Swarms, Area Weakness, and the new errata

[Ravingdork]

So if I blast a swam with an area effect that does 2 or more types of damage, does it take its area weakness damage 2 or more times?

[Finoan]

I would have it treated like Holy, where the weakness applies once to the entire attack as a whole.

Similar to Holy, Area is not a damage type.

[Nelzy]

Agree with Finoan, and i dont see anything from the FAQ clarification that would imply or change area weakness. if anything as he said the holy example would make it more clear that it would be once.

[NorrKnekten]

The only thing I can see is how Area-Damage might be read as "damage from an area effect" and thus the weakness is treated the same as with damage types due to the text in weakness.

weakness wrote:

If you have a weakness to a certain type of damage or damage from a certain source, that type of damage is extra effective against you. Whenever you would take that type of damage, increase the damage you take by the value of the weakness.

[Castilliano]

Okay, so if a swarm with the standard Weakness to Area gets hit with an AoE attack that does X Bludgeoning dice and Y Piercing dice of damage, and like usual has Resistance to both (which are often different numbers), how does one calculate the end result?

[shroudb]

Castilliano wrote:

Okay, so if a swarm with the standard Weakness to Area gets hit with an AoE attack that does X Bludgeoning dice and Y Piercing dice of damage, and like usual has Resistance to both (which are often different numbers), how does one calculate the end result?

let's say you roll a 12 bludgeoning and 15 slashing vs a swarm with resist bludgeoning 10, slashing 10, and area weakness 5.

it will do (12-10)+(15-10)+5

---

if on the other hand we had a swarm with: resist physical 7, resist slashing 10, resist piercing 10, area weakness 5

and we did a spell doing 13 slashing, 15 bludgeoning, 11 piercing it would do:

(13-10)+(15-7)+(11-10)+5

since the slashing and the piercing are simultaneously physical, you won't be applying both the physical and the specific resistance but only th highest, but since bludgeoning doesn't have a specific resistance but it's still physical it would apply there.

[Trip.H]

Paizo's errata contradicts itself (and the RaW).
It is special pleading for "whole strike is holy" attacks to not actually impart the trait to the whole thing.

We do have clear precedent that each damage chunk of spells/etc carries the attributes of things like splash, area, etc. Same goes for spells with traits like [wood] and [water]. Every damage chunk in there carries the traits.
That's how immunity to the trait can nullify all the separate chunks and not just one.
If all the chunks didn't carry the spell's trait, you would hit a runtime error trying to figure out which chunk of damage to nullify in a [water] spell that does [cold] & [bludgeoning] damage.

(This is also a good way to see why Paizo's holy example makes no sense. If a foe is immune to holy, post-errata this means that the entire attack is nullified, not just the spirit dmg. And if a foe has holy resistance, which damage chunk do you reduce? you can't select one, and instead break with a runtime error.
Paizo added this specific yikes in the remaster btw. Before that, they were smart enough to be careful with their traits, which is why only the Flaming rune chunk of dmg has the fire trait, etc.
It was weird/dumb of them to have the Holy rune add regular spirit damage, and to make the whole strike holy as two distinct effects. Really should have made that [holy][spirit] dmg.
idk, maybe there's some rule in the sanctified stuff that overrides normal immun/wek/res rules we are all forgetting.)

_________________________

You don't trigger an area weakness when you cast Grease on a swarm, because that's not doing area damage. It's the actual damage chunks of a spell that "are area damage."

And now that Paizo codified that different dmg types are "separate instances," the only follower is that split damage spells multi-pop area weakness.

(And again, their holy example contradicts it, but doesn't actually provide a rule to follow / update the procedure. So it doesn't change the core logic that's still in there. It just makes holy specifically a ?!?error)

[Trip.H]

Lol, and we also have the issue of [sanctified] and [holy] spells.
So we have a directly contradictory problem where a split damage holy spell is going to 2x pop holy weakness, like a split damage water spell would.
(But a split damage Strike doesn't, because Paizo says so)

_______________

Versus some fiend swarm/troop, a Holy Cascade spell is going to trigger 2x weakness for the bludgeoning + spirit split damage, but it'll be up to the creature to see if their area weakness or holy weakness is higher.

With Paizo's contradictory errata, you would otherwise have that holy create it's own non-damage pseudo-instance, and you would instead pop weakness 3 times, rofl. Once for the holy pseudo-instance, and 2x area weakness pops for the split damage.

