Scratch Damage: Difference between revisions
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In some games, weak enemies will only manage to inflict damage by landing the occasional [[Critical Hit]]. But unless there are other game mechanics at work, like self-inflicted damage caused by a distracting or disruptive attack, they shouldn't be able to hurt you ''at all'' with their furry paws while you're wearing your Flaming Armor of Awesomeness, [[Critical Hit]] or not.
Fortunately for you, many RPG systems apply
But this is by no means universal, and other RPG systems will happily reduce your attacks to zero points or "no effect" if your attack power is too low or the opponent's defense too high.
Occasionally, [[Metal Slime|rare and elusive monsters]] may be designed entirely around the concept of
Guaranteed to drive a [[Munchkin]] all the way up the wall (and probably through the ceiling due to his optimized Strength...) and is also the bane of those attempting a [[No Damage Run]], especially when coupled with [[Random Encounters]].
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* In addition to normal blocking, many fighting games provided a "powerblock" feature: If the player defended against their opponent's attack with ''exact'' timing (generally right before or upon impact), they would receive zero damage from it, even if it was a Special Attack (which would normally inflict scratch damage). ''[[Street Fighter]] III'' had this in the form of parrying, and ''Garou: Mark of the Wolves'' had it in the form of Just Defend.
* In the third ''[[Star Ocean]]'' game, it's possible to get defense stats high enough for attacks to cause zero damage. Getting hit with such a weak attack doesn't even stun you or interrupt your attacks.
* The ''[[Paper Mario (franchise)|Paper Mario]]'' titles calculate damage simply as "Attack minus Defense", for both Mario and all opponents, making [[Spam Attack
** ''[[Super Mario RPG]]'' generally permitted
* The [[Mario & Luigi]] series has any enemies always do at least one damage. Also, Mario and Luigi always do at least one damage to enemies. This does mean, however, that the first few hits of multi-hit moves can do 0 damage, but the last one will always do 1. ''[[Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga]]'' has an example of this, but it's deliberate. There is an optional boss called Jojora near the end of the game. You have to defeat her friend (a giant snow-doll creature), but it it not necessary to beat Jojora. Many players believe it is actually impossible to kill her; she has the highest defense in the game and every attack only does 1 damage. However, the designers actually intended vigilant players to be able to beat her - she only has 50 HP. A multi-hitting attack will wear her HP down in no time, and she drops a rare item and gives decent experience for your trouble.
** Other examples of enemies that only take scratch damage from attacks include the tree thing on Trunkle's head (killing it is actually the quickest way to defeat said boss, presuming you use attacks that hit multiple times) and Boos (which have something like a thousand for their defense stats and can only be fought 'normally' at really high levels).
** ''[[Mario & Luigi: Partners In Time]]'' has the Gold Koopeleons, which also have the highest defense in the game. They only have 10 HP, and every attack, again, only does 1 damage, with the exception of counters and First Strikes, which can do considerably more, for some reason (even killing them instantly at high enough levels). These enemies have a high speed rating, so they usually move first at normal levels when you first reach them, and they have a high chance of running from battle. However, they drop the most coins of any enemy in the game (80 in the European version and 100 in the US version), which can be doubled, or even TRIPLED with a certain badge. They usually appear in groups of two or three, and if only two appear it is possible to run from the battle and re-engage them, and three might be present! A multi-hitting Bros. Item such as a Red Shell can defeat all three of them in one turn (in the hands of a skilled player); hence it is highly recommended to come back and defeat these creatures once the player's speed rating is high enough to always move
* ''[[Earthbound]]'' gets around this by skipping battles against enemies that are far enough below you. You still earn experience and items.
** In ''[[Mother 3]]'', they replaced the battle skipping with the dash attack: if you dash into an enemy far enough below you, they disappear. You don't gain any experience or money, probably to give people an incentive to fight higher level monsters as opposed to grinding on low risk enemies.
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** Of course, the inverse of this is that if you haven't reached an entirely arbitrary level, you will be completely unable to hurt bosses, and unable to run away from the battle, making most of the game a [[Guide Dang It]].
*** Or an exercise in continuous [[Level Grinding]], which was somewhat necessary ANYWAY to get the higher-level armors. The [[Guide Dang It]] only comes in the endgame, where you MUST have hit the level cap (and/or found the [[Game Breaker|Power Ring]]) in order to do any damage to the last several bosses. And then there's enemies that won't take damage at all unless you have the [[Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors|right elemental sword equipped]].
* ''[[Fire Emblem]]'' averts
** ''[[Fire Emblem Jugdral|Fire Emblem 4: Seisen no Keifu]]'' plays it straight though, no matter how much defense or how weak a character is, they will do at least 1 damage with every successful hit.
* In ''[[Super Robot Wars]]'', certain abilities can reduce damage all the way to zero, although pure defense can't reduce damage below 10 (out of HP totals in the thousands or tens of thousands, mind).
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* ''[[Fallout]] 2'' featured the famed "You are critically hit for 0 damage and die from the pain." - instant death is also an effect that can occur by critical.
* ''[[Fallout]] 3'' had scratch damage outright due to the removal of armor classes and going to a system where armor simply mitigated damage by a percentage. This was not one of the more popular aspects of the game to say the least. Armor classes returned in ''[[Fallout: New Vegas]]'', but scratch damage still applies: weapons are guaranteed to do at least 20% damage through armor, which will always means you're going to take at least a point or two of damage from weapons. Given enough BBs and repair kits, you can kill a [[Powered Armor|Brotherhood Paladin]] with a [[Joke Weapon|BB gun]].
