Okay, so Undead have the blanket statement of being immune to fortitude saves unless the effect can affect objects. Fair enough. This prevents things like thunderstones from affecting them, which is fair, hard to deafen something that has no fleshy inner ear to abuse.
But what about raw damage? It recently came up in my Shackled City game that a sonic spell with a fortitude for half against the sonic damage was leveled on a group of enemies that included a dread wraith and a vampire. The spell doesn't have the object tag, so I had to deal with an odd call.
The dread wraith got lucky and managed to avoid the issue with incorporeality.
But the vamp no only was physical, but her fortitude save was enough to easily fail. In the end, the results would have made little difference in the fight overall, but im wondering about it nonetheless.
The letter of the rules seems to state that all undead can exist just fine in a sonic boom filled enviorment as long as fortitude saves are being made rather than reflex. But is it in the spirit of the rules to excuse them from said damage? A ghoul is almost as flesh and blood as a human; shouldn't the sonic assault that harms one harm the other? Is this another case of some undead being more construct-ish and other more alive-ish? Skeletons I can sort of see ignoring it, depending on the frequency. But ghouls, and even vampires, strike me as being susceptible.
Any personal opinions on the matter? The issue is past, but I'm sure it will rise again, and I'm mostly curious what the Paizo Collective has to say on it.
What was the spell in question, if I may ask?
What was the spell in question, if I may ask?
Just checked the srd, I think it is either Sound Burst or Shout.
If it was Sound Burst then the secondary effect (stunning) wouldn't matter because undead are not affected by it.
If it was Shout then the undead would just suffer the 5d6 sonic damage.
Or half if it made its save.
What was the spell in question, if I may ask?Just checked the srd, I think it is either Sound Burst or Shout.
If it was Sound Burst then the secondary effect (stunning) wouldn't matter because undead are not affected by it.
If it was Shout then the undead would just suffer the 5d6 sonic damage.
Or half if it made its save.
Yup...I wasn't sure if it was a spell from another source outside the SRD that I was unaware of.
Sound Burst allows no save for the damage part of it, so the undead would be affected. Just like Darkjoy said, they are immune to stunning anyway, so the secondary effect is a moot point.
And, again as Darkjoy poined out, shout affects objects, so it would work fine on undead.
Resounding Thunder, from Complete Mage, actually. Sonic damage plus deafening, fortitude save for half and no deafen.
The comment on objects taking sonic damage is actually quite good, but it raises a secondary question: spells that affect objects have the object tag. Do spells that deal damage deal such damage to objects then? Even if they don't have the object descriptor? Common sense and common examples say yes, fireball, lightning bolt, and acid fog all state in their text that they damage objects.
However, cone of cold does not.
So, the question is: as a generic rule, do damaging spells affect object UNLESS noted otherwise, or do damaging spells NOT affect objects unless note otherwise?
My money, and thematic consistency, says damage effect spells will damage objects, unless the spell says otherwise. But that seems to invalidate the need for the (object) tag. Hrmmm....
Okay, so Undead have the blanket statement of being immune to fortitude saves unless the effect can affect objects. Fair enough. This prevents things like thunderstones from affecting them, which is fair, hard to deafen something that has no fleshy inner ear to abuse.
But what about raw damage?
Energy Attacks
Acid and sonic attacks deal damage to most objects just as they do to creatures; roll damage and apply it normally after a successful hit. Electricity and fire attacks deal half damage to most objects; divide the damage dealt by 2 before applying the hardness. Cold attacks deal one-quarter damage to most objects; divide the damage dealt by 4 before applying the hardness.
A bit of a conundrum, but I think the sonic energy has a blanket effect on affecting objects. Its just not clearly stated in spell descriptions.