History Main / DamageReduction

** In ''VideoGame/StarCraftI,'' a unit's Size value allows it to resist certain [[DamageTyping damage types]]. A Small unit only takes half-damage from Explosive weapons, and a Large unit takes half damage from Concussive damage. For example, a Zergling charging a photon cannon only takes 10 damage instead of the 20 damage the photon cannon ''says'' it's doing.

** Also present in ''XCOM 2'' and ''VideoGame/XCOMChimeraSquad'' is the Dodge stat.

* Most forms of defense in ''VideoGame/XCOMEnemyUnknown'' work by either making a unit harder to hit (cover, various abilities) or adding HitPoints ([[ArmorAsHitPoints most armor]]). The exceptions are the Hardened trait (shared by most units on both sides that are incapable of taking cover) and Resilience skill, which grant immunity to {{Critical Hit}}s, effectively reducing their damage back down to normal levels, and two unique [[{{Cyborg}} MEC trooper]] skills which reduce damage by 2 for 2 turns after a successful hit, and reduce any hit that would take off more than a third of their life down to a third.
** The ''[[VideoGame/XCOMLongWar Long War]]'' GameMod adds a specific damage reduction with its own icon, granted mainly to machine/armored enemies as well as units in cover.

* ''VideoGame/{{Iji}}'' has the "Suppression" trait, unlocked by maxing out the Health stat (to a maximum of 20HP), which reduces any HP damage by one, to a minimum of one. One boss has a 5HP attack that has both a flag for ignoring all defenses (MercyInvincibility, Suppression, etc.) and a special code for not ignoring Suppression after all.

[[folder: Tabletop Games ]]

[[folder: Video Games ]]

* ''Franchise/StarCraft,'':

** In ''VideoGame/StarCraft1,'' a unit's Size value allows it to resist certain [[DamageTyping damage types]]. A Small unit only takes half-damage from Explosive weapons, and a Large unit takes half damage from Concussive damage. For example, a Zergling charging a photon cannon only takes 10 damage instead of the 20 damage the photon cannon ''says'' it's doing.
* ''VideoGame/WarcraftIII''

** In both games, a unit's Armor value is a flat negative to damage. This penalizes units with multiple attacks that, on-paper, do a certain ammount. As an example, the Firebat's unit profile ''says'' it does 8 damage per attack, but it ''really'' does 4 damage twice. So if it's fighting a Zergling who's got Carapace level 1, it's actually doing 6 damage instead of 7. 4-1+4-1=6.

* ''VideoGame/ForTheKing'': A character's Armor stat is subtracted from the {{Hit Point|s}} damage of each incoming physical attack, to a minimum of [[NoSell zero]], while their Resistance stat does the same for magic damage. Protective equipment, {{Protective Charm}}s, consumable items granting permanent buffs, and other sources can all contribute points to Armor and Resistance.

** Armor works by subtracting 3 ([[{{Nerf}} previously 5]]) from any instance of incoming damage, [[ScratchDamage or halving it]], depending on which would result in damage reduction having the lesser effect.

* In ''TabletopGame/{{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.

* ''TabletopGame/TunnelsAndTrolls'' (1975) contained the UrExample of this trope in tabletop [=RPGs=], replacing ''D&D''[='=]s (the only other RPG in existence at the time of its release) armor-as-likelihood-to-miss with armor-as-damage-reduction.
* In ''TabletopGame/{{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.
** Armor piercing attacks generally take the form of a divisor, reducing DR by half or more.
** The Damage Resistance 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.
* In ''TabletopGame/TheWitcherGameOfImagination'' armour, both natural and crafted, works this way. If the target is hit, the damage is reduced by a certain value, depending on the type and/or layers of armour. Can lead to situations when no damage is dealt at all. [[BoringButPractical Shields]] are special in this regard, as they both provide armour value ''and'' rise defenses, making it in the same time harder to hit their wielders.
* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' makes extensive use of this trope starting in Third Edition. Damage reduction and related concepts reduce the damage of each attack, making it more effective against a large number of lighter attacks than a few powerful attacks.
** Damage reduction is generally not provided by wearing armor, even magical, which instead reduces the chance of an attack connecting at all. Instead, it's usually a special monster ability, a character class ability, or a magical enhancement. Oftentimes damage reduction has a weakness that bypasses it, usually written as "DR ''Value / Weakness''"; for example, silver weapons bypass a werewolf's damage reduction. Damage reduction generally only applies to attacks with a physical component however, such as a sword or arrow; magical attacks such as the iconic Magic Missile or Fireball ''always'' ignore damage reduction, being covered by Energy Resistance instead.
** 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, ''but'' hardness makes them difficult to actually ''damage''. In theory, this should prevent anyone from just [[DungeonBypass carving a new door through a stone wall]], because standard attacks won't overcome hardness and will never cause hit point damage.
** Energy Resistance is effectively Damage Reduction for certain types of energy attacks, such as acid, cold, electric, fire, and sonic, reducing the incoming damage by a flat amount. Some creatures have it innately (fire doesn't work well on fire-breathing dragons, for instance) and magical items grant it as long they're worn or otherwise in use, whilst other effects like spells or potions can grant it for a limited duration.
** 5th edition streamlines the above into damage resistance, which halves any damage a creature takes from the specified damage type(s), and damage thresholds, which make an object immune to any attack whose damage does not equal or exceed the value of the damage threshold (and makes the object take full damage from attacks that ''do'' beat the threshold). The one remaining vestige of 3.5’s damage reduction rules is the Heavy Armor Master feat, which reduces all non-magical bludgeoning, piercing and slashing damage that you take while wearing heavy armor by 3 points.
* Most of the above applies in ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'' as well, but with an extra wrinkle: some creatures, most often [[ScienceFantasy Numerian robots]], have hardness that combined DR and energy resistance -- excluding specific weaknesses and {{Armor Piercing Attack}}s, ''everything'' does reduced damage.
* ''TabletopGame/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.
* ''TabletopGame/NewHorizon'' has armor... and specific attacks penetrate the armor, as well as attacks that go overboard.
* ''TabletopGame/DarkHeresy'', ''TabletopGame/RogueTrader'', and ''TabletopGame/{{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) and some have the Felling quality (which ignores a certain amount of "Unnatural Toughness"). Their parent game, ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'', uses a combination of Toughness Values and Armor Saves, though it's a certain chance to ignore damage, rather than reducing it. The FeelNoPain rule is described in the fluff as a more straight example, but again it's an additional chance to ignore damage.[[note]]Going by Dungeons and Dragons again, it's basically [=DR33% /=] [[ChunkySalsaRule Instant Death weapons]].[[/note]]

