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I'm sure this has been talked about enough but is there a consensus on exactly what instances are in regards to weaknesses? Or perhaps a best guess? I'm tempted to just run it like inverse resistances in which case every damage type is its own instance and the only exception would be special materials. Thoughts?
There is absolutely no reason to think that the definition would be different for weakness than it is for resistance.
The main argument seems to be people who think that the way Resistance to All damage works is a special, unique case instead of a clarification (meaning that Resist All would apply twice against a flaming longsword, but having both fire resistance and slashing resistance would not). I do not endorse that reading, but it still exists among some people, because the only developer post we had confirming that each damage type was a separate instance for weakness was back in the PF2 playtest and not after the system release.
To be fair about it, things could reasonably have changed about this after the playtest. Reading the released product, though, I've never believed that they did.
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There is absolutely no reason to think that the definition would be different for weakness than it is for resistance.
The main argument seems to be people who think that the way Resistance to All damage works is a special, unique case instead of a clarification (meaning that Resist All would apply twice against a flaming longsword, but having both fire resistance and slashing resistance would not). I do not endorse that reading, but it still exists among some people, because the only developer post we had confirming that each damage type was a separate instance for weakness was back in the PF2 playtest and not after the system release.
To be fair about it, things could reasonably have changed about this after the playtest. Reading the released product, though, I've never believed that they did.
I remember the comments from Michael about the thaumaturge that brought a similar amount of attention. I think it's safe to assume the intention based on those. It's just weird that resistance is more defined than weakness and instance is still not defined.
Does weakness apply more than once? If you have a holy cold iron sword, does the weakness double dip?
I personally think weaknesses are too high right now. When you have an entire group with a weakness, it turns many battles into a joke. If weaknesses apply twice, an even bigger joke. If you're doing 40 extra damage a hit activating two weaknesses on a high level demon per hit, it turns that demon into a pathetic enemy.
Weaknesses only apply once per instance of damage, just like resistance. (This is why people argue about the definition of Instance of Damage so often).
You can resist both the fire and the slashing of a flaming longsword separately. You can be weak to both fire and slashing separately.
For the demon example, if you have a sword doing Cold Iron Slashing damage and Holy Spirit damage then yes, each instance triggers a weakness. But if you instead had a Paladin whose Strikes have the Holy trait with a Cold Iron longsword, then you have one instance of Cold Iron Holy Slashing damage, so only the higher weakness applies.
Instances of damage definition needs to resove:
Timing - make it clear if persistant damage is a separate instance of damage. Most people assume is is separate, but the rules talk about it as if it is resolved at the same time.
Additional Damage and Extra Damage - are these separate things or just added into the one instance of damage. Are these actually the same thing as a Bonus or Penalty to damage?
Multiple Resistances and Resist All is clear, but multiple Weaknesses is not.
When to apply Hardness is not clear. Some people treat it as a Resistance. Some people treat it as a separate step after damage resolution in some sort of applying damage step. We are mostly talking about Shield Block here.
In short the rules talk about every element individually, but they just around all over the place in regards to sequence and resolving damage as a consistent whole.
I'm sure this has been talked about enough but is there a consensus on exactly what instances are in regards to weaknesses? Or perhaps a best guess?
In short... no.
The best we can do is point out the various edge cases that need to be considered so that tables can create a ruling table that meets their needs and expectations.
For the demon example, if you have a sword doing Cold Iron Slashing damage and Holy Spirit damage then yes, each instance triggers a weakness. But if you instead had a Paladin whose Strikes have the Holy trait with a Cold Iron longsword, then you have one instance of Cold Iron Holy Slashing damage, so only the higher weakness applies.
Now do the one where you have a sword with a Flaming rune, the Flame Wisp spell active, and Energy Mutagen (fire) going at the same time. How many instances of fire damage is that?
I remember the comments from Michael about the thaumaturge that brought a similar amount of attention. I think it's safe to assume the intention based on those. It's just weird that resistance is more defined than weakness and instance is still not defined.There is absolutely no reason to think that the definition would be different for weakness than it is for resistance.
