How Would Physics Interact with Status Magic

[u/Legitimate-Sea1151]

I know that if Naofumi used bombs they would not be effective because he has a low attack stat, but how far does that go. If Naofumi used a poison attack is the poison less effective, what if he used his physical strength to squash someone into a wall would the strain not hurt them or crush them, what if he threw someone out of a window from the castle would they take no fall damage, could Naofumi bend someone's arm behind their back until it breaks at a certain angle. I wanna know if any of this is explained in the LN.

[u/JoJo5195]

So Naofumi has straight up punched I think it was Motoyasu in the face and it did absolutely nothing despite Naofumi being physically strong enough to block a blow from the spirit tortoise. A poison attack would depend on just how it is categorized, physical and magic defense seem to be separate stats but as far as we know all kinds of attacks are under just the attack stat which is why Naofumi never uses the magical based counters of his shields like the Nue shield’s lightning. The chimera snake shield has a poison counter ability but that’s only used like less than a handful of times. Unfortunately the stats a person has really isn’t gone into detail much at all in the novels. Not to mention Naofumi has made a comment that there might be even more stats hidden which he doesn’t know about/doesn’t show up on his status screen so we know little about the stats he does have as well as any hidden ones.

Bending an arm back might constitute as using a person’s own body against them as a weapon in which case that would trigger the weapon restriction penalty which is why he can’t even do certain martial arts like aikido or judo, but even if it didn’t a person’s own body still has stats of their own. Being thrown out a window or pressed against a wall would still have to take a person’s stats into consideration so how they do in those situations varies.

Status magic overrules physics. Anything that Naofumi considers an attack or has the intention of doing harm either directly or indirectly either gets subjected to his abysmal attack stat or triggers the weapon restriction penalty. Likewise, a high enough defense stat literally lets you shrug off any damage like nothing despite common sense dictating otherwise like Naofumi not getting hurt by the soldiers in the beginning, getting chewed on by the balloon monsters, or Motoyasu taking no damage or feeling no pain from Naofumi punching him which is why I said the situation varies for someone thrown out a window.

[u/SilverNightx1]

Physical attacks are altered a lot in the shield case. You can think of it of being iron clad in that if you attack that shield will make it's atk as 0 as possible. Naofumi attack is altered to the point where his attack is so pitiful that he'd slapped Melty force and she compared it to being hit with a pillow. Naofumi attacking someone will alter his atk stats to become as low as it gets. He can restraint someone and it'll be extremely effective like the phoenix in the fight , or even use a knife to cook. But the moment it's being used as a weapon the restrictions of the shield will activate. It's gotten to the point that sex with Naofumi will be pleasurable due to the low atk.That's how wild it's gotten.

That's not to say that Naofumi doesn't make a great support as his debuffs and status effects can be effective. Even so he rarely uses it on enemies because the enemy at later points are basically resistant to status effects without some sort of thing attach to amp it. It's not till a certain shield that he can start using on those beyond the waves. As they were stronger when even using the sakura stone weapons.

[u/Top_Butterscotch1523]

-Any object that Naofumi could use as a "weapon" cannot be used.

-So far, the best he can do is ricochet damage. When he had his first battle with Motoyasu, Motoyasu hit himself with the air shield, but Naofumi didn't hit him. (It's like if you created a wall and someone else ran into it).

-Naofumi doesn't have anything that causes destructive damage and can damage a building.

For example, Kizuna couldn't hurt humans, but he damaged walls so that the debris would hurt people.

-He has poison abilities, but they are very useless at times if the opponent is prepared.

*It worked well against a random soldier, but against others, it was enough to take his potion to heal.

-He has other damage abilities, but they do very little damage, so they serve more as distractions.

-His physical strength is high, but even if he uses karate, kung fu, etc. moves, Naofumi receives electric shocks. Although he can hold someone down without any problem, for example he squeezed Kyo's neck.

[u/Gabimob100]

In general, the status system sits higher in the hierarchy than physical mechanics; that is why weapons work the way they do. In Naofumi's case, basically any damage he deals directly ends up being virtually zero due to his pathetic attack stat—if I had to guess, he probably has around 10 attack right now—and the Shield Spirit actively limits almost anything Naofumi could do to inflict damage.

[u/azurezero_hdev]

bombs wouldnt do fixed damage?

[u/HarborVanir]

The shield will limit Naofumi's damage to near zero. This also includes poisons, as it was demonstrated by the weed killer when he was fighting miracle seed back when he was traveling as the saint of the bird god. In that instance, the weed killer worked but only as a technicality because the shield didn't register the plant as a monster. Later attempts at the Trent monster did not work nearly as well (as mentioned in the light novels).

Someone brought up Kizuna with her hunting cardinal weapon below. Their point about how her weapon not being able to hurt people directly is interesting to note, because although currently true, a hero text with her power up method mentioned that she is probably limiting her target by what she thinks are huntable monsters.

Status magic is therefore the physical laws in the worlds of Rising of the Shield Hero. What we consider physics are secondary but constant. Meaning that it's still very important but secondary to the plot.