Piercings and damage reductions

Neverwinter Nights 2 Toolset, Scripting, NWNX
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I looked this up on another post but got confused so sorry about that. My way of working out damage to creatures and balance is that if I can kill them then it’s alright and the whole thing’s a bit of a hit and miss affair with me fiddling about with stats, however…

What exactly are these damage reductions, vulnerabilities, immunities and piercings ?

If I have a creature with damage reduction 10/ then magic weapons +1 on the piercings does this mean that you must have at least a +1 weapon to hit it but whatever damage you do 10 is taken off the total ? So is a piercing type the only weapon that can hit that creature or can you hit it with others and only then the damage reduction applies ?

With damage resistance 10/ acid does this mean any acid damage done loses ten points in total.

With vulnerability 5% acid does this mean that any acid damage gets 5% added to the total ? Is immunity the opposite and just removes the 5% damage instead ?

I know I should probably know this by now ! Thank you.

ps. I ran around an area with no music set and just noticed that different textures make different sounds when you walk on them and placeables like docks etc sound different too… It’s amazing and would be good for making stealthy areas so you’d know if you were in the wrong place when you made too much noise.

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@Tsongo,

I’m sure somebody will correct me if I have this wrong, as I know there were some nuances in NWN2. However, I believe it is as follows …

Damage Reduction reduces damage versus normal weapon damage by the amount stated, unless a weapon meets the “pierce” type required. So if a +1 weapon is required to overcome (“pierce”) the damage reduction, then such a weapon used does full damage. i.e. It has overcome the reduction and so does full damage. If not “pierced”, then the damage is reduced by the said amount.

Damage Resistance simply reduces the amount of damage of a particular type taken. Type taken refers to types like bashing, piercing, acid, fire, electric, etal. So, if a creature has Damage Resistance 10/acid, then any acid damage done to it is reduced by ten points. So at least 11 points of damage is required to do even one point of acid damage. NEEDS CHECKING: If I recall correctly, additional elemental type damage may only be added if normal damage does any damage … but I may be thinking of pen and paper application only and NWN2 may just do it.

Damage Immunity … Assuming you mean, EffectDamageImmunityIncrease, creature has damage taken decreased by immunity type percentage. E.g. Immunity increase 50% v Acid damage would have any acid damage reduced by 50%. Therefore, 10 acid damage would be reduced to 5 damage for this creature. (Limited between 5 - 90%)

Damage Vulnerability … Assuming you mean, EffectDamageImmunityDecrease, I have no experience with using this function. However, I imagine it works the opposite way as the function above, and would add a percentage of the original damage. E.g. Immunity decrease 50% v Acid damage would have any acid damage increased by 50%. Therefore, 10 acid damage would be increased to 15 damage for this creature. (Limited between 5 - 90%)

As a side note, the only way to apply a full immunity to damage (100%) is to make a creature plot or immortal.

I also copy an old post that may be of help to you regarding Damage Reduction below.

Lance.

DAMAGE REDUCTION RESULTS

NB: Since this post was originally made, please bear in mind results may differ depending if the effect is used on a PC or a non-PC creature.

EffectDamageResistance: Cannot use this function to add ANY DR reduction. (It is used with ELEMENTAL TYPE DAMAGE.)
ItemPropertyDamageReduction: Have not been successful in adding DR to skin or armour items.
EffectDamageReduction: Have only be successful in adding a pair of DR and not one by itself.
(Use IP_CONST_XXX and reverse logic.)

IP_CONST_DAMAGETYPE_BLUDGEONING = 0
IP_CONST_DAMAGETYPE_PIERCING = 1
IP_CONST_DAMAGETYPE_SLASHING = 2

EXAMPLES:

eDR = EffectDamageReduction(5, 0, 0, DR_TYPE_DMGTYPE); // Applies DR for P and S (B Gets Through)
eDR = EffectDamageReduction(5, 1, 0, DR_TYPE_DMGTYPE); // Applies DR for B and S (P Gets Through)
eDR = EffectDamageReduction(5, 2, 0, DR_TYPE_DMGTYPE); // Applies DR for B and P (S Gets Through)

SET VIA TOOLSET PRIOR PLAY (CREATURES AND ITEMS): Appears to work if you bear weapon corrections into account (See next).

