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While I agree with your general premise about some badly written rules, I think some of your specific examples are off.
A creature will say in its stat block if it's bleed immune, a number of monsters do either explicitly or indirectly (by being nonliving). The rules then further extend the GM's permission to essentially rule any other creature immune to bleed damage based on their own judgement about whether the creature needs blood or something blood adjacent.
IMO, a bad rule, because it leaves the whole thing exceptionally nebulous, but a lot of it is still straight forward (insofar as that you have to hope you have a sufficiently generous GM).
Heck, are vampires "alive"?
Vampires are undead, so no. This is straight forward.
... Later in the post you ask about whether someone making a Strike would need to roll to-hit against an iron golem and I can't even begin to understand why that's a question. Yeah, if you're trying to Strike a golem you need to roll, because that's how strikes work.
I only point these out because I think there are some good points here, but we need to be able to separate rules that are bad (arbitrary bleed immunity), rules that unpleasing to certain people but straight forward (magical and nonmagical fire working differently on a golem) and rules that are genuinely ambiguous and unclear (how spell accuracy is supposed to interact with golem weaknesses).
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Pathfinder 2nd Edition has one of the most rigorous set of rules of any roleplaying game. Paizo built the system from the ground up to ensure that major rules had no conflicts and that ordinary play had no gaps. The immunity to bleed is clearly defined. A creature immune to bleed takes no damage from bleed damage. The Immunity rules state clearly and simply, "When you have immunity to a specific type of damage, you ignore all damage of that type." Since bleed does nothing besides dealing bleed damage, that is all we heed to know figure out what immunity to bleed does.
Immunity to magic, however, is a mess, because the biggest instance of it is golem antimagic, which loads a bunch of other rules atop the immunity to magic and forces us to distinguish between a weapon and its weapon runes. Many people are begging for a rewrite of golem antimagic in Pathfinder Remastered, and we will probably get one, since golem antimagic is Dungeons & Dragons material rather than folklore.
The Will-o’-Wisp, on the other hand, has, "Magic Immunity A will-o’-wisp is immune to all spells except faerie fire, glitterdust, magic missile, and maze." Thus, we read farther into the Immunity rules about being immune to traits, conditions, and effects. If a will-o'-wisp is targetted or caught in a spell (beside the exceptions), then it is not affected by the spell. That is simple, too.
So I've had a lot of frustrations with P2e when it comes to the rules. Some things are just unclear but with careful reading you can figure out.
I had trouble with students engaging in uncareful reading when I was a mathematics professor, but that was a college class that was supposed to be hard. In contrast, earning all the Pathfinder game rules is a lengthy and tedious task for a game that is supposed to provide more fun than tedium. And Paizo, alas, wrote most of their Core rulebook to read like a precise reference book rather than an easy introduction. I suspect that that was an effort to be especially clear about the rules.
Roleplaying games indulge in mental shortcuts to make the rules more intuitive. We know what holding and swinging a sword is like in movies and real life, so we start with that cinematic image and map that image onto the rules for a Strike action. But sometimes the mental image and the written rules are in conflict. For example, yesterday The Only Sheet asked about Throwing a Dagger. Daggers can do piercing or slashing damage, but his visualization of knife (and dagger) throwing had the knife thrown straight to pierce the target. Could a thrown dagger still deal slashing damage instead? And the answer is yes, because the rules as written override the details of the visualization.
Visualization is necessary for running a roleplaying game smoothly and dramatically, but its role in the game gets into the three-fold Game-Drama-Simulation and Gamism-Narrativism-Simulation theories. I am going to try to dodge the philosophical debate by claiming that Pathfinder 2nd Edition is built upon a rigorous gamist foundation designed to create narrative drama in a simple simulation of a fantasy world. The game rules come first.
Thus, if a walking tree does not explicitly state that it is immune to bleed, then stabbing for bleed damage (critical specialization of the knife weapon group) hard enough to get past its Resistance piercing 5 will make it bleed. It does not matter that it is bleeding sap instead of blood, the tree will be bleeding. I have declared that an electrical elemental bled sparks after it took bleed damage.
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1. Strikes with weapons with Runes don't have the Magical trait.
2. The damage is Magical for the sake of Weaknesses and Resistances.
3. Golems aren't immune to Magical damage, they are immune to Magical abilities.
Therefore, Golems are not immune to damage from weapons with Runes on them, as the runes modify the damage a Strike does, not the Strike action itself.
Yes, it would be better if it was clearer, however do you really think the developers intended for Golems to be immune to almost everything except standard weapons with a single damage die?
I have declared that an electrical elemental bled sparks after it took bleed damage.You should double check that, as elementals are typically explicitly immune to bleed (along with paralyzed, poison, sleep).
