Stacking soak and reduction

[Liliana Vess]

Heya everyone this is Liliana Vess again with another hot topic question.
Does soak stack with damage reduction? that is a debate a few of my friends are currently going over, anyone have answer if they stack or not? if you do plz respond asap


-Liliana Vess

[ST_DM_Myle]

Example:
Opponent has a STR 30 (+10 modifier) and a +4 long sword that deals 2d6 fire damage
Slashing damage default to max: 22
Fire damage default to max: 12


Your gear:
Buckler: +5/5
Combat Gloves: 10/- vs Slash/Bludgeon/Pierce
Forged Armor: 25% Slash resistance
Amulet of Fire Resistance: 20/- vs Fire

Your damage would read (barring crits)
22 Slashing damage
-5 due to the sword being +4 and your EB based defense reduction of +5/5 from the Buckler
-10 Due to the open ended reduction from the Gloves
Remaining 7 points is reduced by 25% (Which rounds down) or 1 point.
You take 6 points of slashing damage.
The 12 points of fire damage is completely absorbed by the 20/- amulet vs Fire.

Total damage potential: 34
Total damage taken: 6



Note... Resistance might deduct first.... brains a tad fuzzy atm... Either way - There are TWO kinds of reduction and they do stack with eachother and with resistance. Barbarian and Dwarven defender DR also would stack with this equation.

So...

What stacks:
EB based DR
Open ended DR
Class trait DR
Feat DR
Resistance.

Now same types with same types do not stack (accept ##% Resistance items, more later)
Now.... if you have combat gloves 10/ vs S/B/P and you also have a greater belt of Swordsmen... the 20/- Slash will override the 10/- slash offered by the gloves and you will end up with 20/- slash, 10/ vs P/B... meaning the gloves slash protection will not contribute to your protection.

Just as if you have +4/15 and a +5/5 items.... they do not stack with each other. The 'better' will apply.
If attacked with a +3 sword for 20 damage, the +4/15 feature would protect you from 15 points of damage. A +4 sword attack for 20 damage would bypass the +4 protection and leave only the +5/5 device to protect you, leaving you damaged for 15 points.


Resistance stacks with itsself... so it you forge armor Slash 25% and Helm slash 25% and a Shield with slash 5% - you will have a Slash resistance of 55%.



Hope that helps

Myle

[Caesius]

So stacking rules for Damage Immunity, Damage Resistance and Damage Reduction can essentially be summed up as follows...

For Damage Immunity:
-Damage Immunity on items does stack with other Damage Immunity bonuses.
-Damage Immunity also stacks with Damage Resistance and Damage Reduction.
-Damage Immunity is applied before Damage Resistance and Damage Reduction.

For Damage Resistance:
-Damage Resistance of the same type on items does not stack with itself. If multiple items with resistance to the same element are equipped at once, only the highest resistance applies. It will however stack with the appropriate Damage Immunity or Damage Reduction.
-Damage Resistance from feats such as resist energy or epic energy resistance will stack with items.
-Damage Resistance from spells does not stack with anything.

For Damage Reduction: (Also referred to as 'Soak' when examining items.)
-Damage Reduction stacks with Damage Immunity.
-Damage Reduction stacks with Damage Resistance.
-Damage Reduction does not stack with itself. The only exceptions to this are the Barbarian-, Dwarven Defender- and Epic- Damage Reduction feats (i.e. the sources of x/- damage reduction); these feats stack with each other.

