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The damage inflicted by erosion touch is untyped. It is not even called out as energy or physical. So how does it interact with hardness, DR, etcetera?
Any ideas?
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Erosion touch link
And text for those who don't wish to search:
Erosion Touch (Su): As a melee touch attack, you can deal 1d6 points of damage per level to objects or constructs. If used against an object in another creature's possession, treat this attack as a sunder combat maneuver. You can use this ability once per day, plus one time per day for every three levels you possess.
good question. I would say that it is untyped magical damage, and thus bypass DR. AS for hardness, I am not sure yet.
Is it bad form to FAQ your own question?
I have searched but I can find little mention of this ability on the boards.
Hmmmmmmmmmm
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There are a lot of different ways a person can attack an object, so let's give it a good look over.
Hardness: Each object has hardness—a number that
represents how well it resists damage. When an object is
damaged, subtract its hardness from the damage.
Re-reading over Hardness, it seems that the default assumption is that Hardness is applied -- whether you are attacking an object with an acid flask, a sword, a fireball, magically-generated Bludgeoning damage from stonecall, or a Force effect.
However, we also have some rules to add in exceptions:
"Energy Attacks: Energy attacks deal half damage to most objects. Divide the damage by 2 before applying the object’s hardness. Some energy types might be particularly effective against certain objects, subject to GM discretion. For example, fire might do full damage against parchment, cloth, and other objects that burn easily. Sonic might do full damage against glass and crystal objects.
"Vulnerability to Certain Attacks: Certain attacks are especially successful against some objects. In such cases, attacks deal double their normal damage and may ignore the object’s hardness."
This leads me to some questions:
Do magical effects that specifically deal damage to objects and constructs operate as if they are particularly effective and ignore halving of energy attacks and/or reduction by hardness?
Examples may include Erosion Touch, or focusing a shatter against a crystalline construct.
Does the definition of 'energy attacks' just include acid, cold, electricity, fire, and sonic? Or are other effects such as positive energy, negative energy, and force-effects also energy attacks?
Energy attacks deal half damage (before subtracting Hardness) to objects. However, which effects are energy attacks are not defined. Resist energy implies that the above are energy attacks -- but is that all? Do Force effects deal half damage to objects before subtracting Hardness, or is Force not an energy type?
Can objects or constructs be affected with positive or negative energy?
Constructs and objects themselves don't seem to have any rules dictating that they are unaffected in their own descriptions. Construct traits in the Bestiary, page 307 nor Smashing An Object in CRB, page 173 list an immunity to these effects.
However, many positive and negative energy effects seem to have inconsistent targeting regarding non-living creatures:
* Channeling energy causes a burst that affects all creatures of one type (either undead or living) in a 30-foot radius centered on the cleric. It doesn't seem to affect either Constructs or objects, as they are neither living nor dead.
* Seemingly in contradiction to this, the Destruction alternate channeling from Ultimate Magic seems to reinterpret Channeling:
Destruction: Heal—Creatures gain a channel bonus on attack and damage rolls against objects, CMB for sunder attempts, and Strength checks to break objects until the end of your next turn.
Harm—Unattended objects take full channel damage (not half ).
* Spells such as chill touch and cure light wounds have a Target of "creature touched", but have descriptions that begin with "A touch from your hand, which glows with blue energy, disrupts
the life force of living creatures" and "When laying your hand upon a living creature, you channel positive energy that cures 1d8 points of damage + 1 point per caster level (maximum +5)" respectively. It seems internally inconsistent.Enervation has a Target of ray, and works on living creatures. In this case, the paragraph further narrows the effect instead of contradicting it -- there isn't necessarily any internal inconsistency, unless paragraphs in chill touch and cure light wounds are just descriptive text that don't have game functions, in which case the function of enervation is again unclear.
Inflict light wounds, Harm, and Heal affect creatures without regard to whether they are living or not. There are no internal inconsistencies with these, but although it seems that the cure and inflict spells are supposed to mirror each other, cure light wounds may work on living creatures only yet inflict light wounds seems to work on any creature.
The Sunder comparison makes me think that it does bypass objects/constructs with DR, but I'd love to see this answered officially myself too...
To complicate the situation, I could very well cast shocking grasp and hold the charge, then use it to perform a Sunder against an opponent's sword during my next turn. I would still roll against my opponent's CMD, but there's no reason to think my spell's damage would be exempt from the rule of dividing energy damage and applying Hardness.
Thread Necro! Was this question ever resolved? I had the same question while building a Nature Oracle recently and can't seem to find any solid answers.