Monster Resistance

Most of the monsters you fight have no resistance to your attacks, but a few of them do. Monster resistance occurs in several different forms:

Physical resistance

Some monsters are resistant to physical damage. Physical attacks inflict reduced damage to these enemies, and in the case of enemies with 100% resistance, the damage from every physical attack is reduced to a single point. Spells and elemental damage apply normally, except in the cases where the monster also has elemental resistance.

The damage you do against a physically resistant monster is calculated as follows:

• Multiply your damage by the physical resistance percentage.
• Round down.
• Subtract this value from your damage.
• If your damage is less than 1, set it to 1.

Or, if you prefer mathematical symbols: max(1, D - floor(D*R)) where D is your initial damage and R is the resistance.

Elemental resistance

Some monsters have resistance to elemental damage. All elemental attacks against these monsters inflict reduced damage. The formulas for monster elemental resistance are identical to the physical resistance formulas shown above.

Monster Level modification

The game calculates a separate monster resistance factor based on your total Monster Level modifiers. This resistance is 0.4% * ML (which can be positive or negative), but is capped at 50% (corresponding to +125 ML).

If the monster doesn't have any intrinsic physical or elemental resistance, this ML-based resistance is used as the monster's physical and elemental resistance. If the monster does have intrinsic resistance, the game uses the greater of the two.

For example, if you have +20 ML (ML-based resistance of 8%) but you are fighting a monster with 10% intrinsic physical resistance, the monster will have 10% resistance.

Soft damage cap

Some monsters have a soft damage cap, which puts diminishing returns on the damage you inflict. Soft damage caps have two variables, Base and Exponent, which are different for each monster. If the damage you inflict is greater than Base, it is modified by the following formula:

RealDamage = Base + (OriginalDamage - Base)^Exponent

Each source of damage that you inflict (i.e., each individually displayed number in the combat result page) is modified separately.

For example, the Mer-kin drifter has a soft damage cap with Base=400 and Exponent=0.75. If you hit it with a weapon attack that would normally deal 800 (+50) damage, the 800 is reduced to 489 by the soft damage cap, and the +50 is left alone. The actual damage you inflict is 489 (+50).

Monsters

This list is not complete.

• chalkdust wraith -- 100% (aligned to spooky)
• Don Crimbo -- 100%; additionally 100% resistant to all elements
• ghost miner -- 100% (aligned to spooky)
• hulking construct -- 100%; additionally 100% resistant to all elements
• Frosty -- 100%; additionally 100% resistant to all elements (aligned to cold)
• The Whole Kingdom -- 100%; additionally 100% resistant to all elements
• Snow Queen -- 100% (aligned to cold)
• ancient protector spirit - 100%
• Protector Spectre -- 100%
• The Ghost of Fernswarthy's n great-grandfather -- 100%
• dairy ooze -- 50%; additionally 50% resistant to all elements
• X Stone Golem -- 50%
• Heavy Kegtank -- 50% (aligned to sleaze)
• booty crab -- 25%
• Mobile Armored Sweat Lodge -- 50% (aligned to stench)
• War Frat Kegrider -- 25% (aligned to sleaze)
• War Hippy Dread Squad -- 25% (aligned to stench)
• Protector S. P. E. C. T. R. E. -- no physical resistance. 100% resistant to all elements

Strategy

Spellslinging is often the simplest and straightforward way to defeat monsters with physical resistance, as almost all spells deal elemental damage. But if your character lacks such skills or is unable to fund the MP cost, there are plenty of alternatives.

• Adding elemental damage to your attacks can let characters defeat physically immune monsters the old-fashioned way: repeatedly hitting them with a weapon. Some easy ways to do this are:
  • Equipment: a complete list can be seen at Bonus Weapon Damage.
  • Wads or nuggets can grant effects which boost elemental damage: +10 from wads, +3 from nuggets.
• Many familiars make elemental attacks, such as the Spooky Pirate Skeleton, Ninja Snowflake, and Flaming Gravy Fairy. Familiar equipment can also help:
  • The plastic pumpkin bucket gives the equipped familiar attacks that are always of the elements the monster is weak against.
  • The ant hoe, ant pick, ant pitchfork, ant rake, and ant sickle each allow your familiar to make a specific type of elemental attack.
• Use combat items which deal elemental damage, such as the grouchy restless spirit.
  • A scroll of ancient forbidden unspeakable evil instantly defeats most physically immune monsters.
  • Most of the love songs deal large amounts of elemental damage.
  • Hair spray deals 3-4 Hot Damage. That's not much, but the item is easily acquired.
  • The spectre scepter deals a small amount of hot damage 1/4 of the time and entangles the opponent another 1/4 of the time.
• The skills gained by completing the Spookyraven quest all allow you to deal spooky damage in some way.
• Eating a food which grants an elemental damage skill. Of course, this doesn't work for Boozetafarians and Oxygenarians.
  • An insanely spicy enchanted bean burrito gives you Chronic Indigestion, which deals 5-10 + the player's current fullness in Hot Damage.
  • Hi meins give 5 turns of an effect which in turn allows use of an elementally damaging skill. The damage depends on the remaining duration of the effect: 1-5 + 2×duration.
• As a last resort, you can use CLEESH to escape encounters with some physically resistant monsters.
• When fighting very strong opponents in general, consider scaling damage sources.