[Castilliano]

shroudb wrote:

Castilliano wrote:

Okay, so if a swarm with the standard Weakness to Area gets hit with an AoE attack that does X Bludgeoning dice and Y Piercing dice of damage, and like usual has Resistance to both (which are often different numbers), how does one calculate the end result?

let's say you roll a 12 bludgeoning and 15 slashing vs a swarm with resist bludgeoning 10, slashing 10, and area weakness 5.

it will do (12-10)+(15-10)+5

---

if on the other hand we had a swarm with: resist physical 7, resist slashing 10, resist piercing 10, area weakness 5

and we did a spell doing 13 slashing, 15 bludgeoning, 11 piercing it would do:

(13-10)+(15-7)+(11-10)+5

since the slashing and the piercing are simultaneously physical, you won't be applying both the physical and the specific resistance but only th highest, but since bludgeoning doesn't have a specific resistance but it's still physical it would apply there.

So when the damage comes together, Resistance treats it/them separately, yet Weakness treats it/them as one? Doesn't that seem imbalanced? Not that I support triggering Weakness Area multiple times, rather that the single instance of physical damage probably shouldn't trigger two Resistances.

And in that formula, there's room for one of the damage types to not overcome its Resistance, adding a negative number to the mix. Of course one can/should factor that out. Yet how about abilities that combine damage for the sake of Weaknesses & Resistances where hitting with the second weapon could actually lower one's damage? Hmm. Those always seemed written for straightforward attacks vs. one Resistance, but many players prefer diverse weapons.

It's just a mess. And all the multi-proc discussions/shenanigans seem to indicate it's only worsened.

[Theaitetos]

I think Trip.H is right.

Currently every instance of area damage type should trigger the area weakness, e.g. if your AoE spell does bludgeoning damage, fire damage, and spirit damage, then you'd trigger area weakness 3 times.

[The Raven Black]

Theaitetos wrote:

I think Trip.H is right.

Currently every instance of area damage type should trigger the area weakness, e.g. if your AoE spell does bludgeoning damage, fire damage, and spirit damage, then you'd trigger area weakness 3 times.

I think not because of this (bolded mine) :

"Weakness
Source Player Core pg. 408 2.0
If you have a weakness to a certain type of damage or damage from a certain source, that type of damage is extra effective against you."

Area is not a type of damage, so it is a source. And IIRC a single source cannot trigger the same weakness several times. Same for Holy.

[shroudb]

Castilliano wrote:

shroudb wrote:

Castilliano wrote:

Okay, so if a swarm with the standard Weakness to Area gets hit with an AoE attack that does X Bludgeoning dice and Y Piercing dice of damage, and like usual has Resistance to both (which are often different numbers), how does one calculate the end result?

let's say you roll a 12 bludgeoning and 15 slashing vs a swarm with resist bludgeoning 10, slashing 10, and area weakness 5.

it will do (12-10)+(15-10)+5

---

if on the other hand we had a swarm with: resist physical 7, resist slashing 10, resist piercing 10, area weakness 5

and we did a spell doing 13 slashing, 15 bludgeoning, 11 piercing it would do:

(13-10)+(15-7)+(11-10)+5

since the slashing and the piercing are simultaneously physical, you won't be applying both the physical and the specific resistance but only th highest, but since bludgeoning doesn't have a specific resistance but it's still physical it would apply there.

So when the damage comes together, Resistance treats it/them separately, yet Weakness treats it/them as one? Doesn't that seem imbalanced? Not that I support triggering Weakness Area multiple times, rather that the single instance of physical damage probably shouldn't trigger two Resistances.

And in that formula, there's room for one of the damage types to not overcome its Resistance, adding a negative number to the mix. Of course one can/should factor that out. Yet how about abilities that combine damage for the sake of Weaknesses & Resistances where hitting with the second weapon could actually lower one's damage? Hmm. Those always seemed written for straightforward attacks vs. one Resistance, but many players prefer diverse weapons.

It's just a mess. And all the multi-proc discussions/shenanigans seem to indicate it's only worsened.

The rule of thumb, as I see it is kinda simple:

Do you roll diced/add damage? That's an "instance".
Do you simply apply a descriptor to the damage rolled? That's "coming from a Trait".

So, xdy bludgeoning? Instance.

Area Weakness? Just a descriptor added to the damage.

---

Same thing for stuff like cold iron, holy, and etc.

You don't roll "5d6 holy" you roll 5d6 spirit with the holy Trait.

[yellowpete]

What I'm gathering from the new example is that there are different kinds of weaknesses.

First, those to specific damage types that use the 'instance of damage' rules, e.g. weakness to fire, physical, slashing etc. They are limited in the sense that every instance (part of a damage roll) can only trigger one of them – the highest applicable one – but also every instance is evaluated separately, so if your damage roll contains multiple separate instances of the same type, you would trigger a weakness to that type multiple times.

The second kind of weakness is not to damage types, but to other overarching concepts like a Holy or Water trait. They apply basically 'per action/activity' instead of being damage types/instances. Here, it is not clear how to process them when multiple are present, i.e., if my Strike or spell somehow has both the Holy and Water traits against an enemy that is weak to both, do both apply or only the highest? Might also be relevant for the Thaumaturge, who can create a weakness to 'my Strikes' rather than to any particular damage type.

