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» (2) Installation & setup
» (3) Creating a character & starting to play
» (4) The world
» (5) Item and flag details, elements
» (5.6) Resistances & caps, immunities, susceptibilities
» (6) Monster details
» (7) Character details
» (8) Tactics & strategy
» (9) Miscellanous

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(5.6) Resistances & caps, immunities, susceptibilities                          
------------------------------------------------------

Resistances & caps
------------------
Several monsters or traps can cause elemental attacks on you. These attacks
can deliver very high damage if you do not 'resist' the specific attack type.
Those 'resistances' become very important in deeper dungeons where many
monsters are able to breathe on you with devastating power.

Permanent resistances (for example if you wear a ring and an armor that both
give fire resistance) will not stack. So one item is suffient for each
resistance. There is no difference if it's a helmet or an armour.
However, a temporary resistance (by potion or spell) and a permanent
resistance can stack (NOTE: This only applies to base and poison resistance,
base ones being fire, cold, electricity and acid).
That means if you quaff a 'potion of resist heat' (temporary resistance) and
wear an armour of fire resistance (permanent resistance) fire attacks will do
only 1/3 * 1/3 = 1/9 of the original damage.
This is known as 'double resistance'.
For more information on resistance/ability stacking see (5.15).

For all attacks the following way of how the final damage is calculated
applies:
If a monster breathes, that attack often has a damage potential of 1/3 of
the monster's hit points.
This 'raw' damage will now be capped at a maximum value that varies for the
different types of attacks.
If you 'resist' that attack, the damage will be cut to further 1/3 (this
value varies for the different types of attacks).

Example:
An Ancient Red Dragon breathes fire.
It has 1500 HP. The fire breath would do approx. 500 damage.
The damage cap for fire attacks is 1200. So the value of 500 remains.
Let's assume that your character resists fire. The damage will be cut down
to 1/3 now, leaving 170 damage.
Example 2:
A Great Hell Wyrm :) breathes fire.
It has 5000 HP. The fire breath would do approx. 1700 damage.
Since 1700 is greater than the cap (1200) it becomes 1200.
Let's assume your character resists fire. The damage will be cut down to 1/3,
leaving approx. 400 damage.


Global damage cap
------------------
Breath damage is capped, the number is given in the corresponding description
and actual breath damage generally depends on the monster's current hit points.

Bolts and balls depend damage-wise on the level of the casting monster as the
formulas show and is not as strictly capped as breath damage.

However, all breaths and magical attacks (such as bolts and ball spells) are
subject to a global magical damage cap of 1600. Even though breaths are not
strictly magical spells.
Keep in mind that susceptibility may still double that damage though, as it is
applied _after_ the global damage cap. So a susceptible target could suffer up
to 3200 damage.


There are four so-called 'basic resistances'. These are
-------------------------------------------------------
Fire/Heat               These attacks can burn items in your inventory.
                        They can also damage your equipment.
                        Without resistance it can reduce your strength.
                        Fire bolts do (level/3)+(9d8) damage.
                        Fire balls do (level*7/2)+10 damage.
                        Fire breaths do HP / 3 damage, capping at 1200.
                        Immunity or double resistance helps protecting items
                        in your inventory from getting harmed (5.10), (5.15).
                        Potions of resist heat are a cheap way to attain
                        double-resistance for a short time in order to pass
                        lava streams without your inventory taking damage.
Frost/Cold              These attacks can shatter potions.
                        Without resistance it can reduce your strength.
                        Frost bolts do (level/3)+(6d8) damage.
                        Cold balls do (level*2)+10 damage.
                        Cold breaths do HP / 3 damage, capping at 1200.
                        Immunity or double resistance helps protecting items
                        in your inventory from getting harmed (5.10), (5.15).
Lightning/Electricity   These attacks can destroy rings, damage amulets
                        (reducing their (+X) bonus pval) and discharge magic
                        devices, draining their charges (or energy in case of
                        rods).
                        Without resistance it can reduce your dexterity.
                        Lightning bolts do (level/3)+(4d8) damage.
                        Lightning balls do (level*3/2)+8 damage.
                        Lightning breaths do HP / 3 damage, capping at 1200.
                        Immunity or double resistance helps protecting items
                        in your inventory from getting harmed (5.10), (5.15).
Acid                    These attacks can destroy items in your inventory.
                        They can also damage your equipment.
                        Without resistance it can reduce your charisma.
                        Acid bolts do (level/3)+(7d8) damage.
                        Acid balls do (level*3)+15 damage.
                        Acid breaths do HP / 3 damage, capping at 1200.
                        Immunity or double resistance helps protecting items
                        in your inventory from getting harmed (5.10), (5.15).

