# Talk:Half physical damage
I'm mentioning this because I have seen it in spoilers before; from what I see in mhitu.c, half physical damage would not stack.  The game simply checks for the property; if you have it, it divides the damage taken by two.  Therefore, having two half physical damage artifacts would have no benefit.  Granted, this is extremely unlikely in vanilla nethack, as one would have to have changed alignment somewhere to carry both the Master Key of Thievery and the Orb of Fate at the same time, but in SLASH'EM this is relevant, what with the addition of the Gauntlets of Defense and the Hand of Vecna, both of which can easily be gotten by one character.
It would seem that the same should hold true for half spell damage.  However, half spell damage and half physical damage may stack with each other, I'm not sure.  This would be worth investigating, which I may do later. -Ion frigate 01:07, June 10, 2010 (UTC)

From looking at the source, half spell and physical damage work the same way, just checked at different times (naturally). If set, then the damage is reduced to one half, rounding up. As you said it only checks for the property being set, so it does not stack.
Half physical and half spell should work fine together. Since the orb of fate confers both, it'd be kinda silly for them not to work together, wouldn't it? -- Qazmlpok 01:28, June 10, 2010 (UTC)
Well my question is whether or not damage from effects such as psi bolt and geyser is reduced to 1/2 or 1/4 if you have both properties.  It seems that it's only ever 1/2, from looking at the source.  Anyway, I think I'll add this to the article.  For example, it makes half physical damage artifacts not as desirable in SLASH'EM, since anybody can get the Hand of Vecna fairly easily with a few burned Elbereth squares, and that gives half physical damage as well as hungerless regeneration. -Ion frigate 05:42, June 10, 2010 (UTC)
Oh, that's what you meant. That'd only happen if it checked for both at once, and I don't think it ever does. There's nothing absolutely preventing it from working that way, it simply doesn't. On a minor additional note, breath attacks are not subject to half spell (or physical) damage, according to a comment in zap.c. -- Qazmlpok 11:35, June 10, 2010 (UTC)