Fighting back
Damage lives on the module, not on the tool.
The thing nobody guesses: a multitool does no damage. It is a chassis with slots in it. What a tool does lives entirely on the modules you put in.
An empty multitool is a stick.
You will need
- A Multitool Mk I — 4 Copper + 2 Wood, at the bench
- At least one module. The Shot Module is 2 Copper + 1 Wood and does 7 damage; the Blast Module does 24
Steps
- Make the multitool. Mk I holds three modules; Mk II holds five and is quicker off the mark.
- Put modules in it. This is the step that turns it into a weapon.
- Order matters. Installed shot modules fire left to right, and modifier modules change the spell in front of them rather than firing anything of their own.
- Upgrade the modules before the chassis. A Mk II full of nothing is worse than a Mk I with a shot module in it.
When it works
You hold the tool, you click, and something takes damage. The Items index sorted by the Damage column shows every module in the game against every other.
Your starting Bolt Caster does 4 damage against the Shot Module's 7, and that gap is the point: it exists so a rock mite is a fight rather than an execution, and it is weak enough that building a real weapon is the first thing you want.
When it does not
You made a multitool and it does nothing. It has no modules in it. This is the single most common confusion in the game and there is nothing in the tool's appearance to suggest it.
Your damage did not go up when you upgraded the chassis. It would not. The chassis buys slots and firing speed. Damage is on the modules.
You ran out of charge. A multitool stores charge and recovers it slowly — Mk I holds 120 and recovers 1 per frame. Each shot costs some. The numbers are on each tool's page.
Something keeps its distance and shoots you. Some creatures do exactly that, and the creature page says so — look for "Keeps its distance" and the shot damage. Closing is not always the answer; those are the ones worth a blast module.
A boss appeared and killed you. Bosses are summoned deliberately and never wander into you — so if you met one, you called it. That is the design: you arrive having chosen the ground and the moment, rather than meeting one in a tunnel with a full pack of ore.
Armour did not seem to help. Armour is subtracted per hit, and unlike most bonuses in this game a helmet and a suit do add together. Check you have both. See Gearing up.
Next
Gearing up — slots, trinkets, and the rule that costs people material.