Damage

Damage is a measurement of how harmful an attack is to a character. When a character takes Damage, it is subtracted from his or her Hit Points. Damage will cause death when a character's hit points reach 0.

InfluencesEdit

Weapons all have base damage values. The final damage delivered to the target, can be possibly modified by various factors, depending on the game:

Mechanic	Fallout 1/2/Tactics	Fallout 3	Fallout: New Vegas
Critical Hits
Condition
Damage Modifier
Damage Resistance
Damage Resistance Modifier			/ a
Damage Threshold
V.A.T.S.-special		^ b	^ c

^ ^a Fallout: New Vegas features a few weapons that completely ignore DR, even if few enemies actually have DR.
^ ^b Damage done to the player in V.A.T.S. is reduced by 90%.
^ ^c Damage done to the player in V.A.T.S. is reduced by 25%. Melee/unarmed damage done by the player is doubled.

The computation formula of the final damage is described in more detail on the combat pages for Fallout 1 and 2, Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas, or Fallout 4.

TypesEdit

There are different types of damage, depending on the weapon of attack:

Type	Description	Fallout 1/2/Tactics	Fallout 3	Fallout: New Vegas	Fallout 4
Normal	The vast majority of damage from all weapons.
Laser	Damage specific to laser weapons.
Fire	Damage from flame-based weapons and explosives, occasionally residual.
Plasma	Damage specific to plasma-based weapons.
Explosive	Damage from otherwise unspecial explosives.
EMP/Pulse	Damage from electromagnetic weapons, generally good against robots.
Electrical	Hidden and used by very few weapons.a		/ b	/ b	d
Radiation	Damage dealt through radioactive sources such as certain weapons or environments. c
Energy	Damage dealt by lasers, fire, electricity, cold, and a variety of other sources, including weapons which inflict more than one damage type, such as plasma.
Poison	Damage dealt primarily by toxins, typically from a bug, but also including some exotic weaponry.

^ ^a Not shown in the games that use it, Electrical damage is only caused by alien blaster, YK32 pulse pistol, and YK42B pulse rifle.
^ ^b Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas use "energy" damage to label the residual effect off the Tesla cannon, though it has the appearance of electricity sparking.
^ ^c All Fallout games contain environmental radiation damage of some variant. The table is representative of radioactive damage dealt by weapons like the gamma gun.
^ ^d Exists in the game files, but is not used anywhere.

Special exceptionsEdit

	The following is based on Fallout Tactics and some details might contradict canon.

Fallout Tactics adds Gas Damage. It also re-categorizes "Laser" as "Energy" damage.

	End of information based on Fallout Tactics.

	The following is based on Van Buren and has not been confirmed by canon sources.

Van Buren adds Ballistic, Bio, and Heat damage.

	End of information based on Van Buren.