Perk Reference

Years of training have taught you to fight equally well with both hands.

Right-click any one-handed melee weapon in the bag or stash while your mainhand is occupied and the offhand is free, and it will be placed in the offhand slot. Its skills become available alongside your mainhand weapon.

While wielding two melee weapons, every melee attack deals +20% damage (applies to both hands).

After every basic attack you have a 20% chance to follow up with the basic attack of your offhand weapon (Fatigue cost applies, no AP cost). Double Grip does not apply while dual-wielding — the +20% damage replaces it.

Restrictions:
 — The offhand slot must be empty (no shield, throwing net, banner or grenade).
 — Two-handed melee weapons go in the offhand only if the bro has the Huge trait. Ranged weapons (bows, crossbows, throwing axes) are never eligible for the offhand.
 — The follow-up triggers only on basic weapon attacks (Swing, Thrust, Split, etc.), not on special attacks like Decapitate or Riposte.

Mastery of the two-blade style. While fighting with two weapons, you parry incoming blows with both edges.

While in Two-Weapon Stance, gain 12% of current Resolve as additional Melee Defense (capped at +15). Does not grant Ranged Defense.

+5% to the offhand follow-up chance (20% → 25%).

Natural quickness. Maximum Initiative is increased by +10% (applies before fatigue penalties).

Take advantage of your initiative to deal more damage.

Gain 8% of current Initiative as additional minimum and maximum damage, capped at +15.

Bonus scales with your current Initiative in combat, so it will drop as fatigue accumulates.

Sliding between the folds of darkness like a phantom.

When fighting at night gain +10% to Melee Skill, Ranged Skill, maximum Initiative and Resolve, and +3 Fatigue Recovery per turn.

As a skilled archer, even in the midst of a melee, you can manage to dodge and use your bow to counterattack.

Bows can be used even when engaged in melee. Does not apply to crossbows.

When an enemy with a melee weapon stands adjacent and threatens you, your aim suffers — −10 Ranged Skill until the threat is gone (stunned, fleeing, or otherwise unable to engage).

Iron is not a shield — it is a target.

Every melee hit deals bonus armor damage equal to 8% of the target's current armor condition (the heavier and less damaged the armor, the higher the bonus).

Has no effect against unarmored targets.

Sometimes the best way to win is to strike first.

Gain 10% of current Initiative as additional Melee Skill and Ranged Skill, capped at +20 each.

Bonus scales with your current Initiative in combat, so it will drop as fatigue accumulates.

Faith is the panacea to pain. Gain 12% of current Resolve as additional damage reduction to both Hitpoints and Armor.

Also grants immunity to Stun.

Blows that pierce armor are weakened by the mass of your body. The healthier the fighter, the less damage he takes.

Reduces HP damage that bleeds past your body armor by 0.14% per point of current Hitpoints, up to a 20% cap (reached at 143 HP).

Scales off current HP, not max — a wounded tank loses absorption as he bleeds.

Stacks multiplicatively with other damage reductions.

Hard-locked — cannot be picked unless Brawny is already owned. Sits at tier 7 of the vanilla Heavy Armor perk group.

"It is not the man who dies the most who lives the longest." Years of being pummeled have given you a strange gift: the worse things get, the calmer you become. When other men's vision narrows and their hands shake, yours steadies.

Once your Hitpoints fall below 45%, gain +1 Melee Defense and +1 Ranged Defense for every Hitpoint missing past the 45% threshold, capped at +20 of each.

Once below 20% Hitpoints, you also become immune to the effects of fresh injuries and to the morale loss that normally follows being wounded.

Hard-locked — cannot be picked unless Battle Forged is already owned. Sits at tier 7 of the vanilla Heavy Armor perk group, alongside Body Fortress.

There are men who fight, and there are men who FIGHT, and you have come to understand that the difference between them lies less in muscle than in mind. You read the swing before the sword comes loose from the scabbard.

While in combat and at Confident morale, gain stacks based on the flow of battle: +1 per dodged enemy attack (melee or ranged), -1 per landed enemy attack (stacks never drop below zero).

Each stack grants +1% to both the minimum and maximum damage of your equipped weapon, capped at +25%.

Stacks reset at the end of combat — and immediately drop to zero if your morale falls below Confident.

“My flesh is a temple, and my fists are its pillars.”

Years spent copying dusty manuscripts have hardened your knuckles, and endless hours of silent meditation have taught you to channel the strength of the spirit down into your fingertips. Why should a monk wield steel that rusts, or wood that rots? You have come to understand that the human body is the only weapon a man truly needs — a perfect instrument, given from above.

