Dice ) x Situational Modifier - 5 x (Armor or M.Armor, if Applicable and Present) ] x Defense Factor.</span>

The relevant attribute and power are decided by the action ability. If an ability says it inflicts "weapon damage", the power will be the power of the equipped weapon and the attribute will be ATK.

Some abilities will apply power modifiers or multipliers. Modifiers add and subtract, and are applied before the multipliers. (All multipliers multiply together in sequence.)

Dice are constant and based on the ability. They add some random factor to the damage inflicted.

It is of note that attributes, power, dice, power modifiers, and power multipliers are based only on the action ability and the character and will usually only change in battle if you equip another weapon. They will never be affected by actions or statuses. As such, players should calculate that term in advance of each session, to speed up play.

Situational modifiers are written as percentile adjustments. The situational modifier term begins at 100% and is generally adjusted in steps of +25%. Elemental weaknesses and resistances, status effects such as Bravery or Shell, and special effects on abilities such as Sidewinder or Unscarred can all grant situational modifiers.

The target's Armor may be applied to reduce physical damage, and the target's M.Armor may be applied to reduce magical damage - subtract 5 points of damage for each rank, if present. Actions that are Piercing (like attacks made with a gun or a hammer) ignore Armor and M. Armor.

If the target is in a defensive stance, they may be applying a defense factor to incoming damage, multiplying it by some fraction. Typically, they're performing the "Defend" action and the factor is 3/5. They lost an action to do it, but it grants them a large reduction to loss of health. If a combatant somehow receives two defense factors at once - for example Rampart, which allows grants a defensive stance to their allies - they only apply the best whenever they take damage.

Some actions and effects have different formulae for damage entirely. For example, the damage from the Blue Mage spell "1000 Needles" is based on nothing other than the caster's level. These will be outlined in the effect text.

Regardless of the result of this equation, if it produces a final damage number less than 1, the action inflicts 1 damage. In the same fashion, a single "hit" from a damage expression or other damage effect can never inflict more than 9999 damage - this is known as the "Damage Cap", and exists mostly as an homage to video games. A GM could repeal it without affecting balance too much.

Damage Types

Damage can carry descriptors that describe how it's affected by some properties and effects. Most damage is either physical or magical - physical damage is generally inflicted by techniques, and tends to be less accurate, cheaper, and carry stranger effects along with it. Physical damage is boosted by Bravery, reduced by Armor and Protect, and so on. Magical damage is generally inflicted by spells, and tends to be the more accurate and more powerful side of the equation.

The phrase "weapon damage" describes damage inflicted by weapon abilities.

Weapon damage can be ranged - if it's not, it's melee. Melee weapon damage can be reduced by striking across rows, while ranged weapon damage does not. They also work differently with respect to some counter-attacks and evasive abilities. Some other abilities also explicitly state that they inflict ranged or melee damage - these apply the rules governing ranged and melee damage, even if they aren't weapon strikes. If damage is explicitly stated to be melee, the effects of rows apply to it, for example.

Damage can also be of a single element - one of Fire, Ice, Lightning, Water, Shadow or Holy. This is usually determined by the ability, but if a weapon ability is non-elemental, it can take on an element from the equipped weapon. Statuses such as "Element Sword" override elements on equipped weapons, but not of specific abilities. Elemental damage is affected by matching elemental properties - boosted by Weaknesses and Enhance effects, and reduced (or reversed!) by Resistances, Immunities, or Absorbencies.

Drain effects work in a manner similar to elements, in that an ability can only benefit from a single type of drain effect at any given time. Drain effects granted by the used ability's keyword take precedence, followed by drain effects granted by statuses, then finally drain effects granted from the character's gear.

Some abilities state that the damage they inflict is Piercing - this functions just like the Piercing property for that ability only, allowing it to ignore Armor or M.Armor. If the Piercing property is sealed on the attacker, this effect, too, ceases to function.

Dealing with Damage

A combatant who is reduced to 0 HP falls, taking on the "KO" status which greatly restricts their choice of actions until the point where they are brought back by a Life effect, perhaps by a Phoenix or its Down, or a Raise spell.

