Taking Damage

Taking Damage

When an opponent's damage dealing attack successfully connects with a legal hit location you need to figure what effect it will have.

The first thing you do when you take damage (or are hit by a spell call) is check to see if you have any immunity effects. So if you are hit for "4 Poison" and you have the spell Poison Immunity up, it will prevent that damage and you will not proceed any further in taking damage. An ability such as a damage requirement would also be checked at this time. A "No Effect" call must be made whenever an attack successfully hits you but does not inflict damage (or does not take effect in the case of spells) so that the attacker knows-that-you-know the attack successfully hit and so that they know they may need to attack with something different.

After you have checked for immunity effects you check to see if you have any limited use prevention effects. These are often called "one time" effects because they generally only work once. One example of such an effect is from the spell spirit shield. Remember to call ''No Effect" if the damage is prevented outright by an effect.

After prevention effects, apply any effects that change the amount of damage taken. Namely the monstrous rule.

At this point damage is going to be dealt in some form. Characters have four possible pools that damage might be applied to before the character takes a wound. Those pools are magic armor, physical armor, natural armor, and body. Damage is always applied to magic armor first, physical armor second, natural armor third, body fourth and finally as a wound last. If the damage has the "Pierce" trait it cannot be applied to any type of armor.

Applying damage to a pool is done on a one-for-one basis. For example if an attack deals 4 damage and have 2 magic armor, 1 physical armor and 3 body, after the damage is dealt you will now have 0 magic armor, 0 physical armor, and 2 body remaining.

Finally if you no longer have any magic armor, physical armor, natural armor or body left damage is applied as a wound to the location hit: Right Leg, Left Leg, Right Arm, Left Arm or Torso.

Keep in mind that a single hit can only ever cause one wound. If you are hit in the arm for 2 damage, you only take an arm wound, not an arm wound AND a torso wound.

If at any time you don't know how much damage you have taken, err on the side of the attacker by taking an immediate torso wound. Or in other words if you are in doubt or confused it's always ok to take more damage and remove yourself from the fight.

In Summary

Damage is applied in the following order:

1. On-going prevention effects (Such as immunity or damage requirements)
2. One time prevention effects (Such as spirit shield)
3. Damage reduction effects (Such as the monstrous rule)
4. Magic Armor
5. Physical Armor
6. Natural Armor
7. Body
8. Wound

Related Rules

Defensive Effects

With defenses a relevant immunity applies before any one-time effects apply.

If a character has two different one-time effects that both prevent an attack the higher level one applies first. Should two one-time effects be the same level, the one that is more limited in what it applies to is used first.

No combination of effects can make you invulnerable to all damage. The last effect received that would create an invulnerable situation is automatically prevented.

The following spells and effects may not stack with each other unless an ability explicitly allows them to:

• Poison Immunity Spell
• Battle Mastery Spell
• Nature Immunity Magic Items
• Mind Blank Spell
• The Rare Arcane Antiviral Ritual
• The Rare Elemental Shelter Ritual
• The Rare Vulnerability Trap

Detailed Interactions

Monstrous Armor, the Pierce Call, and Body

A character has 4 points of monstrous armor and 4 points of body. They take 4 Pierce damage. After the damage is taken they will have 4 monstrous armor remaining and 0 body. Nothing is reduced by the monstrous armor because the armor was bypassed completely.

Monstrous Armor and Magic Armor

A character has 2 points of magic armor and armor granting 3 points of monstrous armor. If that character is hit for 4 damage it is applied to the magic armor first, reducing the magic armor to 0. The remaining 2 damage is then applied to the monstrous armor, which reduces the TWO damage to one. After the damage is dealt the character now has 0 magic armor remaining, and 2 points of monstrous armor remaining.

Ablative Armor

Some effects like ablative armor can cause you take damage in a slightly different order. The effect will explain what changes it makes to the order damage is taken.

If an effect would cause damage to be applied to a specific one of these pools on the "next hit" then the next time you are damaged take the damage to the indicated pool instead of the normal order.

Categories: Combat Rules | Terminology