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If you have immunity to effects with a certain trait (such as death effects, poison, or disease), you are unaffected by effects with that trait. Often, an effect has a trait and deals that type of damage (this is especially true in the case of energy damage types). 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.
How complex does an effect need to be for this rule to apply? It seems that in most cases, if the developers want a trait to apply to part of an effect, they write something like "this is an incapacitate effect" or "This critical failure effect has the death trait." Is that what the rule is talking about?
Further complicating matters is the Cataclysm spell. It dishes out a lot of effects, and I can only assume we're not meant to apply all 8 traits to all 7 effects.
Flesh-dissolving acid rain deals 3d10 acid damage.
A roaring earthquake shakes and bludgeons creatures on the ground, dealing 3d10 bludgeoning damage.
A blast of freezing wind deals 3d10 cold damage.
Incredible lightning lashes the area, dealing 3d10 electricity damage.
Beating winds churn across the sky, dealing 3d10 bludgeoning damage to creatures flying in the area.
An instant tsunami sweeps over creatures in the area, dealing 3d10 bludgeoning damage with the water trait (doubled for creatures swimming in the area).
A massive wildfire burns in a sudden inferno, dealing 3d10 fire damage.
The developers called out the tsunami damage as having the water trait, suggesting that it's the only part of the spell that does. Perhaps they intended to manually assign the traits to each effect?
I feel like Cataclysm applies the water trait to the tsunami because it's not elemental damage, so its elemental relationship needs to be specified.
It is interesting that the earthquake part doesn't specify that it gains the earth trait.
It does feel like a good target area for Errata to make the text consistent.
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I remember getting into a debate about this not too long ago...
If I get the time, I'll see if I can find the thread.
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Here it is. Several of us hashed out our different stances on Complex effects and immunity when someone brought it up regarding Winter Sleet.
Here it is. Several of us hashed out our different stances on Complex effects and immunity when someone brought it up regarding Winter Sleet.
Yikes, that's long. Winter Sleet doesn't even look like a complex effect to me. I suppose that's what's so frustrating about the rule.
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Yikes, that's long.
If it helps any, Cataclysm does different damage types for each of its effects. So both Gortle and I are likely in agreement and would rule that immunity to one of those trait types would only apply to one of those damage effects. We mostly disagreed on effects that do status effects instead of damage.