What abilities actually do: the verb taxonomy
Counted from logic/ability-effects.jsonl — every run-action inside
every wired ability blueprint — build 20212986, patch 2.7.0x.
Strip away names and flavor text and every ability in WotR is a list of machine verbs. There are 11,337 of them across 6,072 abilities. Ranked, they are a portrait of what kind of game this really is.
The verbs, ranked
| Action | Count | Share | |---|---:|---:| | ApplyBuff | 4,184 | 37% | | RemoveBuff | 1,797 | 16% | | DealDamage | 1,695 | 15% | | ConditionalSaved / SavingThrow | 1,387 | 12% | | SpawnMonster | 390 | | | DispelMagic | 261 | | | HealTarget | 204 | | | SpawnAreaEffect | 149 | | | CastSpell | 145 | | | CombatManeuver / Kill / Randomize | 160 | |
Status effects outnumber swords
ApplyBuff outnumbers DealDamage by 2.5 to 1, and add RemoveBuff and the game's most common full sentence is "apply a state; sometimes remove one." This is mechanically a status-effect game with swords in it — which anyone who has pre-buffed a party already suspected.
The save machinery lives inline
Over 1,300 actions are saving-throw or conditional-save wrappers — the DC anatomy isn't a separate system, it's woven between the verbs: throw, then branch on success.
Summons are a first-class verb
SpawnMonster fires 390 times — more often than healing (204). The
game summons armies. And 145 abilities exist mostly to cast other
spells (CastSpell) — metamagic carriers, spell-trigger effects, and
the mythic spellbook merges reuse each other rather than duplicating
logic.
What's rare is telling
Combat maneuvers appear just 59 times, instant kills 55, and true
randomness (Randomize) only 46 — the wild, chaotic abilities players
remember are a rounding error in the verb economy. Deterministic
state-changes are the load-bearing wall.
Per-ability breakdowns render across our Spells and Classes sections.
Sources
logic/ability-effects.jsonl— every action per ability, attributed to its component path.- Build: 20212986 (patch 2.7.0x).