Armour and magic?

[artic]

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Athansir intones 'Nodaazi Aduparaduon Bhamad' in a deep, steady voice.
You are hit in the left arm by a bolt of psionic!
The shadow barrier swirls around you and forms a thin wall before you, and part of the attack gets absorbed into the barrier which fades a bit!
That really hurt!
You get WOUNDED from the massive damage. Your left arm starts bleeding!

Athansir intones 'Nodaazi Aduparaduon Bhamad' in a deep, steady voice.
You are hit in the left arm by a bolt of psionic!
That really hurt!
You get WOUNDED from the massive damage. Your left arm starts bleeding!

HP:[########  ]  87%  SP:[##########] 100%  EP:[######### ]  97%
Athansir intones 'Nodaazi Aduparaduon Bhamad' in a deep, steady voice.
You are hit in the neck by a bolt of psionic!
That really hurt!
Icesus>HP:[####      ]  43%  SP:[##########] 100%  EP:[######### ]  93%

An example of a couple of times i have been hit by spell. Notice that the slot is 'arm'. Well, im wearing chitinium silk bracers, ordered from the seamstress, with quality 'great'. And althoug the spells shown above are bolts of psionic, I have been hit by a lot less, in the same slots and i always get critical damage. Theres hardly ever a spell that does less than 40% HP damage.

And, well, this leads me to wonder: Is armour useless against spells? It seems armour works fine against physical damage- although i have gotten some instakill hits, but those were either immensly powerful creatures or otherwize lucky bastards. But if armour is useless against spells, why bother with the 1.6Mil armour orders from the seamstress?
Is the only way to get protection from spells to find +resistant eq?

[misrobo]

It is my impression that armour is only useful against physical damage.

For +resist gear, it seems to take a lot of that to make much difference. I wear +13 of fire gear at times and it makes a noticable difference. Still, the difference between 3% HP and -1% HP should not be ignored and even a couple of plusses can save your hide once in a while.

Plus, it just feels good to pause outside the lair of the fire dragon, change your earrings and cape for ones that will protect you, and charge in.

[idles]

It is my impression that armour is only useful against physical damage.

The usefulness of armour depends heavily on what damage is being dealt. For example, armour does offer protection against fire and cold damage, but has no effect on mental (psionic) and asphyxiation damage.

[artic]

so a bolt of psionic might hit me in the arm, but really damages my brain?
Hmm... that explains a lot.

Wait a minute. Its a bold of some magical material, that once it hits my body will affect my mind, hurting it badly. can you explain why armour does not keep it from hitting my body? Why a good enough armour does no absorb some of its power?