Sometimes, other circumstances affect how much damage a creature takes. Use the following rules to determine whether special circumstances affect a damage roll.

Damage Types

There are two damage types a weapon, spell, or ability can inflict: physical damage and magic damage. Damage types can affect how damage is dealt or received. For example, a spell might double any magic damage, a condition might make a character resistant to physical damage, or a type of enemy might be immune to a certain type of damage all together.

Physical damage represents a hit primarily through mundane physical contact, something that is usually done without the aid of magic. Most standard blades and bows do physical damage.

Magic damage represents a hit that is primarily delivered through magical means. Most spells that deal harm to a target do magic damage.

Direct Damage

Direct damage is physical or magic damage that automatically hits a target. When a PC or GM deals direct damage, they don’t have to make an attack roll to hit.

Resistance & Immunity

Some abilities, spells, items, or other effects in the game might limit the amount of damage being done to a player through resistance or immunity. The text will usually specify whether this effect applies to either Physical or Magic. If it does not specify, the effect applies to all types of incoming damage.

When a creature has resistance to an incoming type of damage, they divide the damage in half (rounding up) before applying it to their thresholds. For example, you deal 25 damage to them, they would instead only take 13 damage. If multiple features give you resistance, they only count as one source of resistance.

When a creature has immunity to an incoming type of damage, they do not take any damage or stress from the attack.

If you have resistance or immunity plus another way to reduce damage (such as marking an Armor Slot), apply the resistance or immunity first; if you wish, you can then use other methods to reduce the damage further.