| thenobledrake |
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So Acid Splash's splash damage doesn't count as "affecting" a Golem for the purposes of its Harmed By clause? It's magical, it's a spell, and it's affecting the Golem in the casual sense of the word, but it's not affecting the Golem in the sense of targeting being nigh synonymous with affecting?
You're still trying to read technically, rather than casually. "affecting" is getting counted as "targeting" in the case of area effects because of the context of being used in the targeting rules - it's not making a game-definition for the word that applies elsewhere in the rules.
Yes, acid splash causes some holes in the rules. Primarily because it deals splash damage without the splash trait which nothing else does, and the splash trait is written as though only weapons will have it - but that's what you call a case for errata, not some kind of proof that everything else in this discussion that is totally functional is actually non-functional.
Do you also need to hit...
The "instead of the usual effect" part from just after the piece you quoted is the answer to that, since not all spells require an attack roll or saving throw so that must be part of "the usual effect"