Oops, Cordell Kintner is right. The Geomantic Elemental had HP 300; Immunities bleed, death effects, disease, doomed, drained, fatigued, healing, mental, necromancy, nonlethal attacks, paralyzed, poisoned, sickened, unconscious; Resistances physical 10, cold 20, electricity 20; Weaknesses sonic 20. I had forgotten the immunity to bleed during the combat. I should have tried to memorize the list.
Embarrassingly, the Geomantic Elemental is homebrew, but I copied the list of immunities off of another elemental.
Doesn't this thread already exist?
*searches forums*
Frustrated with Square Concepts and Round Rules
Not quite the same name, but pretty close.
Also, there is the Remaster project going on currently. And we should be having a 2 per year errata cycle moving forward.
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Doesn't this thread already exist?
*searches forums*
Frustrated with Square Concepts and Round Rules
Not quite the same name, but pretty close.
No that is nothing like this.
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So I've had a lot of frustrations with P2e when it comes to the rules. Some things are just unclear but with careful reading you can figure out. But other things are debatable. And still others are actively unclear to everyone.
Yes 100% agree. There are some concepts that are completely unclear after 4 years and many requests to fix.
Yet we don't get rule clarifications. And it's not at all clear that Paizo has tried to identify all these and fix them in the next edition.
They produce a lot of updates at https://paizo.com/pathfinder/faq
But that is probably worse as they have butchered a couple of rules that were clear claiming they weren't clear (flanking at range 0 with a ranged weapon) and tried to fix others (undead healing) and missed to mark totally. Others like Battle forms they completely ignore.
A minor examples:
Immunity to Bleed damage is a special ability so Contructs get that immunity. Almost no one else does. The only case that is arguable is Poppets they need to be errated to make it clear they don't have it.
As other people have said it is a style of the rules. Treat everything as if it was a normal humanoid except where it says otherwise. Yes the door is open for the GM to make arbitrary calls on whether a creature has blood or a blood analogue or not. Most don't do that.I'm more that happy to say that RAI for golem immunities might be messed up, but the rules are clear, if the right effect targets a golem (which could just be an area of effect) it doesn't get a save or a to hit roll - it just takes the damage. I don't really have any problems with golems.
Here is my list of rules problems
Very good list of rules problems Gortle!
Worth noting that it seems quite unlikely for golem antimagic to survive the OGL purge. We might get a new creature with a similar immunity, which will perhaps he written more clearly, but it seems unlikely golems will get errata given how D&D they are.
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The traits on a Creature's attacks are weapon traits, not traits the Strike gains. Your +1 Striking Rapier has the (Deadly d8, Disarm, Finesse, Magical) traits, but the Strike doesn't have those same traits. The same goes for Creature attacks. An Adult Black Dragon's Jaws strike has the (acid, magical, reach 10 feet) traits, but the Strike it makes to use it doesn't.
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1. Strikes with weapons with Runes don't have the Magical trait.
2. The damage is Magical for the sake of Weaknesses and Resistances.
3. Golems aren't immune to Magical damage, they are immune to Magical abilities.Therefore, Golems are not immune to damage from weapons with Runes on them, as the runes modify the damage a Strike does, not the Strike action itself.
Yes, it would be better if it was clearer, however do you really think the developers intended for Golems to be immune to almost everything except standard weapons with a single damage die?
It's a very good framework, understandable and consistent enough.
... And then the devs really, actually, explicitly give dragon's attacks with claws and such 'magical' trait. What do we do with that? (Ignore for the purpose of immunity to magic, probably. But still...)
Also all polymorph effects make their strikes magical (well, unless it's alchemical polymorph possibly, which is another rules hole). That's one more problem.
Worth noting that it seems quite unlikely for golem antimagic to survive the OGL purge. We might get a new creature with a similar immunity, which will perhaps he written more clearly, but it seems unlikely golems will get errata given how D&D they are.Golem antimagic is one thing, but wizards can't in any way own golems and can't in any way claim that. So I'm sure golems will stay in some form (ok, it's actually hope for the sanity of the broken world I guess).
Sure, but golem antimagic is really the only thing setting golems apart from your run of the mill constructs. If golem antimagic is gone, then they are effectively gone as we know them. And given that most of the opening post was complaining about that ability, it seems relevant to keep in mind for the topic at hand.
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Worth noting that it seems quite unlikely for golem antimagic to survive the OGL purge. We might get a new creature with a similar immunity, which will perhaps he written more clearly, but it seems unlikely golems will get errata given how D&D they are.
Golem antimagic is one thing, but wizards can't in any way own golems and can't in any way claim that. So I'm sure golems will stay in some form (ok, it's actually hope for the sanity of the broken world I guess).
Sure, but golem antimagic is really the only thing setting golems apart from your run of the mill constructs. If golem antimagic is gone, then they are effectively gone as we know them. And given that most of the opening post was complaining about that ability, it seems relevant to keep in mind for the topic at hand.
