Yekrep's page

The shield also explicitly says that it can block that type of energy, meaning that it's not a normal thing shields can do.

Well, not exactly. It says "you can use shield block against attacks that deal that type of damage". The clause opens the door to blocking non-physical attacks if they deal the corresponding damage (which I assume includes thing such as spell attacks, but we don't have a definition of physical attacks). Things like ray of frost which would probably not be considered a "physical attack" thus become blockable. The way I see it, ordinary shields can block energy, dragonslayer shields can do what ordinary shields do, plus resist energy and block non-physical sources of energy such as spells.

Shield Block shouldn't be able to block energy damage, so the Shield Block would block all physical damage, but the Fire would get through. Certain shields let you block energy attacks, like the Dragonslayer's Shield.

If you were hit by a Strike with a Flaming rune, your Red Dragonslayer's Shield would resist both the physical and fire damage. So if you're hit with 6 Slashing and 6 Fire, you would resist 6 Slashing and 2 Fire from Harness, then the Resist 10 would block the remaining 4 Fire, thus taking no damage.

If it were a Blue Dragonslayer's Shield however, you would only block the 6 slashing and the 6 Fire would make it through to you.

Hardness is not resistance though. The fact that the item has resistance kinda lends itself to the fact that shields can in fact block energy damage. The item description says it can prevent 18 energy damage using 8 hardness and 10 resistance.

Yes, personally I run it how Guntermench described above, but there will always be those who insist only physical damage can be reduced by shield block

Thank you. I have 1 more question regarding this topic. How do we determine which damage is blocked if the damage is of multiple types?

IE a troll with a shield blocks all but 1 damage from an attack from a lit torch. Does the troll regenerate?

About that clarification... that was the subject of a lot of drama for me. I am of the opinion that the wording is specific to the context of the question.

"Shield Block can only be used against physical damage from attacks, since non-attack effects can't trigger the Shield Block."

is in the context of

"Can I use Shield Block if I take physical damage that didn't come from an attack?"

The word "only" is modifying "attacks" not "physical". The clarification goes on to describe ways to allow shield block to work with non-attack sources of damage, mentioning physical damage not because it is important to the ruling, but rather because the question referenced it.

It's like if I called an Italian diner and ask
"Do you sell any pizza without crust?"
And they say "We only sell pizza with crust."
That doesn't mean they don't sell pasta too, even though they literally said "we only sell pizza"

Does that make sense?

What consitutes a "physical attack"?

My reading leads me to believe that the term refers to any attack that is made by a physical means (perhaps in contrast to psychic, mental, incorporeal, magical, etc), or as a catchall for melee and ranged attacks.

My peers seem to believe that any attack that causes physical damage is a physical attack, (even if it is a spell like telekinetic projectile).

This second interpretation gives me some trouble. It leads to some weird edge cases where if, for example, you roll low on a damage die and have a negative modifier, your physical damage becomes 0 and your attack ceases to be a "physical attack".

Additionally my peers also have the opinion that any rider effects, such as a flaming rune, are not part of the physical attack.

I find this also troubling. A red hot fire poker that might normally deal a bit of piercing and a bit of fire damage is in a wierd limbo where you can shield block it and prevent it from stabbing you but it still burns you.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.