History Main / DamageReduction

** Hardness is a variant used only by inanimate objects, for when players decide to smash down doors, sunder enemy gear, or otherwise wreck their environment. Most objects have little to no armor class and surprisingly little HP compared to a player character. Hardness makes them difficult to actually ''damage''. In theory, this should prevent anyone from just [[DungeonBypass carving a new door through a wall]], because standard attacks won't overcome hardness and will never cause hit point damage; in practice, [[MinMax most characters]] can easily overcome the hardness of stone and [[GameplayAndStorySegregation players agree to not abuse those rules]] [[RulesLawyer most of the time]].
** Interestingly enough, early versions of D&D averted the trope. A creature hit by an attack would most often take either full damage normally or else be flat-out ''immune'' no matter how hard it would have otherwise been hit (the latter in particular with regard to insufficiently magical weapon attacks); some cases of half damage would pop up as well, but generally no fixed resistance values whatsoever. It took until the third edition for DR as known today to make it into D&D, long after other games had already used the mechanic for years.

* Any game with damage soak rolls, such as ''TabletopGame/{{Shadowrun}}'', [[TabletopGame/OldWorldOfDarkness either]] [[TabletopGame/NewWorldOfDarkness version]] of the ''TabletopGame/World of Darkness'', and West End Games' D6 system such as the ''StarWars'' RPG. After establishing the damage of the attack, the thing being attacked rolls to reduce the amount of damage actually taken, in terms of their own innate difficulty to damage. Armour may either provide extra dice or reduce the target number of the roll to reduce the damage, depending on system.

* In Spycraft, damage reduction is the armor mechanic, with "armor" and "armor penetration" forming a parallel defensive system to the usual d20 armor class stuff.
* In {{Numenera}}, all armor works this way.

* ''ArkhamHorror'' features a few options for DR. The mobster investigator has it as his special ability. A few items and spells allow for it, including a variation of HyperactiveMetabolism were food provides DR rather then healing.

* Armour in ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}'' titles typically have two stats for each type of damage: Damage Threshold and Damage Resistance. Damage Threshold reduces all damage received by a certain amount, while Damage Resistance reduces what's left by a percentage. ''Fallout 3'' only used Damage Resistance, but ''New Vegas'' brought back Damage Threshold with one quirk. It reversed the calculation order, so that DR reduces incoming damage before DT. Appropriately, DR is a lot harder to come by, banished to the realms of Med-X and [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard select NPCs]]. Another change is that the [[ScratchDamage minimum]] amount of damage you can take is 20%, rather than the 15% of ''Fallout 3''. Of course you could always mod it...

* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' makes extensive use of this trope. Damage reduction is generally not provided by wearing armor, even magical, and is usually an ability granted to monsters. Said monsters oftentimes have a weakness that bypasses their DR, usually written as "DR ''Value'' / ''Weakness''"[[hottip:*: Read as: Damage Resistance: the first X points of damage are completely ignored. If the damage source is from the weakness, however, take full damage]], such as the Superman image above. Some materials or enchantments do provide DR on equipment and some class features also grant it.

* Armour in ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}'' titles typically have two stats for each type of damage: Damage Threshold and Damage Resistance. Damage Threshold reduces all damage received by a certain amount, while Damage Resistance reduces what's left by a percentage.
** ''Fallout 3'' only uses Damage Resistance, though it makes a return in slightly different form in ''Fallout: New Vegas.'' Specifically, Damage Threshold could reduce received damage to zero in earlier titles, but not in ''New Vegas.''

[[caption-width-right:340:[[DamageReduction DR]] [[FlyingBrick 500]] / [[MagicMissile Magic]] and/or [[GreenRocks Kryptonite]]]]

One very important to note is that, 99% of the time, DR reduces only '''physical''' damage - that means that, typically, there are one or more ways to get around a DR-based DamageSponge: ElementalDamage almost always bypasses DR, and if Magic Damage is different than Physical Damage, suddenly [[BeamSpam spamming the hell outta]] MagicMissile seems like a really, really good idea.

* ''VideoGame/KingdomOfLoathing'' has three forms of this. The first, actually called Damage Reduction, subtracts damage taken by a set amount, and the second is Damage Resistance, which reduces damage taken by a percentage at certain levels. Notably, they reduce ''all'' types of damage, regardless of element or type. The third, Elemental Resistance, reduces damage of a specific element by a percentage at certain levels.

