Monster Resistance ?

[orphias]

So, the PCs are about to encounter some minor air elementals soon and I noticed that elementals don't have any resistance to damage any longer ? Is that right ?
How does a non-magical sword inflict damage on a column of air ?

It made me do some browsing of the Monster Manual, and I notice that demons also lost their damage reduction. Normal weapons deal damage to them as well. It would seem that resistance is a very rare thing in P2. About the only creatures that seem to still have it are spectral undead and golems.

[thenobledrake]

The frequency of creatures resisting damage has been reduced for game-play reasons. Pathfinder 1st edition was holding on to the outdated tradition established by (ancient)D&D design philosophy that basically anything not entirely mundane in nature require potent magical weapons to do harm to.

However, that doesn't mean that fantastical creatures aren't without their means of preventing mundane harm. For example, a Living Whirlwind has a Disperse reaction which can be used to avoid a significant amount of damage.

[Claxon]

Yeah, it's worth noting that PC's do a lot less damage on average in PF2, than in PF1. So if creatures had resistances as often in PF2 as they did in PF1, you'd have a lot of parties losing more often. The number just had to be tweaked to make the math work.

[Castilliano]

The column of air is substantial enough to punch you, that's how.

And correct, Resistances are rarer now, while Weaknesses are more common.
Partly, this helps balance the "gal w/ one big attack" with the "guy with lots of little attacks". Paizo also wanted to avoid the "bag of golf clubs" weapon sets. (And the bulk system would struggle with that for big weapons.) So nowadays it's less necessary to have the right weapon since you can usually still do your normal damage yet it's nice to have such a weapon (to trigger a Weakness).

Mechanically, a creature w/ Resistance (or healing) will have fewer hit points for their level (see templates for examples) while a Troll has tons of hit points due to its severe Weakness to fire (the most common energy type) and low AC.
Contrast a Zombie w/ a Skeleton to get an idea of the two approaches to monster building (neither of which matches the middle ground for monsters built like PCs.) Devils & Demons also have contrasting builds, with Devils tending toward higher ACs & Saves and a lower Weakness to Good, so also having fewer h.p.