Resistances

Characters and Mobs may be affected by Resistance, Immunity, or Susceptibility to certain attack types.

Collectively, this is known as the "RIS" in Smaug 1.8 code, and I will use that term on this page so I don't have to keep typing "Resistance/Immunity/Susceptibility"

All of these work similarly, so I'll lump them all on this page named "Resistances" since that's what player typically see and hear about the most.

About

• Help File: RESISTS IMMUNITIES SUSCEPTS
• Status Command: aff by

Note that RIS affects are not displayed in 'Score', or sent by MSDP, the only way to view them is via the 'aff by' command.

• RIS affects have two traits:
  • Damage Type: There are 17
  • Percentage: How much damage is decreased/increased by the Resist/Sucept. ("Immune" negates damage 100%, so isn't shown with any percentage)

RIS Damage Types

There are 17 types of damage for which one can be RIS. It is not known if a given attack actually defines its damage as one of these type for which there is a resistance/susceptibility. Also, there are additional damage types for which there is no RIS. Figuring out which attacks in the game do which damage types requires manual testing in the game.

Fire, Cold, Electricity, Energy, Blunt, Pierce, Slash, Acid, Poison, Drain, Sleep, Charm, Non-Magic, Magic, Paralysis, Holy, Unholy

I like to group them like this:

 Elemental: Fire, Cold, Electricity, Energy
  Tactical: Magic, Non-Magic, Blunt, Pierce, Slash
  Chemical: Acid, Poison
    Mental: Drain, Sleep, Charm, Paralysis
 Spiritual: Holy, Unholy
     Other: Blindness, "Plus1" - "Plus6".

Remember those categories have nothing to do with anything, I just made them up to help sort the 17 into somewhat logical groups.

Notes:

• Non-Magic: Pertains to non-magic WEAPON damage.
• Magic: Pertains to magic WEAPON damage.
• Blindness: RIS impacts the duration of the blindness, shorter/longer.
• Plus1: These relate to damage from attacks with 0 or less HR, like kick/punch/choke, or weapons like Nasr.
• Plus(X): These relate to damage from attacks with (X-1) HR.

Spells Attacks, Damage, and Immunity

A bit confusing here, but we need to clarify how Spells work with RIS, because it turns out the I works a bit different than the R/S.

• Spells count as Magic ATTACKS, that do RS Type DAMAGE.
  • Immunity: Checks against the Attack type.
  • Resist/Suscept: Checks against the Damage Type (the 17 above).

Spell DAMAGE is not inherently "Magic" just because casting spells is a magical ATTACK.

• • Thus spell damage is not inherently impacted by 'Resist Magic'.

So, Immune Magic does block all spells, they will fail the attack check, but, Resist Magic does not reduce all spells damage. Damage is more specific than that, and you need to resist the specific damage type.

• Example: Quantum Spike is a spell so it is a Magic Attack, but its Damage type is Energy.
  • Immune Magic would block the spell, casting would fail.
  • Resist Magic would have no effect
  • Resist Energy would reduce damage

Other Damage Types

There are of course many attacks which do damage that is not defined as one of the known RIS affect types.

Most importantly, the following Alpha Attacks:

• Spiral Blast
• Rend
• Gash
• Shieldbash

It is currently believed those attack's damage is not one of the 17 attack types for which there may be by RIS.

From the player perspective, this means damage from mobs launching those attacks at us cannot be reduced with Resistances.

From the mob/builders perspective, this likely doesn't have a ton of impact. Those attack's damage type is probably SOMETHING, it's just not something we can see as players. I'm sure there's more than the 17 defined RIS damage types builder have access to and can set up RIS for.

Of course, RIS aside, all a builder has to do is code a specific anti-attack prog to bypass the RIS system entirely, and that seems very common.

Resistance

Damage to the player from a damage type you are resistant to is decreased by the percentage shown in 'aff by'. Or so you would think.

Actually, realms lies about this a bit. The true reduction does not match the displayed percentage reduction in 'aff by'.

The in-game 'aff by' display of 40% is actually the maximum resistance you can have, and in truth this results in 20% actual damage reduction. Here's a handy chart of displayed values vs. true damage reduction:

If 'aff by' says:	5%	10%	15%	20%	25%	30%	35%	40%	+40%
True damage reduction:	3%	10%	12%	14%	15%	17%	18%	20%	20%

This is testable by taking damage from an obvious damage type, let's say fire, in a place where it's easily repeatable, let's say a simple room prog you can trigger easily. Eat the damage with no resistance, let's say its 100hp. Add some resistance and do it again. Track the change in damage, and do some math.

Susceptibility

Resistance and Susceptibility are exactly equal and opposite, so everything that's true about resists hold for susceptibilities as well, just in the opposite way.

The table above that shows 'True damage reduction' for resistances would just become "Extra damage modifier" and you would feel 3%, 10%, 12%, etc, more damage from those attack types to which you are susceptible.

Immunity

This mostly pertains to mobs, who are frequently immune to a buncha crap so you have to figure out how to fight them. For example, they might be immune to magic weapons, or slashing weapons, or entirely immune magic, whatever.

On the player-side of things, the only immunity I'm aware of players can use is the Mage's "Path of Countermagick" spell "Inviola Magicka" which makes you immune to magic for a short period.

Please remember that as noted above, Immune Magic is a bit of special case and blocks all spell ATTACKS, regardless of their RIS damage type.

Buffs/DeBuffs

• As the help file states, RIS affects can be caused by "spells, equipment, class or race".
  • Most commonly, potions/eq are used to buff resistance, and spelldowns are used to apply susceptibilities to mobs.

This table shows the most common and accessible spells that buff/debuff RIS (largely from tanksets).

• There are many more which are class specific I am not including here. Learn your class to find all the options.
  • For example, Mages and Nephandi's get a LOT of spells/skills which grant additional RIS buffs/debuffs, especially for the things listed below with no options.

Type	Susceptible	Resistance	Example Attack
nonmagic	unravel defense	shadowform, eldritch sphere	(Non-Magic Weapons)
magic	unravel defense	antimagic shell, eldritch sphere	(Magic Weapons) (Most Spells)
fire	blazebane	blazeward, prismatic shield	Fire Breath
cold		inner warmth prismatic shield	Frost Breath
electricity		grounding, prismatic shield	Lightning Breath
energy	ethereal funnel	ethereal shield	Quantum Spike
blunt		confidence	(Bludgeon Weapons)
pierce	razorbait	dragonskin, confidence	(Piercing Weapons)
slash	swordbait	demonskin, confidence	(Slashing Weapons)
acid		acidward	Caustic Fount
drain		resilience	Decaying Touch
holy		nimbus of light	Virtue
unholy			Malice
paralysis		valiance	Stun
poison			Poison
sleep			Sleep
charm			Charm Person
blindness			Gouge
plus(X)		(The Dragonhide Breastplate)