Most monsters don't have access to Life effects, so the GM may simply choose to remove them from the field of play. Player-characters can be removed from the field of play if no one has any Life effects, too.

Healing effects restore health to damaged targets. The formulae from healing effects is either flat, like from a potion, or based on an attribute, like with a Cure spell. These may still depend on attributes, power, dice and situational modifiers, but ignore Armor, M.Armor and defense factors. (As they aren't damage.) Healing effects generally do not increase HP beyond maximum except in very rare, explicitly stated cases.

Combatants who are at 25% of their maximum HP or less are treated as being in "Critical Health" sometimes referred to as "SOS". This serves as the break-point for many abilities based on low health, such as "SOS Haste" and "Critical Quicken". If two SoS-Statuses would cancel one another, neither functions.

WIELDING WEAPONS

Every character in Seed fights with some sort of weapon. How their weapon is determined is based on which outfitting system is in use, but every outfitting system has a way of providing some weapon statistics.

Weapons determine the damage and delay of any action with the "Weapon" keyword. They also have some inherent properties, based on weapon type, and may bear other special properties based on the specific piece of equipment that it is. Properties granted by weapon type only apply to strikes with that weapon.

Whenever an action inflicts "Weapon Damage", use the damage code of the equipped weapon. Whenever an action has a [W] code in its delay or floor, replace that with the weapon's values for delay or floor.

Weapons and other equipment can also modify weapon strikes. Any ability with the "weapon" keyword inherits weapon properties, such as the Piercing, Ranged attack of a gun, or the Blind effect attached by a Blind Shock. One important and common property is "Accuracy", possessed by swords and guns, among other weapons. Each rank of Accuracy increases the CoS of all weapon-keyworded actions by 5.

Weapon strikes can inflict critical hits - if a character possesses a rank of Critical, they have a critical range of 5. For each additional rank, this range is increased by 5. If the result check for a weapon ability rolls a number equal to or below the critical range, a critical strike is scored, inflicting +100% damage against that target. Certain effects might alter the result of a critical strike - for example, a critical strike with a rod might instead cast a spell, and a critical strike with Element Reels damages the enemy group instead of just one target.

If a character isn't carrying their weapon - by having unequipped it in a game using Equipment or Remodeling, or by being removed of their usual arms by fate in a Bare game (maybe they got thrown in jail?) they use these statistics instead:

Damage: 1d6 + 2xATK
Delay: 30D F15

PAYING PRICES

Many actions have certain costs; They can require items, MP, time to charge, or cause you to lose health. You only pay the price of an action once each time you perform it, even if the price is stated in the effect text. If you perform Abyssal Blade against a group of enemies, which carries a loss of health equal to 40% of your Max HP as its price, striking three enemies doesn't seal your fate by making you lose 120%.

MP: MP stands for "Magic Points" - it refers to the reserve of energy a character uses to perform their skills and cast magic. If an action has an MP cost, you must pay that MP cost as the action is used. If there is insufficient MP, the action cannot be performed.

CT: CT stands for "Charge Time". When you perform an action that has a charge time, declare its CT and give yourself that much delay and enter a "Charging Stance" until the CT finished, which follows the normal rules for Stances - you then actually perform the action the next time you receive a turn, paying the other prices at that time. When you begin a Charge Time, you are not actually taking an action as such - so effects, such as Poison's damage, that occur after taking an action do not affect you, and neither do the statuses affecting you decrement. You can choose to cancel out of a charge time to perform a Wait action when the CT is completed, but the action does not "remain charged" for when you wish to use it next. If you're inflicted with a status which would prevent you from taking the action that you are charging or ends the charging Stance - like if an Archer using Charge were inflicted with Pain or Berserk, or a Summoner using Bahamut were inflicted with Silence or Confuse - immediately end the charging stance and reduce your character's current delay to 0 and perform another action - which could be another ability that isn't sealed, being forced into a random basic attack, could in some cases simply be a Wait action, or possibly taking the delay penalty for being asleep or other similar things rather than acting. Note that a character's delay being increased - like from the effects of the Stun spell - does not end the charging stance or prevent it from completing, but it does increase the time needed before the CT is resolved!

