Combat

Combat on Sunday Market is vanilla, kept honest. Vanilla swing timing, vanilla damage formulas, vanilla mob AI — all preserved. Most of what we add sits around the fight:

• Recovery Chests so death doesn't erase your kit
• No keep-inventory — death still has weight, just not a ruinous one
• Enchant Mastery — your enchantments level up with use, the one system that reaches into the numbers themselves

Players who love vanilla combat: it's all still here. The depth comes from your gear, your enchanting choices, and your timing.

What this section covers

• PvP — consent norms, opt-in arenas, what's fair in a player-vs-player fight
• Death & recovery — what happens when you die, the Recovery Chest flow

What's vanilla

• Sword swing timing and damage formulas
• Bow draw mechanics
• Mob spawn rules
• Crit hits, knockback, sweeping edge
• Mob AI and pathfinding
• Status effects (poison, regen, weakness, strength)
• Armor damage reduction formulas
• The enchanting table itself — vanilla costs, vanilla lapis, vanilla rolls

What's tweaked

• Recovery Chests — your inventory at death lands in a personal locked chest at the death spot, waiting for you to walk back and claim it. See Recovery Chests.
• No keep-inventory — death drops your inventory; the Recovery Chest catches it. This preserves the death-cost while removing the punitive "lost it all" sting.
• Enchant Mastery — every enchantment on your gear levels up as you use it, climbing past its vanilla cap toward a five-star badge. This is the one thing bolted onto enchanting, and it's earned on the item by real use. See Enchant Mastery.

A typical PvE loadout

PvE strategy

• Solo mining and exploring — decent armor, a good weapon, and Recovery Chest awareness; you can survive most things
• Boss fights — golden apples, a totem in the off-hand, and a plan for the retreat
• Nether trips — Fire Protection armor and a fire resistance potion earn their keep
• End trips — Feather Falling boots and a spare set of pearls for the void's edge

PvP strategy

The full PvP page covers consent norms, arenas, and tactics: PvP. Short version:

• PvP runs on consent — coordinate with willing opponents; don't ambush peaceful players
• A losing PvP fight still drops your inventory to a Recovery Chest the killer can't open
• Terrain, timing, and gear win fights — plus the enchants you've leveled through use (see Enchant Mastery)

Why combat matters here

Sunday Market doesn't have a class system, skill trees, or RPG-style combat. We deliberately avoid that. Combat is vanilla mechanics deepened by preparation — your gear and your enchanting choices are your specialization.

This means:

• Every player shares the same combat formulas
• The veteran's advantage is gear, practice, and enchants leveled through use — earned on the item, not handed out by a character level
• A skilled new player can outplay a casual veteran
• Builds matter; playtime doesn't substitute for timing

This is the "no RPG" principle (see design philosophy) made concrete in combat: mechanical depth and gear you've earned by using it, not an arbitrary character sheet.

See also

• PvP — consent norms and arena etiquette
• Death & recovery — the death-side flow
• PvP & fairness rules — what's allowed in PvP
• Recovery Chests (storage side) — the storage perspective