It is not clearly defined which of these two kinds 'Area damage' should belong to as far as I can tell. The name suggests the first to me, where it would be sort of a modifier of damage instances, similar to weapon materials. For the most part it would just mean that the Animist cleans house on swarms even quicker than usual. But, taking it as applying to the overarching action/spell is also not out of the question and makes a bit more sense conceptually imo. So, we're back to "idk pick something for your table" until the next clarification/example ;)

[Unicore]

area damage feels pretty conclusively not like a damage type (as in a descriptor of specific chunks of damage) but like an overall category of damage, because nothing does 5 area damage.

It is really "fire" that is the complicating factor in the whole equation because there is 5 fire damage, and there is damage that could be bludgeoning or some other damage type that could have the fire trait and be grouped together as fire damage. Force now also fits into this situation although very minimally and only really with spells from the dark archive.

THe FAQ example does give us a very specific example that holy and cold iron are definitely categorical and not individual damage types that can be applied discreetly. Area damage is never applied discreetly. It is splash damage, not area damage that feels like it could confusingly straddle doing both a discreet instance of splash damage and overall damage that has the splash trait.

[yellowpete]

Cold iron (and other materials) definitely belong to an individual damage instance, they are modifiers of that instance instead of damage types (see here also, at the bottom).
That's why in the example, we're only comparing the cold iron weakness to the slashing weakness to determine which of them applies (because that is the specific damage instance that the material is modifying), rather than, say, to the cold weakness.

'Area damage' is certainly not a damage type, but could nevertheless be a damage modifier like a material. Or it could be an overarching pseudo-trait of the affecting action that's handled like Holy. The example and the rules are underdetermined on that point.

[Unicore]

Yes, sorry, holy is the category, and doesn’t negate or override cold iron.

Area though is not a damage type or a trait (which is why splash raises more questions for me). The whole instance is either area damage or it isn’t. It doesn’t seem undefined to me in nearly the same way as there is both a splash trait and specific splash damage which also affects the primary target and is reads much more like a separate instance of damage than an area of effect attack that does 2 different kinds of damage.

[Trip.H]

To try to laser in on the 'code error' explanation:

"Separate Instance" still has 2 different definitions at the same time, which is creating the contradictions.
The rules claim that separate instances are wholly separate, so no weak/res considerations of one instance can affect any other instance. That must be true, yet...

Paizo seem to have gotten confused, as immunity works differently, and they may have applied immunity logic for that weak/res line on holy.
Their errata is acting like trait weakness is earlier in the procedure, at the immunity level (it's not).

If a spell deals split acid/fire damage, and someone has fire immunity, you don't nullify the whole spell. The immunity rules are set up to work with multi trait spells that deal split damage.

Quote:

... Often, an effect both has a trait and deals that type of damage (such as a lightning bolt spell). In these cases, 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.

While I hate that this is left in between the lines, this is why elemental damage traits like [fire] behave differently than non-damage traits like [water]. In a split damage spell, only the fire damage carries the fire trait.

But all non-damage type traits and attributes, like [water], area damage, etc, are indeed carried by every separate instance of damage inside the spell.
That's how you get [water][cold] xd6 damage + [water][bldg] xd8 damage

If you lock into the other definition of instance, and the whole spell is a single instance, then that need to trait each chunk is gone, the spell can be [water] while each chunk is just [cold] & [bldg].

(And any time you mix these two trait outcomes, you're breaking logic by using both definitions at the same time.
It's harder to notice the problem when you can swap between the two versions of 'instance'; it's only obvious when you have to use both definitions simultaneously.)

________________

So unless paizo redefines instance of damage once again to mean the single impact / boom / swing, they will have a set of logic pieces that simply cannot fit together.

If you want a homebrew fix to return to previous behavior:
Edit the RaW to define instance as impact / hit / boom, and then edit the weakness rule to say you get to proc each individual weakness once per instance.

If you can think of an exploit/break for that rule, I'd like to hear it, but as far as I can figure this is rock solid with 0 edge cases.
You still have spells like Fire Wisp that do their own thing to proc a 2nd pop of weakness, which imo is good.

The important part is that the line is clear to everyone. All forms of additional damage that are a part of a hit, all that goes into the same instance.
Also important that this forces the trait/custom style weakness ~'instance' to match type weakness, so there's no more edge case breakage.

This means that the more separate weaknesses a foe has, the faster they can take weakness damage overall. It's okay for holy to be a trait that could apply to a whole spell or Strike, or for holy to only apply to one chunk of damage. No rule breakage.

A chunk of holy fire can pop both holy and fire weakness in that single hit, but there's no way to stack things to pop them more than once.

