Double Tapping Weakness

[Calliope5431]

So in the olden days, hitting a demon with a holy cold iron weapon was somewhat straightforward. It would trigger the cold iron weakness since that was a trait of the weapon, and because of the additional good damage being a separate damage instance it would also hit the good weakness.

However, do holy cold iron weapons do this? I would strongly argue no.

Holy Rune wrote:

Strikes made with it gain the holy trait

The strike therefore has the holy trait as a whole, and the weapon is also cold iron.

Weakness Rules wrote:

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.

So I believe it's true you can't double-tap weaknesses like this anymore. Though it all hinges on what a "single instance of damage" is.

[Finoan]

Calliope5431 wrote:

Though it all hinges on what a "single instance of damage" is.

It does.

Too bad 'instance of damage' isn't defined.

[shroudb]

I don't get why they simply do not clarify more on the "instance of damage".

Using the OP's example, we could have a cold iron, holy, flaming, acidic, sword and the holy weakness either triggers once for the whole strike, or it triggers on the "holy fire", "holy acid", "holy slashing" and etc. (obviously, TGTBT but it showcases that "instance of damage" needs to be defined...)

[ottdmk]

With Bombs, it's a lot simpler. Splash and main Damage are explicitly combined for purposes of Resistance and Weakness.

[Captain Morgan]

FWIW, regardless of the RAW it is pretty clear Mark Seifter intended these kind of things to stack from his Thaumaturge work.

[Powers128]

Yeah, this is what I was hoping would have been clarified with the remaster. Instance is never defined so we're still just guessing.

[Calliope5431]

Captain Morgan wrote:

FWIW, regardless of the RAW it is pretty clear Mark Seifter intended these kind of things to stack from his Thaumaturge work.

Oh did he?

[Captain Morgan]

Yeah,there are a few things here. First off, the iconic encounter mark wrote for Mios has them use a cold iron weapon in conjunction with exploit vulnerability.

https://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo6si3g?Iconic-Encounter-In-Truth-s- Light

He also talks about this intention in the playtest retrospective blog post.

https://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo6shw0?Dark-Archive-Playtest-Analys is

There's also this bit which most people agree means Mios was applying both cold iron and personal antithesis, AND had room to trigger good weakness too. https://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo6si3g?Iconic-Encounter-In-Truth-s- Light#18