[tropiofCancer]

I've been Playing NWN for about 5 years now , 3 of which I've played on BSK , I have surfed servers for a loong time and found BSK best suited to my style but the one complaint I will voice of the server is this...Damage immunities on the server are way out of control . One single frequent drop completely hamstrings any swordsman , axeman, basically anyone who uses an edged weapon and the item Im talking about is a "BlackStone Hood (25% slash resist).
Not so bad an Item by itself but combine it with say..Zigil armor (25% slash resist) Two items forged w/ greens (10%) and a Greater Swordsmans belt and what you have is this . Say you get critted by a guy weilding a dwarven waraxe for 100 points heres how the math works , 60 points are "soaked" buy the immunity (60% of a 100 = 60) , so the remaining 40 points (20 of which is again soaked by the GS Belt) leaves you taking a whopping 20 points of damage...PaleMasters Immune to crits takes none , nor does a soaker. That is why you have a huge amount of veteran BSK players weilding Warhammers/Morning Stars wearing their ant gear asking for fights in the arena .
I remember a time when we all did our power leveling in the troll caves and there was MASS Pking cause it was so crowded w/ everyone wearing their slash gear that kills were getting stolen (it seemed) . On a side note I apologize formally to "MindoverMatterX". Because the same thing is happening at ants and I am as guilty as anyone else . This is not my server and I dont want to posture myself as a know it all or whiner but I sincerely hope that the administration ponders this possible oversight and corrects it.. BUT! As a married man w/ 3 kids and a dwindling amount of time to spend away from home Im going to try and rectify this on my own -wrings hands together- ..Her name is Bubbles , its the build I played on a few Arena servers . I see you posturing as a badass cause you got a warhammer and zigil armor she's gonna try you ( of course I capitulate to server authority and you can always refuse consent.)_

[Daris]

I've been Playing NWN for about 5 years now , 3 of which I've played on BSK , I have surfed servers for a loong time and found BSK best suited to my style but the one complaint I will voice of the server is this...Damage immunities on the server are way out of control . One single frequent drop completely hamstrings any swordsman , axeman, basically anyone who uses an edged weapon and the item Im talking about is a "BlackStone Hood (25% slash resist).
Not so bad an Item by itself but combine it with say..Zigil armor (25% slash resist) Two items forged w/ greens (10%) and a Greater Swordsmans belt and what you have is this . Say you get critted by a guy weilding a dwarven waraxe for 100 points heres how the math works , 60 points are "soaked" buy the immunity (60% of a 100 = 60) , so the remaining 40 points (20 of which is again soaked by the GS Belt) leaves you taking a whopping 20 points of damage...PaleMasters Immune to crits takes none , nor does a soaker. That is why you have a huge amount of veteran BSK players weilding Warhammers/Morning Stars wearing their ant gear asking for fights in the arena .
I remember a time when we all did our power leveling in the troll caves and there was MASS Pking cause it was so crowded w/ everyone wearing their slash gear that kills were getting stolen (it seemed) . On a side note I apologize formally to "MindoverMatterX". Because the same thing is happening at ants and I am as guilty as anyone else . This is not my server and I dont want to posture myself as a know it all or whiner but I sincerely hope that the administration ponders this possible oversight and corrects it.. BUT! As a married man w/ 3 kids and a dwindling amount of time to spend away from home Im going to try and rectify this on my own -wrings hands together- ..Her name is Bubbles , its the build I played on a few Arena servers . I see you posturing as a badass cause you got a warhammer and zigil armor she's gonna try you ( of course I capitulate to server authority and you can always refuse consent.)_

Well said Here Here

[Caesius]

If you think that the immunities are bad now you should have seen some of the immunity percentages people were getting back before 2005.

[Wing--Zero]