* A prime example of ''why'' [[Fighting Game
* In the three ''[[Touhou]]'' fighting games, neither player can be killed due to chipping damage. However, because blocking attacks continually drain the defender's Spirit, a player who can capitalize on chain attacks and Guard Break attacks can win anyway.
* Avoided in popular text-based MMORPG ''[[Gem Stone]] IV'', which based damage on a set of calculations that it actually showed you in game: The attacker's strength minus the target's defense, plus a weapon-versus-armor modifier, plus a random d100 dice roll. If the final number is over 100, then a strike is landed - if the number is only around 100-110, it will be a weak hit, while if it approaches 200 you might be removing some important body parts. If the roll ends up under 100, even at 99, then the strike misses completely: for example, if the target's defense is too high for the attacker, and/or their armor is strong against the attacker's weapon. Yes, oddly enough, very strong armor simply causes the attacker to miss entirely.
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* ''[[Xenogears]]'' is a prime aversion, since it does allow for 0s, and in this game, leveling up is almost painfully easy, so power gamers see 0s a LOT...
** On the flip side, scratch damage becomes a ''valid tactic'' against certain enemies that are resistant to heavier attacks but have limited HP.
* Originally avoided in ''[[Kingdom of Loathing]]'', but the game was patched with
** Also, any damage of a type an enemy is resistant towards (fire against a hot-aligned creature, a physical attack on a ghost, etc.) is reduced to 1 point per hit.
** [http://kol.coldfront.net/thekolwiki/index.php/Frosty One particular boss] takes only scratch damage from ''any'' single damage source. In order to beat it, you have to stack up enough different damage sources to deal 350 HP of scratch damage in the 30 rounds given to you before the fight ends in a draw. Fortunately, the boss takes 3 points of scratch damage from [[Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors|elemental attacks it's weak against]], and [[All Your Colors Combined|prismatic weapons]] deal separate scratch damage for every element involved.
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* ''[[Zeliard]]'' has the player obtain stronger shields later in the game, which will eventually be completely impervious to the game's weakest enemies. An attack from behind will always cause damage though.
* ''[[Shining in the Darkness]]'' gives enemies that can't overpower your defense an increased chance to miss and do no damage, but they may still hit for 1 damage every so often. Annoyingly, this does not work in reverse: early on, when your [[Squishy Wizard|mage]] is still puny, enemies with sufficient defense will be said to 'shake off the attack' and never take damage.
** ''[[Shining Force]] Feather'' sees a lot scratch damage as well: due to the vastly increased HP counts, the ability to grind yourself stupid with little effort and the fact that attacks never miss completely, any enemy is able to consistently hit you for 1-3 damage per turn since everyone has multiple physical attacks per turn. It's ultimately helpful though, since [[Action Command
* In ''Jade Cocoon'', even if you have the greatest defense stat over the enemy's attack stat, you will ''still'' take damage. Even though the damage is so tiny you won't see any change in your HP bar, over time it will go down.
** Also, the game averts this: if you are a high enough Cocoon level, the enemies will be afraid and run away from you before you even encounter. Note that you must be a very high level to get the enemies in the later/end stages to do the same.
* In ''[[Kirby]] [[Kirby Super Star|Superstar]]'', both Kirby and his helpers can guard, but depending on the nature of the attack they'll still take some damage or full damage from certain boss moves. A few copy abilities like the parasol gives him an improved guard mode that fully cancels out damage except for the boss moves. In fact, these guards damage enemies on impact, making it possible to beat some bosses purely by
* [[Starcraft]]: If a units armor meets or exceeds the attack of whatever hits it, it will take one half point of damage. The game doesn't actually have any kind of half damage mark, so in effect it takes one damage from every other hit. Very few units are heavily armored enough to make this happen. This therefore makes more of an impact on custom games.
** It IS half a point, actually, as it will sometimes make 0 damage. Basically by all units the damage done alternates between some 80% and 100% percent of possible damage (the more kills the more precise the unit) and "high" damage will correspond to such 1 hit, whereas "low" corresponds to no hit.
** Even more interested in Warcraft 2: all units with damage low enough to be fully overtaken by some armor (buildings have the best) have a part of damage as "piercing one", which penetrates as if no armor were present. The units with BIG damage don't, so if you tinker armor stats you can achieve that, say, Battleships cannot do even a 1 point damage - but grunts still can do 3-4.
* ''[[Secret of Mana]]'' averts this in the form that your characters will simply ninja dodge all weaker enemy attacks. Unfortunately this gets annoying if an enemy can hit fast enough.
* The ''[[Pokémon]]'' series's internal damage formula basically boils down to "(attack power / defense power) * (long list of possible modifiers) '''+ 1'''", thus guaranteeing that all attacks (regardless [[Status Buff
** This is used in the "FEAR" (Focus Sash + Endeavor + Quick Attack + Rattata) strategy. Focus Sash will [[Last Chance Hit Point|leave you with at least one HP]] if you were at full health when you took a hit; combine it with Endeavor to make your opponent's HP [[HP to One|match your 1 HP]]. Add in Quick Attack (which strikes first) and the
** This is averted in the ''[[Pokémon Mystery Dungeon]]'' spinoffs, which uses a different damage algorithm; most of the time, enemies weaker than you will do no damage or miss with their regular attack, and even using moves does extremely low damage if they connect at all.
* In ''[[Gaia Online|zOMG!]]'', the weakest enemies can still hit a player at the level cap for minimal damage (though the player's innate dodge stat will make half of such attacks miss anyway). Similarly, a low-level player in a high-level area can still hit enemies for 1 point of damage. It ''is'' possible to zero out damage, but this is a chance-based property of certain buffs and is not limited to weak attacks.
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