Why is acid splash the only cantrip that can damage objects?

[Ravingdork]

All of the other cantrips either don't deal damage, or else exclusively target creatures.

Why is acid slash so special?

Why can't I use produce flame to burn down a house or light a torch?

[thenobledrake]

Part one of the answer is legacy. Acid splash was a thing useful for melting a lock, so it has kept it's use against objects.

Part two of the answer is oversight. Specific spells don't target objects because they wouldn't necessarily work on objects in general despite making sense to use against a few objects, so it falls to an area of the rules outside of individual spell descriptions... but those areas presume a spell would be specific, and so things "fall through the cracks."

However, that's why the game is run by a GM rather than a text parsing AI that can't deviate when appropriate and text on page 444 exists to make that need for GMs to cover these proverbial cracks.

[Ravingdork]

Acid splash has never been able to melt locks in 1st Editon though. It never did enough damage to get past the hardness.

[Angel Hunter D]

A typo I assume, once they decided not to write rules for damaging things.

[Ravingdork]

Angel Hunter D wrote:

A typo I assume, once they decided not to write rules for damaging things.

I hope not. It's bad enough that you can't Strike an object or fireball important documents.

[Squiggit]

There's another thread on a similar topic somewhere around here. People are very concerned that allowing players to damage objects would ruin a GM's ability to run campaigns and fundamentally destroy the Pathfinder 2 experience.

In that context, I have to agree with Angel Hunter D. This reads like errata bait.

[thenobledrake]

Ravingdork wrote:

Acid splash has never been able to melt locks in 1st Editon though. It never did enough damage to get past the hardness.

It was a legacy element in PF1 too.

And if you go back far enough acid had better effect upon some objects than a lot of other damage types did.

[First World Bard]

Tongue in cheek reply: Acid Splash gets to hit objects because it's the worst elemental damage cantrip otherwise, and needs something to distinguish itself.
More serious reply: I hope Acid Splash gets faq/errata to make it more useful. Maybe clarifing that it is intended to splash adjacent creatures, or giving it an effect on miss...

[Rysky]

Ravingdork wrote:

Acid splash has never been able to melt locks in 1st Editon though. It never did enough damage to get past the hardness.

In P1 on Hardness:

Energy Attacks wrote:

Energy attacks deal half damage to most objects. Divide the damage by 2 before applying the object’s hardness. Some energy types might be particularly effective against certain objects, subject to GM discretion. For example, fire might do full damage against parchment, cloth, and other objects that burn easily. Sonic might do full damage against glass and crystal objects.