Do Cloak of Mirroring and Belt of Inertial Barrier Overlap?

[New Moon On Monday]

I know they do have some overlap, I'm wondering if the 50% Magic Damage Resistance from the Belt of Inertial Barrier catches anything significant than the Cloak of Mirroring does not deflect.

[kaiyl_kariashi]

the magic damage reduction involves spells specifically dealing magic damage, not any other type of damage.

So it works vs Magic Missile but not fireball.

i.e. it will work vs Skull traps and Horrid Wiltings when combined with the cloak.

[Lord Squirrel!]

This is a bit of a complicated thing to answer unless you really understand the inner workings of the engine. Basically the above is true, The belt's Magic Damage Resistance would make you resist half the damage from everything that does magic damage, i.e. damage that appears in yellow text.

The Cloak of Mirroring, however, completely blocks all spells that have the "offensive damage" descriptor (an invisible classification that some spells have which cannot be seen in game). This means that whoever wears the cloak is totally immune to almost all spells and spell-like abilities that inflict damage. This will completely block most sources of magic damage on its own.

IIRC however, there are a select few sources of magic damage that are not considered spells, and are therefore not blocked by the cloak, not the least of these is the ranged attack used by the final boss of ToB. Such weapons would have their damage partially blocked by the belt, but they would bypass the cloak completely. These sources of damage are extremely few and far between, however.

Long story short, I would recommend putting the Belt and Cloak on two different party members for best results. This way, the person wearing the cloak will likely be completely immune to most sources of magic damage, while the person wearing the belt would also be somewhat protected from the damage.

[New Moon On Monday]

I have just started Throne of Bhaal (Watcher's Keep is left undone so far, too). I did a re-distribution of equipment, because the tanking role is shifting from Korgan to Gorion's Ward (Half- Orc Fighter/Cleric with Defender of Easthaven in the off-hand, plenty of Armor of Faith at the ready, and starting to build up Hardiness uses). The Cloak of Mirroring was actually left forgotten in my Bag of Holding until I started re-distributing equipment.

I could potentially get Gorion's Ward a high AC vs. missiles, with the help of the Girdle of Piercing (AC -22, before potential Protection From Evil / Defensive Harmony bonuses). That is worthwhile if that's enough to dodge most missile attacks. But if it isn't, then maybe the Inertial Barrier's +25% damage reduction vs. missile attacks is more worthwhile.

Neither Gorion's Ward really have a lot of other competing belt-slot options. (No Strength belts needed; Korgan has Crom Faeyr; Gorion's Ward already has 22 Strength without equipment or spells.)

I appreciate the information. I may dither back and forth a while during play until I finally decide on a final answer.

[Hamish]

I suggest giving one to Korgan, one to Gorians Ward, so one can be a back up tank. As for a belt option, if you have Neera's adoys belt, that is a decent one to give to someone who doesn't need a str belt, or the girdle or piercing/blunt weapons. That blunt weapon belt is great against golems by the way.

[New Moon On Monday]

Does the Cloak of Mirroring give any special message when it reflects damage back to an enemy?

For a while I've been wondering if the cloak was actually doing anything. But I just had a battle where Gorion's Ward, wearing the Cloak of Mirroring, was held by a Killer Mimic. I kept seeing the message that Gorion's Ward is unaffected by Mimic's Poison (Ring of Gaxx poison immunity, I assume), and the Mimic kept losing health and died despite not being attacked.

There was no message stating what was damaging the Mimic. I am assuming that the Cloak of Mirroring was reflecting back the Mimic's poison attack, despite the lack of message to confirm it.

[Hamish]

Originally posted by New Moon On Monday:

Does the Cloak of Mirroring give any special message when it reflects damage back to an enemy?

For a while I've been wondering if the cloak was actually doing anything. But I just had a battle where Gorion's Ward, wearing the Cloak of Mirroring, was held by a Killer Mimic. I kept seeing the message that Gorion's Ward is unaffected by Mimic's Poison (Ring of Gaxx poison immunity, I assume), and the Mimic kept losing health and died despite not being attacked.

There was no message stating what was damaging the Mimic. I am assuming that the Cloak of Mirroring was reflecting back the Mimic's poison attack, despite the lack of message to confirm it.

I didn't think it did that to be honest, I thought it just negated damage. For example, some mage uses Abi-Dalzims Horrid Wilting on you and it says, "spell ineffective".

[Lord Squirrel!]

The Cloak of Mirroring does not reflect damage back to the source, it just makes certain sources of damage ineffective.

This sounds a bit more like the work of the Reflection Shield to me...

[New Moon On Monday]

I was remembering the original SoA Cloak of Mirroring, which did reflect spells, but was changed in the original ToB. So that explains why that wasn't working as expected.