Turbine Games Q&A/Combat/Q-42

Original Link (now dead) - http://www.turbinegames.com/qa/view_questions.html?id=7623

Will you take more damage by putting armor on?

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Asked:	2001.04.19
Name:	Elrin
Question Title:	Will you take more damage by putting armor on?
Category:	Combat
Question:	Say you have on armor IV and are fighting a mountain rat. Say you then decide to put on gloves that are AL 50 poor to fire. Will the fire damage you take on your hands go up because you put on the gloves? Without the gloves you would have an effective AL 100 on your hands because your natural armor is average to fire. The question I have is when you put the gloves on does it become AL 130 poor to fire which is effective AL ~26, or does it become AL 100 ave + AL 30 poor which is effective AL ~106?

Answered:	2001.04.19
Name:	Eric
Answer:	You would have an AL > 100, yeah. Wearing armor never reduces your effective AL against an attack, except if the armor's elemental protection has been reduced below 0 through magic. That is to say, if your gloves have "no protection from fire", then fire attacks will damage you just as if you weren't wearing gloves at all. If your gloves are "flammable", you will take extra damage from fire, and would be better off taking your gloves off if you are fighting a fire creature (until the debuff wears off). No piece of armor can naturally have an element protection below zero; only Item Magic debuff spells can reduce the elemental protection below zero.