Combat in Warlock: Dungeons & Dragons is real-time and third person, and it is built around a single loop: use magic to put a monster in a worse position, then convert that opening. Kaatri is a veteran weapons master before she is a spellcaster, and the game leans on both halves of that.
Magic Sets Up, Melee Finishes
The studio head has described the optimal way to play as using spells to make monsters vulnerable, then landing critical attacks because the target has been put at a disadvantage. He has also said that although a mostly-magic run is conceivable, essentially every player will end up mixing melee and magic, and that this blend is the key thing the team wanted to give players.
Kaatri can summon otherworldly melee weapons. Official material describes each as imbued with its own power and its own tactical value, which implies a choice between them rather than a single upgrade path, though none has been named or shown with statistics.
Elemental and Positional Combinations
The most-discussed part of the combat system is that spells interact with each other and with the environment instead of resolving in isolation. The examples that have been demonstrated are below. The Spells page carries the full spell list.
Setup | Payoff |
|---|---|
Downpour soaks a group of enemies | Witch Bolt propagates through the water and electrifies several targets at once instead of one |
Gust of Wind destabilises an enemy | Kaatri closes the distance and follows with a melee combo while the target is off balance |
Levitate lifts an enemy off the ground | The target is removed from the fight entirely, or slammed back down |
Black Tentacles are summoned into a choke point | Anything that walks into the patch is held in place, breaking up a group |
Fey Switch swaps Kaatri with a monster | She lands behind an enemy line and strikes an unaware target, or escapes a surround |
Otherworldly Leap is aimed at a target | The jump ends in a heavy melee landing, used to reach airborne enemies or to open a fight |
The developers have described player creativity as the point rather than a bonus. Their stated position is that what designers imagine is only a starting point, and that when players surprise them with a use they try to support it in the game.
Escaping and Refusing Fights
Not fighting is treated as a legitimate answer. Developers have said explicitly that avoiding combat is a perfectly good strategy, and that spells were designed with that in mind. Misty Step in particular was described as a fast, dynamic way to break contact, quicker than a normal dodge because Kaatri turns to mist in a flash. Levitate has been used to lift a blocking enemy out of the way and simply leave them there.
Enemies
Very little of the bestiary has been shown. The reveal footage moves through a small town and down into a cellar full of undead, and creators who played the demo referred to zombies, to a larger zombie described as an ogre zombie, to guards and to at least one flying enemy that could be reached with Otherworldly Leap. No enemy has been formally named, given statistics or shown as a boss encounter.
Upgrades
Spells can be improved. Creators in the hands-on session described an upgrade system covering the different spells, and a developer confirmed that the game carries more than one variant of Eldritch Blast rather than a single fixed version. How upgrades are earned and what they cost has not been described. Character progression more broadly is centred on magic and on finding new spells out in the world, which is covered on Gameplay.
Not Yet Confirmed
Whether spells use a resource, a cooldown or a slot system, and how it recovers.
How many melee weapons exist, what they are called and how they differ.
Whether there is blocking, parrying, a dedicated dodge or a stamina system.
Damage numbers, statistics, critical mechanics or status effects.
Named enemies, boss fights and the size of the bestiary.
Difficulty options and how they change encounters.
Whether spell upgrades are bought, found or unlocked by use.