Damage, Resistance & Effects
Overview
Damage systems in our game are designed from the ground up to work differently than most other games. It is not built around inflated numbers or endless health scaling, but rather meaningful interaction between damage types, skills, weapons, statistics, severity levels, resistances, armor and equipment, and effects.
In many MMORPGs, damage eventually becomes abstract—bigger numbers replace smaller numbers, and survivability becomes a matter of stacking health or generic/global mitigation. Over time, weapon choice, spell types, armor and equipment, and enemy compositions matter less and less.
In our game we’d like to see the opposite: we want them to matter more and more as characters develop and challenges escalate.
Damage types are distinct. Weapons, armor and equipment, enemies, and skills have strengths and weaknesses. Effects have counters and negation mechanics, and severity scaling keeps progression controlled without runaway stat inflation.
The overall goal with how damage, resistance and effects work within the game is simple and in line with most other aspects of the project:
Easily understandable for newer and casual players.
Deep enough that it rewards mastery for experienced and hardcore players.
Flexible and diverse in nature, avoiding rigid meta builds.
Sustainable throughout the game, avoiding stat inflation.
Modular and scalable, which allows for efficient development and balancing.
Damage
Damage is divided into three primary groups, each with distinct sub-types:
Physical: Slashing, Piercing, and Crushing
Elemental: Lightning, Ice, Fire, Acid, and Poison
Magical: Arcane, Divine, Unholy, Life, and Death
These categories are not cosmetic or arbitrary. Enemies, equipment, environments, and effects all interact with these damage types in meaningful and often asymmetric ways. Choosing the right damage type for the right encounter can dramatically shift the difficulty of a fight. Some enemies are resistant to certain forms of harm, while others are vulnerable. Preparation and adaptation matters.
Rather than inflating individual numbers as progression increases (assigning damage numbers to every weapon, ability, etc.), damage operates on five clear severity tiers: Minor, Light, Moderate, Heavy, and Severe.
Each tier corresponds to a damage range specific to that damage type. For example: Slashing damage at Minor severity might have base range of 13-19 damage, 23-31 at Light severity, 35-47 at the Moderate level, etc. As your character progresses, you move between severity tiers through equipment choices, skill development paths, and specialization decisions.
You do not go from hitting for 20 damage to 2,000 damage over time. Instead, you shift between tiers based on your build and circumstances—gaining stronger interactions, improved breakpoint potential, and greater impact depending on the opponent(s).
A higher attack tier does not simply mean “more damage.”, it may also:
Apply effects more reliably or introduce additional potential effects.
Push through resistances more effectively.
Trigger stagger or interruption thresholds.
Amplify or enable synergy with other abilities.
Progression is about expanding capability and providing more options for dealing with enemies that have distinct strengths and weaknesses—not about just generically dealing ‘higher’ damage numbers.
No damage types behave exactly the same—even at the same severity tier. Some are steady and consistent. Others are volatile but capable of higher spikes. For example:
Piercing Damage at the Minor level has a base damage range of 11-22
Crushing Damage at the Minor level has a base damage range of 15-17
Crushing Damage is more consistent in the amount of damage it deals each time, however Piercing has higher burst potential. Likewise, damage types have different base chances to apply associated effects and hit critically:
Lightning damage has a high critical chance, but low chance to apply effects (electrified)
Fire damage has a low critical chance, but high chance to apply effects (burning)
Each damage type carries a distinct identity that influences playstyle and will factor into build decisions as character’s advance.
Damage interacts with statistics, weapons and equipment, and skills and abilities further in various ways. These interconnected aspects make the damage system very diverse, deep and specialized—allowing players to build their characters in many different ways: utilizing damage types that synergize with the stats they’ve set up, the skills they choose to develop, the equipment they utilize, and the playstyles they want to achieve.
Statistics Interaction
Statistics play a significant role in shaping and influencing how damage behaves. They can modify:
Base damage amounts.
Effect application chance.
Critical strike chance.
Critical damage modifiers.
