Your resistance is how well you can resist a certain type of attack. If you are hit by a damage type which you are resistant to, the damage will be dramatically reduced. It also helps in resisting status effects; for instance, resistance to darkness reduces your chance of being blinded. Resistance to nerve paralysis reduces your chance of being paralyzed, and so on. If you are highly resistant to magic, it will take a more powerful curse to curse you. Magic resistance also reduces damage from all other attribute-typed attacks, albeit at a lower rate than the appropriate resistance.
If you are highly resistant to fire, your items will be less frequently destroyed by fire (or fewer fire blanket charges used). At Superb level fire resistance, item destruction stemming from fire damage is essentially negated altogether. The same goes for ice resistance.
You can gain intrinsic resistance via eating certain corpses. Each activation of this effect increases your resistance to that element by 50, taking you up to Little with the first and to Normal with the second. Intrinsic resistance cannot exceed Normal (200) - to reach Superb resistance, you have to compensate for the rest with resistance modifiers gained from equipment, racial feats, or mutations, which ignore the limit.
In newer versions of Elona+, resistances from corpses can be lost after sleeping via the "creepy dream" event (only one corpse worth per event). Pets in contrast do not appear to lose resistances in this way meaning that feeding them corpses is effectively a permanent boost.
Your resistances can most fluidly and selectively be raised by equipment with appropriate equipment attributes.
Potions of resistance and the Elemental Shield spell can temporarily increase resistances to fire, ice, and lightning (but nothing else), while the Elona+ upgraded version, Attribution Shield, applies to all resistances except magic. Spells of Nightmare and Element Scar, and potions of weaken resistance, can drop resistances for specific elements.
Resistance chart[]
For resistance values greater than 149, the damage dealt is modeled by the expression 2D / (RL + 1), where D is the base damage, and RL (resistance level) is determined by (resistance)/50. It is unclear if there is a single function describing all values of RL, but the chart below includes tested damage for resistance levels of less than 3, which do not adhere to the stated formula. The damage formula has a confirmed range of at least a resistance level of 2000, or 100,000 resistance.
Because RL is always truncated, the function is stepwise; all values in a particular range will return the same result. RL is capped at -1 on the lower end, but it is unknown if there is a cap on the upper end of resistance level. Also note that resistance has a diminishing effect on damage, similar to PV.
| Description | Value | Damage |
|---|---|---|
| Superb #####+ | ≥ 350 | .25, .22... |
| Superb ##### | 300 - 349 | .285 |
| Strong #### | 250 - 299 | .333 |
| Normal ### | 200 - 249 | .4 |
| Little ## | 150 - 199 | .5 |
| No resist # | 101 - 149 | 1 |
| No resist | 100 | 1 |
| Weak # | 51-99 | 1.5 |
| Weak ## | 50 | 1.5 |
| Critically Weak ## | 1 - 49 | 3 |
| Critically Weak ### | 0 - -49 | 3 |
| Critically Weak #### | -50 - -99 | 3.75 |
| Critically Weak ##### | -100 - -149 | 3.75 |
| Critically Weak #####+ | ≤ -150 | 3.75 |
Raw Formula[]
TargetResistLevel = Target.ResistVal(AtkElem) / 50; if (TargetResistLevel < 3) CalculatedDamage = CalculatedDamage * 150 / limit(TargetResistLevel * 50 + 50, 40, 150); else CalculatedDamage = CalculatedDamage * 100 / (TargetResistLevel * 50 + 50); CalculatedDamage = CalculatedDamage * 100 / (Target.ResistVal(Magic) / 2 + 50); (Note: Current as of Elona+ 1.43) limit(a,b,c). a = formula, b = minimum, c = maximum.
