What Does Block Actually Do?

[Brandec]

I’m starting to wonder if Block does anything at all.

I’ve performed hundreds of tests across a variety of armor values and Block skill levels, both with and without a shield. In all cases, I saw no meaningful difference in average damage taken or in the number of 0-damage events, even accounting for randomness.

That said, each individual trial was only 20 rounds. So I decided to create a more focused, statistically significant test. I picked a setup that minimized armor’s influence while keeping it identical across both shielded and unshielded tests.

I used 4 Armor and Block 37, fighting a skeleton—strong enough to be meaningful, but not so strong that I’d need constant healing. I ran 100-hit trials, one with a shield and one without. I added a +2 Armor ring in the no-shield trial to ensure armor stayed consistent.

Here are the results:

• 4 Armor, 37 Block, No Shield:
  - Average Damage: 2.50
  - 0-Damage Hits: 16
  
• 4 Armor, 37 Block, With Shield:
  - Average Damage: 3.19
  - 0-Damage Hits: 12

I’m not claiming Block made things worse—this difference is probably just normal variance. But combined with my earlier tests, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that Block doesn’t seem to be doing anything at all.

What am I missing? There are a lot of threads recommending Block as a useful stat. Are my expectations off? Or is this one of those cases where people think it’s doing something, but the data just doesn’t support it?

[Elendil / Redshift]

If your block skill is larger than 30, on every hit you have skill_value/2 chance to have a multiplier of 3 and an additional skill_value/3 chance to have a multiplier of 2 for your AC (which is calculated from your armor). Then this AC will be deducted from the damage.

Which means that the more armor you have the more substantial your block will be. With low armor block is not that useful.

(If your block skill is less than or equal to 30, you have skill_value/2 chance to have a multiplier of 2.)

[Brandec]

Thanks so much for your response—that really helped clarify things.

I had started to suspect Block had something to do with modifying armor against incoming damage, but I couldn’t quite figure it out. My original assumption was that it gave a chance to negate incoming hits regardless of armor, but my testing didn’t support that.

At one point, I tested with 32 armor and Block 37, both with and without a shield. There was a slight reduction in average damage with the shield, but it was small enough that it could have easily been RNG. In hindsight, I think that test had two key problems:

1. Each trial only ran for 20 hits
2. The enemy was probably too weak—my armor may have reduced damage even when Block didn’t trigger, which muddied the results

I’d probably need to repeat it against a stronger enemy over 100+ hits to really see the mechanic in action.

Funny enough, the only reason I started looking into this was because I was trying to decide what defensive enchantment to put on a belt—Fortify Armor, Light Armor, or Block.

Just to confirm I’ve understood correctly:

If my base armor is 10, and a Block roll succeeds, my effective AC for that hit would be:
• 20 if the “double” roll succeeds
• 30 if the “triple” roll succeeds
• 50 if both succeed
Otherwise, it remains at 10 for that hit.

Is that right?

Thanks again for taking the time to explain it. I really appreciate it.

[Elendil / Redshift]

The multiplier is either 2 or 3. If your block is <= 30, it can only be 2. If it's more it can be 3 but if that fails to achieve, there is an additional roll to see if you get a 2. If both fail, you'll just get the regular 1.

[Prickett]

Interesting read! Thanks for doing the research and sharing your findings