[shroudb]

Trip.H wrote:

strwaman wrote:

holy, area, etc weakness is a category / attribute, not a damage type, so does not get carried by the instances to multi-pop weakness

The issue with that approach is you are adding a pesudo instance adjacent to the damage chunks that will result in even more weakness pops of damage.

A creature weak to fire and holy gets hit with a holy fire spell.
The fresh-eyed GM reads the rules, and thinks to use the "only the highest weakness" rule.

But yall are saying that's wrong. The spell itself is a different pseudo-instance that pops the holy weakness, and then the fire damage pops the fire weakness.

And if that foe is a swarm/troop of fiends with area weakness?

That spell now pops holy, area, and fire weaknesses all with a single chunk of fire damage.

Where the f in that procedure is the "only the highest rule" still functioning?
The only way that rule works is if the damage chunks actually have those traits and the ~category / ~attributes like 'area damage,' etc. That's the point of it being inside the specific chunk, to evaluate "only the highest."

You need that slashing damage to specifically be both [cold iron] and [slashing] type so that the "only the highest" rule can ever trigger.
If that cold iron (or holy) floats off to the side, disconnected from the actual slash + fire + acid damage of the sword, you cannot resolve that code / logic when the "only the highest" exists.
[cold iron] has to be put inside an instance, like the slashing.

___________

So, when they stated instance = each chunk of damage, it broke the code.
If instance matches the whole impact hit, etc, then you no longer need to put the trait / attributes inside the damage chunks;
you need to put the trait and attribute/category triggers at the same level as your 'instances.'

Thank god we're not machines then since we can operate even with flawed "code"!

Again, you aren't rolling 10d6 holy. You are rolling 10d6 fire.

While they actual rules language is indeed extremely clunky, and the example is not perfect, it still showcases what they're going for:

Are you rolling/adding? Instance
Is it just a descriptor? Once per attack.

While it can be annoying for foundry coders, thankfully we aren't machines and we can actually parse what is happening even if it has clunky language.

[Trip.H]

shroudb wrote:

No, you have not 'solved' the error by declaring it to not exist / inventing your own rules to bridge the gap. Your claim also contradicts the errata we just got.

_____________

Holy Cascade does split damage, and is [holy].
The example foe is weak to holy, bldg, and area damage.

In order for the "only the highest" rule to exist, you have to put things like [holy] traits and [spirit] types at the same level.
If the whole attack or spell simply "is holy" on a layer above the damage instance type chunks, you cannot evaluate which is higher.
If holy weakness only pops once, do you "only the highest" the holy against the bldg chunk? or the spirit chunk?
If you insist on holy being at a layer above the instances of damage, you legit cannot make the "highest" comparison anymore.

Because you cannot pick A or B, one outcome is you apply holy to every instance chunk independently, which is why Foundry multi-pops trait weakness like [water] right now.

The only other option is "neither, it pops on its own, unrelated to instances of damage." (which is also how Foundry attempts to handle holy right now)
___________________

In the errata text, it picked that "neither" option for their holy example.
The direct consequence of this is that holy weakness does not "compete" with typed damaged instances like fire or bldg, it pops separate from them. And because it's a separate pseudo-instance pop, a single damage chunk can now pop many weaknesses at once, so long as there is only one 'type' weakness involved.

____________

(and to be clear, this contradicts their own rules elsewhere. The example of cold iron slashing to trigger the "only the highest" rule now breaks, because it's been declared that you suck the trait / attributes out of the typed dmg chunk, and put them at that layer above.
It breaks that "only the highest" and creates special pleading where some attributes, like silver, stay at the chunk level, while others like holy, instead apply to the entire attack and get their own bonus pseudo-instance.
It also means that immunities become whack as hell. It creates edge cases where you can no longer 0 out small chunks of damage, and without a specific chunk to attach to, they instead may nullify the whole attack.)

[Unicore]

Trip.H wrote:

shroudb wrote:

No, you have not 'solved' the error by declaring it to not exist / inventing your own rules to bridge the gap. Your claim also contradicts the errata we just got.

_____________

Holy Cascade does split damage, and is [holy].
The example foe is weak to holy, bldg, and area damage.

In order for the "only the highest" rule to exist, you have to put things like [holy] traits and [spirit] types at the same level.
If the whole attack or spell simply "is holy" on a layer above the damage instance type chunks, you cannot evaluate which is higher.

Doesn’t the example make it clear we are not trying to compare holy to specific types of damage? It would only compare to other categorical traits for the whole attack.

There are some confusing cases in PF2, but holy and area aren’t really that. Personally weakness to holy and area would both go off at my table because they are very different things. I would probably only apply one of the trait based weaknesses though generally, but all of the damage types that actually occurred and are spelled out by the attack/damage source.

[Trip.H]

Unicore wrote:

Each damage chunk can only ever exist as a single *type* of damage. It's not possible for 5d6 to be both fire and cold, that chunk has to be one type or the other.

