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Vitality hurting the living and void hurting the undead? No.
As for Holy and Unholy, those aren't damage types so that question doesn't quite apply. The damage type is Spirit and will work on anything with a soul. So animal, sure, animated statue no. Holy and Unholy sanctification will make some modification to your Spirit damage, and mechanics like fiends that used to have a weakness to Good should run off of sanctification.
Obviously for complete details that don't leave anything out, ask again in November.
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+1 to Hammer's succinct explanation.
Spirit damage additionally inherits the unique trait of spirit blast to target the spirit of possessing creatures directly without harming the host body.
The preview indicated that most (but perhaps not all) forms of spirit damage will have the "sanctified" tag which indicates that it can be made holy or unholy (or I suppose might have either of those traits directly, without sanctification).
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The damage type is Spirit and will work on anything with a soul.
I would clarify that spirit damage does work on outsiders even though they are weird when it comes to souls (they're made from souls but they don't have one, or something like that).
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The damage type is Spirit and will work on anything with a soul.I would clarify that spirit damage does work on outsiders even though they are weird when it comes to souls (they're made from souls but they don't have one, or something like that).
Their body and soul are one and the same - they do definitely still have souls :)
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Yeah if a spell only works on metal and you're entirely made of metal, it probably works on you.
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+1 to Hammer's succinct explanation.
Spirit damage additionally inherits the unique trait of spirit blast to target the spirit of possessing creatures directly without harming the host body.
The preview indicated that most (but perhaps not all) forms of spirit damage will have the "sanctified" tag which indicates that it can be made holy or unholy (or I suppose might have either of those traits directly, without sanctification).
From the Exemplar playtest, we know that :
- spirit is a new type of damage that works as mentioned above.
- abilities that deal spirit damage may have / gain the Sanctified trait.
- having the Sanctified trait applies your own holy or unholy trait to the abilities
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As for Holy and Unholy, those aren't damage types so that question doesn't quite apply. The damage type is Spirit and will work on anything with a soul.I thought holy and unholy were going to be the replacements for alignment damage.
They are. At least partially. But it is not a drop-in equivalent replacement. It is new mechanics.
Spirit damage is the replacement for the alignment damage types as far as things that are affected normally by it.
Currently: An Evil Human being hit by Good damage Divine Lance would take normal damage from the spell.
Replacement: Any Human being hit by Spirit damage Divine Lance will take normal damage from the spell.
Sanctification to Holy/Unholy is the replacement for things that are weak to those damage types.
Currently: A Barbazu being hit by Good damage Divine Lance would take normal damage from the spell and additional 5 damage from their Good weakness.
Replacement: A Barbazu being hit by a Spirit damage Divine Lance from a cleric Sanctified to Holy would take normal damage from the spell and additional 5 damage from their Holy weakness.
We were told spirit hits anything with a brain.
I highly doubt sanctified holy spirit damage stops hurting anything with a brain.
It just hurts unholy things MORE. This helps unholy characters not cry against other unholy creatures. Which is currently how evil damage works.
I thought it was a soul, so things like constructs aren't affected. Otherwise Cassisians and Lemures (which don't have brains) are immune to Spirit damage, which makes no sense, given that these are meant to be sanctified creatures.
It is nice that fiends are now more effective against their own kind, though, making those types of combats less of a slog/arms race, and also makes them more of a threat against Evil PCs too. (And Evil PCs being more viable as a result.)
Exact quote from whom? And where was it said?
Also, if the quote is 'anything with a brain', but the formal rule is 'anything with a spirit', then that is ambiguous and I would go with the formal rule rather than a quote from anyone no matter where it is posted (except for the official errata page).
Design Manager
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As for Holy and Unholy, those aren't damage types so that question doesn't quite apply. The damage type is Spirit and will work on anything with a soul.
You could also have e.g. holy fire, or holy ice. Spirit is the default delivery method for things that used to do aignment damage, but the holy and unholy traits don't have to be limited to just that damage type. You could have holy fire that is especially effective at cleansing unholy undead, or unholy ice designed to help ice devils decimate sweet little lyrakiens.
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In general, I am hoping that the Remaster will address and define what an 'instance of damage' is.
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Exact quote from whom? And where was it said?
Also, if the quote is 'anything with a brain', but the formal rule is 'anything with a spirit', then that is ambiguous and I would go with the formal rule rather than a quote from anyone no matter where it is posted (except for the official errata page).
