Fey-touched Gnome heritage and cold iron


Rules Discussion


The description for Cold Iron in the CRB states that "Weapons made from Cold Iron are deadly to demons and fey alike", and certainly those creatures with the Fey trait in the Bestiary seem to have weakness to it in varying degrees.

My question is, since "Fey-touched" heritage for gnomes actually gives them the Fey trait, do they gain a corresponding weakness to cold iron. Nothing in the description suggests this, but the description of the material mentioned above is pretty sweeping so it's hard to be certain.


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Glenagalt wrote:

The description for Cold Iron in the CRB states that "Weapons made from Cold Iron are deadly to demons and fey alike", and certainly those creatures with the Fey trait in the Bestiary seem to have weakness to it in varying degrees.

My question is, since "Fey-touched" heritage for gnomes actually gives them the Fey trait, do they gain a corresponding weakness to cold iron. Nothing in the description suggests this, but the description of the material mentioned above is pretty sweeping so it's hard to be certain.

The RAW would be that, no, they don't suffer a weakness to it. Unless an ability says you gain weakness, you don't have one inherently, which means you don't automatically suffer additional damage.

RAI is really what you (or even the GM) want. Your character could have a personal disdain for Cold Iron. They might fear its presence or overvalue its deadliness to them. It can make for some good RP points. Or you can just take it for face value and decide it's not anything more special than typical steel weaponry.


Glenagalt wrote:
The description for Cold Iron in the CRB states that "Weapons made from Cold Iron are deadly to demons and fey alike", and certainly those creatures with the Fey trait in the Bestiary seem to have weakness to it in varying degrees.

Well that really doesn't mean anything as all weapons are deadly or you wouldn't call them weapons. It's like saying 'Stakes made of wood are deadly to vampires': yeah, that's true but a stake to the heart is deadly to most other things too.


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The Facebook Pathfinder 2nd Edition group had a similar discussion today. Adam Best and Jakub Jaraczewski pointed out that the Bioloko, Grodair, Shatterling, Twigjack, and Unicorn are fey without a weakness to cold iron. I added the Leprechaun. We might have missed some others.

The section on Cold Iron does open with the sentence, "Weapons made from cold iron are deadly to demons and fey alike." But "deadly" is already hyperbole, since "Weaknesses cold iron 3" on a 20-hp Naiad or "Weaknesses cold iron 5" on a 110-hp Cat Sith are harmful but far from deadly. I think the sentence in Cold Iron Armor is more accurate, "A creature with weakness to cold iron (such as most demons and fey) that critically fails an unarmed attack against a creature in cold iron armor becomes sickened 1." It says, "most." Cold iron is a typical weakness among demons and fey are resistant. Gnomes and elves lost their weakness to cold iron generations ago. A fey-blooded gnome's gnome and humanoid traits apparently override any weakness inherent in the fey trait, which does not mention this weakness.

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Even Sprites, who are literal Fey, aren't weak to cold iron, unless they take a specific heritage feat very late into the game. Giving PCs a Weakness like that is too much of a downside.


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Cordell Kintner wrote:
Even Sprites, who are literal Fey, aren't weak to cold iron, unless they take a specific heritage feat very late into the game. Giving PCs a Weakness like that is too much of a downside.

A weakness equal to level that scales isn't relatively OP or extremely debilitating. Plenty of feats and options giving much more significant downsides (such as adjusting save result values as one step lower) have been published as standard class options.

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