Defending and Armor
 
There are a number of ways in which monsters can attack you: in direct 
melee combat, by exploding next to you, by breathing on you, or by 
casting spells (this is to say nothing of those lovely summoners who 
summon other monsters to lend them a helping hand!). All types of 
monster attacks can either harm your hit points directly, cause status 
effects ([a]), cause other nasty side-effects (like stat drain or 
elemental damage to your items), or - way too often - all of the above.

Virtually all monsters have melee attacks; usually they can only use 
them if they are directly next to you, but a few monsters have longer 
(two-square) reach, and then there are the dreaded beholders... Melee 
attacks are not guaranteed to hit, though; often they miss.

Many monsters also have an array of magical spells which they may use 
against you; and some have breath attacks (for example, red dragons 
breathe fire). Spell and breath attacks can be used from some distance 
away; usually they require line of sight, but sometimes a powerful ball 
or breath attack might snipe you from around a corner, still doing some 
damage even though the monster could not target you directly.

You need three things to protect you from this onslaught of attacks: 
armor class (AC) to make melee attacks miss more; resistances to reduce 
damage from elements (like fire) and to mitigate or eliminate the 
side-effects that elements have; and enough hit points (HP) to survive 
the damage you can't help taking. (In practice, you also need a fourth 
thing as well: plenty of healing to recover from the damage!)

Armor Class

The higher your armor class (or AC) is, the better. The effects of high 
AC are twofold: it causes all monster melee attacks to miss more often, 
and it reduces damage from some melee attacks even when they do hit. 
The latter only happens against the "Hurt" and "Shatter" attack types, 
and not against melee attacks of other types.

You can get some AC from your dexterity (essentially this is your 
ability to dodge attacks, interpreted as AC); but the bulk of your AC 
will be accounted for by your equipment, especially your armor.

All armor-type items (body armors, shields, cloaks, gloves, boots, 
helmets etc.) have two different AC values: base AC and bonus AC. These 
are displayed in square brackets as [x,+y] (e.g. [8,+0]), where x is 
the base AC and y is the bonus AC. Base AC is usually the same for all 
items of the same kind (e.g. all small leather shields), cannot be 
magically enchanted or otherwise improved, and cannot be damaged. Bonus 
AC can be magically enchanted, but can also suffer damage from 
disenchantment and acid.

Non-armor items (such as weapons, amulets or rings) never have base AC, 
but may still have bonus AC. If present, this is indicated simply as 
[+y] (e.g. [+10]); since these items never have base AC, only one 
number is needed. See [b] for a full account of all numbers that might 
be displayed in an item description.

For most characters, AC runs from around 0 to 150, maybe a bit higher. 
AC can go arbitrarily high; direct damage reduction from AC reaches its 
maximum level at an AC of 180, but the more important hit chance 
reduction from AC is not similarly capped. Yet, since armor is needed 
for resistances as much as (or even more than) it is needed for AC, 
compromises that limit AC are often necessary.

Resisting Magical Attacks

A few evil curses might give you a saving throw (see [c]); but breaths, 
bolts, balls, and other nasty spell attacks offer no such easy way out. 
Against them, your only recourse is to find equipment (or some other 
source) that grants resistance to the attack's damage type, or element.

There are two categories of resistances: 1) the base or low resistances 
(acid, electricity, fire, cold, poison); and 2) the high resistances: 
light, dark, confusion, nether, nexus, sound, shards, chaos, 
disenchantment, blindness and time. (Poison is sometimes counted as a 
high resistance, but is functionally a low one.) In addition, there is 
the special resistance to fear, which works differently (see [d]).

Each resistance both reduces damage from the corresponding element and 
gives you a saving roll against side-effects caused by that element. 
Multiple sources of the same resistance stack, though not linearly: one 
source of fire resistance (or another low resistance), for example, 
provides 50% resistance; two sources would give 65%, three sources 72%, 
and so on. The corresponding numbers for high resistances are lower: 
30% for one source of resistance, 40% for two and 45% for three. These 
resistance percentages are displayed on the Character Sheet, so there 
is no need to memorize them.

