Physical damage types
Physical damage in Dominions 5 come in four different types: slashing, piercing, and blunt, as well as untyped. Each type has different effects when calculating damage. These are all calculated after the Damage vs. Protection calculation above, except for Piercing weapons which reduce Protection prior to the calculation.
Physical damage types
- Blunt damage does 50% more damage when scoring head hits after the Protection value is deducted. They score 25% more damage toward shield destruction.
- Slashing damage does 25% more damage after Protection is deducted. They do 50% more damage toward shield destruction. If a slashing weapon scores a leg, arm, or head hit that costs a target greater than or equal to 50% of its hit points, that body part will be chopped off. If a head is chopped off, this will kill the target if it had a head that was required for it to stay alive. (For example, a hydra does not fit that description.)
- Piercing damage reduces Protection by 20% prior to any calculation. This is the same mechanic as the Armor-Piercing ability, except that Armor-Piercing reduces Protection by 50%. This is multiplicative, so an piercing Armor-Piercing attack, will reduce Protection by 60% prior to calculations.
- Untyped damage has no additional effect. But it is also not countered by physical resistance of any kind
Two-handed weapons1) add 125% of Strength to damage instead of the usual 100%.
An attack may be able to inflict more than one type of damage. If so, it has an equal chance of doing each type of damage, but will only do one of them during that attack. For example, the short sword does both slashing and piercing damage. It has a 50% chance of doing one of these. If it does not do piercing, it will do slashing, but never both.
In addition, attacks may have additional special effects, such as fire, cold, or magic. Damage is displayed in colored numbers above the unit that suffered the damage. Pale red is normal damage, dark red is bleeding, green is poison, etc. This can be very helpful in determining the effectiveness of your units and tactics.
Underwater fighting
- Slashing and blunt attacks have an attack penalty equal to weapon length underwater
- Piercing attacks have no penalties. If a weapon does both piercing damage as well as another type, the underwater penalty is halved.
- Flails have an additional penalty of -1.