Introduction[]
Combat in Love of Magic is resolved through a variant of poker inspired by the defunct Japanese studio GAIA CO., LTD's 2010 mobile game "Sword and Poker."
When engaged in combat you place cards on a 5 by 5 board to complete lines. The resulting hand determines which effect will trigger. Every possible hand is linked to one of your gems, allowing you to tailor your style to both your personal tastes as well as the foes you will be facing.
Combat starts with the center 9 cards on the board already filled. Combatants take turns where they first fill their hand up to 5 cards, and then select 2 of them to make a valid play. The player always gets the first turn. Note that it is possible to change the gems used for the battle only before the first hand is played.
In order for a play to be valid the 2 cards placed must create a poker hand of at least a single pair that includes 3 cards from the center of the board. Note that due to the existence of jokers a 5 of a kind is a possible combination in this format. The cards used for both the starting board as well as the player's hands are drawn from a typical 52 card deck, with 2 jokers added to it. If the player does not have any valid plays at the start of their turn they will automatically be drawn a new hand of 5 cards. If the antagonist has no valid plays they will skip their turn to draw a new hand.
As the board fills up there will come a point where placing 2 cards will not only create a line through the center, but also lines using the vertical and horizontal edges of the board. If these lines then contain a valid poker hand these will trigger as well, allowing both the player and the antagonist to create potentially devastating plays.
Once the board has completely filled up, all the cards on the board are shuffled back into the deck and a new board with 9 center cards is generated. Note that, since there are several ways to add jokers to the board or the hand of the player, more and more jokers may appear both on the board as well as in the hand of the opponent.
This process repeats until 1 of the combatants has their hitpoints reduced to 0, at which point the combat ends.
Poker hands[]
The following combinations are possible. Note that if there are multiple possible combinations due to jokers, the highest one will always be chosen.
| Combination | Cards needed |
|---|---|
| Single Pair | 2 cards of the same value. |
| Double Pair | 2 sets of 2 cards of the same value. |
| Three of a kind | 3 cards of the same value. |
| Straight | 5 cards with consecutive values. The Ace can serve as both 1 and 14. |
| Flush | 5 cards of the same suit. |
| Full House | 1 set of 2 cards of the same value and 1 set of 3 cards of the same value. |
| Four of a Kind | 4 card of the same value. |
| Five of a Kind | 5 cards of the same value. |
| Straight Flush | 5 cards with consecutive values of the same suit. The Ace can serve as both 1 and 14. |
| Royal Flush | 10, Jack, Queen, King, Ace of the same suit. |
Companion abilities[]
Aside from playing a poker hand each turn, the player character can also bring up to 3 companions to battle, each of which have 1 or more abilities that can be triggered before playing a hand. These abilities recharge based on damage dealt as well as damage received, modified by the player's Charisma. In book 2 the same applies to Excalibur, except that the modifier is Swordmanship. Given the right circumstances, it is not uncommon that some abilities can be used every single turn. For a full listing of all the companions and their abilities, please see the companions page.
Gems[]
In poker, playing a certain hand will always be linked to a specific gem. Depending on the combination of gems the player has elected to use, simply playing whatever is the highest possible hand on the board may not always be the best option.
Which gems are the right ones also depends largely on the foe. Some enemies are outright immune to certain effects, rendering gems that use those effects almost useless. For a full listing of all the gems and their effects, please consults the Gems page. A complete listing of all the enemies encountered, as well as the gems they use is available on Elsewhere/Combat.
There are as many strategies for gems as there are players, and everything is debatable, however a general overview is:
- Straight Damage (damage, piercing, rage/cluster) - simplest to use, useful for opponents with immunities (constructs, higher tier daemons)
- rage/cluster or rage/shield provides a more offensive build
- poison/shield or poison/lightning provides a highly damaging build that doesn't pay off very fast (add Toxic Shock gem to enhance)
- pure fire or pure lightning provide high damage options, but can be ineffective when dealing with immunities
- pure ice, or ice + poison provide a more defensive build
- Winter King Gem (Book 2) - You can bring Katie and use Fire or Fire/Ice for a nasty combo
Generally speaking, gems should be placed in the lowest slot they fit in.
Difficulty levels[]
| Difficulty | Damage dealt | Damage received | Player Hitpoints | Companion recharge* | Enemy range** | Special |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Story | +50% | -50% | +100% | Base | Base | N/A |
| Easy | +20% | -10% | +50% | Base | Base | N/A |
| Default | Base | Base | Base | Base | Base | N/A |
| Hard | Base | +20% | Base | -20% | +50% | N/A |
| Ultra | -40% | +50% | Base | -40% | +50% | Molly's ability only gives 3 jokers instead of 5 |
* Applies to Excalibur as well.
