Damage

Damage is caused by attacks meant to wound directly, by eating into a victim's Hit points total. It is the main way to kill a creature.

Inflicted for the most part by weapons, spells, traps or other abilities, it can be further divided into 10 main damage types independent from one another: Slashing, Crushing, Piercing, Missile, Fire, Cold, Electricity, Acid, Poison and Magic.

The first four types are regrouped under the notion of Physical damage due to their unique role. The next five are conceptually seen as Elemental damage, functionally identical to the last one, Magical damage.

Creatures can resist or be exceptionally vulnerable to one or several damage types.

Resistance

Resistance to a damage type works as a percentage value that can go from -128 to 127:

• At -50% resistance, a creature takes 150% damage
• At 0% resistance, a creature takes full damage
• At 100% resistance, it takes no damage
• At 110% resistance, it is healed by 10% of the damage

In Enhanced Editions, resistance to Physical and Poison damage is capped at 100%, and damage that you're immune to no longer interrupts spellcasting.

Physical damage

Main article: Physical damage

Physical damage is typically dealt with weapons, including fists. Different types of weapons cause different types of physical damage, some of them even two:

• Crushing – in most cases dealt by blunt and spiked weapons;
  • Stunning – a non-lethal type of crushing damage caused by non-Monk fists;
• Slashing – large swords and axes are common slashing weapons;
• Piercing – small swords, spears and halberds do pierce, the latter may slash as well;
• Missile – dealt by all ranged weapons, including throwing variants of axes, daggers and hammers.

Elemental damage

Main article: Elemental damage

Elemental damage usually is caused by spells or as bonus damage from weapons on top of their physical damage. The game implements damage types connected to the four major elemental planes plus one of the four para-elemental ones:

• acid – connected to the Elemental Plane of Earth;
• cold – connected to the Elemental Plane of Water;
• electricity – connected to the Elemental Plane of Air;
• fire – connected to the Elemental Plane of Fire;
• poison - connected to the Para-elemental Plane of Ooze.

Poison damage

Main article: Poison damage

Poison damage is a type of Elemental damage. Like other types of damage, it can be partly or completely resisted, with for example the Helm of the Rock.

Note: Poison damage is independent from the Poison status effect and should not be confused with it. Taking Poison damage will not cause a Poison effect. However, when this effect is successfully applied to a creature, that creature will take Poison damage over time which can be resisted. Finally, as seen in the screenshot, the in-game character sheet lists resistance to Poison damage as "Poison". This is *not* the status effect.

Magical damage

Main article: Magical damage

Magical damage is one of the 10 main damage types of the game, typically inflicted by spells like Skull Trap or items like The Victor. The term Magical Damage can also be referred to as Magic Energy Damage, such as seen in the 6th Level arcane spell Protection From Magic Energy.

Note: Resistance to Magical damage has nothing to do with Magic resistance and must not be confused with it. The former allows to alter the amount of damage received from one of the damage types – Magical damage – the latter is a percentage chance for a spell to have no effects whatsoever, damage or otherwise. They are both stats that belong to the creature on the receiving end, like resistance to Physical damage and Armor Class. In-game, the term "Magic" actually refers to *Magic resistance* in the character sheet, as can be seen in the screenshot.

Stunning damage

Stunning damage refers to what is known as nonlethal or fist damage. It is a cousin of Crushing damage, affected by AC vs Crushing and Crushing resistance (as granted by Destroyer of the Hills and Roranach's Horn, for example).

Stunning damage is almost exclusively caused by unarmed attacks. Where all other damage types would kill a creature as they lower its hit points below 1, that one can only bring them to 1, making the victim fall unconscious for a short period instead of dealing a killing blow.

Note: A Monk's fist deals real Crushing damage and is thus able to kill. For other character classes, game logs show that they deal nonlethal damage.

Magical cold and Magical fire damage

The games sometimes refer to Magical cold or Magical fire damage, and even grant resistances to them. But in fact, nothing in the Baldur's Gate series ever causes such damage. They can be flat out ignored.

For modders, be wary about using them in the original edition. According to the Infinity Engine Structures Description Project (IESDP), killing a creature with either of these two damage types could crash the game at least in the first opus. This shouldn't be an issue in Enhanced Editions and in fact some mods did start using them.

Damage roll

Melee attacks against unarmed creatures or creatures using ranged attacks get an additional 4 points of damage. This bonus applies even against critters like Ankhegs when they keep using their ranged attack as party members reach them.

For weapon attacks, a detailed breakdown of the damage roll and modifiers can be shown in the combat log with the hidden gameplay options mod, by installing "Show extra combat info" and then activating it in the game options (Gameplay > Feedback > Feedback Messages).

An explanation of the modifiers that appear in the combat log with this option (critical hit damage is not included, so double the result in case of a critical hit):

• Roll: The damage roll from the weapon, including enchantment bonus (so for example a Mace +1 with 1d6+2 damage could roll a number from 3 to 8 here)
• DamageMod: special bonuses from sources like Bless etc.
• Hand Bonus: bonuses from weapon proficiencies and the like
• Attack of Opportunity: +4 damage bonus with melee weapons against ranged / unarmed foes
• Backstab: extra damage from Backstab
• Berserk: extra damage from Enrage / Berserk (?)
• Strength: bonus to melee damage and thrown weapons (except darts) by high Strength
• Hated Race: bonus damage from Ranger's racial enemy, potentially others as well
• Special Bonus: other bonuses