The main argument seems to be people who think that the way Resistance to All damage works is a special, unique case instead of a clarification (meaning that Resist All would apply twice against a flaming longsword, but having both fire resistance and slashing resistance would not). I do not endorse that reading, but it still exists among some people, because the only developer post we had confirming that each damage type was a separate instance for weakness was back in the PF2 playtest and not after the system release.
To be fair about it, things could reasonably have changed about this after the playtest. Reading the released product, though, I've never believed that they did.
The comments on the thaumaaturge just confuse things even more, tbh. One of the few things that's unambiguously clear is that weaknesses don't stack on the same instance (setting aside figuring out what an instance is) which is pretty sharply contradicted by being told that thaumaturge weaknesses are meant to stack. Or.. something-
... One frustrating thing about Paizo is that sometimes we can see internally how their system works but rarely ever get it explained, so even then there's a layer of guesswork to figure out meaning.
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I'm sure this has been talked about enough but is there a consensus on exactly what instances are in regards to weaknesses? Or perhaps a best guess?In short... no.
The best we can do is point out the various edge cases that need to be considered so that tables can create a ruling table that meets their needs and expectations.
For the demon example, if you have a sword doing Cold Iron Slashing damage and Holy Spirit damage then yes, each instance triggers a weakness. But if you instead had a Paladin whose Strikes have the Holy trait with a Cold Iron longsword, then you have one instance of Cold Iron Holy Slashing damage, so only the higher weakness applies.Now do the one where you have a sword with a Flaming rune, the Flame Wisp spell active, and Energy Mutagen (fire) going at the same time. How many instances of fire damage is that?
Actually, I'm not sure if the rules on resistance cover examples like that either. Can't apply the same logic from earlier unfortunately.
Dang. Was hoping there might have been a breakthrough since I last got a headache from it. Figures.
Nope the Paizo design team appear to be in complete denial about the problem.
It is possible to read the rules and come up with a reasonable understanding of how to play. This is the point of natural langauage rules.
The difficulty only comes if once you have exhausted the rules and you still see multiple possible interpretations. In which case Paizo says to work it out yourself, go with what seems reasonable to you. Which is a useful default. But then you go online, or chat around the table, and find that reasonable means different things to different people.
For something as core as damage, this is unacceptable.
I want clear rules for basic mechanics.
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What I tend to go with is asking, can you point to a part of the damage and clearly attribute it?
If I'm wielding a flaming cold iron longsword with a +4 strength, I can point to the d8 on the table and say "that's part of the cold iron slashing instance", and the d6 and say "that's the fire instance".
I can't say which part of the 1d8+4 cold iron slashing is cold iron, and which part is slashing. So those aren't separate instances.
Now do the one where you have a sword with a Flaming rune, the Flame Wisp spell active, and Energy Mutagen (fire) going at the same time. How many instances of fire damage is that?
Yeah, on the one hand that has the potential to get ridiculous if the enemy is weak to fire, but also bad if they're resistant to it. More likely that you cast the spell and used the mutagen for a weakness though :P
If this is getting disruptive, it might be time to pivot to a different way of classifying instances of damage: by trait.
The remaster made a stronger distinction between damage types, and traits that get added on. Slashing and fire are damage types; cold iron and holy are traits that get tacked on. You can't do someone cold iron damage with no other type to "carry" it; you can do pure slashing damage.
Of course then that could still get silly if you had holy slashing damage, some holy fire damage, some holy lightning damage and so on. So maybe that's not the right solution either.
A third possible definition of damage is, all damage being applied from the same event. Your sword hits? One instance of damage. Yes, the fire and the cold iron slashing are one event. Your swords hits again? Next instance.
That one doesn't seem to jive well with the definitions, and it definitely minimizes the role of resistance and weakness (and perhaps, hardness). It also leaves edge cases like whether to add the damage from a weapon strike and a spellstrike together (I'd say, no).
