COMBO

The Better Combat Mod

Chain hits into a finisher, parry a swing to counter it, sneak past or silently take down a mob, and manage a stamina bar that gates how much of that you can do back to back.

In all honesty guys, I got really into Batman Arkham Origins over the past weeks and I wanted to make a mod that felt similar to it's combat a little bit. Though I don't think I should be trying to edit the way all mobs move either so this is as close as I can think of right now.

What it does

Combo & Finishers: Land three timely, sufficiently-charged melee hits in a row and the third lands as a finisher: bonus damage, extra knockback, and a stagger (Slowness + Weakness) on the target. Swords apply a bleed effect on a finisher, axes and maces get scaled-up knockback, and maces splash a chunk of flat damage to anything standing near the target.

Parry & Counter: Raise your shield at the right moment (not just "was already blocking") and a landed hit becomes a parry instead: it knocks the attacker back, staggers them, and arms your next landed hit to auto-upgrade into a finisher regardless of your current combo stage. Vanilla's own shield-raise windup is also scaled down, so a reactive block has a fair chance of actually landing in time.

Stealth & Backstab: Sneaking behind a target's facing and landing a hit deals bonus damage with its own sound cue, and a subtle vignette stays on screen the whole time you're sneaking, flashing red on a successful backstab. Sneaking also meaningfully lowers how easily mobs notice you.

Full Sneak Mode & Silent Takedown: An optional, always-on-while-crouching upgrade to the stealth bonus above: detection drops drastically in every direction, not just a target's blind spot. While it's active, walking up directly behind an eligible target (any hostile mob, an Iron Golem, or a villager) and attacking lands a heavily bonus-damage hit.

Stamina & Dodge: A stamina bar backs all of the above: sprinting and blocking drain it gradually (and get force-cut once it's empty), Full Sneak Mode's detection bonus drains it while active and simply stops working once it's gone, and a parry, a landed finisher, or a silent takedown each take a bigger one-time spike out of it as the cost of pulling one off. A dedicated dodge key spends a flat chunk of stamina for a directional dash, in whatever direction you're currently moving, or backward if you're standing still, with a brief window of total damage immunity.

Configuration

Every number above is pretty much fully customizable.

Platform

Built on Architectury for both Fabric and NeoForge