TomeNET

(6.5) Monster attack types and brands                                           
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Monsters can strike you with branded attacks, for example acidic hits, or hits
that poison you if you get hit. If you resist the according brand you won't be
affected by it alot, and the overall damage will be reduced. If you're immune
you won't be affected at all and only take a physical part of the damage -
if there is a physical part. This depends on the attack type.
Here is a list of attack types and brands:

Attack type      Contact/Cut/Stun/Bypasses AC/No Block/No Parry
---------------------------------------------------------------
HIT                                  + + + - - -
PUNCH,KICK,BUTT,CRUSH                + - + - - -
CLAW, BITE                           + + - - - -
TOUCH,STING,ENGULF,CHARGE,CRAWL      + - - - - -
SPIT                                 - - - - - -
GAZE,WAIL,SPORE,BEG                  - - - + + +
INSULT,MOAN,SHOW,WHISPER             - - - + + +
EXPLODE                              - - - + - +
DROOL                                - - - - - +
(Note that 'Bypasses AC' also means that this attack type cannot be dodged.)

Brand           Needed resistance to reduce/avoid its effect
(also called    (These help to avoid the effect but do not mitigate damage
'damage type')  unless explicitely states that they do.)
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HURT            Only AC - raw damage.
                This damage type can be mitigated by AC.
ACID,ELEC,FIRE,COLD
                According elemental damage.
                The damage can partially be mitigated by having the particular
                (double) resistances or immunities and gets amplified by
                susceptibility.
POISON          poison.
                The damage can partially be mitigated by having the particular
                (double) resistances or immunities and gets amplified by
                susceptibility.
DISEASE         no resistance (except in PvP, where it acts as poison instead).
                This attack can in rare cases also decrease your constitution,
                and in extremely rare cases decrease it permanently even.
                True vampires and initiated maiar are immune against the
                continuously damaging infection, although they may still
                suffer the initial consitution loss.
BLIND           blindness.
CONFUSE         confusion (or chaos).
TERRIFY         fear.
PARALYZE        free action.
EXP_xx          hold life; necromancy skill; necromancy AND unlife skill maxed;
                attaining character level level 99.
                This attack drains xp and the only full protection is being
                level 99 or having both Necromancy and Unlife both at 50.000.
                Other than that, reducing the chance to lose xp from this
                attack is done (stackingly) by having 'hold life', having a
                higher saving throw, and having a higher 'necromancy' skill.
                Variations: EXP_10, EXP_20, EXP_40, EXP_80.
LOSE_xxx        sustain the affected stat or even all stats for LOSE_ALL.
                This attack would reduce your stat(s) if they're not sustained:
                LOSE_STR, LOSE_INT, LOSE_WIS, LOSE_DEX, LOSE_CON, LOSE_CHR.
EAT_xxxx        There are five types with different means of mitigation:
                - EAT_ITEM (item stealing) and
                - EAT_GOLD (money stealing) attempts:
                   DEX and stealing skill increase your chance to resist these.
                   A backpack safety lock makes you highly resistant to both.
                - EAT_FOOD (eats an edible item straight from your backpack)
                - EAT_LITE (consumes the fuel of your light source, if fueled)
                - EAT_MANA (drains your mana points):
                   Nothing helps against these three.
UN_BONUS        disenchantment.
                If unresisted, this attack will disenchant a random piece of
                your equipment. The damage can partially be mitigated by having
                disenchantment resistance.
UN_POWER        magic device skill; fast-casting UN_POWER monster forms.
                It drains charges/energy from your items:
                "Energy drains from your pack" for magic devices or polymorph
                rings in your inventory or "Energy drains from your equipment"
                for worn polymorph rings.
                Additionally it drains some of your mana.

                Magic Device skill helps to prevent draining though.
                See (7.10) for more information about the Magic Device skill.

                Mimicking a monster form that has UN_POWER attacks and at the
                same time is a very proficient caster (at least 1_IN_2 spell
                frequency) will help to prevent draining too.

