A survivors run is lost to damage piling up, not to one big hit. Five layers stand between a monster and your life: dodging, blocking, Damage Reduced, resistances and life itself.
Resistances
- Fire, cold, lightning and poison resistance cut those hits by their percentage.
- Each stops at 75%. +% to Maximum Resist raises that, to 95% at most.
- Nightmare takes 40% off every resistance and Hell 100%. The character screen shows them after the penalty, in red below zero; they can't go below -100%.
- The Paladin's resist auras raise maximum resistance by the levels you learned, not by +skills from gear.
| Difficulty | Resistance penalty | To reach 75% you need |
|---|---|---|
| Normal | 0% | 75% from gear and skills |
| Nightmare | -40% | 115% |
| Hell | -100% | 175% |
Damage Reduced
- Damage Reduced takes a percentage off physical hits, up to 50%. Gear, Charsi's ware (2% a rank), Defense and skills such as
Fade add to it. - Magic Damage Reduced takes its points off fire, cold and lightning hits too, before your resistance.
- A monster's Amplify Damage or Decrepify takes its points off your Damage Reduced before the cap: at the cap, an amplified hit takes 150%.
- Absorb takes up to 40% of an element's hit, plus a flat amount.
Blocking and sidestepping
- Block chance comes from your shield (or the Assassin's
Weapon Block) and Dexterity, falls as you level, and stops at 75%: block × (Dexterity − 15) ÷ (2 × level). - You block at full chance standing still, and a third of it while moving.
- The Amazon sidesteps with
Dodge (blows) and 
Avoid (missiles) while attacking or standing, and 
Evade while walking.
Hit recovery
A hit for a twelfth of your life or more makes you flinch, as in D2; Faster Hit Recovery shortens it.
Life back
- Life Stolen leeches off the physical damage a monster takes: less from physically resistant ones, none from immunes, and less on Nightmare and Hell.
- Healing potions heal 30 life in Act I, up to 320 on Nightmare and Hell. Belt potions drink with a right-click.
- Charsi's Resurrect ware brings you back at half life once more a run, per rank.
Lengths on you
- Cold resistance shortens chills and freezes on you; with little of it they last longer on Nightmare and Hell.
- Poison lasts longer on Nightmare and Hell; Poison Length Reduced takes the difficulty's penalty.
- Curses on you last half as long on Nightmare, a quarter on Hell.