The Morningstar is BLUDGEONING only (TLK 5412 NEEDS CORRECTING) and that the Longsword is both SLASHING AND PIERCING!

Also SLASHING & PIERCING: Bastard Sword, Halberd, Katana, Scythe. (Total five weapons.) Therefore, Longsword (TLK 5417), Bastard Sword (TLK 5434) and Katana (TLK 5423) need descriptor correction.

From the toolset setting, we have the option of applying “OR” logic to the “piercings” selected, which means we can make it so a creature (or item) has DR against only ONE type. In theory, as applying this to a “skin” item is possible, it means we can also create different skins and alter “monsters” on the fly by swapping out “skins”. NB: Using skins with PCs is NOT possible in NWN2 due to problems that come from doing so. (See my blog for details. Search for “skin”.)

For PCs, a better solution would be to use the DAMAGE IMMUNITY (5-90%) v WEAPON DAMAGE TYPE rather than the DR for an item when only one DR type is required, due to the problems noted in the image in the previous post. (i.e. Property presentation and lack of recognising the property is actually present!)

Weapon (Type) | v DR Type (“Pierce Required”) | Bypass Y/N

Longsword (SP) | BSP | N
Longsword (SP) | B | N
Longsword (SP) | S | Y
Longsword (SP) | P | Y
Longsword (SP) | BP | N
Longsword (SP) | BS | N
Longsword (SP) | SP | Y

Club (B) | BSP | N
Club (B) | B | Y
Club (B) | S | N
Club (B) | P | N
Club (B) | BP | N
Club (B) | BS | N
Club (B) | SP | N

Spear (P ) | BSP | N
Spear (P ) | B | N
Spear (P ) | S | N
Spear (P ) | P | Y
Spear (P ) | BP | N
Spear (P ) | BS | N
Spear (P ) | SP | N

Halberd (PS) | BSP | N
Halberd (PS) | B | N
Halberd (PS) | S | Y
Halberd (PS) | P | Y
Halberd (PS) | BP | N
Halberd (PS) | BS | N
Halberd (PS) | SP | Y

Morningstar (B) | BSP | N
Morningstar (B) | B | Y
Morningstar (B) | S | N
Morningstar (B) | P | N
Morningstar (B) | BP | N
Morningstar (B) | BS | N
Morningstar (B) | SP | N

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Lance_Botelle… Awesome, many many thanks I now know exactly what I’m dealing with so can adjust it properly. I think the piercing bit was the most confusing but now see that it pierces the reduction !

With regards to the PC skins I’ve added skins to a couple of companions as items in their inventory that worked all the time, it just said Golem Properties etc. and was cursed so you could add a skin to a PC that applied to them from their first ever conversation or enter event.

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@Tsongo,

Here is some info from my blog about skins on PCs …

The problem is that skins attached to PCs affect other gaming aspects, that may confuse you or the player even more. Bottom line - Skins on PCs appears impossible to use without issues now.

" A short while ago, I discovered that using a skin in a PC’s creature armour slot caused problems when the PC later equipped or unequipped armour: The armour penalty figures would eventually start to miscalculate and give errors with skill scores. At the time, I thought I resolved the problem by using an adapted creature bite object instead. Unfortunately, only this week, I discovered that this adapted item also caused problems, but this time with unarmed combat: If a PC with the adapted bite item on them attacked an object with unarmed combat, then only bonus strength damage would be applied. This was obviously not going to work and I came to the conclusion that skin items did not work anymore with NWN2."

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Skins do work on monsters as I’ve changed them in the past. On a PC or companion I’d just use something like a magical dinosaur bone carving that gives whatever you want and stick it permanently in your Lizardman character’s inventory. Or a best street fighter medal for the PC that is protected from bludgeoning and give him some gloves. A skin would be nice though as you wouldn’t see it.

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