Energy resistance stacking

[Jamvencarter94]

How does the enhancement energy resistance work with your own resistances or from multiple enchantments from your Armour and ring? If possible if they do can i get a source from the rules? Thanks in advance.

[My Life Is In Ruins]

so you go over to Archives of Nethys and search on 'energy resistance' or 'resist energy'.
Energy Resistance (armor/shield quality). Then read it and look at the bottom, Requirements Craft Magic Arms and Armor, resist energy; Price +9,000 gp. That tells you it uses the spell resist energy. Sometimes if it 'stacks' it will say so in the item description. Nope, doesn't say it stacks for the Quality.

Then look up the spell resist energy as the items effect derives from that spell. Resist energy overlaps (and does not stack with) protection from energy. If a character is warded by protection from energy and resist energy, the protection spell absorbs damage until its power is exhausted.

Also from the general rules A resistance bonus affects saving throws, providing extra protection against harm. Multiple resistance bonuses on the same character or object do not stack. Only the highest resistance bonus applies. Also from Special Abilities(for tiefling later), When resistance completely negates the damage from an energy attack, the attack does not disrupt a spell. This resistance does not stack with the resistance that a spell might provide.

If a character had energy resist fire 5 score{tiefling}, ring of fire resistance 10, an amulet of elemental strife (resist energy fire 5 for a fire elemental), and a Cloak of Resistance +1 it would result in a energy resistance of 10 for fire and a +1 on all saves. The ring has the best fire resistance and the cloak is a different bonus. Versus a lightning elemental the character would have resist fire 10(ring), resist electricity 5(amulet or racial), +1 on all saves.

[Jamvencarter94]

The confusion is the way its being viewed is the fact of how the enchantment is worded. "The armor absorbs the first 10 points of energy damage" The view is its the armors ability not it giving you resistance. Same as the ring so at the moment these two would work to negate ten damage the additional from your your own resistance if any. SO is there any way to provide proof against a viewing.

[My Life Is In Ruins]

so there are two 'camps' on this. The extremes would be 'have fun' to 'strict RAW'. It's description and flavor text versus rules text. Rules text defines or describes a mechanical effect. Everything else is flavor text or descriptive text that doesn't mean much for the mechanics of the game. As the game is not uniformly consistent there are problems in a strictly RAW approach.

Clearly the game is an adult version of the child's game "Let's Pretend". Sure, flavor means something. Every GM is going to have to interpret what that means.
All of the books are written in a descriptive conversational english style and are meant to have some wiggle room in the interpretations so the game is flexible and meets many people's desires to do magical and fun stuff.

all that being said, in a Rules forum 'good' answers are going to be close to RAW(Rules As Written). That's because anybody can make up stuff and do what they want. Following the rules isn't easy especially when it comes to tricky stuff. Luckily that isn't the case here.

Spells were added to the bottom of magic items to clarify how they work. That way people could go look up the spell to get the details. If there was an exception it was in the description of the item. Generic conversational descriptive text does not make an exception.
There are amusing descriptions that mix the spell and detected aura, see Greater Hat of Disguise. One has to assume that it is like alter self (as that's the quoted spell).

[bbangerter]

My Life Is In Ruins wrote:

so you go over to Archives of Nethys and search on 'energy resistance' or 'resist energy'.

Energy Resistance (armor/shield quality). Then read it and look at the bottom, Requirements Craft Magic Arms and Armor, resist energy; Price +9,000 gp. That tells you it uses the spell resist energy. Sometimes if it 'stacks' it will say so in the item description. Nope, doesn't say it stacks for the Quality.

This isn't a thing. A magic item being based off a spell has no bearing on its ability to stack with the spell itself. Otherwise for example you could not wear a Ring of Continuation and also have a mnemonic enhancer spell active at the same time.

That said, I agree with you that these do not stack. Both the armor and the ring (and the resist energy spell) are all providing an effect of "resist energy". This is not a bonus to a characters current resist energy value, it is simply a resist energy with an amount. In this scenario the highest value takes precedence. So if a resist energy spell acid: 5, and a ring resist acid: 10, and an armor resist acid: 20 are all in effect, they get resist acid: 20. If the armor gets sundered/destroyed/targeted dispel magic, we revert to the rings resist acid: 10.

[My Life Is In Ruins]

bbangerter wrote:

My Life Is In Ruins wrote:

so you go over to Archives of Nethys and search on 'energy resistance' or 'resist energy'.

Energy Resistance (armor/shield quality). Then read it and look at the bottom, Requirements Craft Magic Arms and Armor, resist energy; Price +9,000 gp. That tells you it uses the spell resist energy. Sometimes if it 'stacks' it will say so in the item description. Nope, doesn't say it stacks for the Quality.

This isn't a thing. A magic item being based off a spell has no bearing on its ability to stack with the spell itself. Otherwise for example you could not wear a Ring of Continuation and also have a mnemonic enhancer spell active at the same time.

...

umm, I didn't say that so you are reading into my post. I assume you did not read the follow up post.

If the effect from the spell used to create the item stacked with the same bonus it would say so in the item description or in the spell description. The type and detail of the bonus comes from the spell.
The reference to stacking is required as two paragraphs down it becomes relevant when bonus types and stacking are addressed.
mnemonic enhancer isn't a bonus listed in the 'general rules' link. You are comparing different things and thus draw the wrong conclusion about what I said in the first part.

clearly I am leading the initial poster through the process of how to research and answer the question. This is a simple thing but you have to gather info as you go and sometimes it will be relevant and other times not. Hopefully in the future he can research and answer his own questions and increase his understanding of the game system.