Note: Equipment is mostly safe, except that some weapons can take damage from
coming in contact with fire, acid or water, depending on the item type.
Also, armour can be damaged by fire, acid or water, depending on its material.
Items which ignore an element, resist it, or even provide immunity against it
are unaffected by any attack of that type and won't take damage.
Taking damage means that weapons will lose +dam enchantment, and armour will
will lose +AC enchantment, so you can repair them again by either using the
armoury's repair service or -in tougher cases- reenchanting them.
If your character resists a specific element, the chance of any equipped item
getting damaged by it is reduced. Having double resistance will reduce it even
further.
Note that double resistance will completely prevent any inventory damage from
the resisted element; this is especially important for characters who carry a
lot of potions that they don't want to get destroyed by cold-based attacks.
If your character is immune to an element (see further down), that will
completely prevent any sort of damage from that particular element for any item
you carry, wield or wear (both inventory and equipment).
All artifacts are completely immune to any elemental damage with the exception
of disenchantment effects, which -albeit with a low success chance- may reduce
an artifact's enchantments.

Breath damage before capping is monster HP/3. Damage of these attacks is capped
at 1200 (always before resistances are applied).
If you resist them, the damage will be cut to 1/3. If you are susceptible to
them, like Ents to fire, you will take twice the damage! This also applies for
aura attacks like hitting someone who wears a cloak of immolation.
To prevent side-effects of the attacks on your inventory from occurring you
will need the according immunity! Resistance is only sufficient to protect
your equipment, not your inventory.
While wands and staves can be destroyed by according elemental attacks, rods
cannot be destroyed but only discharged (see elemental attack list above).


Semi-high resistances
---------------------
Poison          Poison resistance doesn't belong to the basic resistances but
                to the high resistances, yet is also very essential already
                from the early stages of your character's life on.
                If you resist poison you will not only take just 1/3 of the
                poison damage but also be protected from poisoning effects.
                Breath damage before capping is monster HP/3. Poison breath
                caps at 800.
                Stinking clouds, which are small poison balls, inflict 12d2
                damage.
Unbreath        A special type of poison, castable by mages.
                This one will deprive the air of all oxygen, thereby also deal
                damage to otherwise poison-immune monsters.
                The only monsters immune to this are those that do not require
                to breathe, which means undead, greater demons, angels and
                nonliving constructs.


Make sure that you have the basic resistances as soon as possible, and poison
resistance before going into deeper Mordor. Also, get 'Free Action' before
going as deep as about -1000 ft or deeper since many monsters can paralyze you.


There are also five minor resistances:
--------------------------------------
Fear            While you're afraid you won't be able to attack a target in
                close combat.
Blindness       You cannot read scrolls or books while you're blind.
                Blindness can be caused directly by a blindness attack or
                indirectly by light or darkness attacks if you don't resist
                those. You still can use magic staves, rods or wands and
                quaff potions. Quaffing a potion of Healing, Curing or
                Cure Critical Wounds will remove the blindness.
Confusion       While confused you cannot move, shoot or fight straight.
                Further, you're unable to read scrolls or books.
                However, you still can use staves, wands and rods.
                Quaffing a potion of Healing, Curing or Cure Serious/Critical
                Wounds will remove the confusion.
                Resisting confusion or chaos will lower damage to 5/7..5/12.
                Breath damage is monster HP/6. Confusion damage caps at 400.
                Confusion resistance is covered by chaos resistance, so if you
                already resist chaos then you don't need any more items that
                give confusion resistance.
                (Monsters that have the NO_CONF flag will resist somewhat and
                suffer less damage.)
Free Action, aka...
Paralysis       Paralysis can be caused by bashing doors, lack of food, by
                traps and by monsters. Against the latter two effects you can
                become immune by equipping a 'Free Action' item. You should
                become immune to paralysis before descending below 1000 ft.
Hold Life       This will provide some protection against experience drain;
                it won't help against experience drain inflicted by items you
                equipped though.

Note: 'Feather Falling' reduces damage taken from gravity attacks, although it
is technically not a resistance. 'Levitation' includes 'Feather Falling', so if
you have a source granting you levitation then you don't need another one for
feather falling. (Same as chaos resistance also gives confusion resistance.)


