Undertale's Soul Manip Resistance

[Ricsi-viragosi]

I don't understand this paragraph at all. I don't understand how it relates to my comment, and, this might just be me misremembering the game, but does not wanting to hurt someone reduce a monster's durability? Is that explanation ever given in the game? The only explanation like that I remember is that wanting to hurt monsters increases the damage dealt to them.

Their previous reasoning for resistance was that their body tanks the hit, not the soul. And monsters' defences weaken with their resolve, which is why you insta-one shot anyone that spares you regardless of ATK or DEF. Killing intent also increases damage, but their lack of killing intent weakens them. Both are said in the same library as far as I know, different books tough.


Oh yeah, why would we even scale monsters to Frisk's stats when their stats don't really line up with what sorts of monsters they can handle, with their DT being the important factor.

Unless we want to say that the strongest monsters and the weakest monsters can all harm and take hits from each other, we'd have to disregard Frisk's stats

Well, firstly, we all rate them at the same tier, and the only fight between monsters we get to hear about has a younger Undyne wounding Asgore. The fact that trained royal guards are weaker than some randos later on also doesn't help.

And has DT ever been asociated with actual power? The only time we supposedly see that is with Omega Flowey, but he is supposed to be downgraded, was the thread not derailed and postponed waiting for a blog as if that's particularily needed.

The only time DT affects anything as far as I remember is with Frisk resurrecting over and over. And while they can take some hits, they are also rendedered to 1 HP by a normal Asriel while the attacks of his full power do, like, 4 damage. So not sure we would really scale that at all.

 

[Agnaa]

Bump.

 

[Antvasima]

@Agnaa

What needs to be done here?

 

[Agnaa]

More discussion/input is required.

 

[Antvasima]

Okay. You can ask the experienced and active members listed in the Undertale verse page and the Knowledgeable Members List to comment here if you wish.

 

[Agnaa]

I've done so.

 

[Antvasima]

Thank you.

 

[Crabwhale]

I don't think I quite get exactly what the issue is here.

 

[Elizhaa]

I don't understand this paragraph at all. I don't understand how it relates to my comment, and, this might just be me misremembering the game, but does not wanting to hurt someone reduce a monster's durability? Is that explanation ever given in the game? The only explanation like that I remember is that wanting to hurt monsters increases the damage dealt to them.

Their previous reasoning for resistance was that their body tanks the hit, not the soul. And monsters' defences weaken with their resolve, which is why you insta-one shot anyone that spares you regardless of ATK or DEF. Killing intent also increases damage, but their lack of killing intent weakens them. Both are said in the same library as far as I know, different books tough.

A library book support this notion:

Snowdin Library Books
(Orange Book)

• Because they are made of magic, monsters' bodies are attuned to their SOUL. If a monster doesn't want to fight, its defenses will weaken. And the crueler the intentions of our enemies, the more their attacks will hurt us.

Therefore, if a being with a powerful SOUL struck with the desire to kill... Um, let's end the chapter here...

From what I read, I think fodders can have soul manipulation resistance; the defense stats looks canon from the book so scaling from Frisk looks fine, to me.

Also, Determination has never being a stat and like Risci said, it just has being majorly associated with saving and load.

 

[Agnaa]

I don't think I quite get exactly what the issue is here.

Whether the weakest monsters should get soul manip resistance or not.

 

[Crabwhale]

The matter seems to have kinda spiraled away from that though.

Anyway, where would the soul manip resistance come from exactly?

 

[Agnaa]

According to Ricsi and Elizhaa, from all monsters having a defense stat, which should reduce soul damage taken.

 

[Crabwhale]

I mean are monsters even being subjected to attacks on the spiritual level?

When Asgore is killed, we see his soul outside his body falling apart, because monster souls aren't as strong as human ones, but aside from that, is his soul ever directly damaged from the battle? No. Presumably the same thing happens with the other monsters, it's just that their souls shatter immediately and too quickly for us to see.

The result of a soul being destroyed is just a consequence of a monster's body being destroyed.

 

[Eficiente]

The humans in Undertale are not to be compared to real humans, the species as a whole has what one would think only applies to a few of them.

Not sure if that helps on anything, this thread is a mess. I'm good with removing the resistance from fodder monsters and an initial Frisk.

 

[Agnaa]

I mean are monsters even being subjected to attacks on the spiritual level?

When Asgore is killed, we see his soul outside his body falling apart, because monster souls aren't as strong as human ones, but aside from that, is his soul ever directly damaged from the battle? No. Presumably the same thing happens with the other monsters, it's just that their souls shatter immediately and too quickly for us to see.

The result of a soul being destroyed is just a consequence of a monster's body being destroyed.

Oh. I think the idea is that since monsters attack Frisk's soul, that if monsters were to attack each other or get attack by Frisk their soul would get attacked.

 

[Crabwhale]

They don't though, not by Frisk at least. Frisk always attacks their bodies (again, Asgore's soul was completely fine, it just shattered after he was yeeted, as it should, same probably goes for every other monster).

The only direct reference to a fight between a monster and another monster is, as you said, Asgore vs Undyne, and we have no idea how that fight went, nor how monster vs monster fights go in terms of mechanics.

