In melee combat, you need to roll a 20-sided dice (d20) each round. The number you roll is compared with the enemy to-hit value, which in turns depends on your Melee Rating.
While this table is useful to understand Sryth's combat system, if you want to document an enemy's difficulty, it's much easier to use the {{Foe}} template, which automatically calculates enemy's MR based on its to-hit value at certain character's MR values.
Use Combat/DamageTables to see how much damage you'll deal or receive from a certain roll against a certain to-hit value.
Table[]
The following table of to-hit numbers , gathered from confrontations in Thofyra's Training Yard in Talinus, shows how the enemy's to-hit number correlates to the character's MR.
The blank cells are the ones that would have a 18+ or a 3+, past the first one for each enemy.
| Player's MR | Sark Palestone | Gaunt-Faced Warrior | Hogtooth | Green-Masked Woman | Wild-Haired Warrior | Hideously-Scarred Former Pirate | Birrit the Unbroken | Swordmaster Irikkin |
| 18 | 18 | |||||||
| 19 | 17 | |||||||
| 20 | 17 | |||||||
| 21 | 16 | |||||||
| 22 | 16 | |||||||
| 23 | 16 | 18 | ||||||
| 24 | 15 | 17 | ||||||
| 25 | 15 | 17 | ||||||
| 26 | 14 | 16 | ||||||
| 27 | 14 | 16 | ||||||
| 28 | 14 | 16 | 18 | |||||
| 29 | 13 | 15 | 17 | |||||
| 30 | 13 | 15 | 17 | |||||
| 31 | 12 | 14 | 16 | |||||
| 32 | 12 | 14 | 16 | |||||
| 33 | 12 | 14 | 16 | 18 | ||||
| 34 | 11 | 13 | 15 | 17 | ||||
| 35 | 11 | 13 | 15 | 17 | ||||
| 36 | 9 | 12 | 14 | 16 | ||||
| 37 | 8 | 12 | 14 | 16 | ||||
| 38 | 8 | 12 | 14 | 16 | 18 | |||
| 39 | 7 | 11 | 13 | 15 | 17 | |||
| 40 | 7 | 11 | 13 | 15 | 17 | |||
| 41 | 6 | 9 | 12 | 14 | 16 | |||
| 42 | 6 | 8 | 12 | 14 | 16 | |||
| 43 | 6 | 8 | 12 | 14 | 16 | 18 | ||
| 44 | 5 | 7 | 11 | 13 | 15 | 17 | ||
| 45 | 5 | 7 | 11 | 13 | 15 | 17 | ||
| 46 | 4 | 6 | 9 | 12 | 14 | 16 | ||
| 47 | 4 | 6 | 8 | 12 | 14 | 16 | ||
| 48 | 4 | 6 | 8 | 12 | 14 | 16 | 18 | |
| 49 | 3 | 5 | 7 | 11 | 13 | 15 | 17 | |
| 50 | 5 | 7 | 11 | 13 | 15 | 17 | ||
| 51 | 4 | 6 | 9 | 12 | 14 | 16 | ||
| 52 | 4 | 6 | 8 | 12 | 14 | 16 | ||
| 53 | 4 | 6 | 8 | 12 | 14 | 16 | ||
| 54 | 3 | 5 | 7 | 11 | 13 | 15 | ||
| 55 | 5 | 7 | 11 | 13 | 15 | |||
| 56 | 4 | 6 | 9 | 12 | 14 | |||
| 57 | 4 | 6 | 8 | 12 | 14 | 18 | ||
| 58 | 4 | 6 | 8 | 12 | 14 | 17 | ||
| 59 | 3 | 5 | 7 | 11 | 13 | 17 | ||
| 60 | 5 | 7 | 11 | 13 | 16 | |||
| 61 | 4 | 6 | 9 | 12 | 16 | |||
| 62 | 4 | 6 | 8 | 12 | 16 | |||
| 63 | 4 | 6 | 8 | 12 | 15 | |||
| 64 | 3 | 5 | 7 | 11 | 15 | |||
| 65 | 5 | 7 | 11 | 14 | ||||
| 66 | 4 | 6 | 9 | 14 | ||||
| 67 | 4 | 6 | 8 | 14 | ||||
| 68 | 4 | 6 | 8 | 13 | ||||
| 69 | 3 | 5 | 7 | 13 | ||||
| 70 | 5 | 7 | 12 | |||||
| 71 | 4 | 6 | 12 | |||||
| 72 | 4 | 6 | 12 | |||||
| 73 | 4 | 6 | 11 | |||||
| 74 | 3 | 5 | 11 | |||||
| 75 | 5 | 9 | ||||||
| 76 | 4 | 8 | ||||||
| 77 | 4 | 8 | ||||||
| 78 | 4 | 7 | ||||||
| 79 | 3 | 7 | ||||||
| 80 | 6 | |||||||
| 81 | 6 | |||||||
| 82 | 6 | |||||||
| 83 | 5 | |||||||
| 84 | 5 | |||||||
| 85 | 4 | |||||||
| 86 | 4 | |||||||
| 87 | 4 | |||||||
| 88 | 3 |
Explanation[]
Each enemy's MR, when compared to the player's MR, may result in a total of 32 to-hit values, all the way from 18+ to 3+, from which only 30 are significant. Values of 3+ and 18+ are not significant, because if a enemy is 3+ at MR 60, it will also be 3+ at MR 115, and vice versa if a enemy is 18+ at MR 100, it will also be 18+ at MR 50. Of the 30 significant values, the only one that is unique is 9+, so 9+ becomes the only adequate candidate to precisely determine an enemy's MR. Another way to do it, if you don't have the precise 9+ value, is to indicate two boundary values, like Sark Palestone's 5+ at MR 45 and 4+ at MR 46.
So, after the table is shown, it's easy to see that we can define Sark Palestone's MR as 9+ at MR 36, or Swordmaster Irikkin's as 9+ at MR 75, and we'll need no more data to calculate his precise to-hit number for any given character's MR.
The 10+ value is an oddity. The only enemy found to have a natural 10+ to-hit is the Staggering Cadaver (6th enemy of the Hall of Seven Ghouls) at MR 115 is 10+). You can also see a 10+ if you use a Power when battling a 9+ foe.
As an alternate way to represent an enemy's MR, we could use that value as the enemy's MR, that is, Swordmaster Irikkin would have a MR of 75. Since this way of expressing MRs for enemies would be confusing for beginner players, I wouldn't recommend it. After all, we don't know how the GM coded it, only the results.
All enemies follow up this distribution from the lower ranks up to the higher levels. This have been confirmed in high-level enemies like Ghor-Tiln in Cave of Four Spirits, all of the Crimson-Helmed Rider's faces, and the Spirits in the Cave of Four Spirits.
This kind of fixed table is only valid for unique enemies, whose to-hit numbers never change from one fight to the other. There are, however, some enemies (usually randomly-encountered ones, like when you explore the realms at random) whose stats change a little among different encounters even if they have the same name.