Further, there are several high resistances:
--------------------------------------------
(Poison         was described above, at the end of the basic resistances.)
Water           Water resistance is rare (an *ID*ed item will say
                'it provides resistance to unleashed water').
                Water attacks can stun and confuse you if you don't resist
                them and usually do a lot of damage.
                Resistance will cut damage to 1/3. (For players in aquatic
                form this gets overridden by its cut down to 1/4 instead.)
                Resistance will also reduce the chance of harm to items in
                inventory or equipment and completely prevent stun and
                confusion effects from water-based attacks.
                If you don't wear a 'tarpaulin' items in your inventory might
                be destroyed by the water (if they don't resist water).
                Water bolts do (10d10)+level damage.
                Water balls do 50+(1...[level*5/2]) damage.
                Note: The confusion effect can be prevented by confusion
                resistance, and the stun effect by sound resistance.
Sound           Sound attacks do less damage but can stun you or even knock
                you out so you will die as if you were paralyzed. Free Action
                won't help you then.
                Resistance will cut damage to 5/7..5/12.
                Damage is reduced by further 50% if bio-feedback is active.
                (Bio-feedback is activated if a Draconian eats a firestone and
                gets the 'adrenaline' message. See (5.9) for firestone
                details.)
                Sound resistance will protect you from stunning effects.
                Breath damage is monster HP/6. Sound breath caps at 400.
                (Monsters that have the NO_STUN flag will resist somewhat and
                suffer less damage.)
Shards          Resistance will cut damage to 6/7..6/12.
                Damage is reduced by further 50% if bio-feedback is active.
                (Bio-feedback is activated if a Draconian eats a firestone and
                gets the 'adrenaline' message. See (5.9) for firestone
                details.)
                Shard resistance will protect you from cuts. If you don't have
                it you might get nasty cuts that make you bleed over time.
                Breath damage is monster HP/6. Shard breath caps at 400.
Nexus           Nexus attacks can have extremely nasty side-effects if you
                don't resist them. Those are
                -Teleport you randomly.
                -Teleport you towards the monster.
                -Teleport you a dungeon level higher or lower.
                -Swap two of your six stats randomly!
                 ("Your body starts to scramble")
                 This change is permanent and there is no remedy against it
                 except for getting hit by more nexus deliberately and hoping
                 for a 'good' scramble result eventually.
                 If you have maximized your stats with stat potions, the stat
                 swapping will not affect you anymore, since it does not swap
                 the race/class boni, but just your base stats. So while very
                 inconvenient at first, in the long run (ie as soon as you
                 maxed all stats to 'bronze' via potions) the scrambling will
                 have no negative effect on your character's stats at all
                 anymore as they internally will all end up at <18/100> (before
                 then being modified by race/class/item boni and mali).
                 If you want to get re-scrambled by another player's nexus
                 attacks instead of a monster, you must not be in a special
                 event location and your character mode must not be 'PvP'.
                 Use a blood bond scroll to become hostile so spells will hit.
                -Destroy items in your inventory.
                 ("Your backpack starts to scramble")
                Resistance will cut damage to 6/7..6/12.
                Breath damage is monster HP/3. Nexus breath caps at 250.
Chaos           Chaos attacks can also have nasty side-effects if you don't
                resist. These are:
                -Confuse you.
                -Let you hallucinate.
                -Drain some experience. Resisting 'Nether' will also prevent
                 this. Having 'Hold Life' will also provide some protection
                 against life draining.
                Resisting chaos will also make you resist confusion attacks.
                Resisting chaos will prevent hallucination from certain mind
                blast attacks.
                Resistance will cut down damage to 6/7..6/12.
                Breath damage is monster HP/6. Chaos breath caps at 600.
                Raw chaos invocation (chaos ball) does (level*4)+(10d10) dam.
Light           Light effects can blind you if you don't resist it.
                Resistance will cut damage to 4/7..4/12.
                If you are mimicking a monster that is susceptible to light
                you will suffer double damage from attacks.
                Breath damage is monster HP/6. Light breath caps at 400.
Darkness        Darkness effects can blind you if you don't resist it.
                Resistance will cut damage to 4/7..4/12.
                Breath damage is monster HP/6. Darkness breath caps at 400.
                Darkness Storms (balls) do (level*5)+(10d10) damage.
Nether          Nether is kind of 'the element of undead' - most higher level
                undead creatures will have a nether attack of some sort.
                Resistance will cut damage to 6/7..6/12 and prevent all life
                draining (experience loss) from nether attacks.
                Breath damage is monster HP/6. Nether breath caps at 550.
                Nether bolts do 30+(5d5)+(level*3/2) damage.
                Nether balls do 50+(level*4)+(10d10) damage.
                If you lack nether resistance, having 'Hold Life' ability can
                at least offers some protection from experience loss.
Disenchantment  This attack does massive damage and can also disenchant your
                equipped items, lowering their to-hit/to-dam/to-ac bonus!
                It can also destroy ethereal ammunition.
                Resistance will cut damage to 6/7..6/12 and prevent
                disenchantment of your equipment.
                Breath damage is monster HP/6, it caps at 500.
                Disenchantment bolts do 25+(4d5)+(level*3/2) damage.
                Disenchantment balls do 40+(level*4)+(6d10) damage.
                If disenchantment hits items on the floor, it can even reduce
                their magical (+X) pval bonus.
                Artifacts have a chance to resist disenchantment.