* *Enemy range is a modifier to the player level that determines what enemies are available. Eg if the player level is 12 and the difficulty adds 50% of enemy range, the player level is counted as 18 for determining which combat events are available in Elsewhere.
Strategy[]
Auto-play
The Auto play function does not consider side plays, history, health, healing, gems, companions, monster gems, monster plays or any other strategy considerations when selecting a play. Auto selects the first highest 'poker' hand which matches through the center, in order by Horizontal, Vertical, then Diagonal. Because of this, even a relatively inexperienced player can often match or outperform Auto at combat.
Closing out the board - The power of discard.
This is one of the first and most effective strategy items to learn. At the close of the board you can gain up to four additional side plays, which can result in devastating combinations. However, since the player always gets to play the first hand, this typically leaves the last play to the opponent. This means that it can be worthwhile to Discard a hand. This will cause the monster to play the earlier hand (potentially without side plays) and allow the player to close out the board. A similar result can be obtained through the use of Lightning.
Your Gems
You may have a hand with mixed gems, have gems the monster is immune to, or early in the game may simply not have filled out a gem set at all.
You can always check your gems during play and determine what a particular play would trigger. You can adjust which cards you play to match your best available gem, for example trigger a lightning gem to gain an extra play and close out the board, or a damage gem to finish combat instead of shielding and continuing.
Swapping Gem Sets
Remember that until you actually begin a combat, you can switch to an alternate gem set (or adjust the gems within your current one.)
The Monster's hand
If you check the cards in the monster's hand you can see if it has any plays available that you can block. Possibly even causing it to discard and lose a turn if you are lucky.
The Monster's Gems
The gems available to each monster are listed in the wiki. You can adjust your gem set before combat starts to make yourself more effective and less vulnerable to a particular monster's gem set. You can also determine plays which might be available to the monster that would be effective against you and work to block those when they come up.
Jokers
A particular consideration when playing with Molly on long fights, replacing cards with jokers will eventually cause more and more cards drawn to be jokers. Eventually all cards in the deck will be jokers. This can be useful if the monster's high hands are shields, allowing you to kill them with poison, or to draw out play when trying for achievements. Note that a deck filled with jokers will eventually reset and must then be filled up again with jokers.
Keyboard Shortcuts[]
You can use keyboard shortcuts to speed things up in combat. (Starting in Book 2, this includes from the Keypad with Numlock enabled)
| Shortcut Key | Action |
|---|---|
| Space Bar | From the board, this is the same as clicking 'Auto' and will automatically make the recommended play. |
| 1 | Activates the first (left) companion. |
| 2 | Activates the second (middle) companion. |
| 3 | Activates the third (right) companion. |
| 4 | Activates Excaliber (Book 2 only) |
Once a companion is activated you can select the ability for them to use from the keyboard as well
| Shortcut Key | Action |
|---|---|
| 1 | Companion uses their first (top) ability. |
| 2 | Companion uses their second ability. |
| 3 | Companion uses their third ability. |
| Space Bar | Activate the selected ability (top is default). Avoid stacking the space bar to avoid unwanted autoplay. |
Other notes: If a character has a dialog when activated (e.g. Dylan), you can dismiss it using the space bar (again, avoid stacking the space bar)
When playing cards on the board, there is not a way to select specific cards and place them using the keyboard.
If you are waiting to see the recommended play, there is no hotkey to trigger it to display early, however hovering the mouse over the 'Auto' button will do so.
Out of Combat[]
You can use the numbers 1, 2, 3... to select successive dialog options. Starting In Book 2 this includes Keypad numbers (with Numlock on)
In Book 1, keypad 'Enter' and 'End' will advance single choice dialogs.
I Hate Poker[]
(Well, it's not really poker, but it does use poker hands.)
If you really don't want anything to do with cards, that's fine! Play the game how you want!
- Put the game on 'Easy' mode ("I'm just here for the story")
- You should still optimize your gems at least a little. E.g. Sell everything but damage gems, put those in the lowest slot they will go. (If you don't do that much it is possible for some of the special/scripted fights to be very long.)
- Just hit 'AUTO' in combat (and click on your companions to activate their abilities whenever available.) The Spacebar is the same as clicking 'Auto.