Magic Plasma Blade vs Incorporeal creature. Full damage or 3 / 4?

[Reksew_Trebla]

Plasma Blade

Plasma blades deal half damage against incorporeal creatures despite not being magic. Magic weapons also deal half damage against incorporeal creatures. So if you had a magic plasma blade, it would make sense that it deals full damage, right? Well not exactly. The magic part of the “half damage” should only apply to the damage that wasn’t getting through due to being non-magical normally. Which is half. And half of half is 1/4. Which added to the half from the plasma blade that already got through, is 3/4.

So which is it?

[Cavall]

Half damage.

[Reksew_Trebla]

Cavall wrote:

Half damage.

Well that clearly isn’t true. Magic weapons deal half, and plasma blades deal half. No matter how you combine that, you aren’t getting half.

[Cavall]

No kind of combo huh?

What happens when 2 half elves mate then? According to you, a full elf.

Nothing in plasma blades says increase again by half or full. In fact the language is clear it does half like a magic blade would despite not being magic. So it's already doing what it should.

Half.

[Xenocrat]

It's half damage.

[Reksew_Trebla]

Cavall wrote:

No kind of combo huh?

What happens when 2 half elves mate then? According to you, a full elf.

Nothing in plasma blades says increase again by half or full. In fact the language is clear it does half like a magic blade would despite not being magic. So it's already doing what it should.

Half.

That’s a strawman and you know it. A half elf and a half elf pass on half of their genes each. 1/4 elf+1/4 elf+1/4 human+1/4 human=half elf half human.

But according to you, it is only a quarter human and quarter elf, with the other half not existing.

[Meirril]

Two abilities that let you do something doesn't let you do the ability more. Both the item property plus the enchantment let you do half damage to incorporeal. So you can definitely do half damage. Anything beyond that is a house rule.

[Volkard Abendroth]

Meirril wrote:

Two abilities that let you do something doesn't let you do the ability more.

Depends on the ability. There are many abilities in Pathfinder that do stack.

[blahpers]

½.

[Cavall]

Reksew_Trebla wrote:

Cavall wrote:

No kind of combo huh?

What happens when 2 half elves mate then? According to you, a full elf.

Nothing in plasma blades says increase again by half or full. In fact the language is clear it does half like a magic blade would despite not being magic. So it's already doing what it should.

Half.

That’s a strawman and you know it. A half elf and a half elf pass on half of their genes each. 1/4 elf+1/4 elf+1/4 human+1/4 human=half elf half human.

But according to you, it is only a quarter human and quarter elf, with the other half not existing.

Look. Take half a pie. Then half a pie.

Add half of each. You get half a pie.

It's not quarter. Its 2 quarters of pie and 2 quarters of space. Half a pie.

But your puzzle skills aside... let's talk about the actual issue.

The ability does half damage even though it's not magic. This means that at best if made magical, it would simply do what it should do normally. Half.

An overturning torch lights up even though it's not actually on fire. As if a torch. Set it on fire, and it still lights up. As if a torch.

It doesn't make it brighter. Or darker. Its just torch light.

What you are trying to do is add quater of an elf to half an elf without taking the quarter out.

Its half.

[Dave Justus]

Cavall is correct, although his explanation is confusing.

Plasma blade has an ability to deal 1/2 damage to incorporeal creatures. This ability doesn't include any rules about enhancing the damage a magic item does to incorporeal creatures.

Magic weapons deal 1/2 damage to incorporeal creatures. This doesn't include any ability to enhance the damage plasma does to incorporeal creatures.

So if you would deal 10 damage with a magic plasma blade, and your target is incorporeal, you can look at what the special abilities would do.

Plasma says pick me, I can let you do 1/2 damage (5)
Magic says No, use my 1/2 damage (5)

Neither of them have more than 5 and neither one increases the other or effects the other in any way. It is half damage.

It is perhaps easier to understand though if the numbers aren't the same. Let's pretend Plasma blades said "a plasma blade deals 1 damage against incorporeal creatures, despite not being a magical weapon." Rules wise, this would work in the same way as far as the math is concerned, but it is clearer that a Magical Plasma weapon would deal half damage (having an ability that let it deal one, and an ability that let it deal half) and that the two abilities wouldn't stack. The fact that both are half, rather than one being a static number is irrelevant.