What good is "half divine" damage anyways?

[Ravingdork]

So I fireball a creature with resist fire 10 for 30 damage. He takes 20 damage as a result.

So I flame strike a creature with resist fire 10 for 15 fire damage and 15 holy damage. He takes 20 damage as a result.

What exactly has this rule done for me?

Seems to me that it doesn't do much for me more than half the time. Even against creatures with fire immunity, I'd be better off hitting the target with a spell that's going to do full damage, rather than half.

[Java Man]

You have summed the mechanics and math up perfectly. For flamestrike it would improve the spells performance slightly against a group of foes, one of whom has high resistance or immunity to fire. Not a huge advantage, but there you have it.

[TriOmegaZero]

He saves for half. Now he only takes 5 in the first case, and 7 in the second case.

A fire immune guy would take no damage in the first case and 15 in the second. If he saves for half, he still takes no damage in the first case, and 7 in the second.

[Java Man]

Also niche, but this actually reduces the spells power against targets vulnerable to the elemntal half.

[Dave Justus]

You are certainly correct in that more often than not it doesn't matter. The vast majority of creatures don't have any special resistance to any damage type.

When you do encounter something with special defenses against fire, it often will be helpful, but sometimes as in the case you shown it would end up being a wash.

That being said I don't know why you think it should specifically be something that 'helps' you. It isn't necessarily a feature to be helpful as much as it is a feature to make this spell different from others. Sometimes it will help, sometimes it will hurt, mostly it won't make a huge difference.

[TriOmegaZero]

I believe it was meant as an option against creatures with immunities anyway. And it was probably much more effective in earlier game systems.

[PK the Dragon]

I'd sum it up as " I want to be the flame dude and use exclusively flame spells, oh cool this helps me still be a thing in battles against enemies with immunities"

We may scoff at loading up exclusively on one damage type, but for new players and RP purists who want a *very* thematic character, spells like these help.

[Benchak the Nightstalker]

Also nice when you don't know if an enemy has fire resistance or not. Not as effective as another spell could have been, but a little damage despite resistance is a nice consolation prize.

[Plausible Pseudonym]

Ravingdork wrote:

So I fireball a creature with resist fire 10 for 30 damage. He takes 20 damage as a result.

So I flame strike a creature with resist fire 10 for 15 fire damage and 15 holy damage.

That's incorrect, it takes divine, not holy or unholy damage. Unless you're supposed to flavor it according to your god's alignment?

Note that if it were holy/unholy damage then evil/good would take 50% more damage, and good/evil would be immune to that component.

Hellfire in Hell (as noted in BOTD volume whatever) is half fire and half unholy and works this way. So it does nothing to devils, potentially does a bit to demons (who don't have fire immunity), and can do a lot to good outsiders who tend to have no or bad fire resistance to go with their vulnerability to unholy damage.

[Imbicatus]

It makes a much better delivery for dazing spell if there is nothing that can resist some of the damage.

[Bottleface]

I never really figured it mattered much mechanically. It was more that flavourwise it made sense for it to be have divine since it's a divine spell. To me a pillar of divine flame makes sense as half fire, half divine damage. Mechanically it's probably not important though.

[Pizza Lord]

Dave Justus wrote:

It isn't necessarily a feature to be helpful as much as it is a feature to make this spell different from others

I think Dave Justus summed it up with the most likely reason here. Certainly there is math, and there's taking into consideration resistances (of which fire is likely the most common.)

The truth is, this spell was designed a long time ago for clerics. Clerics were not known for their destructive abilities but a typical foe for such a class (other than undead, obviously) were demons and devils, almost all of whom are immune to fire and most would be immune or resistant to electricity. Wizards back then were pretty much all fireball with the occasional lightning bolt. A really good one had cone of cold, but basically when your wizard was looking impotent, your cleric was able to step up with the power of God and lay a divine 'holy-fire' down on the sinful. At least... that's my opinion on it.

[Zaister]

Actually there is no such damage type as "holy" or "divine". The non-fire damage from flamestrike is simply untyped.

[Ravingdork]

semantics and shorthand. I wouldn't get too hung up about it.

[Plausible Pseudonym]

Zaister wrote:

Actually there is no such damage type as "holy" or "divine". The non-fire damage from flamestrike is simply untyped.

There are lots of inconsistent references to holy/unholy or sacred/profane damage in various books. Inconsistent not just in terminology but mechanics. Reading through Bestiary 6 there are several creatures who deal half of their elemental damage in one of these forms. In some cases it acts like typeless damage, in others it doubles against the opposing alignment (sometimes opposing alignment subtype). So there's no general rule to apply, you have to by the specifics of each ability. If it doesn't say anything about an alignment multiplier its safe to assume it's just typeless damage, no matter what they called it.