* The Hero System's version of defenses functions a touch differently. A character can have both Defenses and straight Damage Reduction; Defenses outright subtract damage from the roll and can reduce it to zero, while Damage Reduction applies ''after'' Defenses and cuts the damage received by a straight percentage. Damage Reduction is one of the "warning sign" powers in the book; characters are expected to have fairly limited Damage Reduction, such as having it only apply to certain types of damage, and across-the-board Damage Reduction is mostly the domain of supervillains expected to take on entire teams of heroes singlehandedly or NighInvulnerable extreme-power characters like Superman.

* The Hero System's version of defenses functions a touch differently. A character can have both Defenses and straight Damage Reduction; Defenses outright subtract damage from the roll and can reduce it to zero, while Damage Reduction applies ''after'' Defenses and cuts the damage received by a straight percentage. Damage Reduction is one of the "warning sign" powers in the book; characters are expected to have fairly limited Damage Reduction, such as having it only apply to certain types of damage, and across-the-board Damage Reduction is mostly the domain of supervillains expected to take on entire teams of heroes singlehandedly.

** The Damage Reduction advantage also has a host of options to modify it's function, in particular conjunction with Damage Typing. The advantage could be used to simulate anything from thick skin to magical resistance against a given element to an ablative force field that needs recharging.

* Any game with damage soak rolls, such as ''TabletopGame/{{Shadowrun}}'', [[TabletopGame/OldWorldOfDarkness either]] [[TabletopGame/NewWorldOfDarkness version]] of the ''TabletopGame/World of Darkness'', and West End Games' D6 system such as the ''StarWars'' RPG. After establishing the damage of the attack, the thing being attacked rolls to reduce the amount of damage actually taken, in terms of their own innate difficulty to damage. Armour may either provide extra dice or reduce the target number of the roll to reduce the damage, depending on system.

* In ''TablletopGame/{{GURPS}}'', the primary benefit of wearing/installing armor is reducing damage received. DR is also an advantage that can be purchased by characters, races, etc. One to three points of damage reduction seems to be the "realistic" limit for natural DR, possessed by real animals with thick hides/scales or purchasable by players without needing specific GM approval. Previous versions featured the Toughness advantage, a more expensive DR with a two point Cap specifically for human use, with the base advantage restricted to supers or races.

* ''TablletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' makes extensive use of this trope. Damage reduction is generally not provided by wearing armor, even magical, and is usually an ability granted to monsters. Said monsters oftentimes have a weakness that bypasses their DR, usually written as "DR ''Value'' / ''Weakness''"[[hottip:*: Read as: Damage Resistance: the first X points of damage are completely ignored. If the damage source is from the weakness, however, take full damage]], such as the Superman image above. Some materials or enchantments do provide DR on equipment and some class features also grant it.

* Any game with damage soak rolls, such as ''TabletopGame/{{Shadowrun}}'', [[TablletopGame/OldWorldOfDarkness either]] [[TablletopGame/NewWorldOfDarkness version]] of the ''TablletopGame/World of Darkness'', and West End Games' D6 system such as the ''StarWars'' RPG. After establishing the damage of the attack, the thing being attacked rolls to reduce the amount of damage actually taken, in terms of their own innate difficulty to damage. Armour may either provide extra dice or reduce the target number of the roll to reduce the damage, depending on system.

* In ''{{GURPS}}'', the primary benefit of wearing/installing armor is reducing damage received. DR is also an advantage that can be purchased by characters, races, etc. One to three points of damage reduction seems to be the "realistic" limit for natural DR, possessed by real animals with thick hides/scales or purchasable by players without needing specific GM approval. Previous versions featured the Toughness advantage, a more expensive DR with a two point Cap specifically for human use, with the base advantage restricted to supers or races.

* ''DungeonsAndDragons'' makes extensive use of this trope. Damage reduction is generally not provided by wearing armor, even magical, and is usually an ability granted to monsters. Said monsters oftentimes have a weakness that bypasses their DR, usually written as "DR ''Value'' / ''Weakness''"[[hottip:*: Read as: Damage Resistance: the first X points of damage are completely ignored. If the damage source is from the weakness, however, take full damage]], such as the Superman image above. Some materials or enchantments do provide DR on equipment and some class features also grant it.

* Any game with damage soak rolls, such as ''{{Shadowrun}}'', ''WorldOfDarkness'', and West End Games' D6 system such as the ''StarWars'' RPG. After establishing the damage of the attack, the thing being attacked rolls to reduce the amount of damage actually taken, in terms of their own innate difficulty to damage. Armour may either provide extra dice or reduce the target number of the roll to reduce the damage, depending on system.