Irresistible/extremely powerful damage types:
---------------------------------------------
Force           Pure force impact (BR_WALL). Raw damage is monster HP/6.
                Force impact (breath only) is capped at 200 and irresistible.
                If you lack sound resistance you will get stunned.
Inertia         Inertia attacks will slow you down a lot. There is no 'Inertia
                resistance' but 'Free Action' will slightly reduce the
                slowdown duration.
                Damage (breath only) is monster HP/6 and caps at 200.
Gravity         These attacks have very annoying side-effects:
                -Teleport you randomly.
                -Slow you down.
                -Stun you if you don't resist sound.
                It's impossible to resist gravitation. However, having
                'Feather Falling' will reduce the damage your body takes from
                being thrown around by the shockwave and hence cut the damage
                to 6/7..6/12.
                Damage (breath only) is monster HP/3 and caps at 150.
Mana            Mana is pure magical energy. There are only rumours
                about items that provide resistance against it.
                Resisting it will cut damage to 6/7..6/12.
                Breath damage is monster HP/3, breath caps at 350. Only very
                few monsters (mostly uniques) can breathe mana.
                Mana bolts do 50+(1...[level*7/2]) damage.
                Mana storms (balls) do (level*5)+(10d10) damage. Beware!
Time            Time is pure temporary distortion. There are only rumours
                about items that provide resistance against it.
                Time attacks can have very nasty side effects:
                -Drain experience (Hold Life won't help).
                -One of your stats can be lowered (resistance will reduce the
                 amount; for runespell backlash damage in particular resistance
                 will even prevent all drain effects completely).
                -Drain all your stats (resistance will prevent this).
                Resistance will cut damage to 6/7..6/12.
                Breath damage is monster HP/3. Time breath caps at 150.
Meteor          This is an irresistible attack of pure impact.
                Sound resistance will prevent stun effect.
Disintegration  This is an irresistible attack of raw destruction.
                Damage (breath only) is monster HP/3, capping at 300.


Combined damage types:
----------------------
Ice             Ice attacks combine shard and cold damage.
                Ice damage (bolt only) is (6d6)+monsterlevel.
                Ice damage consists of 60% cold damage and 40% shards damage.
Plasma          Plasma attacks combine raw force, electricity and, mostly of
                all, immense heat. The usual resistances, susceptibilities
                and immunities for fire, electricity and sound apply as
                available.
                Plasma also has stun effect if sound resistance is missing.
                Breath damage is monster HP/6. Plasma breath caps at 150.
                Plasma bolts do 10+level+(8d7) damage.
Radiation/Nuke/ This is a poisonous attack (player suffers pure poison damage)
 Toxic Waste    that may have acidic effect on your inventory (inventory may
                get destroyed as if you were hit by acidic attacks).
                If you resist poison
                - you will just take 2/5 of the damage
                - you will be protected from being poisoned
                - your equipment will be safe from acidic damage.
                Breath damage is monster HP/3 and caps at 800.
                Nuke balls (radiation balls) do (level*3)+(10d6) damage.
Rocket          Rockets combine fire, shard & sound effects and can also damage
                your inventory. Rockets do insane damage if unresisted:
                Rocket damage is monster MaxHP/4, it caps at 800.
                Shard and sound resistance will lower damage by 1/6 each,
                fire resistance will lower damage by 1/5, fire immunity by
                1/4 (overriding fire resistance). These reductions stack (as in
                they are consecutively applied to the damage).
                Shard resistance will prevent cuts, sound resistance will
                prevent getting stunned.
                (Technically, rockets are similar to breath attacks.)
Detonation      Same as rocket.
Inferno         Same as detonation, except it does not destroy walls.
Havoc           A terrible mixture of wrecking Inferno, blasts of uncontrolled
                mana and waves of raw chaos.

