Rolling Damage Dice
While fighting in battles, damage dice are the most common type of roll for many characters. When you declare an attack, for example, there’s no requirement or pretense — you just roll your damage to make it official.
To roll damage, first you need to figure out what kind of dice to roll. Attacks use your weapon damage dice, such as the 1d4 of a dagger or the 2d8 of a greatsword. Offensive spells also have their own damage dice as listed in their spell entry, and it can even be Boosted by powerful mages with large amounts of Mana.
When rolling your damage, add any bonuses or penalties as appropriate. For example, you automatically add your Strength value to attacks with most weapons. If the weapon has the Light or Projectile property, you’ll add your Agility value instead. This extra damage is important to remember as it can often mean the difference between inflicting a wound or having your attack harmlessly bounce off.
Dealing Damage
Once you’ve rolled damage, it’s applied to the target of the attack. If the damage has an element associated with it, it’s first modified by the target’s Resistance to that element. Then, whether the damage is physical or magical, it’s reduced by the target’s Armor. Read more on damage types below.
If any damage is left after all reductions, a wound is inflicted on the target. Many enemies in battle only have one Health and will die after sustaining a single wound. These are called Minions, the most common type of enemy. Other more powerful foes will require many wounds to take down. The DM will track these wounds as they’re inflicted.
Some attacks can deal such ferocious damage that multiple wounds are inflicted. If the excess damage after Armor and other reductions is between 1 and 19, only a single wound is inflicted, but if the excess damage is 20 or greater, two wounds will be inflicted instead. Furthermore, if the excess damage is 30 or greater, three wounds will be inflicted, and four wounds at 40 or greater, five wounds at 50 or greater, and so on. Remember that only damage that isn’t reduced or prevented counts toward these additional wounds.
Epic foes will need many, many wounds to defeat. It’s important to strategically plan out your party’s rounds to take advantage of your abilities and weaken foes or bolster allies before striking to deal as much damage as possible, because these enemies usually won’t give you any quarter. Parties of organized enemies might even use the same tactics against you.
Critical Hits
As part of rolling damage for weapons and spells, you might trigger a Critical Hit. When any of your damage dice rolled as part of an attack roll the maximum value, the Critical Hit (also called a Crit) is triggered. For weapons, you’ll deal extra damage as listed in the text entry for each specific weapon, such as the dagger’s 3d4 additional damage or the flail’s extra 1d10. Note that this additional damage can’t also trigger a Crit.
Spells have special rules for Critical Hits listed in the Critical field in their text entry. This might be additional damage, but more often than not, it’s an additional effect applied to the spell such as the Burn on a Firebolt spell.
Damage Types
Damage is divided into various types that both categorize it and interact with other mechanics in Dragonpact.
There are two types of physical damage. Damage of this type is reduced purely by the unit’s Armor value.
- Blunt – Damage of this type is percussive and includes most unarmed attacks, damage with weapons such as hammers and shields, and many spells that utilize thrown or conjured objects. This damage type can inflict Break injuries that fracture bones and hinder.
- Sharp – Arrows, swords, axes, and several types of natural attacks are Sharp. This damage type can inflict Bleed injuries that cause severe injury and can quickly lead to death if not handled.
Elemental damage, on the other hand, can be reduced by both Armor and Resistance. Resistance can be a double-edged weapon, however. Negative Resistance doubles the amount of damage you take from that source instead of reducing it by the amount listed. There are several types of elemental damage:
- Air – Gusts of wind and sonic assaults that damage with the power of vibration.
- Fire – Flames that burn to cinders and blasts of heat that cook you slowly.
- Water – Inundation with flooding energy to soak and drown.
- Holy – The power of Draconic energy to smite evil and purify.
- Shadow – Eldritch forces that inflict harm and necrotize.
Air, Fire, and Water are considered fundamental forces in the world — many natural and environmental effects can cause damage of these types. Holy and Shadow are more rare, however, and are usually the domain of the Dragons themselves. Each of these five elements comes with a Resistance that’s listed on your character sheet. It must be noted again that damage from these elements is reduced first by your Resistance for that element, then by your Armor. If your Resistance is negative, all damage from the associated element is doubled before being reduced by Armor.
There are also other elements that are formed by combining more than one of the fundamental elements. When damage of the following elements is applied, use the lesser of the two constituent elements to determine the damage.
- Acid – Fire and Water
- Ice – Air and Water
- Lightning – Air and Fire
- Ether – Holy and Shadow
Acid uses the power of fire to intensity and twist water’s form into something caustic and corrosive. Ice uses the power of air to freeze water into cold, unforgiving death. Lightning is raw air wreathed in flame to shock and scour. Ether is spiritual force made manifest to attack with mystic energy — It can constitute raw kinetic force, aetheric damage to the mind or soul, or represent from any number of other mysterious and unknown effects.