So, I know the rules state under combat that if you roll damage for an attack and the result is less than 1, then you deal 1 point of nonlethal damage. I also read in an older post that 1 point of nonlethal damage is considered "injury" for the sake of poisons under that category.
Based on this, I want to ask a few questions to clarify a build I'm working on:
1) If the attack itself is nonlethal (say from a sap or from an unarmed strike) and the damage is less than 1, do you still deal 1 point of nonlethal damage?
2) If DR reduces this minimum damage to 0, does an "injury" poison still affect the target?
3) If DR reduces this minimum damage to 0, would a touch spell (or a weapon with spell storing) still go off on the target (to clarify, on an attack roll that does damage, not on a touch attack)?
DR can complete negate damage, and does not convert to non-lethal.
1) Yes, if you make an attack (and DR is not a factor) then the minimum damage is 1 non-lethal for a successful hit.
2) No, DR can reduce the damage to 0. An injury poison does not affect the target if no damage is done.
3) Yes, a spell storing weapon could be activated on a successful hit. A touch spell still goes off on a successful hit (touch attack to deliver a spell deal no damage, it's the spell itself dealing damage).
Just remember that hitting someone and dealing damage are two separate things, despite being normally linked.
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The issue is muddled by some abilities that use "reduce damage to 0" language when they're actually preventing an attack from connecting, like Deflect Arrows.
On the other hand, there are attacks that do no damage but still deliver a payload, like dye arrows.
You'd expect a dye arrow to deliver a contact poison, but not an injury poison. But what happens if you use Deflect Arrows on a dye arrow?
