Hey all, I'm wondering how the spell Moonlight Beam interacts with creatures who are immune to cold and weak to sliver. Velstracs specifically have this weird interaction with the spell in addition to being Fiends. Spell text is:
"You unleash a holy beam of freezing moonlight. Make a ranged spell attack. The ray deals 5d6 cold damage; if the target is a fiend or undead, you deal an extra 5d6 good damage. Moonlight ray's cold damage is silver damage for the purposes of weaknesses, resistances, and the like."
The order of operations for Resistance, Wrakness and Immunity is detailed on CRB page 450.
Immunity applies first, then weakness, then resistance. In this case, that means that immunity reduces the damage to 0, and there's nothing left to trigger weakness.
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Moonbeam and Moonlight Ray both have a similar override.
damage is silver damage for the purposes of weaknesses, resistances, and the like.
And yes, I see that as an override - but only for calculating resistances, weaknesses, and immunities. So the Moonlight Ray does technically still deal cold damage, but it interacts with resistances and such as though it is silver damage instead.
So a Velstrac Interlocutor has immunity to cold, weakness 15 to good and silver, and regeneration deactivated by good and silver.
Moonbeam deals fire damage - which normally wouldn't interact at all and would just deal normal damage. But since for the interactions it is considered silver damage, it would deactivate the regeneration and trigger the weakness 15 to silver.
Moonlight Ray deals cold damage - which normally would be ignored because of the immunity. It also deals Good damage since the target is a Fiend. But the cold damage is considered silver damage for the interactions. So both the good damage and the silver damage would deactivate the regeneration. The cold immunity would be bypassed because the cold damage is considered silver instead. And both the cold(silver) damage and the Good damage would trigger the weakness - since it is both weakness 15 you can pick either since they have the same value. Weaknesses don't stack if the damage is caused by the same 'instance of damage'.
Moonlight Ray is apparently a vicious spell to hit a Velstrac with.
It does work the other way too though. A creature with weakness 10 to cold damage that gets hit by Moonlight Ray wouldn't have the weakness triggered because it is considered silver damage for purposes of interacting with weakness - not cold damage.
In this case, that means that immunity reduces the damage to 0, and there's nothing left to trigger weakness.
Though I suppose it depends on how you are defining 'and the like' in the override:
Moonlight ray's cold damage is silver damage for the purposes of weaknesses, resistances, and the like.
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The rules ares
The immunity applies first reducing the cold/silver damage to zero. Because it is zero damage the subsequent weakness is not activated.
The additional damage applies separately and is of another type, so it still works 5d6 good damage that only affects evil targets of course.
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If 'immunity' is also being interacted with in the spell's override of damage type, then it wouldn't trigger the cold immunity since it is considered silver damage instead. So the damage wouldn't be reduced to 0.
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If 'immunity' is also being interacted with in the spell's override of damage type, then it wouldn't trigger the cold immunity since it is considered silver damage instead. So the damage wouldn't be reduced to 0.
I'd sort of question why it would bother calling it cold damage at all then if it is effectively just silver damage.
Worth keeping in mind that normally silver gets applied to a specific damage type. Usually this is a physical one: a silver rapier deals silver piercing damage, but it is still piercing damage.
Another thing to keep in mind is that designers have pointed out how the new weakness mechanics are meant to emulate how cold iron and silver will burn certain monsters on contact. So by RAW, the immunity gets applied first and the weakness can't be triggered, much like if you stabbed a creature immune to physical damage the material of the weapon wouldn't matter.
But I think there's a reasonable middleground within the spirit of rhe rules. The velstrac doesn't take cold damage but the silver is still enfusing it's body, so you apply the silver weakness.
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If 'immunity' is also being interacted with in the spell's override of damage type, then it wouldn't trigger the cold immunity since it is considered silver damage instead. So the damage wouldn't be reduced to 0.
There's no override happening. It is BOTH Cold and Silver, in the same way that a silver warhammer is BOTH Bludgeoning and Silver. The idea that being Silver would mean it stops also being Cold gas no basis.
If 'immunity' is also being interacted with in the spell's override of damage type, then it wouldn't trigger the cold immunity since it is considered silver damage instead. So the damage wouldn't be reduced to 0.
One damage type does not override another.
Multiple damage types can all co exist.So this line of logic is only relevant to this situation if you feel that silver is explicitly replacing the cold damage type, and I don't see that it is doing that.
If 'immunity' is also being interacted with in the spell's override of damage type, then it wouldn't trigger the cold immunity since it is considered silver damage instead. So the damage wouldn't be reduced to 0.I'd sort of question why it would bother calling it cold damage at all then if it is effectively just silver damage.
Silver damage isn't actually a damage type. It is a Precious Material type.
While not their own damage category, precious materials can modify damage to penetrate a creature's resistances or take advantage of its weaknesses. For instance, silver weapons are particularly effective against lycanthropes and bypass the resistances to physical damage that most devils have.
Worth keeping in mind that normally silver gets applied to a specific damage type. Usually this is a physical one: a silver rapier deals silver piercing damage, but it is still piercing damage.