I think it was from a stream, and I think this is a context issue where we're getting hung up on the literal meaning rather than conversational intent. I don't think "anything with a brain" was meant to refer to creatures that possess physical brains, but rather creatures that can think. It was describing sentience rather than a physical feature.
If you want a "words in the book" interpretation, I think you're right to think it will be "Anything with a soul." In reality, what will happen is that constructs and the like will simply have 'Spirit' added to their list of immunities alongside 'Mental' and 'Poison'.
Yeah, and one of the neat things about the Exemplar's Titan's Breaker Transcendence is that Constructs and Objects aren't immune to that Spirit damage and it bypasses their Hardness. So, you're probably right they'll have a tag for being immune to Spirit.
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I'll definitely take that over ever seeing "just use Divine Lance as Detect Evil" again.
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Note that, in a way, we are back to PF1 where Good damage could kill babies (True Neutral).
Actually, Holy Spirit damage can apparently kill a Holy person too. Deceivers are going to have a field day.
Functionally, the "holy" add-on means "and it has a bit of extra hate-on for the folks on the other team". It's like drowning a good person in a tub of holy water by holding their head underneath the surface. It wasn't the holiness of the water that killed them.
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Note that, in a way, we are back to PF1 where Good damage could kill babies (True Neutral).
Actually, Holy Spirit damage can apparently kill a Holy person too. Deceivers are going to have a field day.
Mmmmmm... I think that is a bit of hyperbole.
It isn't the Holy (or Good) damage that is doing the killing.
Spirit damage can certainly kill innocents. But so can Void damage, or fire damage, or bludgeoning damage.
And while someone who is sanctified Holy is able to attack and kill someone else who is sanctified Holy, the Holy sanctification won't be adding anything in the process. It just won't be preventing it either.
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It might help to think of (un)holy as a trait like cold iron rather than a material. The demon will take extra damage from it, but if you stab a human someone with a cold iron holy long sword, they won't die because it is holy or cold iron but because it is a long sword.
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I like that being able to smite anyone with holy energy. It's straight up divine power. I think that fits better with myth and fantasy. Divine power is just divine power. You can smite a follower or a non-follower all the same.
I like how that works better if that is how it turns out to work.
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Same thing with murdering babies with holy power. Your cleric is going to break after committing that sort of atrocity if you're sanctified holy. I doubt Sarenrae endorses that kind of behavior, and she can absolutely yank your cleric powers. It says as much in the Core Rulebook, and I sincerely doubt that violating your god's anathema is going to be a-okay in the remaster either.
There will probably be ways to get sanctification without being tied to an anathema; alchemists can already craft Alignment Ampoules, which when converted to the Remaster will be sanctified, and I imagine Sorcerers and Oracles can get some sort of anathema-free sanctification as well since their divine power isn't tied to their beliefs. Would be interesting to have a genuinely-good-person Demon Sorcerer who nevertheless has unholy sanctification and can be smitten for extra damage by Paladins.
Same thing with murdering babies with holy power. Your cleric is going to break after committing that sort of atrocity if you're sanctified holy. I doubt Sarenrae endorses that kind of behavior, and she can absolutely yank your cleric powers. It says as much in the Core Rulebook, and I sincerely doubt that violating your god's anathema is going to be a-okay in the remaster either.There will probably be ways to get sanctification without being tied to an anathema; alchemists can already craft Alignment Ampoules, which when converted to the Remaster will be sanctified, and I imagine Sorcerers and Oracles can get some sort of anathema-free sanctification as well since their divine power isn't tied to their beliefs. Would be interesting to have a genuinely-good-person Demon Sorcerer who nevertheless has unholy sanctification and can be smitten for extra damage by Paladins.
To pick a nit here, I gather that holy and unholy traits can apply to things without sanctification (i.e. a holy sword probably doesn't require your sanctification) where it seems like the sanctified trait may refer specifically to the process of "See user for details". I feel like it's been implied rather that sanctification is a matter of anathema on its own (as in, even if your deity's anathema doesn't require goodly behaviour, holy sanctification will).
It may only be a terminology thing, and I may be completely missing the mark, but I would expect a demon sorcerer simply to have an ability that deals unholy spirit damage, but whose other abilities aren't necessarily unholy sanctified unless they themselves are. Somebody will have to check but I recall an implication that only clerics and champions would really care about sanctification itself, so it remains to be seen if any other divine caster interacts with sanctification--I mean, we've seen that the Exemplar does, but I don't recall any mention of the Animist?
