Hi everyone,
Just want to make sure I understand this before I embarrass myself. Please see the examples below, all of which deal with attacking a Shadow Demon (Invidiak). Below are its weaknesses and resistances:
Weaknesses: Cold Iron 5, Good 5
Resistances: All 5 (except force, ghost touch, or positive; double resistance vs. non-magical)
EXAMPLE 1: Cold Iron Longsword: rolls 9 points of slashing damage. +5 due to Cold Iron weakness = 14. -10 for non-magical. Final damage = 4.
EXAMPLE 2: +1 Cold Iron Longsword: rolls 9 points of slashing damage. +5 due to Cold Iron weakness = 14. -5 for resist all. Final damage = 9.
EXAMPLE 3: +1 Shock Cold Iron Longsword: rolls 9 points of slashing damage. +5 due to Cold Iron Weakness (applies to the physical/slashing damage). -5 for resistance to slashing. Total Physical Damage = 9. Rolls 6 points of electricity damage. -5 for resistance to electricity. Final Electricity Damage = 1. 9 Physical Damage + 1 Electricity Damage = 10 final damage.
EXAMPLE 4: +2 Striking Ghost Touch Shock Longsword: rolls 13 points of slashing damage. No slashing resistance thanks to Ghost Touch. Rolls 4 points of electricity damage. No electricity resistance thanks to Ghost Touch. Final damage = 17.
Examples 3 and 4 are the ones that I'm a bit unsure about. Especially with not applying resistance to the electricity damage in example 4. Not sure if Ghost Touch applies to both instances of damage or just the physical.
Thanks!
You're correct about example 3. Example 4 is how I'd rule it but I'm less sure the rules work for it. But nothing in the ghost touch rune description or the incorporeal stat block says ghost touch is limited to physical damage. If you're weapon is ghost touch, I'd think the whole thing is ghost touch.
I agree with Captain Morgan, both in the final conclusion and that example 4 is the most debatable. The way I see it a rune is a part of the weapon, but I can understand someone saying that it's separate.
I agree as well. The important catch is applying weakness before resistance.
For example 4, there is just not enough detail in the text of Ghost Touch or the Immunity granted by creature to be totally sure.
If you look back into the Incorporeal trait it says They usually have resistance against all damage (except force damage and damage from Strikes with the ghost touch property rune). Which supports that all the damage from the Strike, including the Shock rune damage, benefits from Ghost Touch.
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Nope
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Oh, more about Shadow Demons, who for some reason have resistance to the thing they have weakness to, unlike all these other incorporeal creatures:
Gliminal
Ioton
Seething Spirit
And while this isn't weak to Cold Iron, it has an exemption for it in its stat block:
Spectral Devil
The take away: Should the Shadow Demon have an exemption for Good aligned and Cold Iron damage? Probably. Otherwise what's the point in using good damage at all? I can understand Cold Iron being able to overcome its incorporeal resistance without ghost touch to be intended, but having that resistance to Good damage just makes it useless compared to other Demons. Also, positive damage can't even affect it, so why is that listed in the exemption? If I had the ability to edit this stat block, I would definitely replace Positive with Good damage in the exemptions at least.
Curious...
Does a spell, delivered with a spellstrike with a ghost touch weapon also ignore said resistance?
Actually, there's some evidence that suggests it does. There's a new familiar ability that lets you apply ghost touch to spells delivered through the familiarin Book of the Dead. If a spell can be ghost touch, and a strike can be ghost touch, I don't see why a spell strike can't be ghost touch.
Actually, there's some evidence that suggests it does. There's a new familiar ability that lets you apply ghost touch to spells delivered through the familiarin Book of the Dead. If a spell can be ghost touch, and a strike can be ghost touch, I don't see why a spell strike can't be ghost touch.Curious...
Does a spell, delivered with a spellstrike with a ghost touch weapon also ignore said resistance?
Yes Ghost Touch is a valid thing to apply to a spell. It is just that the most specific thing we have on Ghost Touch is a reference in Incoporeal that says Strike. SpellStrike contains a Strike but it also clear the the spells damage and the weapons damage are resolved separately. Damage from two sources get resolved separately. There is just nothing to say otherwise. So the default interpretation has to be no. But its not unreasonable thing for a GM to say that that was an unintended gap and rule the other way. Totally up to them.
Damage from two sources get resolved separately.Where does it say that?
Isn't that just how the game works?
Abilities that let you combine damage are called out as such explicitly.
Damage from two sources get resolved separately.Where does it say that?
Implicitly here Damage rules in two different ways
1) Two different damage source is two different rolls. The standard precedure gives options for different roll types but never adds them together nor does it talk about multiple damage rolls2) Different sources are often different types. The rules only talk about one type of damage until you get into resistance.
What other choice to you have but to run through this procedure again with every different damage roll and damage type?
In general this whole section ignores additional damage.
The text sort of handles each case, but is just missing a few overall coordination sentences to bring it all together.
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Let's say you hit a Ghost with a +2 striking ghost touch flaming longsword (with a +4 str mod). How would you resolve the damage?
Let's say you hit a Ghost with a +2 striking ghost touch flaming longsword (with a +4 str mod). How would you resolve the damage?
2d8
1d6
Please refer to example 4.
Interesting.
How about adding a produce flame to that via spell strike? How does that interact with the flaming rune damage?
Now you are hitting another rules gap.
Spell Strike has rules that say they are resolved differently using your attack roll result to determine the effects of both the Strike and the spell+2 Striking ghost touch flaming long sword
The physical damage is +Strength + Weapon Specialization + 2d8 Striking damage of type slashing, with the further damage properties of physical, ghost touch and magical.
The flaming rune is +1d6 fire damage type, with further properties of magical, energy and maybe ghost touch
The produce flame is maybe 5d4 +Int damage of type fire, with further properties of magical, energy and maybe ghost touch
The resistance rules are clear enough that you apply resistance to each type and each instance of damage separately. I think that the spell and the strike are separate instances here.
Probably the additional damage of the flaming rune is a separate instance to the physical damage - its not clear. But it is a different type.
Note that the weapon specialization is also called out as additional damage, but is specificaly set to the same type as the weapon.
So I think there are 3 instances of damage here that could all separately go through resistance, like say a Champions reaction.
So theoretically there are 3 lots of damage