I've been Playing NWN for about 5 years now , 3 of which I've played on BSK , I have surfed servers for a loong time and found BSK best suited to my style but the one complaint I will voice of the server is this...Damage immunities on the server are way out of control . One single frequent drop completely hamstrings any swordsman , axeman, basically anyone who uses an edged weapon and the item Im talking about is a "BlackStone Hood (25% slash resist).
Not so bad an Item by itself but combine it with say..Zigil armor (25% slash resist) Two items forged w/ greens (10%) and a Greater Swordsmans belt and what you have is this . Say you get critted by a guy weilding a dwarven waraxe for 100 points heres how the math works , 60 points are "soaked" buy the immunity (60% of a 100 = 60) , so the remaining 40 points (20 of which is again soaked by the GS Belt) leaves you taking a whopping 20 points of damage...PaleMasters Immune to crits takes none , nor does a soaker. That is why you have a huge amount of veteran BSK players weilding Warhammers/Morning Stars wearing their ant gear asking for fights in the arena .
I remember a time when we all did our power leveling in the troll caves and there was MASS Pking cause it was so crowded w/ everyone wearing their slash gear that kills were getting stolen (it seemed) . On a side note I apologize formally to "MindoverMatterX". Because the same thing is happening at ants and I am as guilty as anyone else . This is not my server and I dont want to posture myself as a know it all or whiner but I sincerely hope that the administration ponders this possible oversight and corrects it.. BUT! As a married man w/ 3 kids and a dwindling amount of time to spend away from home Im going to try and rectify this on my own -wrings hands together- ..Her name is Bubbles , its the build I played on a few Arena servers . I see you posturing as a badass cause you got a warhammer and zigil armor she's gonna try you ( of course I capitulate to server authority and you can always refuse consent.)_

Ok here are my thoughts on this. Although I do agree with you that the bsk hood does screw over people that use slashing weapons. I dont agree that it is the cause of people using bludg weapons and morning stars. Lets looks at the facts.

Say that the Blackstone hood was nerfed down to 5% slashing immune. By doing such there is still the possibility of having armor that adds 25% slashing immunity. Than you must add in a certain color forge stone that adds in 5% immunity to any item that is armor based. I also think the most common thing to get with that certain color forge stone is slashing damage. add in a cloak, 2 rings, shield, amulet, and boots or belt. Just by add those few items in the mix we are back to our problem in the first place of being able to get 60% slashing immunity gear. Although it is not as easy to obtain. It is not impossible either. I do recall someone haveing close to 50% bludg immune wich if I do a 100 on a crit takes my damage down to 50 minus the blet wich is 20 meaning I do about 30 on a crit. Not much of a differnce from the other scanario you pointed out earlier.

Now than the problem of everyone using morning stars and bludg weapons is not b/c of the change brought on by the Blackstone hood but, more because of the change of the palemaster class. The 25% bludg vuln made people go more twords morning stars and bludg based weapons. Now that there are not many palemasters around I see them going a little bit away from bludg wepaons and more tword pierceing, two handed wepaons and two damage type weapons. Thats the reason why more people are useing the morning stars. They have realized that it is a two type weapon that cannot be stopped by just haveing one type of immunity but, you have to have both. I see more people going twords them when the new patch comes out (1.69) b/c of simple fact you will have to have both reductions as well. Of course that is just speculation on how the server economics normally go. Such as the phases of going back and forth from palemasters to PM sorcs, to Weapon Masters and Shadow Dancers.

The only real way to come up with a soulution to the problem would be one of two choices.

One would be the removing of all immunity items that way ever weapon would have a equal loss of damage and a equal amount depending on weapon type.

Second would be possibly making a item that adds all three types of immunity to for all weapons. For example take a helmet and add 25% slashing, 25% piercing and 25% bludg immunities and have that be the only way to get weapon immunity in the game. that way each weapon would have a fair point of weapon immunity and each would resist the same amount. Of course adding this type of item into the game would also pose this question... "how rare should the item be." Would you want this item to be rare so only a handful of people have this item. Or making it decently rare so a good amount of people have them. Or making them common as a rock and everyone having this item. That question depends on the admins point of view really.

The only problem I see with making that change would be the problem with leveling. People would start taking damage from monsters (OMG THE ANTS CAN DAMAGE YOU!!!!!) and, people would have more of a challenge leveling. But, you can cry to me all day about having trouble with lvl and I still wouldn't care....I had to lvl in the old days when there was nothing but, the tomb of terror to lvl in and you had to have immunity to death magic, high fort to not get killed by Dev crit, piercing immunity, Slashing immunity and immune to level drain...so yea that was a pain.