I think this is getting further into the weeds than we can speculate on. I'm not sure Paizo has come to a decision about how sorcerers and oracles will interact with Sanctification yet, given how far off player core 2 is. Cleric and witch are the only classes with divine interactions in core 1. I wouldn't expect witch to get an option because Animist didn't in the playtest and I saw no mention of it on the only divine patron. Exemplar has a 1st level feat for Sanctification, but given the class doesn't get a feat at 1st level, only humans can pick a side in the cosmic battle out the gate which seems weird and may not survive to publication.
If only certain classes get Sanctification options I expect we will have an archetype for it. Failing that I can see a lot of multiclass dips for people who really want to wreck fiends. We haven't actually heard a downside to PCs for Sanctification, so it feels like the correct move for power gaming.
And I imagine (un)holy items being wielded by their moral opposition to be handled on a pretty case by case basis.
I think this is getting further into the weeds than we can speculate on. I'm not sure Paizo has come to a decision about how sorcerers and oracles will interact with Sanctification yet, given how far off player core 2 is. Cleric and witch are the only classes with divine interactions in core 1. I wouldn't expect witch to get an option because Animist didn't in the playtest and I saw no mention of it on the only divine patron. Exemplar has a 1st level feat for Sanctification, but given the class doesn't get a feat at 1st level, only humans can pick a side in the cosmic battle out the gate which seems weird and may not survive to publication.
If only certain classes get Sanctification options I expect we will have an archetype for it. Failing that I can see a lot of multiclass dips for people who really want to wreck fiends. We haven't actually heard a downside to PCs for Sanctification, so it feels like the correct move for power gaming.
And I imagine (un)holy items being wielded by their moral opposition to be handled on a pretty case by case basis.
That's true, yeah.
I think we know it gives the [Holy] (or [Unholy]) trait, right? Want to say that came up in the preview or in a stream. Which means chilling darkness vaporizes sanctified clerics because it deals a lot of bonus damage to [Holy] tagged people.
But if that's the only thing...it's a very strong upside. Especially compared to alignment damage.
I did forget Chilling Dark specifically hurt holy creatures extra, as opposed to relying on an inherent weakness like angels would have. There will be probably be a few spells like that. And theoretically searing light will do the same for unholy, so divine casters may get a little rocket taggy.
We saw this already actually. The remastered version of chilling darkness is [Unholy] tagged. Likewise, I assume Searing light is [Holy] tagged, and it's on the primal list. Meaning it's accessible to all sorts of non-sanctified people.
Thank you kindly for reminding me where we'd seen the holy/unholy tag in the wild. Indeed, I notice now that a creature with weakness to holy/unholy using an item or effect, it simply takes damage from its own weakness.
I am rather excited to see the nuances of this change, since it almost amounts to exactly what I was trying to make with my own attempts to remove alignment (rip out mortal alignment, leave celestials and fiends with special weaknesses, give all clerics a functional divine lance).
The playtest Exemplar shows us you can be Holy whatever your moral compass.
I'm inclined to differ on this point. Certainly, Exemplars are not required to follow particular edicts or anathema (though like all characters they may choose to anyway), but I feel the text of sanctification paints a somewhat different picture.
For an Exemplary example, the text of Sanctified Soul feat available to Exemplars:
You’ve drawn a line in the sand in the cosmic struggle between good and evil and chosen a side. You gain either the holy trait or the unholy trait. All your exemplar abilities that deal spirit damage gain the sanctified trait, allowing you to apply your holy or unholy trait to them to better affect your chosen enemies.
The feat you reference alludes in flavour text to staking a claim in the war between good and evil. Even without alignment I think we can be clear that choosing to gain the holy trait is not compatible with just any moral compass. The playtest Exemplar rather shows us that just being an exemplar and choosing to side with good or evil is enough to make you holy or unholy. Clerics on the other hand so far seem to require deific permission to achieve the same.
Of course, even if we disregard this text as meaningless on the grounds that it is flavour (despite dev commentary), the text of the holy trait says much the same - that having the holy trait represents strong devotion to holy causes, such as altruism, helping others, and battling unholy forces. Also mentioned are benevolence and virtue.
If, at a given table, these guidelines still result in a creature of any moral compass to become holy, the issue lies with the table. If a table agrees that evil acts are holy, they can easily have agreed that they were Lawful Good et al.