Examples include:
Wisdom influencing the base damage of Divine magic.
Spirit influencing critical chance for Divine magic.
Dexterity influencing critical chance for Piercing damage.
Strength influencing effect chance for Piercing damage.
Strength influencing critical chance for Crushing damage.
Statistics also interact with skills and equipment in layered ways—a weapon may scale its base damage with Agility instead of, or in addition to, the statistic normally responsible for base damage of that weapon type (typically Strength). An enchanted helm might convert a character’s Strength bonus into additional Slashing critical chance. A magical staff might increase Arcane damage effect chance based on Charisma.
These interactions allow players to intentionally build toward specific damage identities rather than relying on flat scaling and also give a lot of opportunity and variety based on different equipment and skill options that interact with statistics and damage.
Weapons & Equipment Interaction
Weapons define what kind of damage you deal and at what base severity.
A Steel Longsword may deal Moderate Slashing and Moderate Piercing depending on the attack type used (thrusting vs cutting).
A Steel Battleaxe would only deal Slashing damage at a Severe base level.
A Steel Spear would only deal Severe Piercing.
Against enemies weak to Slashing, the Battleaxe will perform better (providing the character is skilled with axes). Against enemies resistant to Slashing but vulnerable to Piercing, the spear will be the better choice. But, the sword provides the versatility of being able to deal both types of damage which can be extremely useful.
There is no universally best weapon—only better or worse options for the situation or enemy that is being faced.
Equipment can affect damage in many different ways, such as an enchanted set of gauntlets that increase all physical damage dealt by 15%, a magical ring that increases chances to apply effects when dealing Arcane damage by 10%, or a belt that adds 20% to critical strike damage when dealing Lightning damage, or an amulet that has a chance to cause the ‘Slowed’ de-buff effect when fire damage critically strikes, etc.
In short, equipment can affect base damage, effect chances, critical chances, critical modifiers, etc. They can also ADD new effects that have a chance to be applied when certain damage types are dealt or based on certain conditions, create synergies and interactions with different damage types, and more (similar to skills and abilities).
Weapons define both the damage type you deal and its base severity.
For example:
A Steel Longsword may deal Moderate Slashing and Moderate Piercing (cutting or thrusting).
A Steel Battleaxe may deal Severe Slashing only.
A Steel Spear may deal Severe Piercing only.
Against enemies weak to Slashing, the Battleaxe will perform better—assuming the character is proficient with axes. Against enemies resistant to Slashing but vulnerable to Piercing, the spear becomes the stronger choice—again assuming proficiency. The longsword however, offers versatility—trading peak specialization for adaptability, which can be extremely useful.
There is no universally best weapon—only better or worse options for the situation.
Equipment further modifies damage in diverse ways:
Gauntlets that increase all Physical damage by 15%.
A ring that increases Arcane effect chance by 10%.
A belt that increases Lightning critical damage by 20%.
An amulet that has a chance to apply the Slowed effect when Fire damage critically strikes.
Equipment can:
Increase base damage.
Modify effect chances.
Alter critical chance or critical modifiers.
Add entirely new triggered effects.
Create synergy between damage types.
Items do not simply increase power or stats—they shape how your damage functions and enhance or grant capabilities.
Skills & Abilities Interaction
Many combat skills modify and enhance what a character’s weapon already does.
A skill like Impale might deal a weapon’s base Piercing damage plus 20%. When used with a spear (Severe base), it becomes more impactful than when used with a sword (Moderate base). The same skill proficiency level, but different outcomes based on equipped weapon type. That added power may come with tradeoffs of course—by prioritizing in Piercing damage from a spear, your character would lose access to the Slashing versatility the sword provides.
The same principle applies to magic.
A seasoned mage may cast Acid Blast and deal Acid damage at the Severe tier, while a newer druid casting the same spell (at a lower skill proficiency) would deal Acid damage at the Minor damage tier. Both would benefit from Acid damage enhancing equipment such as a staff that increases Acid damage dealt by 20%—but their base capability differs. A mage focused only on Acid damage, equipping themselves accordingly with Acid damage enhancing equipment, is going to be very effective at fighting foes weak to Acid, but struggle against foes resistant to it.