Now, when you set the full weight of your vows behind a punch into the jaw of some swaggering sellsword, or drive a fist into the ribs of an orc brute, the sound that follows is sweeter to your ears than any chapel bell.

While in the Monk Stance — body armor of 20 or less, helmet of 30 or less, and both hands empty:
 — Gain 7% of remaining Stamina as Melee Defense. As you tire through the fight, your defense fades with it.
 — Gain 6% of current Initiative as Ranged Defense.
 — Every basic unarmed attack has a 45% chance to follow up with another unarmed strike (70% with Energy of Qi). The follow-up costs Fatigue (no AP) and has a −5% hit chance penalty. Each follow-up has a 15% chance to leave the target dazed.
 — Reach is locked to 1 baseline in this stance (ignoring Tiny −1 / Huge +1 and all other modifiers). Every landed unarmed strike adds +1 Reach on top of that baseline, stacking up to +5 (max effective Reach 6). A missed punch wipes the bonus to zero; stacks survive enemy turns and reset at the start of your own next turn.

Additionally, you suffer no Naked penalty when fighting unarmored — for a trained monk, bare flesh is a discipline.

“The world is illusion. Battle is but a dance of shadows.” So your old master was fond of saying — before the day he vanished forever from his locked cell.

Having mastered the ghost step, you move across the battlefield like smoke rising from a funeral pyre. Enemies swing in fury, and their blades cut only empty air. Where a heavy knight founders in the mud and chokes inside his own helmet, you draw a single breath, take a single step — and find yourself standing at his back, with not a drop of effort wasted.

While in the Monk Stance:
 — Rotation and Footwork cost 0 Fatigue and 2 AP.
 — Gain 5% of current Initiative as both Melee Defense and Ranged Defense.

Requires Monastery Training.

“Firmness of spirit is the better shield.”

Your body is only the temporary vessel of your soul — but this vessel proves surprisingly hard to break, thanks to a lifelong habit of suffering. Decades of fasting and harsh penance were not for nothing. After the half-blind old abbot had you flogged for years for the smallest stumble in the psalms, an enemy dagger feels no worse than a friendly pat on the shoulder. You have learned to part your mind from the suffering flesh. When the blade cuts your skin, you merely remember the cold winters of an unheated monastery and understand: it has been worse.

The world around is vanity, the cries of the dying, the stench of unwashed bodies. But within you — only the silence of an abandoned cell, and the echo of the morning prayer. While your comrades panic at the sight of a bloodied field, you only sigh meekly, remembering that all things in this world pass away.

Neither the dreadful shrieks of the undead, nor the ghosts that haunt old graveyards, nor the bellowing of orcs — nothing can stir the calm within you. You watch an axe hurled at your head with the same quiet indifference you once gave a buzzing fly during an all-night vigil.

While in the Monk Stance, incoming HP damage is reduced by 0.4% for every point of current Resolve, up to a 60% cap (reached at 150 Resolve). Armor damage is not reduced — the monk's protection is the spirit, not the cloth.

Requires Monastery Training.

You have come to know the secret of the energy that flows within every living thing. Your strikes are no longer mere collisions of flesh against flesh — with every motion you release the spiritual force you have gathered, and that force passes clean through any armor.

But this power is like a candle's flame in the wind: it burns brightest while the body is fresh and full of strength. The more you tire, the dimmer the spark within you grows. To strike a foe stone dead, you must be calm and rested. Rage and ragged breath make poor companions in battle.

While in the Monk Stance, every melee hit deals additional bonus HP damage (bypassing armor) equal to a random 14–18% (rolled per hit) of remaining Stamina, capped at +30 HP. The bonus fades as you tire — Qi flows freely only through a body that is calm and rested.

Also raises the unarmed follow-up chance from 45% to 70%.

After a basic unarmed strike, there is a 10% chance to instantly chain a third strike against a random adjacent enemy (other than the original target). The chain strike costs Fatigue but no AP and has a −10% hit chance penalty.

Also grants the active skill Laying on Hands (once per turn, 6 AP / 40 Fatigue, adjacent allies only), which heals an ally for 20% of the monk's current Resolve and removes poisons, bleeds and charm effects.

Side effect: Each unarmed strike costs +3 additional Fatigue while in Monk Stance (applies to follow-up punches too).

Requires Monastery Training.