Protection from energy and overflow...

[seebs]

You have a 60-point protection from energy (fire). A 70-point fire attack hits you, so you lose 10 points, right?

Well, wait a minute.

[indent]Protection from energy grants temporary immunity to the type of energy you specify when you cast it (acid, cold, electricity, fire, or sonic). When the spell absorbs 12 points per caster level of energy damage (to a maximum of 120 points at 10th level), it is discharged.[/indent]

It is clear that, when the spell has absorbed 60 points of damage, it is discharged.

It is not quite so clear to me that this means you take the remaining damage from that specific attack, though, because the attack hit at a time when you were immune, so you took no damage. And I am not entirely sure either way on the intent, although I think the intent is that the extra damage goes through.

But this isn't like DR, where it's stated that a particular number of points of damage are subtracted from the incoming attack. It's immunity, which has its own rules.

[Starbuck_II]

It isn't true immunity. That part was flavor-text.

[Nefreet]

The "temporary immunity" ended after 60pts of damage were dealt, meaning that you still take the remaining 10pts.

[ArmouredMonk13]

You are Immune to 60 pts. of energy damage.

[seebs]

My question, I guess, is whether attacks are resolved all at once. Can an effect end partway through a single "hit" of damage? Things like DR can be exceeded, and are described as subtractive, but this doesn't use that language. You are totally immune to the energy damage, but the spell is discharged after it's absorbed a given number of points. But normally, a spell being discharged or not-discharged isn't a thing which can change partway through the resolution of a single attack.

[ArmouredMonk13]

And the overflow damage breaks the immunity so the spell no longer effects you. The overflow is applied when you are no longer immune to energy damage.

[seebs]

I guess what I don't get is: Where do the rules for this come from? Where's the thing saying "but sometimes, instead of 70 points of damage from a single source being resolved as a single attack, it's actually turned into one attack for 60 points, followed by a very short delay, followed by another attack for 10 points"?

DR says that it works that way, but this isn't DR. If it were written as DR 120/- against a given damage type, with the DR reduced by the amount of damage absorbed...

[Speaker for the Dead]

I'm not seeing your problem. Think of it as a 10 gal bucket. If you pour 12 gallons of water into it, it holds the first 10 gal and the remaining 2 overflow.

Same for the spell. If you get hit with the appropriate energy type and you have 60hp left on the spell, it negates the first 60 and you take the remaining.

[Gilfalas]

seebs wrote:

I guess what I don't get is: Where do the rules for this come from?

In the spell. It is a CONDITIONAL immunity. You have 12 x level points of damage the spell stops. Then your not immune. The rest hits.

The spell gives you 12x Caster Level HP's that only fire can take away and they are always taken by fire first before your real hit points. The word 'Immunity' is used conditionally quite clearly in the spell which limits how it lasts. Explicitly the bonus HP's of elemental damage it stops. If you have not more points left from the spell they cannot stop anything.

It is not multiple attacks per your example. It is the one attack that breaks through, like a disruptor blowing through the Enterprises shields.

[Lord Pendragon]

seebs wrote:

It is not quite so clear to me that this means you take the remaining damage from that specific attack, though, because the attack hit at a time when you were immune, so you took no damage. And I am not entirely sure either way on the intent, although I think the intent is that the extra damage goes through.

But this isn't like DR, where it's stated that a particular number of points of damage are subtracted from the incoming attack. It's immunity, which has its own rules.

While it may be that using the word immunity was a poor decision on the part of the designers, I think that the fact the spell continually explains that it absorbs damage makes its intention very clear, regardless.

It absorbs energy of the chosen type, up to the limits of the casting, and is then discharged. Any damage that is not absorbed the target must deal with as usual.