* ''DungeonsAndDragons'' makes extensive use of this trope. Damage reduction is generally not provided by wearing armor, even magical, and is usually an ability granted to monsters. Said monsters oftentimes have a weakness that bypasses their DR, usually written as "DR ''Value'' / ''Weakness''"[hottip:*: Read as: Damage Resistance: the first X points of damage are completely ignored. If the damage source is from the weakness, Damage Resistance is nullified]], such as the Superman image above. Some materials or enchantments do provide DR on equipment and some class features also grant it.

* ''DungeonsAndDragons'' makes extensive use of this trope. Damage reduction is generally not provided by wearing armor, even magical, and is usually an ability granted to monsters. Said monsters oftentimes have a weakness that bypasses their DR, usually written as "DR ''Value'' / ''Weakness''", such as the Superman image above. Some materials or enchantments do provide DR on equipment and some class features also grant it.

* Any game with damage soak rolls, such as ''{{Shadowrun}}'', ''WorldOfDarkness'', and West End Games' D6 system such as the ''StarWars'' RPG. After establishing the damage of the attack, the thing being attacked rolls to reduce the amount of damage actually taken, in terms of their own innate difficulty to damage.

** Hardness is a variant used only by inanimate objects, for when players decide to smash down doors, sunder enemy gear, or otherwise wreck their environment. Most objects have little to no armor class and surprisingly little HP compared to a player character. Hardness makes them difficult to actually ''damage''.

* Any game with damage soak rolls. After establishing the damage of the attack, the thing being attacked rolls to reduce the amount of damage actually taken, in terms of their own innate difficulty to damage. ''{{Shadowrun}}'', ''WorldOfDarkness'', West End Games' D6 system such as the ''StarWars'' RPG.

* DarkHeresy, RogueTrader, and Deathwatch all have this in the form of both Armor and Toughness. Very few attacks ignore this, though many weapons have Armor Penetration, which ignores a certain amount of Armor. Their parent game, Warhammer40,000, uses a combination of Toughness Values and Armor Saves, though it's a certain chance to ignore damage, rather than reducing it.

* NewHorizon has armor... and specific attacks penetrate the armor, as well as attacks that go overboard.

* In ''{{GURPS}}'', the primary benefit of wearing/installing armor is reducing damage received when it's passive defense bonuses fail you. DR is also an advantage that can be purchased by characters, races, etc. One to three points of damage reduction seems to be the "realistic" limit for natural DR, possessed by real animals with thick hides/scales or purchasable by players without needing specific GM approval. Previous versions featured the Toughness advantage, a more expensive DR with a two point Cap specifically for human use, with the base advantage restricted to supers or races.

** The Damage reduction advantage also has a host of options to modify it's function, in particular conjunction with Damage Typing. The advantage could be used to simulate anything from thick skin to magical resistance against a given element to an ablative force field that needs recharging.

* ''ArkhamHorror'' features a few options for DR. The mobster investigator has it as his special ability. A few items and spells allow for it, including a variation of HyperactiveMetabolism were food provides DR rather then healing.

In most paper-and-pencil {{RPG}}s, this usually tops out at numbers less than 10, since even 30 damage in P&P games is enough to kill most low-to-mid-level, non-fighter characters. Electronic and MassivelyMultiplayerOnlineRPG's on the other hand, can easily have DR hitting double, or even triple digits.

** Hardness is a variant used only by inanimate objects, for when players decide to smash down doors, sunder enemy gear, or otherwise wreck their environment. Most objects have little to no armor class and surprisingly little HP compared to a player character. Hardness makes them difficult to actually ''damage''.

The TropeMaker here is a little hard to place, as many/most TabletopGames miniatures games use some sort of Armor Rating to reduce damage, but the TropeCodifier is without a doubt DungeonsAndDragons, which uses it to a large extent, and is responsible for the tradition of "magic fire beats DR".

[[caption-width-right:340:[[DamageReduction DR]] [[OverNineThousand 9001]] / [[MagicMissile Magic]] and/or [[GreenRocks Kryptonite]]]]

[[caption-width-right:340:Superman - DR [[OverNineThousand 9001]] / Magic]]

[[caption-width-right:340:Superman - DR[[OverNineThousand 9001]]/Magic]]