Items: Certain actions might require items - either a specific one, in the case of Samurai abilities, or any from a category, like with the Chemist's Use and the Ninja's Throw, or with the universal Item Action. The item may or may not be expended, and the effects are often determined by the specific item used. If the item is not present, the action may not be performed.

Receive a Status: Some actions inflict a negative status on you after they resolve, but before the status phase kicks in and reduces all timers. These require no result check and ignore all effects of your resistances and immunities.

Loss of Health: Some actions cause you to lose health as they resolve - reduce your HP total by the listed amount after all other effects from the attack have been resolved. If the loss of health will exceed your current total, you can still perform the action - it'll just knock you out afterward. This loss of health is not damage, so it will not receive situational modifiers, be reduced by defense factors, or anything of the sort.

Commit to It: Some actions require you to commit to a certain course of action - for Jump, for example, you first jump up into the air, and then your second action must be to land. Being committed to a course of action is a sort of stance, and is broken by Berserk. If you're committed to an action that attacks enemies, and there are no valid enemy targets when you perform the action, you loose the action against no target, to no effect. (You still take on the same delay and pay any prices.)

Other: Other costs and drawbacks may be outlined in the effect text of an action.

REACTIONS

Some abilities are Reactions - these are like action abilities that have triggers instead of delays. Whenever the situation outlined in the trigger occurs, the actor with the Reaction ability performs it, against a target decided by the trigger. To model a low "chance of activation", most reactions have lower CoSes than action abilities.

If a combatant has several of their reactions triggered by one action - for example, they have both Counter and Bonecrusher equipped, and they are struck by single target melee physical damage - they select which reaction is triggered, and then roll for its CoS. That is to say, a given action can only trigger one reaction from each target of the action.

Reactions never trigger other reactions, to prevent an infinite loop.

When a reaction's result check is unsuccessful - that is to say, it misses - the combatant does not pay any costs of the reaction. This prevents, say, potions being expended on unsuccessful Auto-Potion triggers.

Someone who performs a reaction has not taken a turn - their statuses don't decrement, and they don't suffer the effects of Poison or Sap.

ROWS & BATTLE FORMATION

Each group in a combat is divided into two rows, front and back. Combatants in the back row receive some protection from melee blows, but in turn have their attack power reduced. Specifically, combatants in the back row take on a -25% situational modifier to damage from enemy weapon attacks and to damage they inflict with their weapon to the enemy - these effects are ignored by ranged attacks such as with boomerangs or crossbows. These modifiers also apply to any damage explicitly stated to be melee damage, like the Blue spell "Screwdriver".

If a combatant in the back row attacks an enemy in their back row, the total modifier would be -50% to a melee attack.

Combatants may change rows with the "Row Change" movement ability, freely available to all.

Some abilities target a row, targeting everyone inside of it. Abilities which target specific rows lose their restriction if there are no combatants in the row it would normally target. Abilities may also push combatants from one row to another.

If at any point one side's group has no active combatants in the front (They are all been KOd, turned to stone, or the row has simply been left bare) those in the back row receive no situational modifier. There's nothing to get in the way.

Battle formation is obvious information to all combatants. Player characters should be asked their formation at the beginning of the session - enemies, those tricky fiends, can decide their formation as the battle begins. Of course, players can alter their battle formation at any time out of battle. The default formation which the party can be assumed to be taking unless otherwise stated is "everyone in front" - if the party forget to state it, and the gamemaster forgets to ask, they'll start the battle arranged like that.

SPECIAL FORMATIONS

Occasionally battles are not fought head on, with one side having an advantage over the other at the battle's onset. Both Back Attacks and Pincer Attacks can be used with or without Preemptive Strikes.

