RAW no, area effects are quite clearly defined in the CRB.
RAI, no idea, I would probably rule RAW for simplicity sake and to give alchemist items another little edge.
Hmm, my players just felled a Hydra and I had spot ruled "Area" as including splash without actually reading any rules. In the Hydra's specific case, I don't think Splash damage would actually effect multiple heads due to the wording of Splash stating each creature, but the same argument could be made for area spells. But the Hydra is a specific case as most creatures don't have multiple independent parts with health pools for targeting purposes.
If you did allow splash to hit multiple heads that makes Alchemist bombs REALLY strong against a hydra, since you would gain bonus splash damage for each head the hydra had at the time. It was due to this that I only allowed the application of the direct hit damage to any given head.
I would allow an alchemists fire or acid flask to cauterize multiple necks similar to an area fire or acid spell however.
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On swarms, area damage and splash damage are listed as separate weaknesses. If splash damage is also area damage, would that mean splash weapons are better against swarms than say, fireballs? That doesn't seem right.
Also, let's take a look at the rules for hydras specifically;
Head Regrowth A hydra ordinarily has five heads. A creature can attempt to sever one of the hydra’s heads by specifically targeting it and dealing damage equal to the head’s Hit Points. A head that is not completely severed returns to full Hit Points at the end of any creature’s turn.
A hydra can regrow a severed head using Hydra Regeneration. A creature can prevent this regrowth by dealing acid or fire damage to the stump, cauterizing it. Single-target acid or fire effects need to be targeted at a specific stump, but effects that deal splash damage or affect areas covering the hydra’s whole space cauterize all stumps if they deal acid or fire damage. If the attack that severs a head deals any acid or fire damage, the stump is cauterized instantly. If all five heads are cauterized, the hydra dies.
It specifically mentions splash weapons and they're effective, at least at cauterizing stumps.
@Ascalaphus I actually read that as saying that despite not dealing damage, any area or splash weapon that does the listed damage types can cauterize all stumps in one go. Note that it calls out Area damage effects that cover the entire space of the Hydra here, they won't do damage but they will cauterize.
That tells me that the rule is looking at cauterizing differently than dealing damage specifically.
I figure that the Area damage resistance is there to protect the hydra from overwhelming AOE spam in the first place, so allowing bombs to target every head at the same time is kind of against that spirit imho.
Then again the number of bombs you would have to throw at Hydra to drop all of it's heads would be quite impressive.
That is why I ruled that Splash counted as "area" damage in the first place.
Side note: I do find it funny that Splash weapons, which only effect a relatively small area, can cauterize all of the hydras stumps at once but an area spell would have to be at least 9x9 and covering the Hydra to do the same. That feels weird to me.
RE: The cauterizing question, that still doesn't answer why the stumps of each head can be cauterized with area damage. Since you have to target the "head" to be cauterized, it stands to reason that that would mean that any resistences or weakness would apply, right?
RE: The 9X9 comment. Yeah. I don't know what I was thinking there. Maybe that a 3x3 area is 9 total squares? I don't know. :)
I think I got sidetracked somewhere. My main point was that if Area damage is not allowed to harm the heads, when alive, then Splash also should be resisted. The main reason would be that Splash effected each head separately, you would be getting an additional 1 (more with better bombs) damage on top of any persistent damage on each head from the splash, which is what I imagine was the impetus of giving them area immunity in the first place.
The rules treat splash the same for cauterizing as they do Area damage: They can cauterize.
But if that is the case do they or should they treat splash the same for damage to each head?
I personally think that "Area" damage should include Splash, for the sake of simplicity if nothing else.
But I could just be justifying my on the field ruling.
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I was looking at the definition of Immunity in the CRB to see if that sheds some light;
Immunity
When you have immunity to a specific type of damage, you ignore all damage of that type. If you have immunity to a specific condition or type of effect, you can’t be affected by that condition or any effect of that type. If you have immunity to effects with a certain trait (such as death effects, poison, or disease) you are unaffected by any effect with that trait. Often, an effect can be both a trait and a damage type (this is especially true in the case of energy damage types). In these cases, the immunity applies to the entire effect, not just the damage. You can still be targeted by an ability with an effect you are immune to; you just don’t apply the effect. However, some complex effects might have parts that affect you even if you’re immune to one of the effect’s traits; for instance, a spell that deals both fire and acid damage can still deal acid damage to you even if you’re immune to fire.
My take on this then is:
* The heads (not the body) are immune to just being damaged with area damage. This is intended to make sure you don't easily roast all heads with a fireball in round 1.* By looking at swarms and their weaknesses (area AND splash damage) we can learn that splash damage isn't supposed to also count as area damage. So you could damage multiple heads with a splash weapon.
* Because of the rules for Head Regrowth, splash damage is unlikely to kill any extra heads, because any non-severed heads heal completely after each creature's turn, and doing 15 splash damage in one turn is really really hard. By that time a level 6 creature shouldn't stand a chance against you anyway. If you're lucky and aim at a different head with each bomb, an alchemist might take down multiple heads because the splash damage + direct hit damage helps to count to 15. Cool, alchemists get their day in the sun. Note that Head Regrowth makes persistent damage pretty useless so it's not all roses and sunshine for alchemists.
* A hacked-off neck can be cauterized with area or splash damage, because the Head Regrowth rule specifically says so. This is actually very efficient. Area attacks to cauterize work because that's a specific explicit rule for some area attacks that overrides their general immunity.
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As a side note, PF2 hydras seem to be the best implementation I've ever seen for one. This is a genuinely neat monster!
Hmm. I feel that I am on the wrong side of this one. I do believe I will cede the point.
It is still odd to me that "Splash" damage is not considered "area" damage in it's entirety however. I suppose the relatively low damage of Splash effects make up for this, but it doesn't make much sense to me.
@Ascalaphus: I fully agree with the Hydra being well implemented. It took some getting used to (re-reading hydra regeneration and regrowth about 4 times during the combat to make sure I was doing it right!) but it was certainly one of the most entertaining fights my party has ever had. And a close run one at that.
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It is still odd to me that "Splash" damage is not considered "area" damage in it's entirety however. I suppose the relatively low damage of Splash effects make up for this, but it doesn't make much sense to me.
I agree it's odd, but I'm still pretty certain of it.
Otherwise, if you hit a swarm with a bomb, you'd trigger both its Splash and Area weaknesses, while someone using a Burning Hands spell would only trigger its Area weakness. That would be really strange.
If splash damage was a specific sort of area damage, then swarms wouldn't need a specific splash damage weakness, their area damage would suffice to make bombs work well.