Each limb which you can use to attack or defend with in melee combat has a set of combat allocations. At the most basic level, these allocations control which limb you use to attack and which limb you use to defend. At finer levels, they control the most subtle aspects of your fighting style.
To see your combat allocations you can type 'show combat allocation:all'. You will see something like this:
left hand: bonus: 100 daring: 100 speed: 100 aim: 0 parry: 0 control: 0 null: 0
right hand: bonus: 0 daring: 0 speed: 0 aim: 0 parry: 150 control: 150 null: 0
Each limb has six allocation 'slots' which control various aspects of attack and defense and you can allocate up to 300 points into these slots for each limb. If you don't allocate all of your points (for instance if you want to 'pull your punches') they will show up as 'null'.
The first four slots, bonus, daring, speed, and aim are used for attack. The last two, parry and control are used for defense. A brief description of what each of the slots controls is below:
Slot Description Skill Used
Setting Allocations
The Easy Way
You can use the command 'set attack to part' to quickly set allocations. This will set some default attack allocations on the part you specify and default defense allocations on your other part(s).
Example: When a character is created, they are by default 'left handed'. To make your character right handed use the command:
set attack to right hand
This would change your allocations to the following:
left hand: bonus: 0 daring: 0 speed: 0 aim: 0 parry: 150 control: 150 null: 0
right hand: bonus: 100 daring: 100 speed: 100 aim: 0 parry: 0 control: 0 null: 0
You can also set more than one part to attack by doing 'set attack to part and part2'. If you have more than two limbs, all remaining parts will be set for defense. The command 'set attack to all' will cause you to attack with all of your limbs and not defend at all.
N.B.: Attacking or defending with more than one part at the same time requires a skill called multiple attacks. It can make a novice fighter very confused if he or she is not very careful.
The More Complex and Useful Way
To set the combat allocations slots to specific values you need to use the 'set combat allocation' command. The general syntax is:
set combat allocation = part,slot,value,slot,value...
Example: set combat allocation = right hand,b,75,d,75,s,75,a,75,n,300
left hand: bonus: 0 daring: 0 speed: 0 aim: 0 parry: 150 control: 150 null: 0
right hand: bonus: 75 daring: 75 speed: 75 aim: 75 parry: 0 control: 0 null: 0
Note that the names of the slots can be abbreviated to the first letter. Always put 'null,300' or 'n,300' at the end and you will have no trouble setting allocs this way.