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The playtest Exemplar shows us you can be Holy whatever your moral compass.I'm inclined to differ on this point. Certainly, Exemplars are not required to follow particular edicts or anathema (though like all characters they may choose to anyway), but I feel the text of sanctification paints a somewhat different picture.
For an Exemplary example, the text of Sanctified Soul feat available to Exemplars:
You’ve drawn a line in the sand in the cosmic struggle between good and evil and chosen a side. You gain either the holy trait or the unholy trait. All your exemplar abilities that deal spirit damage gain the sanctified trait, allowing you to apply your holy or unholy trait to them to better affect your chosen enemies.The feat you reference alludes in flavour text to staking a claim in the war between good and evil. Even without alignment I think we can be clear that choosing to gain the holy trait is not compatible with just any moral compass. The playtest Exemplar rather shows us that just being an exemplar and choosing to side with good or evil is enough to make you holy or unholy. Clerics on the other hand so far seem to require deific permission to achieve the same.
Of course, even if we disregard this text as meaningless on the grounds that it is flavour (despite dev commentary), the text of the holy trait says much the same - that having the holy trait represents strong devotion to holy causes, such as altruism, helping others, and battling unholy forces. Also mentioned are benevolence and virtue.
If, at a given table, these guidelines still result in a creature of any moral compass to become holy, the issue lies with the table. If a table agrees that evil acts are holy, they can easily have agreed that they were Lawful Good et al.
I did miss the description of the Holy and Unholy traits in the Remastered Core Preview. Thank you.
Given the importance described for anathemas and edicts in Remaster (due to their replacing Alignment), I would have prefered an explicit link between these traits and appropriate anathemas. And I hope we will have clear rules for Holy/Unholy PCs falling and losing their trait.
Exact quote from whom? And where was it said?
Also, if the quote is 'anything with a brain', but the formal rule is 'anything with a spirit', then that is ambiguous and I would go with the formal rule rather than a quote from anyone no matter where it is posted (except for the official errata page).
Oh, yes. I knew 'anything with a spirit' would be a problem when no creatures have 'has/hasn't a soul' in their statblock. The devs really need now to explicitly describe such things in creature group descriptions at least.
I think it was from a stream, and I think this is a context issue where we're getting hung up on the literal meaning rather than conversational intent. I don't think "anything with a brain" was meant to refer to creatures that possess physical brains, but rather creatures that can think. It was describing sentience rather than a physical feature.
If you want a "words in the book" interpretation, I think you're right to think it will be "Anything with a soul." In reality, what will happen is that constructs and the like will simply have 'Spirit' added to their list of immunities alongside 'Mental' and 'Poison'.
Here you are mixing up two base concepts of Golarion lore: mind essence and spirit essence. They are very different things. To be sentient you need Mind essence. To be hurt by spirit damage you need to have Spirit essence (supposedly but very likely). And what has spirit is not very well defined. Because for example nature spirits could very well not have spirit: they consist of Life essence primarily (3rd of the 4 existing, Material is the last one). Or some could have spirit and soul in addition...
By the way, where are our nice un-nature spirits, consisting of negative Life essence - now Void?
Well, since Spirit is now a damage type, enemies with immunity/resistance/weakness to Spirit damage/effects should be pretty simple to spell out in a statblock.
Then again, Bleed damage has this issue as well with a lot of enemies, where some aren't listed as immune but makes no sense for them not to be, and vice-versa, so I can understand the concern.
Exact quote from whom? And where was it said?
Also, if the quote is 'anything with a brain', but the formal rule is 'anything with a spirit', then that is ambiguous and I would go with the formal rule rather than a quote from anyone no matter where it is posted (except for the official errata page).
Oh, yes. I knew 'anything with a spirit' would be a problem when no creatures have 'has/hasn't a soul' in their statblock. The devs really need now to explicitly describe such things in creature group descriptions at least.
I think it was from a stream, and I think this is a context issue where we're getting hung up on the literal meaning rather than conversational intent. I don't think "anything with a brain" was meant to refer to creatures that possess physical brains, but rather creatures that can think. It was describing sentience rather than a physical feature.
If you want a "words in the book" interpretation, I think you're right to think it will be "Anything with a soul." In reality, what will happen is that constructs and the like will simply have 'Spirit' added to their list of immunities alongside 'Mental' and 'Poison'.
