Every hit goes through the same four steps: flat armor, percentage resistance, a one-damage floor, then the crit multiplier. The order explains most of what feels odd about armored enemies.
Damage typesA hit can carry any mix of nine damage types. Weapons and spells list theirs on their item pages and on the spells list, and every creature's resistances are on its bestiary page.
| Type | Blocked by | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| True | Nothing | Only True Resistance reduces it |
| Slashing | Armor | Physical |
| Piercing | Armor | Physical |
| Bludgeoning | Armor | Physical |
| Fire | Magic Armor | Magical |
| Nature | Magic Armor | Magical |
| Water | Magic Armor | Magical |
| Cosmo | Magic Armor | Magical |
| Necro | Magic Armor | Magical |
Armor is a flat reduction, not a percentage. The defender blocks half its armor value from every hit, split evenly across the physical types the hit actually contains. No type can drop below zero. Magic Armor does exactly the same for the five magical types.
That split has a consequence. With 20 armor, a hit of 30 slashing loses 10 and deals 20. A hit of 15 slashing and 15 piercing also loses 5 from each and deals 20. But a hit of 30 slashing and 2 piercing splits the 10 into 5 and 5, and the piercing part can only absorb 2 of its share, so it deals 25. A small second damage type pulls half the armor onto itself and wastes most of it, so weapons with mixed damage push more through heavily armored targets.
Armor piercing (listed on some spells and weapons) reduces the defender's armor by that fraction before any of this happens. True damage skips armor entirely.
Whatever is left of each type is then cut by that type's percentage resistance (Slashing Resistance, Fire Resistance and so on). Resistances top out at 100% (immune) and can go as low as -1,000%, so a negative number is a weakness that multiplies the damage instead.
A hit that connects always does something. If the total after armor and resistances lands between 0 and 1, it's scaled up to 1. If everything was blocked, the hit deals 1 damage of whichever type was resisted the most.
Crit chance starts at 0% and only comes from gear, favours and buffs. A crit multiplies the damage by your crit damage stat, which starts at x2 and caps at x10.
The multiplier applies after armor. Against the 20 armor example above, a normal 30 slashing hit deals 20, and a crit deals 40. If crits applied first, the same crit would deal 50. Armor still hurts crit builds, but it takes the same flat bite out of every hit, so the bigger the hit, the less armor matters.
Siege attacks get one more multiplier from the target's siege damage taken stat, which is how buildings and armaments resist or suffer siege weapons.
A hit of 40 slashing and 10 fire lands on a target with 16 armor, 10 Magic Armor, 25% Slashing Resistance and -50% Fire Resistance.
- Armor blocks 8 from the only physical type: 40 slashing becomes 32.
- Magic Armor blocks 5 from the only magical type: 10 fire becomes 5.
- Resistances: 32 slashing x 0.75 = 24. 5 fire x 1.5 = 7.5.
- Total 31.5, well above the floor.
- No crit: 31.5 damage. With a x2 crit: 63.