This article is going to be stubby for a bit, as I'm gathering all the formulas necessary from the game code.

--Various Pickles 18:58, November 30, 2009 (UTC)

Contents 1 Elemental Effects 2 Shatter chance 3 Attack Speed 4 Reduce movement speed? 5 Frozen Status? 6 Spell resistance 7 Resistance formula 8 Elemental damage bonus is capped at 25% 9 Frozen/Paralized = Harder to hit? 10 A bow cannot be used to backstab... 11 +X% Chance to Dodge Attacks. How it works? 12 Target Rank Duration Modifier 13 Critical Hit

Elemental Effects Edit

The game itself mentions that lightning damage reduces target's stamina/mana. Whats the formulae? Do the other Elements have effects too? Does a weapon with a Ice damage rune slow a target? Does Flame weapons and Ice weapons spells apply effects? If not, why does fire add twice as much damage?

41.135.104.94 (talk) 01:07, October 12, 2011 (UTC) borgrel

Shatter chance Edit

Is shatter chance for spells the same as criticals? thank you if you can indicate clairification in the article. Also I do not see a shatter chance for normal mode, just easy, hard and nightmare. Based of the code alone, that means normal's chance is 1.0. (maybe that's why I'm getting so many shatters on normal mode? I kinda doubt it though, although the chance does seem higher than 50%...) --24.79.157.56 04:14, December 1, 2009 (UTC)

I probably screwed something up - I'll take a look. --Various Pickles 05:01, December 1, 2009 (UTC)

Fixed. --Various Pickles 05:11, December 3, 2009 (UTC)

Does anything increase hit rate? Or u have to cut down the opponents armor?

If you mean how often you will hit something, then strength and/or dexterity do (depending on weapon).

Attack Speed Edit

Attack speed is derived from the attack speed of the current combat style plus the attack speed mods of all equipped weapons. I know 100% for certain that the attack speed for dual wielding is 1.5 seconds, and I think that 1 handed weapons are also 1.5s. I'm not sure about 2h or bows. I think bows also have 'aiming time' on top of that for the first shot fired. Not 100% sure on aim time, but I am sure about the rest of it.

Dual wielding is done kind of strange - the character alternates hands every attack interval. So if you're dual wielding maces (speed 0) you'd swing with the main hand first, then 1.5 seconds later you'd swing with the off hand. Because daggers have -0.5 attack speed, dual wielding daggers results in ridiculous 0.5 second attack intervals, compared to dual wielding longswords or axes with 1.3 attack intervals.

Attack speed modifiers I'm not sure about. I'm not sure whether they use speed/(1+mod) or if they use speed*(1-mod). I'm passing this info on though so someone can do more detailed testing. I'm fairly certain that individual mods are multiplicative, eg. give somewhat diminishing returns. I've heard that there is also an attack speed floor, and the devs claimed that a speed of 0.3s would break the dual wielding animation. 67.160.173.153 03:44, December 8, 2009 (UTC)

Reduce movement speed? Edit

Is this as useless as it sounds? Or are skill and spell speeds also reduced? If so, by how much?

Frozen Status? Edit

One mechanic that is unclear: Frozen. What status is this in the game code? Since there is no "Frozen" listed under the tactics options for enemy status would it then be considered Paralyzed? ie: how would one do AI tactics: Winter's Grasp -> Stonefist

No, I believe it is a petrify, since it can be used for Shattering.  Hollowness | Talk | Contr 21:19, January 26, 2010 (UTC)

(Console version) Under AI tactics -> Enemy -> Status there are the following options: Can't attack, Charmed, Paralyzed, Stunned, Sleeping, Knockdown, Rooted, Disoriented, Slowed, Grabbed, Grabbing, Immobilized, Movement impaired. I was trying to figure out which of these applied to Frozen (if any). Jmjimmy 21:55, January 26, 2010 (UTC)

Spell resistance Edit

The main page states,

In nightmare mode, mobs have a base spell resistance of 10%. In easy mode, -10%.

I checked difficulty.gda and it says SR is actually increased by 5% for nightmare, not 10%. WRFan 15:29, May 12, 2010 (UTC)

Resistance formula Edit

The main page lists the resistance check formula, but it doesn't explain much. Let me explain in simple words how the game checks if a saving throw is successful.

1)Every creature in the game has a mental and physical resistance. Probably based on main attributes and modified by any abilities they have.

2)The game takes this number and subtracts from it the attacking attribute MODIFIER. If it's strength, then it's strength-10, but, check this out, if it's spellpower (in case of spells like Horror), it's also spellpower-10! Which is a bug, since spellpower in itself is already the Magic attribute modifier (your Magic score-10), so subtracting another 10 from it is wrong. So if your BASE spellpower is 30 (derived from your Magic score 40), the game will actually use 20 in its calculations (plus any bonuses that give you a spellpower bonus, which are unaffected by the bug).

3) Now the game checks for level difference between the attacker and its target (may be a negative number if the enemy has higher level than your party member). It multiplies this number by 5 (which is a pre-defined RESISTANCE_LEVEL_MODIFIER). This number is further subtracted from the enemy resistance.

