Damage

Damage is a number that represents how deadly a threat is. When a creature takes damage, they subtract that amount of damage from their current amount of hit points.
Damage is dealt with attacks and other harmful actions, as well as by a variety of conditions.
== Damage rolls ==
==== Example ====
A successful attack with a Dagger does a base of damage (1~4). This means a single four-sided die is rolled to determine the damage, for a total of 1 to 4 piercing damage. Most weapons use a single damage die, but some weapons use two: a successful attack with a Greatsword does damage (2~12), rolling two six-sided dice for a total of 2 to 12 slashing damage. Damaging spells typically roll more dice: for example, being caught in a will cause damage (8~48), though a successful Saving Throw can reduce it to half.
=== Attacks ===
In order to damage a target when making an attack, creatures must first make an attack roll. Attack rolls are rolled against the target's AC. If the attempt is successful, the attack does hit, and the attacker rolls for damage. If the result is less than the target's AC, the attack is a miss. 
==== Attack roll modifiers ====
==== Critical hits ====
== Damage types ==
All damage has a damage type, of which there are 13:
Bludgeoning Damage Icon.png|
Piercing Damage Icon.png|
Slashing Damage Icon.png|
Acid Damage Icon.png|
Cold Damage Icon.png|
Fire Damage Icon.png|
Force Damage Icon.png|
Lightning Damage Icon.png|
Necrotic Damage Icon.png|
Poison Damage Icon.png|
Psychic Damage Icon.png|
Radiant Damage Icon.png|
Thunder Damage Icon.png|
Bludgeoning, piercing and slashing damage are sometimes collectively referred to as , while the remaining damage types are sometimes collectively referred to as . Almost all weapons, melee or ranged, deal one of the physical damage types, although there are exceptions such as the Ne'er Misser.
The wiki sometimes uses the term when the type of damage is based on the primary damage type of the weapon being used. This is almost always one of the physical damage types, but can be something else in rare cases. For example, after casting Hunter's Mark on an enemy, an attack with most longswords would deal additional slashing damage, and an attack with most hand crossbows would deal additional piercing damage. However, an attack with the Ne'er Misser would deal additional force damage, because the Ne'er Misser uses force as its primary damage type. Another example would be using Sneak Attack with a Flame Blade or Shadow Blade, which would make the sneak attack deal fire or psychic damage, respectively.
If a source of damage mixes different sizes of dice or damage types, they will be listed separately with a plus sign between them, e.g. + . Each type is dealt separately, though see damage mechanics for more details.
=== Resistance, Vulnerability and Immunity ===
A creature's resistances determine which damage types they are immune, resistant or vulnerable to:
* Damage dealt to a creature with resistance to that damage type is halved.
* Damage dealt to a creature with vulnerability to that damage type is doubled.
* Damage dealt to a creature with immunity to that damage type is reduced to zero.
Resistance and vulnerability to the same type cancel each other out, but don't affect immunity.
== A bit of mathematics ==
Note that due to the mathematics of dice rolls, the difference between, say, 1d8 and 2d4 is more than just the higher minimum value of 2 on the 2d4 roll. With the d8, you have an equal chance of getting, say, a 5 and an 8. On the other hand, the 2d4 roll is statistically more likely to lead to a total value of 5, than a total value of 8. This is most easily explained with a table of all possible outcomes:
 Possible results of a 2d4 roll, highlighting the outcomes resulting in a total value of 5
+ 	+	2nd roll	2nd roll	2nd roll	2nd roll
+ 	+	1 	2 	3 	4
1st roll	1	2 	3 	4 	
1st roll	2	3 	4 	 	6
1st roll	3	4 	 	6 	7
1st roll	4	 	6 	7 	8
Notice how often the 5 appears in the possibilities for the total value (4 out of 16 possibilities) vs. how often the 8 appears (1 out of 16). This means a 2d4 roll has a 25% chance of resulting in 5 points of damage, but only a 6.125% chance of resulting in 8 points of damage. Meanwhile, the 1d8 roll actually has a higher chance of resulting in the maximum damage value of 8, since 1 out of 8 possibilities (12.5%) result in an 8. However, the average roll of 2d4 is 5 damage, while the average roll of 1d8 is only 4.5, because 2d4 can never roll a 1. Therefore, 2d4 is generally more consistent in damage output and will result in higher rolls in the long run.
== See also ==
* :Category:Sources of damage
== Footnotes ==
Category:Gameplay mechanics