                Also reduces the remaining duration of a polymorph ring form
                the player is currently mimicking (this effect cannot be
                mitigated by magic device skill or un_power-form).
TIME            time resistance.
                If unresisted it can drain xp, a single stat or all your stats
                at once, same as any magical time-based attacks. The damage can
                be mitigated partially by time resistance.
INSANITY        none. But certain mimicry forms, skills and classes/races gain
                some damage reduction in three tiers, see (7.6) for details.
HALLU           chaos.
                If unresisted, you will hallucinate for some time.
PARASITE        <currently no effect>
DISARM          'Fighting' ability.
                Weapons wielded 2-handely are harder to disarm (stacking).
                Artifacts are also harder to disarm (stacking).
                Heavily cursed items are quite hard to disarm (stacking).
                Note that DISARM effects have a chance to be blocked, parried
                or dodged if their attack type can be blocked, parried or
                dodged, which is currently the case for all monsters that can
                disarm because the monsters all use the HIT attack type for it.

                Sometimes disarmed weapons land in your backpack, but sometimes
                you drop them to the ground instead. If there is no empty floor
                (for example because you're fighting on mountain terrain) they
                will instead be scattered across the dungeon level and you will
                have to search it to retrieve them.

                When dual-wielding, the secondary weapon cannot get disarmed
                while the wielder is in 'Main-Hand' mode.
FAMINE          none. Makes you hungry.
SEDUCE          none. Makes you take off equipped items.
                Can have random side effects, if your HP are still above 40%
                and if no other players or monsters are standing next to you:
                - drain half of current mana or hit points
                - drain constitution or wisdom
                - get a disease (equals poison effect)
                - lose an item or gold (monster steals it; tools won't help!)
                - gain some experience
                - regain some drained sanity, if any.
SHATTER         purely physical damage, therefore only AC helps.
                Hits & causes an earthquake - very dangerous, see (5.11).
                This damage type can be mitigated by AC.
LITE            Light or blindness resistance.
                Blindness resistance will prevent any blindness effect.
                The damage can partially be mitigated by having light
                resistance and gets amplified by susceptibility.

Getting hit by higher undead creatures may also infect you with the
Black Breath! (See (1.3a) for more information about Black Breath.)
In general, unique undead monsters of at least level 35 can infect you, and
non-unique undead monsters of at least level 40 can infect you. The chance of
infection increases with monster level.
Nazgul have an especially high chance (much greater than any other monster) of
infecting you. Aside from monsters, certain cursed items might infect you when
you equip them (such as weapons of Morgul).
Last but not least the Black Breath is contagious and can be transmitted by an
infected player bumping into another player (Bree and the Training Tower are
safe zones though).


Further, monsters may have one or more spells they can cast. Breathing elements
and shooting or throwing boulders belong to those too (but aren't affected by
anti-magic fields since they aren't 'real spells' but rather physical actions).

Among the monster spells, such as casting bolt or ball spells, teleporting,
healing, trying to blind/scare/confuse/paralyze/slow the player, summoning
other monsters for help, or speeding itself up with a haste-self spell, there
are some particularly special spells that will be explained here in more
detail:

SHRIEK          Not a real spell but a physical action, some monsters can emit
                an aggravating noise that will wake up all nearby monsters and
                even haste those within line-of-sight of the shrieker.
                This can be extremely dangerous and you'll see a light red
                message in the combat message log when a monster shrieks.
                If you have the sound pack installed, you'll also clearly hear
                it, which can help further to react quickly: On shallow levels
                shrieking might not be that bad, but on deep levels it might
                well be reason enough to teleport out instantly.
                The haste effect is permanent, but most non-unique monsters can
                be slowed down again by using any slowing magic.
TRAPS           Again not a spell but nasty nevertheless. The monster casts a
                3x3 'circle' of traps around you, watch where you step.
UNMAGIC         This can be extremely nasty for istari. Unmagic cancels nearly
                all kind of magic effects your character is currently under,
                such as speed from a speed potion and even Disruption Shield.
                This won't affect classes much such as warriors and archers but
                is life-threatening if it neutralizes the Disruption Shield
                of an Istar. (Note: Holy Martyr cannot be cancelled.)
MIND_BLAST      A psionic attack spell that hurts your sanity and can cause
                confusion and hallucinations.
BRAIN_SMASH     A powerful psionic attack spell that hurts your sanity and can
                cause blindness, confusion, paralysis and slowness.
FORGET          This mind blanking spell will create darkness around you and
                make you forget about some or all of the items you are carrying
                effectively un-identifying them (except for flavoured items).
HOLD            Although not so special and already mentioned in the text above
                this spell is listed because it's a ranged paralysis spell.
                Ghouls can do this for example, so make sure that you get
                Free Action as early as possible, definitely before venturing
                into Mordor though.