The "only the highest" rule exists specifically for typed damage to also carry traits and other attributes to multi-trigger weakness, and to then only apply one.

By removing traits & attributes from the damage chunks, the "only the highest" rule can never fire.
Except, you are going to then make non-RaW arbitrary determinations about which attribute / trait is allowed to create it's own separate pseudo-instance, as you want holy to, and which of these are instead tied to specific chunks of damage.
Because [cold iron] [slashing] damage is still right there, and I doubt you're going to be consistent with this trait removal and make that case now pop 2 weaknesses with a single hit, as the [holy] [slashing] would.

[The Raven Black]

The Raven Black wrote:

Theaitetos wrote:

I think Trip.H is right.

Currently every instance of area damage type should trigger the area weakness, e.g. if your AoE spell does bludgeoning damage, fire damage, and spirit damage, then you'd trigger area weakness 3 times.

I think not because of this (bolded mine) :

"Weakness
Source Player Core pg. 408 2.0
If you have a weakness to a certain type of damage or damage from a certain source, that type of damage is extra effective against you."

Area is not a type of damage, so it is a source. And IIRC a single source cannot trigger the same weakness several times. Same for Holy.

Found the last bit, it's about Duplicate effects.

"Duplicate Effects
When you're affected by the same thing multiple times, only one instance applies, using the higher level or rank of the effects, or the newer effect if the two are equal. For example, if you were using mystic armor and then cast it again, you'd still benefit from only one casting of that spell. Casting a spell again on the same target might get you a better duration or effect if it were cast at a higher rank the second time, but otherwise doing so gives you no advantage."

[Trip.H]

The Raven Black wrote:

I don't think duplicate effects applies here. That would determine if the damage-causing thing affects the target or not.

imm/weak/res rules are downstream of that. After you've established effected vs not effected, you crack open the rules to determine how much damage.

And don't forget Paizo's errata had the cold weakness pop twice in one swing, which also defeats the idea of a multiple same-weakness pops somehow being prevented by redundant effects.

We really do just need to change the rules from "only the highest" and into "each weakness once"

_________________

To be clear, I very much think your bolded text supports my OG claim since forever ago, that the RaW was always written where each strike impact / spell boom / etc, was the "single instance of damage," and that dev post from forever ago saying new types add instances was wildly wrong.

All the different 'touched by' / 'instance of damage' / 'from a source' references would then all be the exact same thing, and there would be no problems.
You could leave traits and attributes in the layer above the typed damage chunk without that breaking things.

Right now, the problems all stem from that dev post saying that adding different type damage chunks adds new instances.
It never made sense then, and now that we have errata from Paizo, there's no more hiding from 'types add instances' creating contradictions.

[The Raven Black]

TBH I think the devs know the game and have internal consistency, at least as far as something as central as instance of damage is concerned.

So we should consider the example as right and retro-engineer from it how instances of damage actually work.

[The Raven Black]

What I am left wondering, since Holy and the spirit damage come from the same holy rune, is what if the monster had weakness to both holy and spirit?

[Trip.H]

The Raven Black wrote:

TBH I think the devs know the game and have internal consistency, at least as far as something as central as instance of damage is concerned.

lolno.

I have literally never heard of a single table that played with multiple additional damages of the same type multi popping weaknesses.

Literally none. (though they have to exist somewhere out there)
And I saw another commenter who was trying to poll how folks played those rules being unable to find one who did that either.

I honestly struggle to believe that the same folks writing things like the Alchemist remaster, or this weakness errata, even play their own game.

One of my GMs does 3rd party content conversions between systems, and as much grace as he gives Paizo, he instantly knew that piece of errata was dumb as hell, and it is the first time I know of that he's decided to rule in defiance of clear paizo instruction.

I'll bet my PC's life that if you look at official paizo pf2 streams, they do NOT play with same-type-additional-dmg multi popping weakness as is claimed in the errata.

_________________

But I can easily explain how that errata happened.

If you read the rules, and see that each instance of damage pops weakness separate from the others, and then also skim to see that folks consider new types of damage to add new instances, A + B = this.

The dev post from ages ago had to claim rules that didn't exist in order for each type to only pop once, and so that multiple same-type sources still only popped once total per swing.
(and he even got called out for that way back then)

A theoretical errata-writing dev who didn't actually play those rules out, but instead only read them, is exactly how a mistake like canonizing this multi cold pop situation happens.

Or worse, they asked Foundry devs, and only skimmed their explanation of how the vtt handles it in order still get to that equation of:
[Separate instances pop weakness separately] + [additional damage adds new instances] = [every bonus cold effect pops single cold weakness separately]

______________________

Like, I've personally waived the "Guys, there's no rule to group same type bonuses to prevent multi popping" problem when trying to push for the "single impact is the instance" months ago.
This exact multi popping bad outcome *does* logically follow from the RaW + forum post text problems, but anyone with gameplay experience knows that cannot be allowed to happen.

