Or a non-good enemy with weakness to evil, etc.
Well, it's, in essence, an inconsistency. The general rules would dictate that a creature that isn't opposite alignment doesn't take damage, and in most every case, creatures with an alignment-based weakness possess the opposite alignment of the one they have a weakness to.
It would be like an Evil creature having resistance to Evil damage; they can't take Evil damage anyway, meaning it doesn't matter if they have a resistance to it or not. They are essentially already immune, which means resistance doesn't do anything that immunity doesn't already do.
If I was GM, I'd treat this as a "specific trumps general" rule; which is, the creature still takes that damage type because it's affected by a weakness. Now, if that weakness was removed in some manner, then they wouldn't take that damage to begin with. But, something in the statblock would suggest that they should take that type of damage, and that damage should be adjusted based on its weakness; otherwise, it makes no sense for them to have it listed in their statblock if it does nothing.
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If you can't take a certain amount of kind of alignment damage because of your alignment, then weakness does nothing IMO. Weakness is "when you take this kind of damage, take extra of that type" but if you're neutral you can't suffer Good or Evil damage anyway.
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If a creature is specifically written with weakness to good while not normally subject to good damage, I'd consider the "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 happens only when a monster is weak to both a type of physical damage and a given material" part of the weakness rules to apply to that, as being MUCH more logical than "this weakness is there but never does anything."
I'm with Hammerjack, to me this is a specific trumps general type ruling. The creature was specifically given weakness to evil, but has either a neutral or evil alignment. Normally it shouldn't be affected by evil damage because they're not good. But I would make an exception because they were given the weakness specifically.
However! I would suggest that such creatures probably should call this out in their ability descriptions some place.
And would hazard a guess that the person that wrote such a creature forgot that you only take aligned damage if you're the opposite alignment.
Which is why everyone should be a smug true neutral bastard. /s
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From the Angel Eidolon entry
Your eidolon's attacks are hallowed by the celestial realms. Your eidolon's unarmed Strikes deal an extra 1 good damage; as usual, this extra damage harms only evil creatures or those with a weakness to good damage. Additionally, your eidolon can make nonlethal attacks with its unarmed attacks without taking the usual –2 circumstance penalty.[/url]
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So from reading responses, I feel like there are three main answers:
-The weakness is vestigial and does nothing since you can't take good damage.
-Treat it as an exposure weakness, but the creature is still not normally vulnerable to that damage type. So a creature with weakness 5 good hit by divine lance would always take just 5 damage.
-Weakness implies an exception to the normal rules, so creatures with weakness are fully susceptible to that type of damage (plus weakness) instead of immune as normal.
This seems to support the latter but:
From the Angel Eidolon entry
Your eidolon's attacks are hallowed by the celestial realms. Your eidolon's unarmed Strikes deal an extra 1 good damage; as usual, this extra damage harms only evil creatures or those with a weakness to good damage. Additionally, your eidolon can make nonlethal attacks with its unarmed attacks without taking the usual –2 circumstance penalty.[/url]
It implies there's a general rule that creatures with weakness to alignment damage take full alignment damage, but that general rule doesn't actually exist anywhere. Frustrating.
... Sort of reminds me about the debates over splash and persistent damage, where we were inferring how mechanics work from reminder text and examples.
... Sort of reminds me about the debates over splash and persistent damage, where we were inferring how mechanics work from reminder text and examples.
And that reminds me of the debate on how many focus points you end up with when taking various archetype feats that may or may not give you a focus pool and may or may not increase your focus pool by one point - where the example in the book was in contradiction with the printed rules.
A pronounced sense of guilt?
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Good damage is alignment damage, the weakness to good simply never comes up if they are good or neutral aligned. And weakness requires them to take the damage to trigger.
But that is fine.
I could be wrong though and maybe there is an edge case, can you point me to a good damage source that states it bypasses alignment damage restrictions?
If you are worried about weaknesses not being represented for demons turned good or angels turned evil. I personally wouldn't worry about it and muse at the quirk, but you could always just flip the weakness.
Edit: i see the angel example earlier, feels like a super edge case and possibly just an oversight. I am leaning towards it being a mistake.
The creature I've seen usually inspire this question is a neutral constrict animated by evil energy, written with a weakness to good. Not anything about a specific source of good damage.
The critter in question (and a minor AoA spoiler, I suppose)
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If a creature is specifically written with weakness to good while not normally subject to good damage, I'd consider the "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 happens only when a monster is weak to both a type of physical damage and a given material" part of the weakness rules to apply to that, as being MUCH more logical than "this weakness is there but never does anything."
It gets quite tricky in situations like this. Clearly by the rules no damage applies, by unless there is some plot point alignment change possible the author has missed the rules. It is a fairly strong hint the creature should take the damage. For most GMs the easiest path to a balanced encounter here is to allow the damage and the weaknesss to happen.