Repel mechanics. How exactly it works?

[ano]

I'm just curious...
It was discussed recently that dragonflies are absolutely useless against an archdevil with firebrand and so they are against equipped Vanjarl (my tests say so). But they appeared to be very effective against a Empoisoner assassin equipped with Skull staff.
So... If the mindless units always receive 1 point of damage when they are repelled (manual says nothing about that, btw), then why do they always die from being repelled by Vanjarl with Frost Brand and never die from Empoisoner with Skull Staff?
Also... How can morale 50 mindless beings be repelled at all if manual clearly states that repel is based on the attacker's morale so bigger morale means lesser chance of being repelled. I understand that the manual is just wrong.. But does anyone know how exactly it works?

[Wick]

The "how can they be repelled" part seems simple. They take the point of damage, make their morale roll, and attack if they are still alive.

[JimMorrison]

Wick said:
The "how can they be repelled" part seems simple. They take the point of damage, make their morale roll, and attack if they are still alive.

That's not how it works, but that's why it's happening, sort of.

"Any defender that has a longer weapon than the one used by the attacker makes a repel attack automatically upon being attacked."

So here's the deal with a Mindless unit - if the Attack rating of the *defending* unit is high enough, and the defense rating of the *attacking* unit is low enough (this is confusing, and I don't know exact stats of a firefly offhand), then the defender will ALWAYS succeed in making the Repel. If this is true, then the Mindless unit will ALWAYS make their Morale roll, and therefore will always make their attack regardless of the Repel, and take the 1 damage.

I hope that makes sense, if not I can break it down another way maybe.

[Endoperez]

Successful repel deals 1 point of damage and forces a morale check before attacking, a bit like Awe. Mindless creatures aren't affected by the morale thing, just by the damage.


I don't know how the repel mechanics works with mindless beings being repelled, but it's different from what usually happens because an Arch Devil can repel nearly unlimited number of mindless dragonflies, but can only kill few non-mindless dragonflies. It could be that attack roll is still required but repel doesn't lower attack for further repel attempts on that turn.

[Sombre]

But the repel calculation also uses prot - it doesn't deal 1 point of damage unless it beats prot and it is always capped at a max of 1. Does it use the damage value of the weapon in order to work out of it beats prot though? No idea.

[Endoperez]

Oh, I had forgotten that. In that case, it could be that mindless units are always "hit" in repel, but their protection might save them from the single point of damage.

[ano]

How would you explain the fact that Empoisoner with a skull staff (length 4) was killed by dragonflies very quickly (and no dragonfly died from repel) while archdevil repels and kills all of them?

[Sombre]

The archdevil has far higher attack than the empoisoner, so he's far more likely to succeed in his repel attacks.

[ano]

Emposioner with skull staff: attack 14
Vanjarl with Frost Brand: attack 18

Probably, you're right. Dragonflies have def15 so probably it's not so easy for Empoisoner to hit them.
And what about the stated repel penalty? Do you know how it's calculated? Manual states that there's a penalty -2 for each repel attempt. What is this penalty applied to?

[Digress]

Its a shame that the secondary effects of some weapons don't kick in after a successful repel.

Weapons dripping with poison for example don't "empoison" those attackers that are repelled.