Specialization can increase damage ceilings and effectiveness, while versatility increases flexibility and adaptability. Neither is superior in all situations.
Resistance & Defense
Resistance and defense are critical factors in surviving combat rather than high health numbers. Survival is about mitigating damage not about having so many hit points that damage becomes arbitrary. Resistances mirror the damage types:
Physical: Slashing, Piercing, and Crushing
Elemental: Lightning, Ice, Fire, Acid, and Poison
Magical: Arcane, Divine, Unholy, Life, and Death
An enchanted ring might give the wearer +10% Elemental Resistance, affecting the entire Elemental damage group, or just +10% Ice Resistance. Skills, spells and abilities likewise may affect an entire damage group (or all damage groups), or just certain sub-groups.
Armor is categorized into four types: Cloth, Light, Medium, and Heavy. Each type will have common strengths and weaknesses against specific damage types, and further specializations from enchantments, customizations and enhancements.
For example, Medium armor is generally effective at reducing Slashing damage but typically only mildly affective at reducing Piercing and Crushing damage types and Elemental damage types. Heavy armor on the other hand is effective at reducing ALL Physical damage types, but at the cost of mobility, and is moderately effective against Acid, Fire and Ice, but only mildly effective against Poison and Lightning.
Shields are effective at mitigating ‘blockable’ damage types (when successful ‘blocks’ occur) which includes Physical damage, and various types of spells and abilities such as Frost Bolt or Magic Missile, but ineffective against spells and abilities that are not blockable.
Different skills, equipment, effects and circumstances will provide different resistances and damage mitigation options, but as always, there will be tradeoffs, weaknesses and counters.
Different races and creature groups have innate resistances to various damage types also. All Undead creatures for example are immune to poison damage, however Undead Skeletal creatures are also very resistant to piercing damage. In a similar manner, Dwarves are naturally resistant to Arcane magics, Fire and Acid damage, whilst Dragons are naturally resistant to all forms of damage at varying levels (but still have methods to expose weaknesses).
As with most other aspects of the game, difficult and challenging encounters will require preparation and planning. Knowing what types of damage the enemy your character will be facing is going to be as important as knowing the type of damage that will be effective against them.
Effects
Effects can be caused by various things such as environmental conditions, spells, potions, scrolls, skills, damage and more.
Being damaged by an Ice Bolt spell for example has a chance to cause the ‘Frozen’ effect in addition to the initial damage caused by the spell, which lowers Agility and Dexterity rolls (affects chance to hit, chance to dodge, casting some spells succesfully, etc.)
Most effects (both positive buffs and negative debuffs) will have counters in various forms to remove, negate, or remedy them. Different archetype paths will specialize in different types of counters and negation, for example Ranger and Druid archetype paths will have more options for Elemental, Death and Life related buffs/debuffs, where as Wizard and Mage archetypes will be more focused on Arcane and Elemental areas, Clerics and Paladin archetypes on Divine and Unholy, Warriors and martial focused archetypes on Physical damage effects such as Bleeding, etc.
Like damage, negative effects (debuffs) are tiered into the same five levels of severity: Minor, Light, Moderate, Heavy, and Severe.
Positive effects (buffs) also are tiered into five levels of effectiveness: Minor, Lesser, Moderate, Greater, and Ultimate.
Each effect and tier has a dynamic range: every time an effect is applied it will be slightly different (poison damage ticks will be a range between 4-7 damage for example, not a single set number like 5).
Like the skills and abilities systems, the effects system is built on a universal framework, making it easier to understand effect types, counters and what is happening involving effects to your character, allies and enemies.
Each effect has a variety of common parameters that control what it does, who it affects and how it functions; allowing the creation of new effects within the toolsets and editors simple and understandable, and easy to adjust and balance.