No, golems also have their own folklore to set them apart. TSR combined the clay golem of Chelm, a story written in the 17th century based on Jewish folklore, with Mary Shelley's Frankenstein's monster, a novel written in 1818, to form a common theme about constructs animated by magic. Since golems are very sturdy, their role as a monster was to be hard to kill, resisting both physical attacks and magical spells. But their origins shaped their strengths and weakness. Frankenstein's monster was animated by lightning, afraid of fire, and lost in the arctic cold, so the golem antimagic of a corresponding flesh golem is harmed by fire, healed by electricity, and slowed by cold. The folklore clay golem was animated by holy scripture and disintegrated if the scripture was removed. I don't know how that became harmed by cold and water, healed by acid, and slowed by earth, but it explains its vulnerability to the Disintegrate spell.
Thus, in PF2 Remastered golems could become puzzle creatures more magic than mechanical. Figuring out what means animated it would explain its nature. Golems will still need to be tough, not easily defeated by weapons or magic, so that solving the puzzle is the best way to defeat them, but extreme AC and saving throws would be enough to accomplish that.
We could even simplify the harmed/healed/slowed puzzle down to a single element. A flesh golem would have no special effect from fire or cold, but hitting it with electricity both damages it (penalty to saves against electricity and Weakness Electricity) and gives it panache (I could call the extra abilities "more animation" but "panache" is a known mechanic). A clay golem could have the same reaction to spirit magic, instead, the replacement for good damage and evil damage. Obsidian is volcanic glass, so an obsidian golem's characteristic element could be fire. Iron is known for being hammered on an anvil, so an iron golem's characteristic element could be bludgeoning. This is simply a flight of fancy to show possibilities--I presume that Paizo has already invented its own system.
And it would not be a mess of complication like current golem antimagic.
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Even if you can work around the problems, I think most people would agree that golem antimagic requires noticeably more thinking than most other PF2 abilities to work with.
Most PF2 rules really are straightforward. It's clear what they apply to. Golem antimagic on the other hand requires you to ask if "Strike" is an "ability" that could be a "magical ability", and whether it matters whether the strike is magical or the damage done by the strike. And that there has to be some reason why a magical sword can still damage a golem, or why a magus in arcane cascade isn't completely unable to damage golems with all attacks.
Golem antimagic is a badly written mechanic. We can fumble our way through but it's noticeably more problematic than other game mechanics.
You've joined the club with the rest of us.
Most of PF2 is well written and kept simple and straightforward. As peopled have stated, if Bleed isn't listed in the immunities and you don't have a good DM reason for why a creature wouldn't take damage from losing its fluids then it takes bleed damage. I wouldn't think of bleed as just blood, but more of a general this creature is losing essential life fluids from its body due to this attack ability.
Golem Magic immunity needs more clarification. I would follow the ruling that makes the game work best so that golems aren't immune to magic rune damage. The idea behind some of the explanations is that magical damage does not equal magical abilities, but I have no idea if that is what the designers intended as that creates some weirdness depending on how you define magical abilities which is also open for debate.
Main thing is make a ruling that doesn't completely screw your players balanced against making the game trivial. You want the players to be able to use their abilities, so their characters don't feel useless or like they made bad choices. You want the monsters to feel challenging and dangerous. So try to make your rulings cover both bases when working out how Golem Antimagic or some other unclear rule works.
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No, golems also have their own folklore to set them apart. TSR combined the clay golem of Chelm, a story written in the 17th century based on Jewish folklore, with Mary Shelley's Frankenstein's monster, a novel written in 1818, to form a common theme about constructs animated by magic. Since golems are very sturdy, their role as a monster was to be hard to kill, resisting both physical attacks and magical spells. But their origins shaped their strengths and weakness. Frankenstein's monster was animated by lightning, afraid of fire, and lost in the arctic cold, so the golem antimagic of a corresponding flesh golem is harmed by fire, healed by electricity, and slowed by cold. The folklore clay golem was animated by holy scripture and disintegrated if the scripture was removed. I don't know how that became harmed by cold and water, healed by acid, and slowed by earth, but it explains its vulnerability to the Disintegrate spell.
Wet clay loses its consistency and thus the scripture can be erased. Hence the harmed by water (and cold is the damage type for water). Clay is still earth though. So healed by acid, which is the damage type of earth.
Slowed by earth was likely the idea that you are making the clay more ponderous, more earth/stone-like, hence slower.
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Most of PF2 is well written and kept simple and straightforward. As peopled have stated, if Bleed isn't listed in the immunities and you don't have a good DM reason for why a creature wouldn't take damage from losing its fluids then it takes bleed damage. I wouldn't think of bleed as just blood, but more of a general this creature is losing essential life fluids from its body due to this attack ability.This is far from a universal view. Bleed damage is quite clearly defined in the PHB. The fact that some creatures list an immunity to bleed and some don't doesn't change that.
"Clearly" is a word that should not be used in Rules arguments. If it was that clear to everyone involved, we would not be having this debate.