---
title: "Abilities"
package: "@phaser-ae/abilities"
tier: Free
version: 3.0.0-3
released: 2026-10-14
updated: 2026-10-19
description: "Castable abilities as data, with resource costs, target checks, windups, charges, cooldowns, interruption and timed effect delivery, independent of sprites and input."
url: https://phaser.io/packs/abilities
site: Phaser - https://phaser.io
---

# Abilities

Castable abilities as plain data: costs, targeting, windups, charges, cooldowns and interruption, with effects
delivered on time as events. It is the logic behind a spell bar, kept apart from sprites, input and storage.

## What it does

You create a kit for one caster from a list of ability definitions. Each definition names its resource costs, its
range, whether it targets the caster, allies, enemies or anyone, the most targets it may name, its windup, its charges
and cooldown, and a list of effects with a delay for each. The caster has a team, resources such as mana or energy,
and flags for being alive or disabled.

`preview` checks a cast without changing anything and returns every reason it would be refused: a dead or disabled
caster, a cast already running, no charge ready, not enough of a resource, a target out of range, too many targets, a
duplicate, or a target on the wrong team. That list drives button states, tooltips and AI choices. `start` spends the
costs and one charge together. Effects fall due at the windup plus their own delay, in a stable order, and come out
of `drain` as events for your combat to apply. Charges recharge one at a time, never all at once.

`interrupt` cancels the cast in progress: effects not yet delivered are dropped, the configured fraction of the cost
comes back, and the spent charge stays spent. Time moves only in `tick`, which splits a long step at every due moment
so nothing is skipped, and the whole state snapshots and restores, with a check that refuses a saved state that does
not fit the definitions.

## Features

- **Ability definitions** — costs by resource name, range, target filter, target count, windup, charges, cooldown,
  effects with delays and an interrupt refund.
- **Full previews** — every rejection reason at once, read-only.
- **Charges and cooldowns** — up to 1,000 charges an ability, recharging one after another.
- **Windups and delayed effects** — damage, healing, shields, statuses and cleanses delivered on schedule to every
  target.
- **Interruption** — undelivered effects dropped, a chosen share of the cost refunded, the charge kept spent.
- **Events** — `started`, `effect`, `complete`, `interrupted` and `recharged`, each with its time.
- **Deterministic state** — advanced only by `tick`, with `snapshot`, `restore` and `checkAbilityState`.

## Good for

- **Action RPG skill bars**, with mana costs, cooldowns and cast times.
- **Top-down shooters and arena games** with charged abilities, such as a dash with three charges.
- **MOBA-style heroes**, where casts can be interrupted by a stun and refund part of their cost.
- **Support abilities** that heal or shield allies in range, with a cap on targets.
- **Enemy casters**, using the same previews to decide what an AI can cast right now.
- **Server or test simulations**, since the rules need no renderer or browser.

## Make it yours

Everything is in the definitions, so a new ability is new data. Costs can use any resources you name; a cast can be
instant or wind up; a single charge with a long cooldown makes a big ultimate, many charges with a short one make a
spammable dash; and an interrupt refund from 0 to 1 decides how much a cancelled cast hurts.

Two materially different kits: a mage with a fireball that costs ten mana, winds up for 0.3 seconds and holds two
charges, beside a free self-heal on a long cooldown; and a fighter whose whirlwind costs energy, has no windup and
hits up to five enemies within a short range, its damage delivered in three pulses half a second apart.

## A quick look

A bolt with two charges, cast at an enemy and its effect drained for the combat rules:

```ts
import { createAbilities } from '@phaser-ae/abilities';
const kit = createAbilities([{
  id: 'bolt', cost: { mana: 10 }, cooldown: 2, charges: 2, windup: .3,
  range: 250, target: 'enemy', maxTargets: 1, interruptRefund: .5,
  effects: [{ after: 0, effect: { kind: 'damage', amount: 20 } }],
}], { id: 'hero', team: 'party', alive: true, disabled: false, resources: { mana: 50 } });
const targets = [{ id: 'slime', team: 'foes', alive: true, distance: 100 }];
if (kit.preview('bolt', targets).ok) kit.start('bolt', targets);
kit.tick(.3);
const effects = kit.drain();   // deliver to the combat rules
```

## Works with

- `combat-rules` — required: the effects abilities deliver, applied to targets with armour, resistances and
  statuses.
- `melee-combat` — for swings with startup, active and recovery frames rather than casts.
- `turn-battle` — for turn-based battles rather than real-time casting.

## Good to know

- One kit serves one caster and runs one cast at a time.
- Targets are observations you supply: a delayed effect does not retarget, refund when its target dies or check line
  of sight; your game decides those.
- Resource regeneration belongs to your game, which sets the caster's resources directly.
- No animation, input binding or button drawing is included.

---

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