13.8 PLAYER VS. DENIZEN COMBAT

When you wish to fight a denizen, you may, generally, initiate combat with 
it simply by finding it and attacking it with whatever ability you choose to 
use. However, most abilities that do something other than just cause damage 
will not work against denizens. The reason for this requires some 
understanding of how player vs. player combat works, but for now suffice it 
to say that creating an artificial intelligence that allowed denizens to 
effectively deal with the hundreds of things a player can do to another 
player would be prohibitively complicated.

Once you have attacked a denizen, it will, in most cases, either attack you
back, or run away. Usually a denizen will continue to attack you until 
either it begins to panic and runs away, or until you or it is dead. Be 
warned that some denizen may loot your corpse of an item or two after they 
have killed you.

Critical hits
-------------

As you get to some of the higher experience levels, you will begin to score
critical hits more and more often. There are five levels of critical hit,
ranging from:

CRITICAL                          : 2x damage
CRUSHING CRITICAL                 : 4x damage
OBLITERATING CRITICAL             : 8x damage
ANNIHILATINGLY POWERFUL CRITICAL  : 16x damage
WORLD-SHATTERING CRITICAL         : 32x damage

Note: if you have a 10% chance to score a standard critical hit, then you have
a 10% chance for a standard critical to become a crushing critical hit, and a 
10% chance for a crushing critical to become an obliterating critical hit, etc.

In aethership vs. denizen combat, crew members can score critical hits while
manning a battle turret. The chance of critical hits there is determined by
one's skill in Aethercraft rather than level, however.

Note that certain denizens are immune to critical hits - notably city and
commune guards and certain extraordinarily powerful denizens (ie, the Demon
Lords of Nil).