History Main / DamageTyping

* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'': In addition to normal damage there's "subdual" in [=AD&D=], or "non-lethal" from 3rd Edition. Taking nonlethal damage equal to your current HitPoints would knock you unconscious. In older version 1/4 of punching damage is normal, later one simplified this. Many jokes about how you can punch someone all day without killing them have resulted. (You can also choose to deal lethal damage with a punch, but at a penalty; said penalty is irrelevant to an incapacitated target.)

* ''DungeonsAndDragons'': In addition to normal damage there's "subdual" in [=AD&D=], or "non-lethal" from 3rd Edition. Taking nonlethal damage equal to your current HitPoints would knock you unconscious. In older version 1/4 of punching damage is normal, later one simplified this. Many jokes about how you can punch someone all day without killing them have resulted. (You can also choose to deal lethal damage with a punch, but at a penalty; said penalty is irrelevant to an incapacitated target.)

* White Wolf games (such as ''TheWorldOfDarkness'' and ''{{Scion}}'') have three separate damage types: bashing ("Ow, that bruises!"), lethal ("OK, that's a bit more than a flesh wound"), and aggravated ("MY VERY BEING IS RENDED!"). Bashing heals in fifteen minutes a level, lethal in two days, and aggravated damage heals in terms of weeks. If damage goes off your chart, it goes up a level - your fists deal bashing damage, but if you keep hitting them you ''will'' beat them to death - and once you run out of bashing levels, it takes a lot of effort not to pass out.

* The ''[[{{Firefly}} Serenity]]'' roleplaying game has Stun points and Wound points. Wound points are the dangerous ones.

* DarkHeresy also features an impressive array of damage types - there is Fatigue, enough of which can render a character comatose; there is Energy, Impact, Explosive and Rending damage as the four normal damage types, and if the character is out of Wounds, these also inflict Critical Damage corresponding to their damage type; there is also Tearing, which is basically Rending, but much, much worse; there is poison; and there is insanity, which is damage to the mind, as well as Corruption, which is damage to the soul, not to mention stat damage. And racking up enough Critical Damage, Insanity, Corruption or damage to any one stat, and the character either dies or is rendered unplayable. And this is disregarding the various mental disorders a character can pick up during the course of the campaign.

* In MagicTheGathering, normal damage dealt to creatures disappears at the end of the turn (as long as it's not lethal), wither damage permanently weakens the creature, and deathtouch damage destroys it immediately, no matter how much damage is dealt.

* In the Swedish tabletop [=RPG=] Eon, damage types include trauma, which is lethal tissue damage that will kill you, and pain which will knock you out eventually and hamper you if you don't pass out.

* Apparently the upcoming DresdenFiles RPG will feature damage tiers that will have increasingly bad consequences when filled. Certain weapons and attacks start automatically at a higher tier than others. A gun, for example, might start a tier higher than a knife.

* VideoGame example: ''MetalGearSolid'' and ''MetalGear'' games have separate stamina and health bars. Either one being emptied will lead to a game over, but you can usually get a bonus of some sort by knocking bosses out rather than killing them ([[TheGuardsMustBeCrazy plus knocked out guards won't lead to an alert being started if their bodies are found]]).

** Similarly, the game Mekton has Hits and Kills - one Kill is 25 Hits 910 hits in the first edition), which has similar effects on unarmored targets, also called the RMIW effect (Red mist in the wind).

* In ''NamcoXCapcom'', each attack has a damage type (a few have multiple damage types), and characters may be weak or resistant to certain types, resulting in increased or decreased damage. There are seven types: physical, fire, ice, electric, spirit, magic, and energy.

* in addition to its more infamous ElementalRockPaperScissors, ''{{Pokemon}}'' also has two different classes of damage-dealing attacks, Physical and Special. Physical attacks use the regular Atk. and Def. stats to calculate damage, whereas special attacks use Spec. Atk and Spec. Def. This mechanic has undergone quite a few changes between the various generations in order to balance out the gameplay:

* SeventhSea is a partial subversion in that ''all'' damage initially starts as inconsequential Flesh Wounds which do not hamper a character directly and heal automatically at the end of the scene. However, whenever Flesh Wounds are gained, the character has to roll Brawn against the total number of Flesh Wounds he has. Success means he simply keeps the Flesh Wounds he has, but failure causes him to lose all Flesh Wounds and gain a number of Dramatic Wounds. This usually works 1 Dramatic at a time, but failing by a certain amount causes additional Dramatics, and ''that's'' when the damage type is relevant (though only the my recent source of wounds). For example, a character gains an extra Dramatic Wound for every 20 he came up short from being punched or stabbed, but will gain 1 extra Dramatic for every 10 he was short for being shot, and for every 5 from being caught in an explosion.

** SeventhSea is a partial subversion in that ''all'' damage initially starts as inconsequential Flesh Wounds which do not hamper a character directly and heal automatically at the end of the scene. However, whenever Flesh Wounds are gained, the character has to roll Brawn against the total number of Flesh Wounds he has. Success means he simply keeps the Flesh Wounds he has, but failure causes him to lose all Flesh Wounds and gain a number of Dramatic Wounds. This usually works 1 Dramatic at a time, but failing by a certain amount causes additional Dramatics, and ''that's'' when the damage type is relevant (though only the my recent source of wounds). For example, a character gains an extra Dramatic Wound for every 20 he came up short from being punched or stabbed, but will gain 1 extra Dramatic for every 10 he was short for being shot, and for every 5 from being caught in an explosion.

See also ElementalRockPaperScissors.

* {{GURPS}} takes this every possible way it could be handled. There's burning, corrosive, fatigue, crushing, cutting, impaling, small piercing, piercing, large piercing, huge piercing and toxic. All damage types will end up reducing the victim's hit points--you don't have to track damage separately for the different types--but some damage types give a multiplier to the amount of damage that gets through the victim's armor. Further, some kinds of armor give varying amounts of protection depending on what sort of damage they are protecting from. On top of that there are also attacks that damage fatigue points, making characters more exhausted rather than damaged. Then after all of that it also handles radiation damage as a sort of hybrid between the other types of damage. In short it has rules for every possible way one could cause damage, and different ways characters are expected to react to them.

* {{GURPS}} takes this every possible way it could be handled. There's burning, corrosive, crushing, cutting, impaling, small piercing, piercing, large piercing, huge piercing and toxic. All damage types will end up reducing the victim's hit points--you don't have to track damage separately for the different types--but some damage types give a multiplier to the amount of damage that gets through the victim's armor. Further, some kinds of armor give varying amounts of protection depending on what sort of damage they are protecting from. On top of that there are also attacks that damage fatigue points, making characters more exhausted rather than damaged. Then after all of that it also handles radiation damage as a sort of hybrid between the other types of damage. In short it has rules for every possible way one could cause damage, and different ways characters are expected to react to them.

** In the first iteration of the series, Special attack power and defensive ability both were determined by ''one'' "Special" stat, so pokemon with a very high number in that area were [[GameBreaker game-breaking powerhouses]] since they could soak up and dish out Spec. damage equally well. This is one of the main reasons why Psychic pokemon (specifically, [[OlympusMons Mewtwo and Mew]]) were so ridiculously overpowered in RBY, and the split into two separate stats helped to even the playing field quite a bit.