Damage (DX)

This page describes the mechanics of the damage system in Deus Ex.

Base damage
See Weapons (DX) and individual weapon pages for the base damage values of the weapons in the game. Note that for some weapons, the in-game inventory interface does not correctly display the true damage of the weapon.

Some weapons inflict multiple instances of a base damage. For example, a value of "20x5" (for the Dragon's Tooth Sword) indicates that a base damage of 20 is inflicted 5 times. A base damage of 20x5 is generally equivalent to a hypothetical base damage of 100. However, when attacking objects that have a minimum damage threshold, only the individual per-hit damage (which is 20 in the case of the Dragon's Tooth Sword) is measured against the threshold.

Damage types
Damage types are categories of damage that the player can inflict and/or receive. The damage type of an incoming attack affects the final damage taken when the target has resistance against the incoming damage type (as described below). Some damage types are subject to special rules or special gameplay mechanics. For example, the "NanoVirus" damage type (from the scramble grenade) is used only for its special effect, and is never used to inflict any actual damage.

Explosions
Projectiles that explode apply damage five times by creating five separate explosions. Each of the five explosions has a base damage that is 40% of the projectile's nominal base damage; this damage is further scaled by a distance-related factor that is between 0 and 1. Due to the manner in which explosions are handled, weapons that launch explosive projectiles tend to do more damage than what their nominal base damage would suggest, if the explosion occurs close to the target. For more details on explosions, see the article linked above.

Damage modifiers (against non-player targets)
The following modifiers apply when damage is inflicted upon targets other than the player character.

Percentage-based bonuses
Weapon skill and the Targeting and Combat Strength augmentations provide percentage bonuses that extend the weapon's base damage. The bonuses for Targeting and Combat Strength apply only if these augmentations have been activated.

The total percentage bonus is applied to the base damage. For example, with a +240% bonus, the Dragon's Tooth Sword's 20 base damage is modified to 68.

Note that in the in-game inventory interface, the bonuses for weapon skill and targeting are incorrectly displayed at half of their actual values, and the bonus from combat strength is not displayed at all.

Situational modifiers
Against humanoid targets, damage is further modified if one of the following conditions applied. The stunned state should not be confused with the "stunned" damage type. The "stunned" damage type (inflicted by the riot prod) is only one of multiple damage types that will place humanoids in the stunned state. Tear gas (from the pepper gun or gas grenade) and halon gas (from the fire extinguisher) will also place humanoids in the stunned state.

Body part modifiers
Against humanoid targets, damage is further modified based on the body part of the target that is hit. When limb health reaches zero, further damage taken by the limb is rerouted to the torso. As shown above, the riot prod and baton do not benefit from the normal x8 multiplier for headshots. This is because the "stunned" and "KnockedOut" damage types (the damage types inflicted by the riot prod and baton, respectively) are excepted from the x8 multiplier for headshots. Consequently, for these weapons, attacks to the head are less effective than attacks to other body parts.

Body part and situational multipliers stack multiplicatively. For example, with a weapon other than the riot prod or baton, a headshot from behind at point blank range would result in a combined multiplier of 80x.

Damage modifiers (against the player character)
For purposes of receiving damage, the player character (JC Denton) is subject to a rule set that is somewhat different from that which applies to non-player targets.

Difficulty level
Damage that the player receives from the "Shot" damage type (damage caused by bullets and lethal melee weapons) and the "AutoShot" damage type (damage caused by the gunfire of automated turrets) are increased by a multiplier corresponding to the difficulty level. This multiplier is 1x, 1.5x, 2x, and 4x, for the difficulty levels of "Easy," "Medium," "Hard," and "Realistic," respectively.

Body part modifiers
The player takes 2x damage when hit in the head or torso, and 1x damage (i.e., normal damage) for other body parts.

For example, at the "Hard" difficulty level, the sniper rifle (base damage: 25) will cause 100 damage, enough to kill the player if the player is hit in the head or torso.

Resistance
Resistance is a percentage reduction of the incoming damage. For example, robots have a 75% resistance against "Shot" damage. This means that robots only receive 25% of the incoming damage when the damage is of the "Shot" damage type.

The term "resistance" generally refer to the percentage of the incoming damage that is removed. The concept of resistance can alternatively be represented as a "% damage taken" value, which is the percentage complement of the resistance value. That is, a resistance of 75% corresponds to a "% damage taken" of 25%. A "% damage taken" value of 0% indicates that the target is fully immune to the given damage type. Internally, the game uses "% damage taken" in the form of a decimal multiplier to calculate the effect of resistances.

When two sources of resistance are active, they are applied as sequential percentage reductions. For example, the combination of ballistic armor at the untrained level (50% resistance) and tech 4 Ballistic Protection (65% resistance) results in a total damage reduction to 17.5% of the original damage.

Minimum damage threshold
Certain world objects have a minimum damage threshold. Objects with a minimum damage threshold do not receive damage unless the attack meets or exceeds the minimum damage threshold. For example, turrets, cameras, and alarm panels have a minimum damage threshold of 50.