Well theres my 3 and a half cents on the whole thing. Good thing to bring up though. Its the first thing in a long time on the forums that I haven't thought was just a bunch of garbage.

-Auran

[Alamore-Threepwood]

Ehhhh, I like Gabes idea of removing the BSK hoody, and really, the swords is commonly use *is guessing this because it is why he uses it* Because it's just so sexy! But I think it was a DM who said they had done the same thing with hoods, and people figured out how to get 100% immunities, can't remember exactly

[Thanatos]

TOC, mah man, you ain't gotta worry about soakage. You can lay damage down on even the tough-hide soakers. You ain't gots much worries about dmg amigo LOL.

[ST_DM_Myle]

Ever notice that sticking a fish in water is an ineffectent way to drowned it. If you leave it out in the air and or injure it - you will have better luck at killing it.

The most common damage people defend against is slashing. If your going to invest in dealing slash damage, don't complain about how hard it is for you to hurt people with the same damage that you know that most people defend against. Try something different...

Myle

[tropiofCancer]

Crying Myle? did a single tear roll down my cheek or did I voice an opinion looking for suggestions and feedback from my fellow players and peers , of course it is probably easier to say someone is crying or whining instead of discussing an issue and maybe improving play balance.

[Axe Madness]

well people hate powerbuilders because they build more perfect then the whatever you call non ones and! so you go hey dat guy doin that to not die from my sword so now everyone does that point being! which has nothin do with any of that. . .ok anyway!.......we no longer go to war with bolt action guns right>? so being said if other country goes hey.....we don't got that M4 we can only shoot. .3 rounds to your every clip you should make it to wear you only shoot 3 rounds. . .no doesn't happen will never happen swords are yesterdays news ok you use em great i still use handaxe ftw. . but all my new guys morning star why? its the machnine gun of weapons the powerwindows of windows your not gana go back to rollin it down manual once you've had power windows lol

ok im done so dat made any since to anyone awesome if not well i tried

[Wing--Zero]

Honestly normally I tend to get irritated at all the people that whine about stupid things that go wrong b/c of there fault or doesn't go there way. This I honestly to believe to be a valid complaint. I honestly see the Blackstone hood crippling slashing weapons but, if it were taken out would not fix the problem. Although it wouldn't fix the problem it wouldn't make it as easy to obtain. The only sure thing I see fixing it is the two ways I pointed in my previous post. taking the bsk good down to 5% immunity would not make everyone else forge stones a waste b/c it would be the same as having a normal socketed helm. The only thing it would insure is that people have no possible way to get 100% sashing immunity b/c trust me it can be done with a certain color forge stone, bsk hood, and socketed armor.

[Axe Madness]

in pvp sword uses are have problems yes, but said slasher soaker isn't gana be mad godly after say ants unless finds lvl40 area uses edge weapon. . .

[ST_DM_Myle]

Crying Myle? did a single tear roll down my cheek or did I voice an opinion looking for suggestions and feedback from my fellow players and peers , of course it is probably easier to say someone is crying or whining instead of discussing an issue and maybe improving play balance.

I re-read my post....

Ever notice that sticking a fish in water is an ineffectent way to drowned it. If you leave it out in the air and or injure it - you will have better luck at killing it.

The most common damage people defend against is slashing. If your going to invest in dealing slash damage, don't complain about how hard it is for you to hurt people with the same damage that you know that most people defend against. Try something different...

Myle

I do not recall saying that your crying or whining.

What I recall saying is that slashing is the most common type of attack and therefore the most commonly used in defense. I also said that you would be better served trying a different tactic if your current tactic does not work.

I gave an example and followed it up with advice.
Ever so sorry that you opted to read between the lines and add your own interpetation.

However, in an effort to make amends for this percieved wrong I have done you:
I retract my observation and suggestion. Instead, I submit that you should just continue your current slash biased tactic and forego any effort to adapt.

Myle