Damage and Resistance

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Types of Damage

Here is a brief discussion of damage types. There's little 'new' here, it's mainly clarification/edification.

First, there are two broad categories of damage: Physical and energy.

Physical Damage

Physical damage is weapons, claws, rocks, that sort of thing. Physical damage is resisted by DR. Within the bounds of physical damage, there are several subtypes.

Weapon Damage

Weapons always do physical damage. Weapons are further subdivided into three primary category's of damage, namely, bludgeoning, slashing, and piercing damage. As a rough rule of thumb, piercing damage is physical damage concentrated into a very small point on the target, bludgeoning damage is concentrated upon a large area upon the target, and slashing damage is midway between the two.

As a general rule, piercing damage weapons do slightly less damage but have a larger chance of doing critical damage. Bludgeoning weapons tend to do a bit more damage but have a slightly smaller chance of doing critical damage, and slashing weapons are between those two extremes.

DR is able to resist physical damage, but is often overcome by the broad type of damage. For example, skeletons have DR against piercing and slashing damage, because they have no 'meat' to be damaged by concentrated force. Bludgeoning weapons, on the other hand, overcome that damage resistance, since bones are not unusually resistant to blunt force trauma. DR is always penetrated by the damage type listed in its name, and blocks all other damage types, with some caveats:

Epic Damage

After much careful thought, Epic damage has been removed from the game. Epic damage served to make all lesser forms of DR useless, which hurt the Monk, Barbarian, Paladin, Fighter, etc quite a lot. So, damage is damage, even when done by high level foes, and your DR/- always protects against it. Although, see Primal Damage, next.

Primal Damage

Primal damage cannot be reduced by any type of DR or ER or any other damage-reducing ability. Any attack dealing primal damage that hits will always do its full damage to its target. To balance this, Primal damage is rare and fraught with danger. Alchemists can inflict Primal damage at level 35, and there is a weapon property that inflicts primal damage both upon the target of your attacks and the wielder of the weapon, and that is IT.

Critical Damage

Critical damage is generally associated with weapon damage. Critical damage is based upon chance. Critical damage is used to represent the 'lucky shot' that hits a vulnerable spot. As a result, critical damage is related to precision damage, but it is not the same, and uses completely different mechanisms. As a general rule, critical damage doubles (or triples or quadruples) the number of base weapon dice you roll, and doubles (or triples or quadruples) the amount of damage you do based upon your Strength and the enhancement bonus of your weapon. Note that several classes have variant, different, rules for how criticals are handled, primarily the Rogues and the Brawler. In all cases, refer to the more specific class-based rules.

Precision Damage

Precision damage is a form of physical damage which depends upon the skill of the attacker to strike a point in the structure of the target which is far more susceptible to harm than the norm. For example, a stab to the eye is more harmful than a stab to the meat of the arm.

Precision damage always requires the attacker to have a clear and unobstructed 'shot' at the target. In game terms this means that any level of concealment will stop the application of precision damage.

In general, precision damage is limited to only a few classes., which have the specific skills to apply precision damage. Each class description will detail how much precision damage each class gets, and what rules they must follow in order to apply that precision damage to a victim.

Note that precision damage is different from and handled separately to critical damage. Most physical attacks may strike for critical damage, but only a very limited set of classes have access to precision damage. It is possible to apply precision damage without making a critical strike, and vice versa. Precision damage is NOT multiplied when a critical hit is rolled.

With a weapon that deals nonlethal damage (like a sap, whip, or an unarmed strike), a player character can make a precision damage attack that deals nonlethal damage instead of lethal damage. She cannot use a weapon that deals lethal damage to deal nonlethal damage in a precision damage attack, not even with the usual –4 penalty.

On top of that, some targets are immune or specially resistant to precision damage. In general, any creature which has little to no specialized internal structure will be specially resistant or immune to precision damage.

Immunity to Precision Damage

Creatures (or subtypes) Immune to Precision-Based Attacks (half damage from sneak attacks):

• Elemental (subtype)
• Incorporeal (subtype)
• Ooze (Type)
• Protean (subtype) - 50% chance to ignore precision damage.

Bonus Damage

Some classes (principally the Prowler and Ranger) receive class abilities which apply bonus damage. In all such cases, refer to the rules in the class for how that damage is applied. Bonus damage is not multiplied on a critical, as a rule. In addition, some weapon properties add bonus dice to a weapon's attacks. Such bonus dice are always handled in critical attacks as specified in the weapon property description. Usually, the bonus weapon damage dice are increased by a fixed amount when a critical is confirmed.

Non-Lethal damage

Non-lethal damage is a type of physical damage which is incapacitating to living creatures, but has no effect upon any other type of entity. Further, non-lethal damage is accounted against the hitpoints of the target 'in reverse' from standard damage, IE, non-lethal damage is counted 'upwards' from zero. Until the total non-lethal damage exceeds the current hitpoints of the target, there is no effect. Once the current hitpoints are exceeded, the targeted receives the unconscious condition. Note that non-lethal damage and regular physical damage 'stack'. IE, when the total of the non-lethal and normal damage exceed the TOTAL hit points of the target, it is unconscious.

