Malice Damage

[KillingMoon]

I got a bit of a shocker. Have not seen before what a Nefarious attack can do, but running around here with a Knive Jack, only a measly level 3, max damage 15, then all of a sudden BANG!!!



43 damage! But what's the calculation here? It says +50% Nefarious attack. If that's 50% of the max damage on top of the max damage, I still come only to 15 + 50% of 15 is either 22 or 23, depending on the rounding. What's up here?

[KillingMoon]

Having made a small calculation myself, 3 x 14 would be 42. Does a Nefarious attack perhaps do triple damage or something?

[BasiliskWrangler]

Something is not right here. Added to the 1.04 ToDo list.

[KillingMoon]

I played on a bit - once I got over the shock - but the second Nefarious attack was okay; 22 damage, more in line what I had expected.

I'm not sure if there's something to worry about. If it remains normal, then it's probably one of those things - first time strange result, after that no issues.
I'll keep you posted, though, because I'm not sure yet whether that's the case!

[Dark]

Perhaps it was a critical hit, but it doesn't show on the display? That would certainly be x2, right?

[Slarty]

Yeah, I had the same thought. I'll bet that's it. 5% for a Nefarious attack x whatever % criticals occur at is small enough that we wouldn't see it much, and we often wouldn't notice it when it happened.

[Kreador Freeaxe]

My first use of the Focus Shot feat with my bow landed a Nefarious hit, too. 63 damage to an unsuspecting Black Mold (I had a base damage 4 bow and the bonus damage amulet and one ring). I thought they'd all be like that. Boy was I disappointed on my next one.

[Slarty]

Hmm. Assuming you can also get criticals on feat attacks, anyone care to guess what the highest possible damage the engine will let you achieve in a single attack is?

Ironically enough, it may very well involve Unarmed Combat...

[CrazyBernie]

Hmm. Assuming you can also get criticals on feat attacks, anyone care to guess what the highest possible damage the engine will let you achieve in a single attack is?

Ironically enough, it may very well involve Unarmed Combat...

Actually, I believe it was with Piercing Weapons... 0_o

[Slarty]

I calculate 1482 as the maximum possible using Unarmed Combat, which should be higher than any other option. How is Piercing Weapons going to compete with that?

Edit: Hmm, very close! I get 1389 for Bows. Piercing Weapons are not gonna get up there though.

Edit 2: DOH! I forgot about stunning! Make that 2946 for Unarmed Combat and 2757 for Bows!!!

[KillingMoon]

But if there's more than one damage multiplier in play, what is it that gets multiplied? The unmodified base damage, the unmodified base damage + bonus, the already modified base damage or the already modified base damage + bonus?
And what does a critical hit do?

[KillingMoon]

Another screenshot here, further on in the same game. I haven't seen anything funny in the meantime, but this strike is a bit high again;



I'm not sure if I've actually gotten many Nefarious attacks in the meantime, certainly Critical Damage attacks, but they weren't all that high.
This 39 damage Nefarious attack is not such a freak as the previous one, but can still not be explained by just adding 50% to the base max damage.

Normally I would expect that any damage multipliers are calculated using the base damage, so that if a Critical Damage attack and a Nefarious attack are coinciding, you would get something like Y + 100% of Y + 50% of Y, add any bonus from buffs seperately. So with a base damage of 10 you would then end up with damage 25 + bonus.
Would anybody be able to confirm or deny this?

Piercing Weapons are not gonna get up there though.

I've browsed a bit through the forums and now believe that, incase of a double strike, which is the special weapen feat of piercing weapons, theoretically multiplier effects can happen on both of those strikes. I don't know if that changes the picture a bit...

[Slarty]

The problem with Piercing Weapons for the theoretical problem, is that Max Damage can have WAY more multiplier effects applied (1.5x malice, 2x critical, 2x stun, 1.3x blow setting, ?x feat) than bonus damage. Yes, the piercing feat gives you a second set of bonus damage, but you lose the third or third and fourth sets of max damage. So Unarmed Combat gives you potentially about 31x max damage and 1x bonus damage, while Piercing gives you potentially about 16x max damage and 2x bonus damage.

Also note that Max Damage does not mean you always roll that number -- it is just what the name implies, the maximum of what you can roll. That should solve your nefarious question.

[KillingMoon]

Maybe we're mixing up terms a bit. If you're including stunning, you're probably talking about multiple combat rounds, right? Your opponant is stunned, so you get one of more free rounds in. That would be seperately logged in the info bar. You would physically need to click your mouse again also, so you would not become surprised by a high damage roll appearing on the screen.

Unarmed Combat and Bows have a huge multiplier effect in their special weapen feats. If I'm going by the manual, Unarmed Combat's fury strike gives 4x the normal damage roll.
Bows' Intense Focus shot gives a guaranteed 3x max damage roll. So the max damage roll is not a matter of chance here, but a given for an Intense Focus shot, if I'm reading correctly.

But this is what the manual says about Piercing:



The last sentence leads me to believe that a critical hit does not stand a chance of getting multiplied for the special feats for Bows and Unarmed Combat.

As for my original question; BasiliskWrangler had already posted that to him it didn't seem right, so we can assume that he'll check the code.

In terms of game mechanics, I'm actually starting to believe a small chance on a Nefarious attack of something like 3x the normal damage roll isn't so strange. Critical hits are much more common and give 2x the normal damage roll. Why should something that is much rarer - the nefarious attack - give a lesser benefit than something common? You would expect it the other way around. Not that I wasn't shocked with that first high roll!

[Kreador Freeaxe]

The bow feat is not always the maximum damage (I can attest to this). What I think is interesting is how the various multipliers get applied. Bonus damage on weapons is applied AFTER all of the other bonuses, so a non-magical bow with a higher base damage will usually do more damage that a bow with equivalent base+bonus damage.

I was one-shot killing Mire Trolls with Focus Feat and Malice Damage.