 

[Strawboi]

I agree with the soul manipulation resistance.

 

[Ricsi-viragosi]

Normal human attacks only harm the bodies and the souls crack due to not having the DT to stay together.

In the Asgore and Undyne fight Undyne does hit Asgore and he does survive it tough, and monster's magic is kind of done to harm souls (or ghosts) and it supposedly hurt the ghost possessing Mad Dummy even if the body alone was hit.

 

[Crabwhale]

Eh, I dunno. I'm torn on this.

 

[Agnaa]

Bump.

 

[Antvasima]

@Agnaa

What do you think that we should do here?

 

[Agnaa]

Well, I've contacted many many knowledgeable members, but from the few responses received there's not a lot of consensus. I think more conversation to arrive at a consensus is ideal, but idk what options I have left other than bumping. So you could unfollow this thread if you don't want those frequent bump notifications.

 

[Antvasima]

Okay. You can place a message on my wall if you reach a consensus, and need my help.

However, bumping is not at all ideal. It is seldom noticed by new members knowledgeable about a franchise. Asking/reminding them directly to contribute usually works better.

 

[Agnaa]

Bump :v

 

[Elizhaa]

My opinions still remain the same.

 

[Moritzva]

So, out of curiosity...

What evidence do we have of Soul Manip. negating durability, again?

 

[Kepekley23]

I agree that not every fodder should be getting Soul Resistance.

 

[Theuser789]

Frisk only harms the monster bodys, not the soul btw, don't know how important that is but some people seem to not know this

 

[Agnaa]

Bump.

I also saw an interesting point brought up in another thread that Mad Dummy has negative defense but tanks a lot more soul attacks than Frisk can, implying that soul manip resistance isn't really tied to Def (implying that even some strong monsters may lose resistance). However, they also argued that this means that soul manip resistance scales to HP (implying that strong monsters may keep resistance).

Anyone here have thoughts in light of this new information?

 

[Lord_JJJ]

Mad dummy has not Negative defense, his defense is "yes"

You can see this for yourself here :

https://vsbattles.fandom.com/wiki/File:25.png

 

[Agnaa]

Mad dummy has not Negative defense, his defense is "yes"

You can see this for yourself here :

https://vsbattles.fandom.com/wiki/File:25.png

You're right, I can't believe I didn't double-check that. Thanks.

 

[DarkGrath]

I mean, what are our standards for soul manipulation and resistance to it in general? If I remember correctly, we usually assume that getting hit by soul manipulation with 0 resistance = getting one-shotted. I'm probably oversimplifying the solution here, but shouldn't we really just give anyone in Undertale soul Manip resistance if they can be hit by it?

 

[Agnaa]

I'm not sure whether we hold that assumption or not.

To recount some history, another verse I work o has soul attacks that don't one-shot. I asked around whether that means they should get resistance like Undertale has, and my answer was "Oh, we shouldn't assume one-shots like Undertale does, so don't give those characters resistance and we'll remove the resistance from Undertale characters."

Undertale characters never had their resistance removed, hence why I made this thread.

If you're worried about this being an issue of general policy, we could make a general policy thread about Soul Manipulation.

On a note unrelated to your post but related to the thread, this thread has concluded that Undertale characters shouldn't have Durability Negation, and that from that, characters shouldn't have Resistance to Soul Manipulation, since the soul attacks are reduced my normal durability rather than soul durability. So this thread is now largely defunct.

 

[DarkGrath]

Hm, alright. I must be mistaken then.

This does seem to suggest that the way soul manipulation is treated across verses is a bit inconsistent, though. I'm not certain if it'd be necessary, but a discussion regarding the exact ways that soul manipulation should be treated might be good for easing any confusion this could bring.

 

[Agnaa]

I was about to edit to clarify, you may not be mistaken, I asked a handful of people about it and they could have easily been wrong, you can go with your gut and ask a larger audience.

Would you be interested in writing the thread about it? I'm not sure exactly what should be included.

 

[DarkGrath]

Well, frankly, even I'm not entirely sure what should be included. But I'll see if I can write it up. And I'll see if I can ask around with anyone who's knowledgeable on soul manipulation.

that phrasing sounds like I'm asking a wizard :T

 

[Elizhaa]

I guess this thread became moot since the others exist. DarkGrath, I was skeptical but I guess Soul Manipulation was treated as Durability Negation from the that page; so, I guess it was a standard:

Soul Manipulation - Those who manipulate souls, can bypass conventional durability. It can be resisted only by the strength of the soul. However, such attacks are effective only on those who have souls. Also, if for some reason soul manipulation fails, then this ability is completely futile.
	~ Durability Negation​

 

[Agnaa]

I think the important word there is "Can". I'm not sure if a revision of that is necessary since it only says that it "can" bypass durability, not that it always does, but I might be wrong on this. I've asked the other thread if that part needs to be rewritten.

 

[Elizhaa]

I don't think a revision is needed either. From my point of view, in a lot verses, soul manipulation is treated as durability negation; obviously, there are case where it should be false besides we judged all fictional feats on a case by case basis already.