Energy Resistance / Immunity and Spell Effects beyond Energy Damage

[Cao Phen]

I was looking at my book and was checking up on the Resist Energy spell, which says that "Resist energy absorbs only damage. The subject could still suffer unfortunate side effects".

With that I was curious on how Energy Resistance works. Looking at the text on Energy Resistance, it says "When resistance completely negates the damage from an energy attack, the attack does not disrupt a spell"

If I am looking at this right, does that mean that any effect that would be counted after energy damage would still go through?

Let us use Snowball as an example:

Snowball:

You conjure a ball of packed ice and snow that you can throw at a single target as a ranged touch attack. The snowball deals 1d6 points of cold damage per caster level (maximum 5d6) on a successful hit, and the target must make a successful Fortitude saving throw or be staggered for 1 round.

It states that on a sucessful hit, the target has to make a saving throw. So with how Energy Resistance works, does that mean if a creature resisted all the cold damage from a Snowball spell, they would still have to make a save to prevent themself from being staggered?

And would this mean that this applies to Energy Immunities as well?

[Avatar-1]

Yes - the easiest way to look at it is that you're still being "affected", even if you're not being burned.

In your snowball example, the snowball hits, but the victim isn't cold - just thrown off balance.