Damage Calculations (Optional Guide)

[Noah Ivaldi]

Damage isn't "calculated," per sé. Moreover is it roughly estimated on a calculated basis. These equations (which can also be relativized via study at the Atypical Institution) are not meant to be set-in-stone determinants for who is KOd or killed at what points, but just some basic guidelines as to what you can expect. Simply said, this is what, relatively speaking, is going through our minds when mods/admins tell you that you need to lose consciousness and such. This is all in our heads and not a change to gameplay, so don't read on unless you like to study mechanics.

Base Formulas
physical damage = (attacker's STR * weapon's power factor * attack's power factor) / defender's DEF * placement factor * ([243...267]/255)
When wielding a sword with a power factor that is average to Sein chars' swords, one can represent the weapon's power factor as, say, 30. Different weapons give different power factors, but they are generally represented with marginal differences from that, since a weapon that allows you to hit twice as hard with every hit, for example, is a bit much. For instance, an average lance (inherently stronger than an average sword) could be calculated as, oh, say, 31.5 or so. Don't get the impression that weapons don't make much of a difference, though. The differences are innately small, but are part of the grand equation of several multipliers, even without abilities and elemental resistance levels, that makes them significant enough to bother with at the start and huge battle determinants later in your game. This is because weapons that you earn/purchase/et cetera are likely to have more dramatic power factors than what you'll start with.
The power factor of a physical attack is usually 1. Attacks that deal X times the normal damage are calculated with power factors of 1, but with the damage multiplied by X at the end. Attacks with X times the power of a regular, physical attack simply have a power factor of X. In most cases, both methods of attack augmentation yield the same results (attack's power factor = 5 yields 5 times the damage if that factor was 1). The difference is only noticeable when the equation is changed by abilities/other augments.
The placement factor is the “where did it hit” aspect. Did it hit you in the back, in your right foot, on your head, in the face, on the toe that seems to attract all furniture and dropped objects? If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, you may be eligible for this multiplier. Call now, and you get a free frying pan upside the forehead. To explain this in detail would be nothing more than and nothing less than an anatomy lesson. If the properties of the attack and/or the defending body ('same damage reduction across my body,' 'count defenses equally, no matter where I'm hit,' 'damage spreads evenly across the target's body,' et cetera) cause the defender to take damage in disregard as to where the attack hit (either by spreading defenses so that the point of impact is averaged or spreading damage so that it simply hits everywhere minimally), this is 1. Similarly, an effect for the attack to hit any area as though it is the weakest/strongest point on the defender's body changes this to another constant, respectively a higher/lower one. This alone isn't generally enough to make a major difference in a battle, but, if this swordsman is consistently hitting the same spot, this knight will take slightly increased damage with every hit and probably suffer some mean tissue damage.
Finally, the last factor is damage variance. [243...267] represents a random whole number between the shown values inclusive. This is shown in the calculations just to further demonstrate that none of this is set in stone. In one battle, Mr. X may hit his clone 8 times and KO the clone, but, in another battle, Mr. X may hit all the same ways to leave his clone with just a tad of health, just enough for the clone to panic and flee. Notice that the damage variance is incredibly small; Mr. X is not going to get lucky and take 8 hits from Choh, nor is Choh going to get lucky and one-shot Mr. X. There is a bit of randomness to the damage, but it's negligible and won't even make a difference most of the time.

magical damage = (attacker's MAG * attack's power factor) / defender's RES * placement factor * ((243...267)/255)
Because magic is its own weapon, there is no multiplier by the power of some other, physical weapon. That's not to say that you can't have a weapon that buffs your magic up unless it specifically upgrades the factors that are already listed; you can have a weapon that throws some factor of its own in there or something. This is just the base formula for typical attacks of magical damage.
Thanks to magic being its own weapon, the power factor for spells is innately higher than that of physical attacks. While you may use an attack with 1.5 times the normal power with your average sword (weapon's power factor * attack's power factor = 45), your spell may simply have a power factor of 45. Neither is a stronger attack, in that case (given equal MAG and STR), so the question comes down to which cost you want to pay, the defenses of your foe, et cetera.
While the placement factor technically exists in the magical damage formula, there are so many spells that hit all across the body or implement other, similar properties to make this a constant.

Those are the base formulas. However, you can have a physical or metaphysical attack that applies your STR against the defender's RES (hence classifying it as magical damage, even though it primarily uses the physical formula), a magical or metaphysical attack that applies the DEF of the target (hence making it physical damage, though it uses the magical damage formula with only one deviation), or any of those attacks while ignoring DEF or otherwise augmenting the formula. See Choh Lehko's, Tori Keheraht's, and Tixxi Eldixac's spears for examples of augments that can be imposed on the base formulas.

After everything has been thrown into the base formulas and they have been worked out, we analyze any other factors that may be present. This is usually where we look at elemental resistance levels. If there is no resistance level to the element(s) of the attack, the damage is not multiplied. If one is present, we apply multipliers as necessary. If an attack is 70% fire-elemental and 30% water-elemental, and the defender takes halved damage from fire and 1/3rd damage from water, we simply take half of 70%( 35%), add 1/3rd of 30% (10%), and determine that the attack hits for 45% of the calculated damage. Of course, we may also do this as a part of the base formula calculations, because elemental resistance levels aren't all applied as damage multipliers. Some of them are applied as power multipliers, meaning that they take place in the first calculations of the base formula, before defenses are applied. Most people like to take their elemental calculations as simple damage multipliers, though. Anyway, we read into other things that affect the damage (read: applied after other calculations) of an attack, rather than its power/defensive force (read: power factor of the attack, weapon, multiplier on DEF, or other augment in the base formula), such as the multipliers of Choh's Asseisha Tatsumasa, or status effects like Protect, Shell, et cetera. “Berserk,” unless otherwise specified, is assumed to double power (be applied within the base formula) of physical attacks, so it was calculated earlier if you didn't specify that your variant doubles damage. Once everything is accounted for, there you have it! It, specifically, being a somewhat anti-climactic estimate of the damage that is dealt, that is. That wasn't so complex, right? You can see how you have plenty of flexibility to augment the damage that you deal, but things don't have to get too complex to do it. All savvy?