** TabletopGame/{{Exalted}} also has a "hardness" trait for armour, meaning that if the raw (pre-soak) damage doesn't reach the threshold designated by the hardness of the armour, no damage at all is rolled. This, however, is a fairly low number, and if the raw damage reaches or surpasses this threshold it isn't taken into account at all, instead you have to soak for any damage reduction.

* In ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'' there is the Absorb mechanic, which allows you to just prevent a certain amount of damage dealt to a creature that has the ability.
* In ''TabletopGame/{{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 ''TabletopGame/{{Numenera}}'', all armor works this way.
* In ''TabletopGame/PoniesAndParasprites'' damage is reduced in two ways. The first is via use of "Buffer Exhaustion", which allows a character to absorb a certain amount of damage before they are affected by it. The second (such as the Earth Pony's ''Tough as Nails'' ability and Celestia's ''Inescapable Corona of Justice'') simply reduces the amount of incoming damage. These two abilities explicitly stack with one another.
* In Palladium's "Mega-Damage" [=RPGs=] like ''TabletopGame/{{Rifts}}'', ''Franchise/{{Robotech}}'', and ''TabletopGame/{{Splicers}}'', this is pretty much how Mega-Damage works. Normal attacks, which inflict SDC(Structural Damage Capacity)/HP damage, cannot harm MDC materials unless they can inflict around a hundred points of damage or more in a single hit or burst (effectively DR 100/MD). Mega-Damage, however, also works in reverse: a single point of MD is equal to 100 SDC/Hit Points.

* ''TabletopGame/SentinelsOfTheMultiverse'' has a few ways for both heroes and villains to do this. Most of the heroes' damage reduction, is personal, like armor equipment or a power, though some heroes can give someone else damage reduction. Generally, -1 reduction is equipment or a power that can stay out indefinitely without penalty. -2 reduction either only lasts a turn, only affects the next damage taken, or is only applicable to damage of 5 or more. And they can stack. The villains' DR often applies to their whole deck, or a group within their deck. Grand Warlord Voss takes the cake. For every minion he has out, he reduces all damage to himself by 2, making him effectively invincible if there's more than two or three minions in play.

* ''TabletopGame/WarhammerFantasyRoleplay'': The damage a creature takes from any successful attack is reduced by both their [[TheSixStats Toughness]] attribute and their armour, barring [[ArmorPiercingAttack special exceptions]]. 1[[superscript:st]] and 2[[superscript:nd]] Editions allow this to [[NoSell reduce the damage to zero]]; 4[[superscript:th]] Edition adds a ScratchDamage rule.

** Damage reduction is generally not provided by wearing armor, even magical, which instead reduces the chance of an attack connecting at all. Instead, it's usually a special monster ability, a character class ability, or a magical enhancement. Oftentimes damage reduction has a weakness that bypasses it, usually written as "DR ''Value / Weakness''" For example, silver weapons bypass a werewolf's damage reduction.
** 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 stone wall]], because standard attacks won't overcome hardness and will never cause hit point damage.
** Energy Resistance is effectively Damage Reduction for certain types of energy attacks, such as acid, cold, electric, fire and sonic.

One very important to note is that, most 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: ElementalPowers almost always bypass DR, and if Magic Damage is different than Physical Damage, suddenly [[BeamSpam spamming the hell outta Magic Missile]] seems like a really, really good idea. Even if neither exist in the setting certain weapons or environment hazards can bypass the effect. DR can also manifest in different types, making some enemies very resistant against magic but weak to physical attacks and so on. Attacks that are specifically designed to ignore DamageReduction tend to be {{Armor Piercing Attack}}s.

