Sneak Damage multiplier: Does it apply to magical damage too?

Example:

Dagger 1 = 18 Damage, 25 Shock

Dagger 2 = 33 Damage, no magic

Using the above, when I sneak attack and have the 15x multiple then is the damage caused by Dagger 1 is (18+25)*15 or (18*15)+25 ?

Same question with bows and arrows, does the multiplier apply to potion damage or/and the magical(enchanted)?

In other words, do the multipliers apply to the base damage only or to the final damage being caused by the weapon (base+magical+skill+potion+perks etc)?

I am confused. :-?

Solution 1:

No. Spells, Magical enchantments, and Poison damage are never multiplied by sneak / power attack multipliers.

Weergh! indeed.

I've been shooting arrows at this Windhelm guard. As you can see in my screenshot, there's 4 listed health values:

316.00 - this is the guard's base health

268.35 - this is a shot from my normal bow. It includes a 15 damage fire enchant. This implies that my bow shot did 33 damage, and 15 fire damage.

204.53 - this is a sneak attack from my bow. I have the 3x sneak attack perk w/ bows. Our assumption is that magical enchantments do not get multiplied in. Indeed, subtracting the 15 fire damage, we get 97, which is about equal to 33 * 3 (the difference in 2 expected damage is probably because he's on fire; ideally, I'd have tested with frost or shock, but didn't have one of those on me)

189.55 - sneak attack with bow, as above, but this time I added a 15 damage poison to my bow. This means after you subtract 15 from the fire enchantment and 15 from the poison, we dealt 97 damage again. (so it looks like my first shot was probably around 32.33, instead of the 33 I rounded it to.)

Conclusion: magical enchantments and poisons do not get multiplied.

Solution 2:

Only the base damage; although with bows, arrow damage is affected as well.

Source: http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Sneak (the sentence you want is under the second table)

All tests performed on Devin Mallory in The Ragged Flagon (by the miracle of quicksave, no Devin Mallorys were permanently harmed by these tests):

Poison Tests

Test I: Control

Glass Bow, base damage = 29

Steel Arrow, base damage = 10

Sneak attack x2.0 damage = 72.04 damage (I assume reduced from 78 by armor, I have no idea what the math on that looks like)

Test II: Poison

Glass Bow, base damage = 29

Steel Arrow, base damage = 10 Weak Poison, damage = 15

Sneak attack x2.0 damage = 85.69 damage (again, I assume damage was reduced by armor, but since the poison didn't even do its full damage, it's definitely not doubled by the sneak attack)

Enchantment Tests (as suggested by Fizz):

Test I: Control

Hunter's Bow, base damage = 8

Ancient Nord Arrow, base damage = 10

Sneak attack x2.0 damage = 15.46 damage

Test II: Enchantment

Hunter's Bow of Chills, base damage = 8, frost damage = 6

Ancient Nord Arrow, base damage = 10

Sneak attack x2.0 damage = 35.6 damage

From David B in the comments:

(8+10)*2 = 36. (36-15.6)/36 = 57%. Devin resisted 57% of the physical damage. If npc armor rating works like player armor rating, that's 375 visible armor rating. Test2 enchantment with 36 damage looks like (2*15)+6... in other words - a crit

So it turns out weapon enchantments are not affected by multipliers either.

Solution 3:

Raven Dreamer's answer is correct but it is worth mentioning that attacks with summoned weapons do get the damage multiplier. So you can play a pure magic character and still get sneak damage multipliers (including one-handed backstabs, but not the 30x multiplier since there's no summoned dagger).

Solution 4:

As far as my testing has shown, the multiplier is applied to the initial strike and any damage that is added to that. It doesn't seem to be applied to DoT. Thus, if a bow adds 10 fire damage, it will add 10x2 + base damage.

I tested by finding a bandit group and trying out the different situations and watching the health meters. Of course, since I don't have a way to see their actual health, I can't say this with certainty.