Another thing to keep in mind is that designers have pointed out how the new weakness mechanics are meant to emulate how cold iron and silver will burn certain monsters on contact. So by RAW, the immunity gets applied first and the weakness can't be triggered, much like if you stabbed a creature immune to physical damage the material of the weapon wouldn't matter.
But I think there's a reasonable middleground within the spirit of rhe rules. The velstrac doesn't take cold damage but the silver is still enfusing it's body, so you apply the silver weakness.
Hmm... I haven't seen this developer ruling. Either that or I have forgotten about it.
But yes, I would definitely run these spells the same way that I would run damage from a weapon with a precious material trait.
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If 'immunity' is also being interacted with in the spell's override of damage type, then it wouldn't trigger the cold immunity since it is considered silver damage instead. So the damage wouldn't be reduced to 0.I'd sort of question why it would bother calling it cold damage at all then if it is effectively just silver damage.Silver damage isn't actually a damage type. It is a Precious Material type.
Technically silver is a loosely defined extra property of damage, it is probably not a damage type. Silver Damage is NOT a Precious Material type, Silver is and it has a different meaning in that context.
But the rules commonly refer to silver damage, in a similar fashion to all the damage types. Example magical damage is also not really a damage type listed here. Even if you do view these as damage types it is also abundantly clear that damage types are not exclusive. Its a bit vague and not well defined. This is how natural english works.
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Just to summarize, the actual question is: Should "Moonlight ray's cold damage is silver damage for the purposes of weaknesses, resistances, and the like." be read
as "treated as silver only" - or -
as "also treated as silver"?
A mere five more text characters (including the space) would have made this so much clearer...
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While I sort of agree that would be clearer, it's worth pointing out that "only silver damage" isn't a concept that really exists in PF2.
And an ability dealing one type of damage but being treated as another type entirely for essentially all purposes would kind of just be a long winded way of saying it's the other damage type.
Which makes the first interpretation all seem highly unlikely.
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Just to summarize, the actual question is: Should "Moonlight ray's cold damage is silver damage for the purposes of weaknesses, resistances, and the like." be read
as "treated as silver only" - or -
as "also treated as silver"?A mere five more text characters (including the space) would have made this so much clearer...
Basically, yes.
Though for my reading - silver only - it is only silver damage for purposes of weakness, resistance, and anything deemed related to those. Probably immunities and maybe golem spell interactions.
For other things, it would still be dealing its normal damage type. So Moonbeam is still dealing fire damage and would be affected by Burn It! for example.
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Just to summarize, the actual question is: Should "Moonlight ray's cold damage is silver damage for the purposes of weaknesses, resistances, and the like." be read
as "treated as silver only" - or -
as "also treated as silver"?A mere five more text characters (including the space) would have made this so much clearer...
Basically, yes.
Though for my reading - silver only - it is only silver damage for purposes of weakness, resistance, and anything deemed related to those. Probably immunities and maybe golem spell interactions.
For other things, it would still be dealing its normal damage type. So Moonbeam is still dealing fire damage and would be affected by Burn It! for example.
But your reading is flat wrong.
Why? Because multiple properties do exist for damage types - example a holy silver sword. Here the damage is good and silver and magical and slashing. So in the Moonlight case while the damage can be silver, it never stops being cold. It would have to explicitly remove cold to do that - and it does not.
There is no "instead", stop inserting it as you read.
But your reading is flat wrong.
Why? Because multiple properties do exist for damage types - example a holy silver sword. Here the damage is good and silver and magical and slashing. So in the Moonlight case while the damage can be silver, it never stops being cold.
The logic is fairly convincing.
Though the damage is still silver also. So even with the immunity to cold damage reducing the damage to 0, the silver component would still trigger the weakness and would disable the regeneration.
But your reading is flat wrong.
Why? Because multiple properties do exist for damage types - example a holy silver sword. Here the damage is good and silver and magical and slashing. So in the Moonlight case while the damage can be silver, it never stops being cold.
The logic is fairly convincing.
Though the damage is still silver also. So even with the immunity to cold damage reducing the damage to 0, the silver component would still trigger the weakness and would disable the regeneration.
Thats not how I read it. It says Whenever you would take that type of damage, increase the damage you take by the value of the weakness. For instance, if you are dealt 2d6 fire damage and have weakness 5 to fire, you take 2d6+5 fire damage.
If you have a weakness to something that doesn't normally deal damage, such as water, you take damage equal to the weakness value when touched or affected by it.
It does normally do damage, but that damage is reduced to zero, so the weakness does no fire at all.
There is one more case to consider. If you are immune to an effect, then you are immune to the whole power including the damage and non damage parts of it.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. You can still be targeted by an ability that includes an effect or condition you are immune to; you just don't apply that particular effect or condition. Example Moonbeam
If you were immune to Magic or Fire or Light, you would take zero damage and could not be dazzled by it. If you were immune just to Silver you would take zero damage, but could still be dazzled by it.
