Instinct - Building Combat Skills   Instinct - Building combat skills 1)What is Challenging 2) How to Challenge 3) Fighting 4) How to Fight What is Challenging A challenge is something you can do to an animal which is the same gender and species as you. A challenge helps determine your rank in dominance order. For example, if you are a male wolf, you can challenge another male wolf, but you can't challenge a female wolf, or a male Elk. This is a challenge for position in dominance order. If you win the challenge, you stand to move up in the dominance order if you have challenged an animal of higher rank. By challenging you score life points and gain combat skills. If you win the challenge you will score more life points and gain even more combat skills than if you lose, either way, you gain points. Challenging will cause you and the target of your challenge to burn energy, but no real physical harm is done to either of you. Challenges manifest themselves as foot stomping, growling, staring down, or whatever is appropriate for the species posting the challenge. Challenging can have its own set of risks. Energy, water, and food can be precious resources. Challenging will cause you to use these resources up. As with any activity that you may wish to partake in, you should constantly monitor energy, water, and health resources for your animal. Dominance order has importance when mating. Your animal may not be allowed to mate, especially with NPC's, unless you have achieved sufficient rank in dominance order. You can challenge an animal that is anywhere within your view. In other words, if you can see it, you can challenge it. How to Challenge Here is an example of how to to challenge: Fighting Fighting is deadly serious. It should not be done lightly because it is done with the intent to kill. When you fight another animal, you attempt to do grave bodily harm to that animal. Fighting may be necessary for some predators who are hunting, or in cases where you are defending your young. Fighting burns a lot of energy and resources of your animal. With fighting, like with any other activity, you should monitor your animal so that it doesn't run out of energy or water, or over heat, or experience a dangerous drop in health. You must be at the same location as the target animal that you want to fight so that it will be within reach. How to Fight Fighting is done exactly like a challenge, except you pick the fight command. Here is an example of how to fight: