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If you want to treat area damage like water and just add the weakness to the final damage dealt, what if they're undead and resistant to cold damage? The negative damage wouldn't apply, and they could possibly resist away all the cold damage. You're now deducting unspecified "area damage" from their hit points, which seems more absurd than treating each damage instance (viz. damage type) individually as area damage.

In this case, immunity kicks in before weakness, and so the Negative damage is reduced to zero before weakness can be applied; and even if you did apply the area weakness to the negative damage, it's still just extra damage of the same type, and therefore they're still immune to it.

So you'd first apply immunity, which prevents the negative damage; you don't need to do any more steps after that for that damage type. Then you'd calculate the cold damage. First step, determine damage type, which is Cold Area. Then, check immunity, not immune. Then apply weakness, which is Area, so you add the Area weakness value. Then, check resistances, which is Cold, so you subtract the Cold Resistance value. Then, you subtract any remaining damage from their hit points.

It's easy and makes sense as long as you follow the damage calculation rules in order, and they're written in that order because it's both simple and logical. It seems like there are a few people who aren't, and that's what's causing confusion when it comes to mixed damage types.

But yeah, you shouldn't add it all together then apply weakness for this very reason you're stating.

"If more than one weakness would apply to the same instance of damage, use only the highest applicable weakness value. This usually happens only when a monster is weak to both a type of physical damage and a given material."

this is from the weakness rules. the last clarifying sentence is particularly important, because it seems to clarify that each separate damage type is its own instance of damage, else they could have easily used the term "damage roll" instead of "instance of damage" if they wanted multi typed damage to only trigger once, whether that be split damage spells, property runes, or even abilities like Double Slice.

the resistance rules also have text that helps with this:
"If you have more than one type of resistance that would apply to the same instance of damage, use only the highest applicable resistance value.

It’s possible to have resistance to all damage. When an effect deals damage of multiple types and you have resistance to all damage, apply the resistance to each type of damage separately. If an attack would deal 7 slashing damage and 4 fire damage, resistance 5 to all damage would reduce the slashing damage to 2 and negate the fire damage entirely."

So this is explicitly stated to be the case for resistance (each instance of damage is separate for applying resistance), and seems at least implied for weakness, especially with how weakness and resistance basically function as the inverse of each other mechanically.

I'd conclude that each separate type of damage interacts with weakness and resistance separately, and that a single instance of a damage type only gets the highest applicable weakness and resistance, So a Cold Iron +1 Flaming Longsword hitting someone with Weakness 5 Cold Iron and Fire and Weakness 3 Slashing would take 5 extra from the Fire, and 5 extra from Cold Iron, but not 3 extra from Slashing, as the Cold Iron is the highest weakness that applies to the physical portion of the strike.

Thod wrote:

2nd edition - Does the PFS access overule the need of being a dwarf for buying a clan pistol?

No.

In that case, I'm happy to change it out.

I'd suggest that an errata or official clarification is made, similar to the ancestry access side bar, specifying this or expanding on the access clause. Something like, "PFS Note: Characters from Alkenstar, Dongun Hold, and The Shackles have access to all black powder firearms that are not normally accessed through ancestry feats, such as (but not limited to) the Clan Pistol, Dwarven Scattergun, and Three Peaked Tree." Because the way it currently reads, without a clarification like this, is that those areas alone are enough to access.

I imagine this is probably a quirk of using the same mechanic to restrict ancestry related weapons to also restrict general firearms access.

For what it's worth, the choice of a Clan Pistol (or an item that is functionally like a clan pistol, and so likely made by a master dwarven weaponsmith who makes such things) has helped me a lot to flesh out some actual story for this character, and in a positive way.

And is someone being gifted a handcrafted pistol any less absurd than yet another Hugh Manfighter adopted by gnomes?

I get where you're all coming from, but really. It's an investigator. Hardly the most munchkin build, and hardly the most absurd or implausible character to be seen in PFS.

I'm not intending at all to be antagonistic or anything of the sort, and if Thod said "no", then I wouldn't run it in this game. But I do feel like I'm being talked down on a little as "that kind of player", and I'm certainly not asking for anything more than what the rules clearly allow and even then only with his permission, so I think that's unfair.

As for rebuild, I don't intend to rebuild this one. The question was in regards to rebuilding another, older character entirely as this one, but they only have like 1xp anyway, so I've decided to keep that character.

I'm the person asking, and that particular bit of text is referring to ancestry weapon familiarity feats, and how they don't automatically grant access to firearms. It's a separate issue. The offending text is the PFS note stating that

Characters with a Home Region of Alkenstar, Dongun Hold, or the Shackles have access to all black powder guns, ammunition and related accessories.

To me, this is pretty clear: if you're from these regions, you now have an access clause to all black powder firearms. The Clan Pistol is a black powder firearm, and it's Pathfinder Society Standard, therefore you meet the access clause.

The [Dwarf] trait doesn't actually change how any given access clause works, it just makes it eligible for other access routes, such as being a Gunslinger from Cheliax or some other place, and then taking Dwarven Weapon Familiarity.

Is it cheeky? Sure, but as long as dueling pistols are 11 bloody gold, I don't really have much in the way of options for this build. FWIW I do have a plausible story as to why this elf has a dwarven-made pistol like this, but that's immaterial to the actual question at hand.