Siege Damage

Siege damage is damage inflicted upon non-living fortifications, such as walls, portcullises, towers, and gates. Normal physical damage that is non-bludgeoning is unable to damage such targets. Normal physical damage inflicted by a bludgeoning weapon is at most half effective against such targets. Very few forms of energy damage are able to damage a fortification. (Sorry all you wizards, your fireballs are no use here.) Siege damage is normally inflicted by siege weapons only, and differs from normal damage in the scale of the attack and the amount of power which can be applied to each blow. This is partly due to the tremendous size of siege weapons, and the enormous amounts of power which can be applied to each strike by a siege weapon. The only man-portable weapon which has the 'siege' keyword is the hand onager, and thus with blunt quarrels, it is the only weapon fully effective against fortifications.

Damage Reduction (DR)

• DR x/Magic reduces any physical damage caused by non-magical weapons or attacks. Any enhancement bonus (e.g. +1) or magical property (e.g. keen) on a weapon or natural attack changes the damage to magic damage, at which point DR x/Magic cannot reduce it.
• DR x/bludgeoning, DR x/piercing and DR x/slashing are the most common types of DR. This DR is overcome only by a weapon with the listed damage type.
  • DR x/bludgeoning reduces physical damage from all melee or ranged attacks with the piercing or slashing damage types by x.
  • DR x/piercing reduces physical damage from all melee or ranged attacks with the bludgeoning or slashing damage types by x.
  • DR x/slashing reduces physical damage from all melee or ranged attacks with the bludgeoning or piercing damage types by x.
• DR x/silver or DR x/cold iron reduce physical damage from all melee and ranged attacks unless the weapons are made of the appropriate special material.
• DR x/adamantine reduces physical damage from all melee and ranged attacks unless the weapons are made from adamantine. Note a weapon made from any of the Adamantium-based alloys can bypass this DR (dolemetal, paramount, etc.)
• DR x/Lawful, DR x/Good, DR x/Chaotic, DR x/Evil and DR x/Neutral reduce physical damage from all melee or ranged attacks unless the weapons are enchanted with the listed alignment.
• DR x/- reduces all physical damage except primal damage. Epic damage is no longer in the game. As a result, DR/- is the best DR available.
  • DR x/Epic has been removed from the game. Any creature effect, or ability which granted DR/Epic now grants DR/- instead.
  • DR x/Primal does not exist. Primal damage cannot be reduced by DR or ER of any type. Ever.
  • Untyped damage caused by an extraordinary ability (EX) is physical damage unless the ability states otherwise, and is therefore subject to reduction by DR. However, in most cases, such damage is only blocked by DR x/-.

Energy Damage

Energy damage is non-physical. Energy damage may be resisted by ER. Within the bounds of energy damage there are many subtypes.

Elemental damage

Elemental damage is the traditional 'fire, cold, sonic, acid, and lightning" damage types. These damage types are commonly applied via spells. Elemental damage MAY be associated with physical weapons, via weapon properties or the application of poisons via class abilities, feats, etc. In such cases, the elemental damage and the physical damage are resolved separately against their respective resistances.

Force damage

Force damage is 'non-typed' energy damage. It does full damage to incorporeal creatures. It is a rare damage type, and is resisted by ER/Force or ER/-.

Psychic damage

Psychic damage is administered by mental attacks and certain types of spells. It is generally handled on a case-by-case basis.

Illusory and shadow damage

Illusory and shadow damage is energy damage that is applied against another, variable, type of resistance, assuming any defense is allowed at all.

Poison damage

Poisons generally do ability damage, and for these rules, ability damage is defined as a type of energy damage, thus, DR is not effective against it. In general, no form of resistance is effective against ability drains.

Disease damage

Diseases generally do ability damage, and for these rules, ability damage is defined as a type of energy damage, thus, DR is not effective against it. In general, no form of resistance is effective against ability drains.

Positive/negative damage

Positive and negative damage are energy damage types that are generally associated with evil/darkness for negative damage and good/light for positive damage. Positive/negative damage are more associated with divine magics, but are also accessible via arcane magics. Positive/negative damage are always energy attacks, and are resisted, if at all, by ER.

Other energy damage types

There are other types of energy damage. For example, there is 'light' damage, 'sunlight' damage, and 'holy' damage. All of these damage types are treated similarly to force damage, namely, if you have a special energy resistance to it, or have resistance to all forms of energy damage (exceedingly rare), then you have resistance. Otherwise, not.

Supernatural and Spell-Like Abilities

Any untyped damage dealt by a supernatural or spell-like ability is considered energy damage unless the ability states otherwise, and can be reduced by ER. However, in most cases, such damage is only blocked by ER/-.

Epic Energy Damage

Much like Epic Damage, there is no more Epic Energy Damage. Energy damage is damage, and your ER/- always works against it. Unless it's Primal, which is very rare and should indicate that you are in a Bad Place.