Tactics

Knowing how to fight matters as much as knowing how to swing. Tactics is the damage multiplier behind every weapon skill — no warrior build skips it.

Stats: Strength (primary), Dexterity (secondary) · Title: Tactician

Tactics affects your damage in two ways: it is a large flat damage multiplier, and it unlocks weapon special moves.

1. The damage bonus

When a hit lands, ScaleDamageAOS (the active path on this AOS/EJ shard) scales the weapon’s base damage by a stack of additive bonuses — Tactics is the biggest one:

tacticsBonus  = Tactics × 0.625%   (+6.25% extra at 100.0)   → +68.75% at GM
anatomyBonus  = Anatomy × 0.5%     (+5% extra at 100.0)      → +55% at GM
strengthBonus = Str × 0.3%         (+5% extra at 100 Str)    → +35% at 100 Str
lumberBonus   = Lumberjacking × 0.2% (+10% at 100.0; axes only) → +30% at GM

These are added together, then multiply the weapon’s base damage: damage = base × (1 + Tactics% + Anatomy% + Str% + …). So Tactics scales linearly — roughly +0.625% damage per point, plus a +6.25% jump at exactly 100.0. At grandmaster it contributes +68.75%, the single largest physical bonus in the formula; a fighter without Tactics hits like a polite suggestion.

Worked example: a weapon with 15 base damage, wielded at GM Tactics + GM Anatomy + 100 Str, is scaled by 1 + 0.6875 + 0.55 + 0.35 = 2.5875 → about 39 before item Damage Increase, slayers, and resists. Drop Tactics and that same swing falls to ~29 — a ~25% loss. The full stack lives in Advanced combat → Damage components.

2. It unlocks special moves

Tactics is the secondary requirement for weapon special moves (WeaponAbility.cs). On this shard (TOL+ rules) you need, in addition to the weapon-skill requirement (70 primary / 90 secondary):

• 30.0 Tactics to use a weapon’s primary special move,
• 60.0 Tactics to use its secondary special move.

Below those values the move simply won’t fire (“You need … weapon skill to perform that attack”). So Tactics isn’t just damage — it’s the gate to disarms, bleeds, armor-ignoring hits, and the rest of your weapon’s toolkit.

Tactics has no active use of its own; both effects are passive.

Training

Tactics gains passively whenever you deal weapon damage — ScaleDamageAOS performs a Tactics skill check on each damage calculation. In practice:

• Fight anything that fights back. Tactics rises alongside your weapon skill (Swordsmanship, Mace Fighting, Fencing, Archery, Wrestling).
• Early levels fly (everything below 10.0 gains per use); later levels follow the standard gain curve with GGS as a safety net.
• Strength is the primary stat, so hitting things also makes you stronger — Britannia’s fitness program.
• Quick start: an NPC weapon trainer also teaches Tactics up to one-third of its own skill, capped at 42.0 (Scripts/Mobiles/Normal/BaseCreature.cs, CheckTeach: baseToSet = ourSkill.BaseFixedPoint / 3) — buy to ~30–42, then it rides up with every fight. Train it with your weapon skill and Anatomy on the same monsters.

See skill gain and using & training skills.

Related skills

• Swordsmanship and the other weapon skills — your to-hit
• Anatomy — the companion damage bonus, and a prerequisite for good Healing
• Lumberjacking — the axe-only damage bonus