Here you are mixing up two base concepts of Golarion lore: mind essence and spirit essence. They are very different things. To be sentient you need Mind essence. To be hurt by spirit damage you need to have Spirit essence (supposedly but very likely). And what has spirit is not very well defined. Because for example nature spirits could very well not have spirit: they consist of Life essence primarily (3rd of the 4 existing, Material is the last one). Or some could have spirit and soul in addition...
By the way, where are our nice un-nature spirits, consisting of negative Life essence - now Void?Well, since Spirit is now a damage type, enemies with immunity/resistance/weakness to Spirit damage/effects should be pretty simple to spell out in a statblock.
Then again, Bleed damage has...
I have yet to see a stat block which specifies immunity to spirit damage. I checked the brass bastion for it. Given we know the exemplar has an ability which calls out its spirit damage effecting constructs, it is possible some combination of the construct and/or mindless trait will specify spirit immunity.
But I'm not sure yet. Paizo maaaaaay not be either given how far off monster core is. There are constructs which definitely have minds and souls. There are devils which are mindless. Neither seems like they should be immune to spiritual damage. Mindless zombies don't either, especially since we know holy damage is supposed to be significant against undead... but maybe it is non-spiritual holy damage you want for mindless undead?
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I did miss the description of the Holy and Unholy traits in the Remastered Core Preview. Thank you.
I'll certainly be disappointed if the possibility of having morally bad Holy and morally good Unholy characters is written off. Those are reasonably popular tropes in media, bad guys with holy aesthetics or even "good" gods themselves being villains as well as brooding anti-heroes who question the moralizing nature of calling this or that "evil" based on some line drawn or association with a particular thing that has no actual moral weight. At the very least, having options like tieflings or sorcerors that have some sort of Unholy power that makes them a little weak to Holy attacks without that requiring them actually be villainous is the sort of interesting option I'd want on the table, ways to dip into stereotypically evil things without running into the problem of being Henry Kissinger in a party full of Anthony Bourdains.
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I am a great fan of "Light is not Good" and "Dark is not Evil" tropes, but I'm not sure that allowing evil characters to become Holy-sanctified (and vice versa) is really much of an answer for this.
Good characters are fully able to use shadowy spells and dark effects, and evil characters don't seem to have any limitations on wearing white and casting light spells, and either can cast any spirit-damage spell they know to kill anyone they want. Sanctification doesn't really mean anything if it isn't about devoting yourself enough to good or evil that you can laser demons or angels with a little extra oomph.
For that matter, right now it doesn't seem like holy and unholy spells and items are in any way limited by sanctification, so anybody can pick up a holy sword or holy spell and blast innocents with it if they like--unless they happen to have a weakness to holy, in which case doing that just hurts them because obviously.
I would expect sorcerers and nephilim to get access to certain holy/unholy abilities by their natures, but sanctification seems to be "I choose this team" so I'm not sure it would actually make sense if evil characters were to gain powers from choosing cosmic goodness.
... On the other hand, a morally questionable character whose holy powers start to fail them right as the demons are walking into the temple where they preach about righteousness... well that's just Castlevania season 1 innit?
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At the very least, having options like tieflings or sorcerors that have some sort of Unholy power that makes them a little weak to Holy attacks without that requiring them actually be villainous is the sort of interesting option I'd want on the table, ways to dip into stereotypically evil things without running into the problem of being Henry Kissinger in a party full of Anthony Bourdains.
What an incredibly funny sentence, it absolutely made my morning! :) <3
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I think it's pertinent to this discussion to recall at this time that there is literally no such thing as a "Good character" or an "Evil character" anymore, at least within the Remastered rules. Like, you can totally be a morally good character with Unholy powers... as long as your personal idea of "morally good" can encompass a character who's doing... whatever it is that gaining and using those Unholy powers requires. Remastered no longer expresses any sot of opinion at all about what is and what is not "morally good". The only thing is has left is "signed up for the Great War In Heaven (angelic)", "signed up for the Great War In Heaven (demonic/devilish)", and "didn't". Possibly an extra add-on for "is legit vulnerable to Holy/Unholy".
Did your Unholy Power come with tenets or anathema? Do you personally feel that those drive you to act in ways that you consider Evil? Do you believe that you are incapable of being a good person while also following them? If you answered "no" to any of those questions, then it's possible for you to both be a good person and wield unholy power. Wielding Holy Power as an evil person is just the mirror of that. It really is that simple.