All done. However the writer couldn't help themself and added another sentence:
the immunity applies to the effect corresponding to the trait, not just the damage. 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.
which on the face of it is a direct contradiction. But gives the GM a choice to make example Linnorm Sting there seems to be a clear separation between the poison effect and the fire effect. So A GM could reasonably apply the fire damage to a creature if they were immune to poison.
But that brings us back to Moonligh Ray. In my mind the good damage is separate enough, so it could apply even if the target was immune to fire or light. The whole thing is magical so immunity to magic would be total protection.
Is that complex enough for you?
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Way I read it :
Immunity (part of "and the like" IMO) = Are you cold damage ?
Spell = No. I am silver damage.
Immunity = OK, you can apply, sorry for the inconvenience.Weakness = Are you silver damage ?
Spell = Yes, I am.
Weakness = Ouch.
You are making the same mistake I pointed out twice above. Its cold and silver damage. The cold damage type is not lost, unless its explicitly says that, and it doesn't.
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Way I read it :
Immunity (part of "and the like" IMO) = Are you cold damage ?
Spell =No. I am silver damage.
For this the answer is yes, it is still cold damage. If there is no cold damage to the creature, there is nothing to be considered silver damage.
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For this the answer is yes, it is still cold damage. If there is no cold damage to the creature, there is nothing to be considered silver damage.Way I read it :
Immunity (part of "and the like" IMO) = Are you cold damage ?
Spell =No. I am silver damage.
I read Cold damage is silver damage for the purpose of xxx as a replacement of the damage trait ( not cold anymore, only silver), not as an additional trait (silver as well as cold).
Magical is a trait not a damage type
Yeah but a lot of things here are not a damage type so what is your point? Magical is a property assigned to damage. Just like silver is. It behaves a lot like a damage type which is why sometimes people refer to is as such as I did above. But if you look at the list of damage types yes magic is not technically a damage type or a damage category. Precious materials are not a damage type or a damage category either but both modify damage. So do things like "wood" which affects some resistance scenarios and its not even a precious material.
I'm not aware of anything that deals damage with 2 damage types (except Precious Materials and Precision) like for example slashing and cold.
Precious materials are not a damage type, nor is magic. But the rules refer to silver damage and magical damage in the same way they say good damage, slashing damage, fire damage. The point is damage can be silver and magical and slashing all at once. A simple +1 silver sword does that.
the attack deals silver cold damage.
yes that is true.
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You are making the same mistake I pointed out twice above. Its cold and silver damage. The cold damage type is not lost, unless its explicitly says that, and it doesn't.Way I read it :
Immunity (part of "and the like" IMO) = Are you cold damage ?
Spell = No. I am silver damage.
Immunity = OK, you can apply, sorry for the inconvenience.Weakness = Are you silver damage ?
Spell = Yes, I am.
Weakness = Ouch.
In my reading it does, because I read Cold damage is silver damage for the purpose of xxx as an explicit change from cold to silver. So, not cold anymore.
Thats not how I read it. It says Whenever you would take that type of damage, increase the damage you take by the value of the weakness. For instance, if you are dealt 2d6 fire damage and have weakness 5 to fire, you take 2d6+5 fire damage.
If you have a weakness to something that doesn't normally deal damage, such as water, you take damage equal to the weakness value when touched or affected by it.
It does normally do damage, but that damage is reduced to zero, so the weakness does no fire at all.
Dealing cold damage to something that is immune to cold damage normally doesn't deal damage.
normally = typically, by default, or without any other circumstances in play.
The spell might (and does) normally deal damage to other creatures, but not that one. For that creature, the spell doesn't normally deal damage. So the weakness should trigger.
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In my reading it does, because I read Cold damage is silver damage for the purpose of xxx as an explicit change from cold to silver. So, not cold anymore.You are making the same mistake I pointed out twice above. Its cold and silver damage. The cold damage type is not lost, unless its explicitly says that, and it doesn't.Way I read it :
Immunity (part of "and the like" IMO) = Are you cold damage ?
Spell = No. I am silver damage.
Immunity = OK, you can apply, sorry for the inconvenience.Weakness = Are you silver damage ?
Spell = Yes, I am.
Weakness = Ouch.
This reading doesn't make sense, though. Cold is a damage type. Silver is not a damage type. Silver being more like a trait that goes with a damage type is common. Why would it not be the same here?
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Yeah, if it were possible to completely replace the cold damage with silver, why would you need to write it that way? Just say it does silver damage.
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The order of operations for Resistance, Wrakness and Immunity is detailed on CRB page 450.
Immunity applies first, then weakness, then resistance. In this case, that means that immunity reduces the damage to 0, and there's nothing left to trigger weakness.
where do you find the spell Moonlight Ray on the boons
The spell is from an Adventure Path - so those are normally not available.
My understanding of it is that you have to first play Strength of Thousands in a Society game. Then you can purchase the boons from the Strength of Thousands AP in "chronicle boons". Probably "Strength of Thousands: Secrets of the Temple-City - Eclipse Spells" though you will want to verify that before purchasing it. Don't just take my word for it.