Draconic rage and shield block Qs.


Rules Discussion


Just want to clarify a couple questions from a practice session:

Draconic rage:
"While raging, you can increase the additional damage from Rage from 2 to 4 and change its damage type to match that of your dragon’s..."
Does that change ALL the damage from the attack, or just the ADDITIONAL damage? The wording seems a little vague.

Shield Block
"Your shield prevents you from taking an amount of damage up to the shield’s Hardness. You and the shield each take any remaining damage"

If a strike deals more than one TYPE of damage, how do you decide which damage is prevented and which damage is remaining? Granted, this won't matter 99% of the time, but I'm curious.

Thanks!


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1. It changes only the extra +4 damage from Rage.

2. Hardness is basicall resistance against all damage types. So a shield block would reduce each damage type of an incoming attack individually.


Thanks for the reply!

So, putting the two scenarios together (which is what actually prompted the questions), what if I use a wood shield (hardness 3) to shield block an attack from a draconic barbarian that deals 4 bludgeoning plus 4 additional fire damage?

It sounds like you're saying it would block 3 bludgeoning and 3 fire, but then 1 bludgeoning and 1 fire would be dealt to my shield and myself?


Moloch1066 wrote:

Thanks for the reply!

So, putting the two scenarios together (which is what actually prompted the questions), what if I use a wood shield (hardness 3) to shield block an attack from a draconic barbarian that deals 4 bludgeoning plus 4 additional fire damage?

It sounds like you're saying it would block 3 bludgeoning and 3 fire, but then 1 bludgeoning and 1 fire would be dealt to my shield and myself?

That is correct.


Got it, thanks again!


that's not correct.

You only apply the mitigration once.

Even if you say that Shield is providing resistance for each element of a single attack (which most certainly is not what shield block does), you're still bound by:

Quote:
If you have more than one type of resistance that would apply to the same instance of damage, use only the highest applicable resistance value.

But in truth, you don't get resistance with shield block.

You just get

Quote:
Your shield prevents you from taking an amount of damage up to the shield’s Hardness. You and the shield each take any remaining damage, possibly breaking or destroying the shield.

The order of application for damage is:

Quote:

1. Roll the dice indicated by the weapon, unarmed attack, or spell, and apply the modifiers, bonuses, and penalties that apply to the result of the roll.

2. Determine the damage type.
3. Apply the target’s immunities, weaknesses, and resistances to the damage.
4. If any damage remains, reduce the target’s Hit Points by that amount.

Shield block trigger is:

Quote:
Trigger While you have your shield raised, you would take damage from a physical attack.

So, it happens at stage 4, after you calculated what happens from your resistances/immunities/weaknesses and it's applied to the total amount of damage of the attack

Shadow Lodge

Shroudb is correct, but the reason is much simpler than his explanation:

Shield Block <Reaction> (Feat 1) wrote:

General

Source Core Rulebook pg. 266 1.1
Trigger While you have your shield raised, you would take damage from a physical attack.
You snap your shield in place to ward off a blow. Your shield prevents you from taking an amount of damage up to the shield’s Hardness. You and the shield each take any remaining damage, possibly breaking or destroying the shield.

The maximum total damage blocked is the shield's hardness, so using a hardness 3 shield against an attack that does 4 Physical Damage + 4 fire Damage will result in 5 damage to both the shield and its user.


So a Shield's Hardness would apply after resistances, weaknesses, etc., but before assigning damage?

Man, we've been doing that wrong the whole time...


Oh boy, I shouldn't have been so quick to accept an answer! This is more in line with what I originally thought.

shroudb wrote:

The order of application for damage is:

Quote:

1. Roll the dice indicated by the weapon, unarmed attack, or spell, and apply the modifiers, bonuses, and penalties that apply to the result of the roll.

2. Determine the damage type.
3. Apply the target’s immunities, weaknesses, and resistances to the damage.
4. If any damage remains, reduce the target’s Hit Points by that amount.

So back to my original question, it shouldn't matter the damage type that gets prevented because immunities/weaknesses/resistances were already applied BEFORE the damage would trigger Shield Block.

I think I got it now (for real)! And thanks to shroud and Taja for the help!


I was genuinely sure to have gotten this right, but admittedly failed to double check this one time - and got it totally wrong.

That's what I get for making quick post while being distracted by a toddler.

My sincerest apologies.


No harm done Blave, I still appreciate the help!


Glad to hear that, but I'm a bit disappointed with myself, to be honest.

I promise to do better next time :)

Grand Archive

Pathfinder Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
Blave wrote:

Glad to hear that, but I'm a bit disappointed with myself, to be honest.

I promise to do better next time :)

It happens. Having the drive to do better next time is an amazing thing that would make the world so much better if everyone had it. So kudos, and continue being excellent. :3

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