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For the Lionheart perk, see Damage Resistance (perk).
Damage resistance
Damage Resistance
Fallout, Fallout 2, Fallout Tactics
ModifiesReduces Damage taken from attacks
Governed ByNone
Initial Value0%
Related PerksToughness, Dermal Impact Armor, Dermal Impact Assault Enhancement, Phoenix Armor Implants, Phoenix Assault Enhancement
Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas
ModifiesReduces Damage taken from attacks
Governed ByNone
Initial Value0%
Related PerksToughness, Cyborg, Barkskin, Survival Expert, Pitt Fighter, Ferocious Loyalty
Fallout 4
ModifiesReduced Damage taken from attacks.
Governed ByNone
Initial Value0
Related PerksRooted, Refractor, Toughness, Rad Resistant, Nerd Rage!, Moving Target
Fallout 76
ModifiesReduced Damage from Normal damage attacks
Initial Value0
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Any damage taken is reduced by this amount. Damage Resistance can be increased by wearing armor.

— Fallout In-game description

Damage Resistance (DR) is a derived statistic in the SPECIAL character system.

Any damage taken is reduced by this percentage (that is to say, a piece of armor with 10 DR will reduce damage taken by 10%). Damage Resistance can be increased by wearing armor, or by taking certain perks.

Fallout, Fallout 2, Fallout Tactics[]

Note, however, the difference from Armor Class, which helps dodge the attack, and Damage Threshold, which reduces damage before the damage resistance. Damage Resistance is capped at 90%.

Initial level: 0

Fallout 3[]

The maximum Damage Resistance is 85%, regardless whether this value is obtained by armor, perks, drugs or a combination of these. This makes the effects of Nerd Rage and Med-X somewhat questionable, as even without chems, the Lone Wanderer can permanently gain up to 94% Damage Resistance through equipment and perks (with The Pitt additional content). The T-51b power armor and the Enclave Hellfire power armor plus their respective helmets have a max DR of 60. Combined with the five permanent perks (34%) gives the maximum DR without drugs or having less than 20 percent of your hitpoints. Without the additional content you would still be able to obtain a maximum DR of 91% with power armor. Note that these numbers assume a fully repaired suit of armor, which, when the T-51b armor is actually being worn, is only possible if the player boosts Crazy Wolfgang's repair skill to 100 by reverse pickpocketing workman's coveralls from Point Lookout onto him because there is only one copy of this armor and it can only be repaired by non-player characters. Enclave Hellfire armor can be found, but it is rare (only obtainable with Broken Steel loaded). For players who prefer non-power armor, you can still obtain a permanent DR of 82% (79% without The Pitt add-on) with ranger battle armor, ghoul mask, the ranger battle helmet and the perks listed below.

All add-on combinations[]

The Pitt combinations[]

  • Permanent DR of 73%, +1 Strength, +1 Luck, -1 Agility, +5 melee weapons and +65 AP with the permanent perks below and Action Boy/Action Girl, tribal power armor and Ledoux's hockey mask. The tribal armor can be repaired with common T-45d power armor while the hockey mask is immune to item damage and can be repaired (if found damaged) with regular hockey masks.
    • Replace the hockey mask above with Poplar's hood which has 2 lower DR than the hockey mask but can be worn with the ghoul mask producing 5 DR rather than 4. This combination repairs the Agility damage (+2 small guns, +2 sneak, +2 action points), adds +10 sneak, permanent 74% DR, +40 AP and feral ghouls will not become hostile. It is a possibility for those who have not yet found the hockey mask, or missed acquiring it altogether. This option, however, excludes obtaining the Barkskin perk which offers 5 DR itself.

Permanently increasing Damage Resistance[]

  • The Cyborg perk gives +10% damage resistance.
  • The Toughness perk gives +10% damage resistance.
  • The Barkskin perk gives +5% damage resistance.
  • The Survival Expert perk gives up to +6% damage resistance.
  • The Pitt Fighter perk gives +3% damage resistance.

Temporarily increasing Damage Resistance[]

  • The Superior Defender perk gives +10% damage resistance, but only when standing still.
  • The Nerd Rage perk gives +50% Damage resistance, but only if your Health is below 20%.
  • The Med-X drug gives +25% Damage resistance, and it is possible to double up the effect by wearing the prototype medic power armor and also manually administering the drug.

Fallout: New Vegas[]

In Fallout: New Vegas, DR is mostly replaced by damage threshold. Med-X and the new items slasher and Battle brew, still provide bonuses to DR, which functions identically to the DR from Fallout 3. If all 3 items are taken together, they provide the maximum 85% damage resistance allowed by the game engine.

Damage resistance is applied before damage threshold. So, for a character with 30% damage resistance and 20 damage threshold (i.e. a Veteran Ranger), an attack that deals 80 damage is first reduced by 30% (leaving 56 damage), then the damage threshold is subtracted from that number, leaving a final damage of 36. As a result of this, a high damage resistance has a very large effect on a character's ability to withstand damage.

The only pieces of equipment in the game that raise DR instead of DT are:

In addition, DR can be conferred via the console by entering player.forceAV DamageResist xx where xx is between 0 and 85. Values beyond 85 are ignored by the game; 85 is the maximum DR, a likely holdover in the game engine from Fallout 3.

A rare few non-player character characters have perks which grant them DR in addition to the DT from their armor. These include:

Fallout 4 and Fallout 76[]

Damage resistance in both of the Creation Engine games is essentially the same and uses three separate armor types for the three available damage types:

  • DamageResist, used to determine resistance against ballistic or normal weapons - most conventional firearms, melee, and unarmed weapons, as well as creature attacks,
  • EnergyResist, used against weapons dealing energy damage,
  • RadiationResist, used against - what else? - radiation-based weapons.

To determine the damage reduction, the game first checks if the target of the attack has 0 armor, the attack deals full damage, otherwise, it performs the following calculation:

(((fPhysicalDamageFactor*Damage)+fPhysicalDamageBase)/Resistance)fPhysicalArmorDmgReductionExp
or
(((0.15*Damage)+0)/Resistance)0.365

Damage types can only be reduced by a max of 95%, with a minimum of 1%.

Gallery[]

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