For damage reduction, 50% resistance simply means damage is reduced by 
approximately 50% (there is slight randomness, so for any one attack it 
could be 52% or 49%, but it will be close to 50%). For side-effects, 
the calculation is somewhat different: the resistance level (here 50) 
is compared to a 66-sided die for item destruction calculations, and a 
55-sided die for other side effects. So two sources of fire resistance 
(65%) would almost eliminate item damage from fire, but there's still 
that pesky 1 in 66 chance... For high resistances the numbers are 
lower: a 41-sided die for item destruction, and a 33-sided die for 
other side effects; again, two sources of resistance are almost but not 
quite enough to prevent item destruction.

A few races, such as Androids (electricity) or Werewolves and Ents 
(fire), are exceptionally vulnerable to one element and trigger special 
resistance calculations for that element only. The item destruction 
limit is lowered in these special cases; Androids use a 54-sided die 
for electricity, as do Ents for fire; and Werewolves use a 53-sided die 
for fire, allowing them to still fully protect their inventory with 
three sources of resistance. But damage and side-effect calculations 
are not similarly forgiving.

A number of exotic elements (like gravity) have no corresponding 
resistance, though it may still be possible to resist some of their 
effects (see [e]).

Ego Armor and Artifacts

Ordinary, mundane armor isn't likely to give you a resistance; but 
armor crafted by the great smiths of the age and imbued with mighty 
magics is another matter entirely. These items will fall into two broad 
categories: 1) artifacts and 2) ego items. These categories are 
explained in more detail elsewhere ([f] and [g]); the main difference 
between them is that an artifact can only be found once in each game, 
while an ego item shares its type with unlimitedly many other items.

Both artifacts and ego items can be highly valuable, and can provide 
not only resistances but also other nice stuff - boosts to your 
statistics, boosts to your speed, protection from paralysis, the 
ability to reflect enemy arrows and bolt spells, even skill with 
magical devices or telepathy.

A list of all artifacts and ego types, and all the bonuses they give, 
would be both a spoiler and excessively long; so play the game and find 
out what there is :)

List of Resistances

This section describes the various damage types that you can resist. As 
mentioned above, your current resistance sources (and resistance 
percentages) are noted on your Character Sheet (accessed with the C 
command), and you should look there regularly to see what you have and 
what you still lack. You start the game with few or no resistances, but 
by the endgame you will resist nearly everything.

The most important resistances are to the four base elements: acid, 
electricity, fire and cold. These are the first four resistances your 
character needs, and as early as DL 30-35 you should already have them 
doubly covered if possible, to reduce both direct damage and item loss. 
In the midgame and late game, attacks based on electricity, fire and 
cold can do extremely high damage, and might kill even a fully 
developed character from full health if not resisted.

The high resistances are not as important in the early game, but by the 
late game you should have at least most of them covered too. Nether, 
Shards and Chaos are particularly important resistances in the endgame; 
you should always have them in the really deep dungeons, even if it 
means major compromises elsewhere.

  Acid
  Acid is a corrosive form of attack. Not only is it painful to you, 
  the player, but it may also damage your armor and destroy items such 
  as staves and scrolls. Worse, the damage to equipped armor ignores 
  normal resistance, and can only be prevented with full immunity or by 
  wearing acid-proof equipment (use the Inspect command to see if a 
  given piece of armor is acid-proof; all artifacts and many egos are). 
  Acid damage is halved by armor, making it less deadly than the other 
  base elements, but the damage to staves combined with the commonness 
  of acid-based attacks still makes Acid Resistance a must-have.

  Electricity/Lightning
  Electricity is quite shocking (and quite painful) to experience up 
  close. In addition, it destroys rings and wands, and you can be sure 
  that the unidentified ring that just got fried was that Ring of Speed 
  you'd long been looking for... Resistance to electricity is slightly 
  more negotiable than the other three base elements, but not by much: 
  you don't want to lose your wands, and you probably don't want to 
  take 900 damage from a single lightning breath either.

  Fire
  In addition to causing physical damage to the player, fire-based 
  attacks are prolific destroyers of essential gear in your backpack. 
  Without resistance you can say goodbye to your staves, scrolls, town 
  spellbooks, unequipped equipment, and (pretty soon) this cruel world. 
  Of all resistances in the game, resistance to Fire is the most 
  important, and Werewolves and Ents (who are vulnerable to fire) never 
  stop feeling the pain.

