GM: The BBEG fires off a ray of sickly green energy directly at you - a Disintegration spell! He rolls... 20! Confirmation roll is an 18 vs your touch - critical hit! Roll your fortitude save to avoid death!"
Me: "Actually, GM, if you read Disintegrate you'll notice that it only affects the first creature or object struck. Therefore, it only affects my robes. It's sad to lose my favorite pair, but what can you do - it was a crit, after all. Good thing I'm wearing another two over my outer layer of long-sleeve shirts or he might get me in the next few rounds."
End thread. This has been silly and we need to stop.
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The "affect first object/creature struck" verbiage from Disintegrate does strongly imply the spell is capable of affecting creatures/objects other than the intended target if they come into contact with the ray generated by the spell.
Smash from the Air/Cut from the Air contains no verbiage that prevents the weapon from taking damage. Only damage to the original target is prevented.
the verbage is there to stop people from trying to deal "leftover" damage to other targets after the primary target has been disintegrated. Pathfinder has no rule for hitting the wrong target with a direct attack. The only way to hit the wrong target is when a weapon with a throw weapon with an area attack scatter, but then you apply the area attack, not the direct attack damage.
If you miss someone with disintegrate because he benefit from cover, the cover don't take any damage.
You know, as you claim to follow RAW, maybe citing the wole passage, instead of cutting out part of it will help.
Only the first creature or object struck can be affected; that is, the ray affects only one target per casting.
Problem solved: it is a targeted attack, and affect only 1 target.
As all targeted attack, if it don't hit its target it don't hit anything.|
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In response to the OP, you've got 1 person who thinks the weapon is affected, and 5 that think the disintegrate is deflected to no effect. I'm not saying Snowlilly's point is invalid, just pointing out that it is a clear minority. Short of an FAQ/errata popular consensus is the best you'll get.At the actual game table I would not disagree with you. Intent seems clear.
When discussing RAW, I try to stick to what RAW says unless the RAW is clearly using incorrect or non-standard terminology, or the RAW clearly assumes a certain level of common sense, i.e. swords are made of metal even though RAW never explicitly states this.
In this case RAW states one thing and the assumption is this extends by default to include a second thing. It does not, but most groups are not going to run around disintegrating the fighter's weapons.
While discussing RAW you are inventing a rule where targeted attacks can hit the wrong target.
Please search all the rulebooks and cite the source of this "rule" that you are applying.