Sometimes when one party in a battle is sneaked up upon unaware, the battle may begin in a "back attack". When this happens, the row formation of the surprised group is reversed. If a monster force is caught in a back attack, the GM should arrange the enemy formation in the worst possible fashion for that group of monsters; likewise if the PCs are the victim of a back attack, those usually in the back row will find themselves in the front, while those expecting to find themselves in the front row will be in the back row instead!

Other times one party in a battle could surround the other and execute a "pincer attack" from both sides. When this happens the attackers rows are split, with one row on either side of the enemies. For the victims of the pincer attack, situational row modifiers become relative to which side of the pincer is doing the attacking or being attacked; unless all the victims form a single row, they'll be in the front to one side of the pincer while in the back to another. The victims can elect to target either side of the pincer when using abilities which can only target the row or back row, specifically.

STATUSES AND EFFECTS

Occasionally, an action creates a lasting condition affecting a certain combatant known as a "Status Effect". Cataloged in the list of Statuses, each one applies certain rules to those affected by it - altering the effect of their actions, their delay, what actions they can take, or whether or not they are a toad. There's no limit to how many statuses a combatant can have at a time.

When a status comes into effect, it has a duration, generally defined by a number in parentheses after the action in the effect text. For example, a spell that inflicts Poison (4) inflicts Poison with a duration of four - it will last four actions before dissipating. Some effects will create statuses that don't expire naturally; these have an unlimited duration and are suffixed with (U). Affecting a combatant with a status they are already bearing resets the duration to that granted by the effect, if that duration is higher than the one upon them. (That is, a Sleep (2) effect will increase someone who has Sleep (1) to Sleep (2), but won't make a difference to a combatant with Sleep (4).)

You can protect yourself against statuses by gaining resistances to them through certain abilities or equipment. Each rank of resistance to a status will reduce CoSes attempting to inflict it to you by 5. If many resistances can be applied to a single action against you, you apply the strongest. For example, if a monster casts a spell that inflicts both Poison and Sleep against you, with a CoS of 60, and you have Resist Poison IV and Resist Sleep II, you apply Resist Poison IV against it, reducing the CoS by 20 - it serves to protect you against both the Sleep and the Poison. Resistances also reduce the duration of incoming statuses - if a combatant possesses at least one rank of resistance against a status they're afflicted by, they reduce timers of incoming statuses by 1 to a minimum of (1). Statuses with timers of (U) do not have their timers reduced.

Rarely, combatants will have immunities to statuses; These do not affect the CoS but simply mean that the status simply fails to be applied. The action may still be successful - it just does nothing. No event, action or effect can create a status on a combatant that is immune to it.

One special status effect is "KO", which describes the incapacitation that occurs when a combatant is reduced to 0 HP. Notably this removes all other statuses, except Toad.

Statuses can be removed before they expire by items, spells and abilities, all of which will specifically state that which they remove in their effect text. Some statuses have other statuses which they cannot coexist with; For example, having Deprotect and Protect at the same time would make no sense, and the rules about what action you must take in the case of Berserk and Charm might contradict. In these cases, the most recent status dispels the existing one as it is created. These cases are outlined under the definition of the status.

There exists a property called "Auto-Status" which causes the combatant to continually receive that status. Essentially, each turn they take, before anything else, they receive the Auto-Status. If it is ever dispelled or countered, it comes into effect once more the next time they receive an action. Related is "SoS-Status" - whenever the combatant slips into "Critical health" - that is, to one quarter of their max health or below - the status comes into effect, and is treated as an auto-status. However, being restored out of critical health dispels the SoS-Status.

Similar to the status effects are the named Effects. These are not statuses however, they are classes of actions with powerful, battle-changing effects that combatants can carry resistances and immunities to much like status effects. For example, many difficult, chapter-ending enemies carry an immunity to all actions that can instantly slay them - the "Death Effects". These carry keywords like "Effect: Death".

OUTSIDE OF COMBAT

The only ability actions that may be employed outside of combat are Spells, like in the video-games this system is based upon. This is because many abilities exist that allow free gain of HP and MP, such as Recharge and Life Song.