[Unicore]

The Raven Black wrote:

What I am left wondering, since Holy and the spirit damage come from the same holy rune, is what if the monster had weakness to both holy and spirit?

This too me is why context matters and a strict code reading of the process is less important than a narratively compelling one. At my table, I’d probably treat a rune as a single instance, so only apply one. But a cold iron sword with a holy rune as separate for the holy and the cold iron.

For swarms, area seems like such a separate and inherent weakness do to the way it affects large groups that that is why I’d treat it as one categorical instance that would apply separately to the damage types of the effect doing the damage.

[Ravingdork]

Trip.H wrote:

Each damage chunk can only ever exist as a single *type* of damage. It's not possible for 5d6 to be both fire and cold, that chunk has to be one type or the other.

In practice damage often only has one type, for the sake of simplicity, but because of the trait system, and the ability to apply traits to literally anything, it's VERY possible (at least in theory) to have a single chunk of damage be both "fire" and "cold" and "dragon." Anything triggered by those traits would trigger.

That kind of game mechanic versatility is literally why the developers created the trait system in the first place.

The Raven Black wrote:

Found the last bit, it's about Duplicate effects.

"Duplicate Effects
When you're affected by the same thing multiple times, only one instance applies, using the higher level or rank of the effects, or the newer effect if the two are equal. For example, if you were using mystic armor and then cast it again, you'd still benefit from only one casting of that spell. Casting a spell again on the same target might get you a better duration or effect if it were cast at a higher rank the second time, but otherwise doing so gives you no advantage."

LOL. I recall in older editions of D&D that I would cast redundant spells on myself so that when they got dispelled, nothing appreciably changed for me. Confounded many a GM and enemy wizard.

I'm glad to see it's been addressed in Pathfinder.

The Raven Black wrote:

What I am left wondering, since Holy and the spirit damage come from the same holy rune, is what if the monster had weakness to both holy and spirit?

That sounds like a single source to me. Use the higher of the two weaknesses.

[Errenor]

Ravingdork wrote:

LOL. I recall in older editions of D&D that I would cast redundant spells on myself so that when they got dispelled, nothing appreciably changed for me. Confounded many a GM and enemy wizard.

A bit annoying for a TTRPG, but actually a nice trick if it worked in-world. And not a free trick.

Ravingdork wrote:

The Raven Black wrote:

What I am left wondering, since Holy and the spirit damage come from the same holy rune, is what if the monster had weakness to both holy and spirit?

That sounds like a single source to me. Use the higher of the two weaknesses.

I think if we want to be consistent, then holy is a separate thing from spirit. Using the same procedure as in the example, weakness to holy is for the whole activity, and spirit is a damage type, so it counts for spirit weakness too.

[Trip.H]

Ravingdork wrote:

Trip.H wrote:

Each damage chunk can only ever exist as a single *type* of damage. It's not possible for 5d6 to be both fire and cold, that chunk has to be one type or the other.

In practice damage often only has one type, for the sake of simplicity, but because of the trait system, and the ability to apply traits to literally anything, it's VERY possible (at least in theory) to have a single chunk of damage be both "fire" and "cold" and "dragon." Anything triggered by those traits would trigger.

That kind of game mechanic versatility is literally why the developers created the trait system in the first place.

I mentioned this before, but that's actually not true.

Damage types (and their traits) like [fire] work differently from non-damaging traits like [water].

This case is even addressed in the immunity rules.
A spell dealing split acid/fire damage has both acid and fire traits, but an immunity to just the fire does not nullify the whole thing.
Those two traits would normally apply to the whole spell if they were something like [holy] or [wood], but those [fire] & [acid] traits behave differently because they are damage types.
That acid half of damage is only acid, and lacks the fire trait.

Quote:

... 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.

That also means that a fire resistance is not lowering that acid damage.

Bizarrely, if that fire/acid spell also had the [wood] trait, then hitting a wood immunity would indeed nullify the whole thing.

And, it also means that there is no fire trait attached to the acid damage in any way. As such, I still do not know of a single case where pf2 allows for a chunk of damage to be two types of damage at the same time. If you can find one, let me know.
This is also why special things like [concussive] does NOT alter the damage type into being 2 at once. It's still the listed type, and you instead overrule the normal weak/res considerations; you still never break that "only one type" rule as far as I know.

I'm still saying that damage can only be one type, plus any number of traits or attributes. And while I'm guessing there's a way to get a 'damage type trait' like fire onto another type of damage, that is not the same thing.
You'll still have a chunk of damage that's only [slash], etc. If it also carries a [fire] trait, that is *not* fire type damage.