  Cold/Frost
  Cold-based attacks may destroy potions (in addition to killing you 
  outright). Some potions are so rare, so precious and so essential 
  that they must be protected at all costs... but unfortunately, also 
  so fragile that Cold resistance is only a part of that puzzle.

  Poison
  Poison does extremely high damage, the highest of any element, but it 
  does so with some delay (see [h]). This means that you can use curing 
  items such as Mushrooms of Cure Poison to tackle poisoning, and so 
  this resistance is not absolutely needed... except that there's an 
  exotic element called Toxic Waste, which is basically poison (and 
  checks poison resistance) but has some very nasty extra side-effects.

  Light
  You need light to see, it is true, but too much light can blind you! 
  While blinded, you won't be able to read scrolls or spellbooks, or 
  even see the monsters around you (see [i])... and a few monsters have 
  Light-based attacks that deal high damage directly. Luckily, these 
  monsters are relatively rare, which makes Light one of the least 
  important high resistances.

  Dark
  In addition to causing physical damage, darkness may also blind the 
  player and darken the dungeon; so having resistance will protect your 
  eyesight as well as your health. Darkness-based attacks tend to be 
  fairly mild in the early game, but late-game Darkness Storms can be 
  deadly.

  Confusion
  This form of attack is quite baffling, and I must confess to being 
  puzzled as to how it manages to hurt the player, but it does. The 
  main problem, though, is not the damage but the side-effect: a 
  confused player cannot read scrolls, cast spells or even reliably 
  move in the right direction. See [j] for tips on how to deal with 
  confusion.

  Nether
  Nether is the element of the underworld; not only is it deadly, but 
  it can drain your life points (see [k]). In the late game, the undead 
  are everywhere, and you lack Nether resistance at your peril.

  Nexus
  Nexus is seldom deadly, but often highly annoying; it can teleport 
  you to very unexpected places, or even swap your primary stats 
  around. Some of nexus's side-effects are so hated that birth options 
  ([l] and [m]) exist to replace them with a mere foul curse...

  Sound
  Loud noises can be very painful, stun you, and cause your potions to 
  shatter. Resistance to Sound also protects you from stunning as a 
  side-effect of exotic elements; see [n] for why being stunned is bad.

  Shards
  Shard-based attacks may cause bleeding as well as direct damage. 
  While bleeding, you lose hit points every turn; the deeper the gash, 
  the faster you will die (see [o]). In addition, shards can destroy 
  potions. Resistance to shards is not needed in the early game, but in 
  the late game it rivals base resistances in importance.

  Chaos/Logrus
  Chaos is another of the most dangerous damage types: if chaos attacks 
  don't kill you outright, their side effects might. You may find 
  yourself a confused, hallucinating, mutated wretch, twisted by forces 
  unfathomable. Oh, and chaos destroys staves and wands too... Best to 
  resist it, if you can.

  Disenchantment
  Disenchantment is the undoing of magic of all kinds. Not only might 
  it (permanently!) reduce the quality of your equipment, it can also 
  dispel the beneficial spells you weave; and it is plenty deadly, too. 
  Disenchantment is the only element capable of harming an artifact.

  Blindness
  Blindness resistance, unlike all of the resistances listed above, 
  does not reduce damage; its sole purpose is to protect you from the 
  Blindness status effect, whether caused by directly blinding attacks 
  or as a side-effect of Light or Dark. Apart from Time, Blindness is 
  the least important resistance.

  Time
  Time-based attacks can be an enormous inconvenience; they have the 
  potential to drain your experience or your stats, even ignoring any 
  sustains you might have. Luckily, Time attacks are very rare, and the 
  direct damage from them tends to be low; this makes Time resistance 
  one you don't really need, which is good since it is by far the 
  hardest resistance to find.

  Fear
  There is much in the world that may un-nerve the boldest hero, not 
  least the special game mechanics around this resistance, which 
  functions unlike any of the others. See [p] for an explanation of 
  fear and fear resistance.

Immunities

If you are very lucky, you may find items which grant immunity to one 
or (very occasionally) more of the four base elements (Acid, Fire, Cold 
and Electricity). An immunity fully protects you from all damage and 
other effects that element might otherwise cause.