* The ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'' games typically has the Protect and Shell spells, which reduces damage from physical and magical damage respectively.

[[quoteright:310:[[Manga/MahouSenseiNegima https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/testing.png]]]]

* ''TabletopGame/DarkHeresy'', ''TabletopGame/RogueTrader'', and ''TabletopGame/{{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) and some have the Felling quality (which ignores a certain amount of "Unnatural Toughness"). Their parent game, ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'', uses a combination of Toughness Values and Armor Saves, though it's a certain chance to ignore damage, rather than reducing it. The FeelNoPain rule is described in the fluff as a more straight example, but again it's an additional chance to ignore damage[[note]]going by Dungeons and Dragons again, it's basically [=DR33% /=] [[ChunkySalsaRule Instant Death weapons]][[/note]].

** ''VideoGame/Fallout4'' removes Damage Threshold again and changes Damage Resistance from a fixed percentage reduction per point to [[https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Damage_Resistance#Fallout_4 a more complicated formula]], generating a percentage reduction based on the ratio of damage over Damage Resistance. The result is that [[ScratchDamage no finite amount of Damage Resistance will fully negate any attack]] and adding together many sources of DR suffers from tremendous DiminishingReturnsForBalance.

** 5th edition streamlines the above into damage resistance, which halves any damage a creature takes from the specified damage type(s), and damage thresholds, which make an object immune to any attack whose damage does not equal or exceed the value of the damage threshold (and makes the object take full damage from attacks that ''do'' beat the threshold).

** ''VideoGame/Fallout3'' only used Damage Resistance, but ''VideoGame/NewVegas'' 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 [[SecretAIMoves select NPCs]], but stacking multiple chems while wearing good armor can make you an ImplacableMan. Another change is that the [[ScratchDamage minimum]] amount of damage you can take is 20%, rather than the 15% of ''Fallout 3''[[labelnote:Technically]]DT alone can only reduce damage by 80%, but this is after the reduction from Damage Resistance (which still has the 85% cap). Max DT and DR can thus stack together, reducing final damage to a whopping '''3'''%.[[/labelnote]].

** Armour in the isometric ''VideoGame/Fallout1'' titles typically have two stats for each type of damage: Damage Threshold and Damage Resistance. Damage Threshold reduces damage received by a certain amount for each attack, while Damage Resistance reduces what's left by a percentage. (Armor also adds to Armor Class,

**

** Damage reduction is generally not provided by wearing armor, even magical. Instead, it's usually a special monster ability, a character class ability, or a magical enhancement. Oftentimes damage reduction has a weakness that bypasses it, usually written as "DR ''Value / Weakness''" For example, silver weapons bypass a werewolf's damage reduction.

* Armour in ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}'' titles typically have two stats for each type of damage: Damage Threshold and Damage Resistance. Damage Threshold reduces damage received by a certain amount for each attack, 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 [[SecretAIMoves select NPCs]], but stacking multiple chems while wearing good armor can make you an ImplacableMan. Another change is that the [[ScratchDamage minimum]] amount of damage you can take is 20%, rather than the 15% of ''Fallout 3''[[labelnote:Technically]]DT alone can only reduce damage by 80%, but this is after the reduction from Damage Resistance (which still has the 85% cap). Max DT and DR can thus stack together, reducing final damage to a whopping '''3'''%.[[/labelnote]]. Of course you could always mod it...

** Armor works by subtracting 5 from any instance of incoming damage, or halving it, depending on which would result in damage reduction having the lesser effect.

* Armor in ''VideoGame/{{Overwatch}}'' works by subtracting 5 from any instance of incoming damage, or halving it, depending on which would result in damage reduction having the lesser effect.

* ''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''"[[labelnote:*]]Read as: Damage reduction: the first X points of damage are completely ignored. If the damage source is from the weakness, however, take full damage[[/labelnote]]. Some materials or enchantments do provide DR on equipment and some class features also grant it.
** 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, most characters can easily overcome the hardness of stone and players agree to not abuse those rules most of the time.
** 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 D&D to employ DR as seen today, long after other games had already used the mechanic for years.
** "Damage reduction" applies to weapon attacks only; energy attacks (acid, cold, electric, fire, and sonic) ignore it. To reduce damage from fireballs and lightning bolts, you need "energy resistance", often provided by spells or as a special quality of creatures. Speaking of which, natural resistance to sonic damage is quite rare.

* Armour in ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}'' titles typically have two stats for each type of damage: Damage Threshold and Damage Resistance. Damage Threshold reduces damage received by a certain amount for each attack, 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 [[SecretAIMoves select NPCs]], but stacking multiple chems while wearing good armor can make you an ImplacableMan. Another change is that the [[ScratchDamage minimum]] amount of damage you can take is 20%, rather than the 15% of ''Fallout 3''[[labelnote:Technically]]DT alone can only reduce damage by 80%, but this is after the reduction from Damage Resistance (which still has the 85% cap). Max DT and DR can thus stack together, reducing final damage to a whopping '''3'''%.[[labelnote]]. Of course you could always mod 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 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...