Order of Effects - What's the Rule?

[Garden Tool]

Is there an official rule for what happens when multiple effects trigger at the same time?

For example, let's say I have a spell storing weapon coated with poison. The poison could lower Con, which might affect the target's save against the spell stored in the weapon. Conversely, the spell could penalize saves, which could affect the target's save against the poison. What is the order of effects? Is it up to the attacker, or the defender, or what?

[Cheapy]

In the absence of explicit ordering, it seems safe that the player chooses the order.

[The Black Bard]

I'm not sure if its explicitly spelled out in the Pathfinder rules, but I recall the 3.5 FaQ basically stating "incoming attacks are delivered in the attacks best interest, and are received by the defender in his best interest." So if I hit with a Spell Storing (Bestow Curse) weapon, which is also poisoned with Wyvern Venom, I can have the Bestow Curse take effect first, in the hopes of penalizing the target's Con by 6 to make the venom more likely to take effect.

Conversely, when a creature with fire resistance 10 makes a save against a fireball, he can make the save, then apply his fire resistance. So a 50 point damage hit may become 25, then be reduced to 15. this order is better for the defender, as reversing the order would reduce 50 to 40, then a successful save halving that to 20.

One might argue that effects which you can "activate on a successful hit" might go after any other effects carried by the strike, but I see no real reason to be concerned about it.

[Grick]

Garden Tool wrote:

For example, let's say I have a spell storing weapon coated with poison.

I would say poison first, assuming it's an Injury poison.

Spell Storing: "Anytime the weapon strikes a creature and the creature takes damage from it, the weapon can immediately cast the spell on that creature as a free action if the wielder desires.

The spell casting is a free action, so it doesn't happen before the action that triggered it. Also, in order for it to happen, the creature must take damage. If the creature hasn't taken damage yet, the spell can't be cast.