4) Finally, the game adds the rank modifier to the enemy's resistance. The rank modifier is not based on game difficulty as far as I can tell. It's simply based on the rank of the enemy (boss, elite boss, critter or whatever). For example, the rank modifier for a boss is 20, for an elite boss 30 (checked on nightmare difficulty). The game takes these numbers from autoscale.gda and I think it uses this 2da file for all game difficulties. Probably wasn't supposed to work this way initially. I think the idea was to use different tables for different game difficulties, but as far as I can tell, the game uses only this 2da file. Not sure though. Can only vouch for nightmare difficulty.

5) In the end, the game generates a random roll between 0 and 100. This number must be higher than the final resistance as modified by everything listed above. If the roll is higher, the enemy's saving throw fails. Which means, your goal should be to get the enemy's saving throw (resistance) to a negative number, because any roll result between 0 and 100 will be higher than any negative number, even if you are really lucky and get a roll of 0 or 1, lol.

Formula:

fResistance=fResistance-spellpower-(5*nLevelDifference)+fRankModifier;

Example:

Enemy is Boss, has a mental resistance of 33 and level 9. Player has spellpower 62 (so spellpower modifier is 52 due to the bug described above) and is level 8. Calculation:

33-52-(5*-1)+20=6

This means the enemy has a 6% chance to save itself from your spells. It will save itself if the game rolls numbers 0,1,2,3,4,5, because these 6 numbers are smaller than the final resistance as calculated above. So you have two possibilities here - either fix the bug that uses the spellpower modifier instead of the actual spellpower score (check sys_resistances_h.nss and spell_singletarget.nss) or get your spellpower to a higher number. Hope this helps. WRFan 17:24, May 25, 2010 (UTC)

Elemental damage bonus is capped at 25% Edit

It seems elemental damage bonus is capped at 25% at most. I equipped several items that give you a bonus to spirit damage (30%), hit an enemy with a spell, it deals just as much damage as if the PC had 25%. So any bonus over 25% seems to be lost. So if you have a quarterstaff that gives you 10% spirit damage, gloves that give 10% and two rings that give you 5% each, then it's pointless to equip both rings, since 5% will be lost anyway. Since spellpower is not capped, equip one ring that gives you bonus spirit damage and equip another ring that gives you spellpower bonus. This way you can maximize the damage dealt when hitting enemies with spirit spells. Same goes probably for any other elemental damage. Could others please check and verify this? If it's true, it should be added to the Wiki.

Besides, don't forget that you can swap items in combat. So maximize your spellpower first when hitting enemies with hexes, then maximize your bonus damage right before hitting enemies with elemental spells, even at the cost of spellpower, because bonus damage has higher value than higher spellpower (unless it's spells like hexes or mana drain that don't deal damage by themselves, then spellpower is the important attribute). This way you can deal maximum damage (I dealt over 1200 points damage to the Sloth Demon (final arcane form), mana clashing him - first 2 hexes at maximized spellpower 88, then Mana Clash at spellpower 84+25% spirit bonus damage). You'll be swapping items like mad in combat, but it's worth it. WRFan (talk) 16:27, June 12, 2010 (UTC)

Emm, sorry, must have slept through math at school, the elemental damage bonus is capped at 30%, not 25. Tested with nature damage bonus as well by now, same story, any bonus damage above 30% is wasted. WRFan (talk) 22:40, July 3, 2010 (UTC)

Frozen/Paralized = Harder to hit? Edit

Why is it that when an enemy is frozen or paralized it seems that they are harder to hit? --76.204.6.158 (talk) 08:39, June 17, 2010 (UTC)

• Don't think so. I think you just notice the miss more, since the target is stationary. There should be an attack bonus on frozen targets, 99% chance or something 203.59.109.205 (talk) 14:40, September 19, 2010 (UTC)

A bow cannot be used to backstab... Edit

Bregan's Bow is listed as having +10 critical/backstab damage.(PC normal difficulty)

Is this wrong, or just a poorly written/lazy description in game?

203.59.109.205 (talk) 14:41, September 19, 2010 (UTC)

+X% Chance to Dodge Attacks. How it works? Edit

Please explain to me the mechanics of a "chance to dodge attacks". Which attribute it interacts and in which calculations involved? For example, Fade Shroud ability (+25% Chance to Dodge Attacks) means [Defense* 1.25]?--188.130.185.39 (talk) 22:30, September 22, 2010 (UTC)

Dodge has nothing to do with the Defense stat. 100% dodge means you will dodge all attacks, no matter what defense you have (of course attacks like grabs, overwhelms with autohit property will still hit you).

Target Rank Duration Modifier Edit

The "Target Rank Duration Modifier" can be seen all over the place, but the wiki seems to lack any information as to what it actually is. Anybody know?--63.95.218.254 (talk) 14:58, February 2, 2011 (UTC)

Critical Hit Edit

I cant find in the article an exact definition of "when does a critical hit occur?" There is a lot of information about the damage, but not about the prerequisites. Does it depend on attack rolls, as in some other games? Or on independent percental chances? I suggest an extra heading "Critical hit". The article "critical hit" redirects to this article, but this redirection is something like an dead end. --89.247.164.74 (talk) 13:41, April 24, 2012 (UTC)