Basically, type does not equal trait, and because fire is both type and trait, this ends up being way more confusing than it needed to be.
(expect when it does, because Paizo love to use the same word for multiple unrelated functions, ffs. Actions vs Actions, etc.)

[yellowpete]

For the holy+spirit weakness case, they would both trigger with the new clarification – spirit for the damage instance and holy for the successful Strike with that trait.

Btw Trip, the 'only take highest' rule is only given for damage instances. As we now know that a Holy isn't a damage instance or even a modifier or trait of a damage instance but interacts with weakness differently, we don't know if the same rule applies to it or not when other categorical weaknesses are also present.

My best guess is that it's not intended to, because these weaknesses often represent completely separate concepts (Holy, Water, (potentially) Area, Strike, etc...) such that it feels not like double-dipping to trigger multiple. But it's just a guess.

[siegfriedliner]

I kind of hope they stack, if your facing a swarm of straw man with heavy area and fire vunerability it makes sense for a fire cone to be more effective than an ice one.

[The Raven Black]

siegfriedliner wrote:

I kind of hope they stack, if your facing a swarm of straw man with heavy area and fire vunerability it makes sense for a fire cone to be more effective than an ice one.

Indeed.

And the Holy, in the description of the holy rune, indeed applies to the whole Strike (so not a separate instance of damage but something that is checked once for the whole Strike) with the spirit damage coming in addition.

The slashing + cold iron weaknesses in the example do not stack because it is the same instance of damage (the weapon itself) that causes both. It makes sense IMO that being cut with a given metal will not stack the cut weakness and the metal weakness because it is a single wound.

[Unicore]

Is there anything with a weakness to holy and to spirit damage?

[Xenocrat]

The only remaster things I know with a weakness to spirit are a few aeons and the creature -1 "Soulrider" in Monster Core 2. But I'm sure there are others.

It's easy to add spirit weakness to something that already has holy weakness, however.

[Tridus]

Unicore wrote:

Is there anything with a weakness to holy and to spirit damage?

Everything that has Holy weakness if you've got a Shining Symbol.

[Unicore]

Yeah, the Shining Symbol will probably have to be nerfed hard with the new damage rules. I don’t think we can have items granting 5 and then 10 weakness to a damage type to every enemy in a 20ft emanation and have that last for 10 minutes.

There is way too much going on there to pile on to how easy it is to stack on effects that do discrete instances of spirit damage.

[ScooterScoots]

Or maybe we could just fix the root of the problem instead of applying patchwork nerfs, and still having the problem when those either miss something or a genuine in the wild on the statblock damage type weakness is present (not exactly uncommon)

This problem was created by a rule change, it should be fixed by a rule change.

[Trip.H]

yellowpete wrote:

Btw Trip, the 'only take highest' rule is only given for damage instances. As we now know that a Holy isn't a damage instance or even a modifier or trait of a damage instance but interacts with weakness differently, we don't know if the same rule applies to it or not when other categorical weaknesses are also present.

Not really, no.

Only the highest is there specifically for when you multi-trigger weaknesses, and we do know for certain that includes traits.

When you read that paragraph in context, it's there.

Quote:

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. If more than one weakness would apply to the same instance of damage, use only the highest applicable weakness value. This usually only happens when a creature is weak to both a type of damage and a material OR TRAIT, such as a cold iron axe cutting a monster that has weakness to cold iron and slashing.

Like, I've been harping on this for so long it's crazy it keeps bouncing off.

The text directly states that if a swing triggers both a type and a trait weakness, you invoke the only the highest rule.

While the text picked the other "or" to make an example of with cold iron slahsing, I need to shout louder that the text literally spells this out.

If you proc both a slash/spirit/fire/ etc TYPE weakness, and a TRAIT weakness at the same time, you only get the highest of the two weaknesses. There is no way to backflip-interpret to avoid that, lol.

Paizo kinda fked up holy in the remaster. It is a trait, but the writer of the errata does not comprehended the implications of that.
It's not even in the more nebulous 'custom' or 'attribute' thing category like area weakness.

Like a [water] spell/etc, that [holy] trait is being applied to all instances of damage created by the spell, attack, etc. That's how traits work. The errata even explicitly says the whole Strike is holy, not just the base phys, rofl.

And you've got to be careful about claiming holy gets put into some different basket beside the instances. There is no rule for what traits get applied to the whole thing like a [water] spell, and this special pleading holy-on-the-side thing.
That's just vibes.

________

Again, if yall like to play with "each weakness can pop once per impact/swing/spell" then I honestly recommend you kinda shelf Paizo's say on the matter for now and just do that.

It's not worth the headache to untangle rules instruction that genuinely contradicts itself.