There is also a special 'Teleportation Resistance', giving the self-knowledge
line: "You resist incoming teleportation effects.".
Having this will give the character a good chance to not be affected by most
teleportation effects from traps or monsters (teleport-away and teleport-to).
Nexus-related teleportation is also affected by this, gravity however is not.


Immunities
----------
Players can become immune to the basic elements, water and poison by wearing
items (for example dragon scale mails of the corresponding colour) or by
transforming into a monster shape that carries the according immunities
(see (7.7) about mimicry details).
If a player is immune to an element, (s)he won't take any damage from those
attacks nor be affected by any side-effects and all items in the player's
inventory and also all equipped items are completely protected from damage
from that element.
Example: Wearing the unique cape 'Ocean Soul' which as a special feature
provides water immunity makes the player take 0 damage from a water bolt attack
and also protect him from the stun+confuse effect of water bolts.
(It won't protect him from the stun/confuse effect of other types of attacks
though, for example a sound or confusion breath.)


Susceptibilities
----------------
Some monsters and players are susceptible against certain elements. For example
fire hounds are susceptible against cold attacks and Ents are susceptible
against fire attacks.

Some susceptibilities can only be acquired by mimicking a monster that has
those. Here is a table of all susceptibilities players can get affected by:
 -Fire          Ents
 -Cold          By mimicry only
 -Acid          By mimicry only
 -Electricity   By mimicry only
 -Light         Dark-elves, Vampires
 -Evil          Enlightened trait of Maiar
 -Good          Vampires, Corrupted trait of Maiar
 -Life          Vampires
Most of these are self-explaining, but some seem obscure, here is what you get
hurt from when susceptible to one of the three obscure ones:
Evil:   Double damage from holy based attacks (holy orb, holy fire)
Good:   Double damage from hellfire attacks;
        eating Lembas;
        reading blessing or PfE scroll;
        using dispel evil staff;
        hostile dispel evil effects;
        activating the true arts of Ingwe, Carlammas, Fundin Bluecloak, Himring
Life:   Eating Lembas or sprigs of Athelas; quaffing potion of life;
        reading blessing or PfE scroll;
        using holiness staff;
        cleansing cloud spell, soul curing spell;
        hostile dispel undead effects;
        activating the true art Soul Grip;
        equipping non-cursed items with strong anti-undead powers will apply a
        hit point drain effect.
Lastly there is an implicit susceptibility of demonic forms (mimicry) and
especially the class Hell Knight (similar to life-susceptibility):
        equipping non-cursed items with strong anti-demon powers will apply a
        hit point drain effect.

Branded physical attacks vs monsters:
Susceptibility of a monster will result in a doubled multiplier for
branded attacks. Example: If the player hits a Cold Hound with a
fiery broad sword (2d6) the Cold Hound will receive 2d6 * 4 damage
instead of 2d6 * 2 (usual brand multiplier for melee weapons).
Also see (5.3) for a table of brand multipliers.

Magical attacks vs monsters:
Susceptibility of a monster will result in double damage for the
according elemental attacks (ie cold ball vs fire hounds).

Magical attacks vs players:
If a susceptible player without resistance or immunity is hit by the according
elemental damage type, the damage will be doubled! The susceptibility is
applied after the global magical damage cap of 1600, so the player could in
theory take up to 3200 damage.

Branded melee attacks vs players:
Some monsters attack with elemental-branded melee attacks. These are treated
depending on the attack method, see (6.5): The attack method will determine
how much of the damage is treated as elemental part and how much is physical
part. The elemental part will accordingly be doubled if the player is
susceptible to it.

Having both resistance and susceptibility to an element:
Resistance or immunity will not just cancel out the according susceptibility
but actually undo it. That means you will not take more damage on a character
that has both, susceptibility and resistance to an element than on a character
that has just the resistance but is not actually susceptible.

So one of the first things to do as an Ent is to visit the magic store and buy
a ring of fire resistance, or any druid ego monster or later on arch-vile will
give you a hard time.

(Branded physical attacks in pvp are not influenced by susceptibilities.
Also see (6.4) for details about melee attacks and melee damage caps.)
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(5.5) Weight of weapons and armour, weight limits
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(5.7) Qualitative classification, identifying & selling items