Enchanted Realms Rulebook
Damage Types
| Damage Type | Harm Against |
|---|---|
| Blunt | Body |
| Edged | Body |
| Piercing | Body |
| Cold | Body |
| Corrosive | Body |
| Fire | Body |
| Force | Body |
| Lightning | Body |
| Necrotic | Body |
| Poison | Varies |
| Psychic | Mind |
| Smite | Spirit |
Before going much further, a quick explanation is needed. There has previously been a fair amount of discussion about the various types of damage that can occur, but there has been no summary of what that means or an enumeration of those types. Well, here it is.
When it comes to damage against Body, it will often be some sort of weapon damage; however, those weapons might have poison on them; or acids might used; some undead inflict a life-withering damage; and so on. Of course, there are damage types that also harm Mind and Spirit as well.
Armor is an example of how damage protection works; e.g. studded leather has an armor base 10 but is 11 against blunt damage. In the armor section of the character sheet as well as in the Armor discussion in the Equipment section, there are Damage Type Receptions, which indicate when this armor receives damage of this type, then it is treated differently than normal. Studded Leather, for example, has a listing of Blunt:+1, which indicates the armor is one point higher in its armor base against blunt damage types. If looking at a breast plate, one of the Receptions is Piercing:1R. The R in the code means that it reduces damage, in this case by one point per strike.
Another factor is resistance, which will half the amount of damage received against a specific damage type. This is designated in the Reception as [Type]:Resist. Immunity means that damage type cannot hurt the target, which is [Type]:Immune. There is one further resistance category called absorption, where damage that is inflicted actually heals the recipient. This is listed as [Type]:Absorb Also, at the other end, if something is vulnerable ([Type]:Vuln), then it will suffer twice the damage against that type.
Of course, there are some odd scenarios that might be considered. For example, if something is naturally resistant and momentarily enchanted to be vulnerable, then these cancel each other, making the damage normal. Also, if multiple effects of the same type, such as being magically made resistant to fire and then given a ring that grants resistance to fire, these effects do not enhance the overall effect -- only resistance is gained. This is the rule of internal combination.
All of this said, the broader point here is that there are various different ways in which damage is inflicted. Along with this plethera of damage types, there are many ways to alter those effects.