Some might argue that this makes absolutely no sense. They would be right - it doesn't. If you're a GM annoyed by this, consider restoring HP and MP to full after every combat, like in Final Fantasy 13. This allows abilities to be unrestricted outside of combat, and also doesn't punish parties for not sitting around using Recharge a fistful of times after every fight. Everyone wins.

Status effects other than "Stone" and "KO" do not persist out of combat.

ANATOMY OF AN ACTION ABILITY

Bahamut 1

Type: Action 2
Magic, Spell, Charge Time 3
Target: Group 4
50D F20 MP: 83 CT: 10 5

Bahamut, king of dragons, descends from the sky, unfurling his wings and preparing to unleash his trademark "Mega Flare". After a CT10 action, Bahamut lets loose and deals (20 x MAG + 3d12) magical damage to the entire enemy party. 6
Adjustment: +10 Power per tier above 1. 7
CoS: 100 8

1: The name of the ability.
2: The type of the ability - this states that it's an action ability, so you use it as an action.
3. The keywords of the action. As Magic, Bahamut can't be called while silenced. As a Spell, his breath could be reflected. It also has a Charge Time. Keywords describe how an action interacts with other facets of the rules.
4. The target of the action describes who the action will affect - in this case, a group of the actor's choice, presumably the enemy group but possibly their own.
5. The delay and floor of the action come first, followed by the action's MP cost and Charge Time if present.
6. The effect text describes what occurs when the action successfully strikes a target, occasionally with a bit of embellishment.
7. Magic increases in power every 10 levels, as characters go up tiers. Adjustments describe the modification in power the ability receives when you reach tier 2, and at each tier henceforth. (If you're already at, say, tier 4 when you get it, you still adjust it for that tier.)
8. The CoS describes the base chance of success of the effect taking place against a given target, which may be modified by properties, statuses, effects and equipment.

Crushing Blow 1

Type: Action 2
Technique, Weapon, Status: Stop 3
Target: Single 4
20+[W]D F15+[W] 5

Crushing Blow inflicts normal weapon damage and has a 40% CoS to inflict Stop (1). 6
CoS: 80 7

1: The name of the ability.
2: Once again, an action ability - you use it as an action when you take your turn.
3: This ability is a technique, so you can't use it while in Pain. It's based on your weapon, and can be dodged with Evasion, and its CoS is boosted by your accuracy. Also, it will inflict Stop, so Stop Resistance will help you out against the status CoS.
4: The target is a single combatant of the actor's choice.
5: The delay and floor [W] notation means to fill in the delay and floor of the weapon you perform the ability with, so Crushing Blow is always a bit slower than an ordinary attack.
6: The effect text. "Normal weapon damage" means that it inflicts damage like an ordinary attack. Then, there's an added CoS to inflict a status - this CoS can be modified by Resist: Stop.
7: The CoS.

Delay:

Delay is often written as a static number, but the codes [W] and [S] can also appear here. [W] should be read as the delay or floor of the equipped weapon. [S] is found in abilities that alter how spells are cast, such as Magic Burst or Dualcast. In this case, [S] should be replaced with the delay and floor of the chosen spell. (If more than one spell or weapon is used to perform an action, use the highest possible value of [W] or [S].)

Targets:

Single - One combatant of your choice.
Self - You.
Group - Either your party or the enemy party, as you choose.
Group (Row) - One row of either party.
All - All combatants on the battlefield - the enemies, you, and your allies. These abilities usually contain effect text reducing the effect against your and your allies.
Triggering Enemy - Applicable to reactions, this reaction ability targets the enemy who triggered the reaction.
Other targeting methods are possible and usually denoted as Special - these will be explained in the effect text.

Occasionally you might need to select a Random target - either random among one party, or one random combatant among the entire group. On a computer, simple random number generation will do the trick - assign each combatant a number, pick a number randomly.

At the table, you could have everyone roll a die of some size - like a d10 or a d20 - and have the highest roller be the selected target, deciding ties based on the whim of the GM. (Or another roll, if you feel like fairness is important.)

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