[yellowpete]

Trip.H wrote:

If you proc both a slash/spirit/fire/ etc TYPE weakness, and a TRAIT weakness at the same time, you only get the highest of the two weaknesses. T

No, that's not generally true. This behavior is only defined for the case of "If more than one weakness would apply to the same instance of damage", which is more specific than to just say "at the same time". The new example thus lets us know by deduction that the Holy trait is not part of any damage instances.

[Trip.H]

yellowpete wrote:

Trip.H wrote:

If you proc both a slash/spirit/fire/ etc TYPE weakness, and a TRAIT weakness at the same time, you only get the highest of the two weaknesses. T

No, that's not generally true. This behavior is only defined for the case of "If more than one weakness would apply to the same instance of damage", which is more specific than to just say "at the same time". The new example thus lets us know by deduction that the Holy trait is not part of any damage instances.

That idea is literally a thing Foundry made up to stop fiends from exploding via holy weakness after the remaster. It was their asspull/cheat to make the game playable. Good used to be a damage type, so didn't trigger mutli pop problems. It turning into a trait changed that.

There is 0 place in the text where a trait "not instance" instance is allocated it's own special side bucket like that.

Yall are forgetting that this has to work for resistances too. If you resist the water trait, you cannot isolate that in a special side bucket, because there's no damage to resist. You have to put things like traits with damage chunks for the Imm/Weak/Res rules to function.

Quote:

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. If more than one weakness would apply to the same instance of damage, use only the highest applicable weakness value. This usually only happens when a creature is weak to both a type of damage and a material or trait, such as a cold iron axe cutting a monster that has weakness to cold iron and slashing.

The text shows that damage types will be happening at the same layer / in the same place as when traits and customs like area damage will happen.

If you get hit with a cold water spell, and have weakness to both, what happens? You hit the only the highest rule, and pop one weakness.

This requires the water trait be applied with the typed cold damage.

If it did as the errata's holy-on-the-side, then you would take 2 pops of weakness when getting hit with that cold water spell. We already know that's not how it works guys.

If it did add another instance on the side to pop both, then you could literally never trigger that only the highest for type + trait weakness.
All those top level traits would get their own special bucket to pop weakness without belonging to a damage chunk.

[Rathizard]

So I have a theory that focuses on an implication from the explanation of the Holy Damage:

"The Holy Trait adds 15 damage from Weakness to Holy; the Trait applies to the whole Strike, and happens only once."

Since this is (likely) from the Holy rune, the Strike itself gains the Holy Trait. This leads me to believe that, effectively, an instance of damage can be made if several instances of damage.

In the errata example you have the Strike instance with the Holy trait. That is then made of of Cold Iron Slashing, Fire, Spirit, Cold, and Cold. So you handle Material/Type first, add it together, then apply Traits at the end.

This would then result in triggering the damage for the dice as expected, then you add Holy or Personal Antithesis at the end.

This would also work for Resistances. You reduce for Material and Types, then for Traits. With the Water Spell that does Cold and Bludgeoning, you would roll damage, apply Cold and Bludgeoning Weak/Resist, combine that then apply changes to the Water Trait Weak Resist. The one edge case/concern would be if you have a Holy Strike against a Holy Immune target, then the strike would do nothing (which would be expected for a Water Immunity with a Water spell).

[yellowpete]

The rules aren't asking you to do multiple mutually exclusive things with resistance against non-damage-modifying traits either. It's left open how to handle it, with a fairly obvious solution available (reduce the total damage by 15 instead of increasing it by that much if the Terotricus is resistant to Holy instead of weak).

Quote:

If it did as the errata's holy-on-the-side, then you would take 2 pops of weakness when getting hit with that cold water spell. We already know that's not how it works guys.

That is in fact how it works according to the new clarification. If you have official information also saying the opposite, now's the time to quote it in order to show the contradiction.

[The Raven Black]

Except that the official errata's example explicitly states that such is not the case for Holy.

And it is likely the right way to do things considering the collective review process that happens before an errata is issued.

[yellowpete]

Trip.H wrote:

Quote:

If more than one weakness would apply to the same instance of damage, use only the highest applicable weakness value. This usually only happens when a creature is weak to both a type of damage and a material or trait, such as a cold iron axe cutting a monster that has weakness to cold iron and slashing.

There is no sane world in which a monotype damage spell pops two weaknesseses instead of only the highest.

And again, this rule only exists for instances of damage. Literally the sentence before this, water is called out as something that usually doesn't deal damage. It's simply exposure that triggers such a weakness. My extrapolation from the new example here is that this passage likewise refers to Holy (as that is now shown also not to belong to any damage instance). But, let's say this extrapolation is unreasonable – then we are back to not knowing exactly (for the water/cold case), not a contradiction.

As a side note, I also don't find the outcome insane at all. If a creature is given both of these weaknesses explicitly, I think it's totally fictionally appropriate for it to be affected more by a spell that combines both of those aspects than by another one which is either only cold or only water. Cold does not inherently mean ice.