Other Protection

These item attributes are not technically resistances, but will still 
help you stay safe:

  Free Action
  Free Action gives you a saving throw against paralysis, and becomes a 
  necessity once you start going into quests with paralyzing monsters 
  (such as the Old Barracks quest or the Old Man Willow quest). Three 
  sources of Free Action are always good enough to save you from 
  paralysis (regardless of how bad your saving throw is), and two 
  sources are always good enough against monsters of level 41 and 
  below. Free Action also helps you recover much faster if you do get 
  paralyzed; with no Free Action at all, paralysis often means death.

  Hold Life
  Having your experience drained is often an inconvenience, and 
  sometimes outright dangerous if you lose levels. Hold Life gives you 
  a save against experience drain, and generally reduces the amount of 
  experience lost even if the saves fail. Multiple sources of Hold Life 
  will stack.
  
  Hold Life also gives some protection against life point drain, which 
  in the late game can be an even more serious problem than experience 
  loss. As you lose life points, your maximum HP is effectively lowered 
  ([q]); even worse, some life-draining attacks make the draining 
  monster stronger! If you run out of life points, you will usually 
  turn into an undead rather than die outright; but some races (like 
  Androids, Werewolves and monster races) cannot turn undead and will 
  therefore die.

  See Invisible
  Some monsters are invisible, and cannot be seen by ordinary eyes. 
  Needless to say, being attacked by something you cannot see is very 
  frustrating, not to mention deadly! See Invisible gives you a chance 
  to see these monsters; the more sources of See Invisible you have, 
  and the better your Searching skill is, the more reliably you can see 
  invisible threats.
  
  Note that some invisible monsters are warm blooded; if you have 
  infravision, you may see these monsters once they get close enough, 
  even if you have no See Invisible. Unfortunately for you, though, all 
  the really dangerous invisible monsters are cold-blooded...

  Telepathy
  Telepathy is the ultimate in monster detection: it lets you see all 
  approaching monsters and keep track of where nearby monsters are, and 
  allows you to see invisible monsters more reliably. Telepathic sight 
  is not even affected by blindness, often allowing normal combat while 
  blind.
  
  Don't let up your guard, though: the common, "universal" form of 
  Telepathy only detects monsters with minds. Dangerous mindless 
  monsters, like drolems or steam-powered mechanical dragons, can still 
  surprise you if you don't detect regularly.

The Power of Monster Attacks

Damage from monster melee attacks is usually a dice roll that depends 
on the monster's race (and is reduced by your AC for the Hurt and 
Shatter attack methods). The damage is not affected by the monster's 
health. The hit chance of monster melee attacks depends on your AC and 
the native level of the monster's race.

Damage from monster spells can be either fixed, a dice roll or a 
combination of both, depending on the monster's race. The damage is not 
affected by the monster's health, but may be reduced for ball attacks 
if you are not hit directly.

Damage from monster breath attacks is usually a percentage of the 
monster's current HP (and therefore is affected by the monster's 
health). Breath damage has an upper limit (for example, 900 for the 
base elements); this cap varies from element to element, and is applied 
before resistances. Breath damage can be reduced if the player is not 
hit directly.

Melee and spell attacks can become stronger if the attacking monster 
grows more powerful through Unlife attacks (see [r]). All attacks based 
on resistable elements, whether melee, spell or breath, can be defended 
against through appropriate resistances.

Recovering from Attacks

You cannot combat monsters and expect to come out unscathed every time; 
you will suffer damage many times, even come close to death. If there 
is no danger about, you can simply rest (R) to recover, but often this 
cannot be safely (or efficiently) done and magical healing is required. 
In the early game, this usually means Potions of Cure Serious Wounds, 
Mushrooms of Fast Recovery or an effect-specific cure like a Mushroom 
of Cure Confusion. Later, you will rely on Potions of Curing, Staves of 
Cure Wounds, Wands of Vampirism, Potions of Healing and Staves of 
Healing, maybe even a Rod of Angelic Healing.

Simple heals and cures will not fix everything, though: some attacks 
can drain your statistics, your experience, or even your life points. 
These can also be cured with certain potions or with a Rod of 
Restoring, but it is often simpler to seek a healer in the town.


Original   : (??), Leon Marrick and Chris Weisiger
Updated    : (??)
Updated    : Zangband DevTeam
Updated    : Hengband 1.0.11
Updated    : PosChengband 7.0.0
Updated    : FrogComposband 7.1.liquorice