Resistance gains/loss messages[]
- Fire
Gain: Suddenly, you feel very hot
Loss: You sweat - Cold
Gain: Suddenly, you feel cool
Loss: You shivers - Lightning
Gain: You are struck by an electric shock
Loss: You are shocked - Darkness
Gain: No longer fear darkness
Loss: Suddenly, fear darkness - Mind
Gain: Suddenly, your mind becomes clear
Loss: Mind becomes slippery - Poison
Gain: You now have antibodies to poison
Loss: Lose antibodies to poison - Nether
Gain: No longer afraid of hell
Loss: afraid of hell - Sound
Gain: Your eardrums get thick
Loss: become very sensitive to noises - Nerve
Gain: Your nerve is sharpened
Loss: Become dull - Chaos
Gain: Suddenly, you understand chaos
Loss: No longer understand chaos - Magic
Gain: Your body is covered by a magical aura
Loss: The magical aura disappears from your body
NPC level resistance bonuses[]
NPCs in Elona gain a bonus to their resistance based on their level. These resistances are on top of whatever innate resistance the NPC has, so the same type of monster that is encountered as a unique "<(name>" or "{(name)} version, or one that has had it's level boosted in places like the Void, might have much higher resistance.
All elements resistances other than magic get the bonus in normal Elona.
Resistance on a NPC will not show up with "#" values unless it's base resistance is altered by a spell or item. So, a Yith-type NPC that might appear to have Superb resistance might in reality have much higher resistance than another NPC of the same level against Mind attacks, as they typically have a +400 resistance bonus.
There does not appear to be any middle ground in the level ranges. An NPC just below the cutoff point for Normal (200) resistance seems to still count as Little (150), rather than near to 149.
Any NPC that is recruited loses the resistances it gained for it's level, but retains any innate resistances or penalties it might have had.
The following chart reflects the level range that determines how much base resistance NPCs gain for a certain level, before any innate resistances are factored in. This chart takes No Resist as a bonus of 0, even though it counts as a base of 100 when calculating total resistance.
| Level |
Base resistance level (No magic resistance) |
Total bonus |
|---|---|---|
| Less than 16 | No Resist | +0 |
| 17-25 | Little | +50 |
| 26-40 | Normal | +100 |
| 41-50 | Strong | +150 |
| Greater than 51 | Superb | +200 |
Elona+[]
In Elona+, due to the great variety of new NPCs that are much higher level than in normal Elona, the gap between the cutoff point for the final tier is uncertain, but is included in the chart. If the exact cutoff point can be determined, this will be changed.
Additionally, NPCs that reach the higher levels start to gain a slight amount of magic resistance in addition to their normal bonuses.
| Level | Base resistance level | Total bonus | Base magic resistance bonus | Total bonus (magic only) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 25 or less | No Resist | +0 | No Resist | +0 |
| 26-50 | Little | +50 | No Resist | +0 |
| 51-75 | Normal | +100 | No Resist | +0 |
| 76-100 | Strong | +150 | No Resist | +0 |
| 101-125 | Superb | +200 | No Resist | +0 |
| 126 or greater | Superb | +200 | Little | +50 |
| 350 or greater (?) | Superb | +200 | Normal | +100 |
Minor note: As of v2.04 in E+, the chart above is incorrect. NPCs level 101 or greater (seemingly) have all superb resistances and little magic resist.
2.07 changes[]
As of Elona+ 2.07, the descriptions have changed for each tier, but the actual value remains unchanged. The damage reduction should be similar to before.
| Description | Value |
|---|---|
| Supreme | 800+ |
| Amazing | 700-799 |
| Superb | 600-699 |
| Strong | 500-599 |
| Normal | 400-499 |
| Little | 300-399 |
| No resist | 200-299 |
| Weak | 100-199 |
| Critically Weak | 0-99 |
As a reminder, this means natural resistances default to "Weak" now for yourself and recruited pets, as they start at 100. Any loss of resistance will put that category at critically weak now. Natural race resistances now default to "Strong" for NPCs with them.
No resist not being default doesn't make much sense, but I feel like that's going to be corrected in some later version.