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Intuitively, I think an instance should be anytime you add up damage from a single roll. So runes and additional effects would be part of one instance. That would make sense with the context of abilities that ask you to combine damage for weaknesses/resistances. It also contradicts those comments from Michael though.
This will never get an answer.
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You can't do someone cold iron damage with no other type to "carry" it;I think you probably kind of can, even if such damage type doesn't exist. "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." There can be discussions on whether cold iron itself does 'normally' deal damage, but I still think that some fey holding cold iron... spoon will take weakness damage. Removing such iconic things from the game feels boring.
There's also oracles dread secret spell which could trigger material weaknesses without a damage type specified.
One thing that can help is for a GM to acknowledge and use this/other rules gaps to talk over the table the first time the issue comes up, and then as a table make a consistent ruling.
From my perspective, effects that may create separate damage instances are outside of the core Strike/ect. I would posit that means separate instances are not effected by crits. ("[...]If you critically succeed at a Strike, your attack deals double damage.")
For the example of elemental runes, I would present each PC with something like:
You decide if your runes (and can swap choice via re-slotting) either
* are enhancements to the Strike, and will be doubled when it crits, but consequently may be affected by the "single highest weakness" rule
or
* are separate instances of damage triggered by a successful Strike, potentially triggering a weakness on their own, but will not be doubled by a crit Strike (written crit effects still happen).
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Even if players may find their own choice obvious, as soon as it becomes a pro-con evaluation with player agency, IMO most of the pain of this / other rule holes instead becomes a fun bit of mechanics development.
This approach can apply elsewhere, but usually involves the GM needing to invent / add a houserule or two.
One thing that can help is for a GM to acknowledge and use this/other rules gaps to talk over the table the first time the issue comes up, and then as a table make a consistent ruling.
Of course, then you check the on line forums where experienced players agree on what the rules actually say and how it should be done.
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One thing that can help is for a GM to acknowledge and use this/other rules gaps to talk over the table the first time the issue comes up, and then as a table make a consistent ruling.
Sure, you're playing the game for fun with friends. Open communication is good.
From my perspective, effects that may create separate damage instances are outside of the core Strike/ect. I would posit that means separate instances are not effected by crits. ("[...]If you critically succeed at a Strike, your attack deals double damage.")For the example of elemental runes, I would present each PC with something like:
You decide if your runes (and can swap choice via re-slotting) either
* are enhancements to the Strike, and will be doubled when it crits, but consequently may be affected by the "single highest weakness" rule
or
* are separate instances of damage triggered by a successful Strike, potentially triggering a weakness on their own, but will not be doubled by a crit Strike (written crit effects still happen).
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Even if players may find their own choice obvious, as soon as it becomes a pro-con evaluation with player agency, IMO most of the pain of this / other rule holes instead becomes a fun bit of mechanics development.
This approach can apply elsewhere, but usually involves the GM needing to invent / add a houserule or two.
But this isn't the approach I'd take. First off, your approach contradicts the normal crit rules which are very straightforward:
- damage that happens on a normal hit, doubles on a crit
- damage that only happens on a crit, doesn't double on a crit
Second, you're adding a LOT of complication by keeping track which particular weapon does crit along, and which one didn't, and did it change two weeks ago because someone re-slotted?
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On some further thought, my rule of thumb would be to separate instances into two definitions. One would be each individual damage roll and the other would be the damage types in those rolls. I'd add up the damage types in each roll that could trigger weaknesses but I wouldn't count a damage type more than once.
But this isn't the approach I'd take. First off, your approach contradicts the normal crit rules which are very straightforward:
- damage that happens on a normal hit, doubles on a crit
- damage that only happens on a crit, doesn't double on a critSecond, you're adding a LOT of complication by keeping track which particular weapon does crit along, and which one didn't, and did it change two weeks ago because someone re-slotted?
When you make a Strike with a weapon or unarmed attack and succeed with a natural 20 (the number on the die is 20), or if the result of your attack exceeds the target’s AC by 10, you achieve a critical success (also known as a critical hit). If you critically succeed at a Strike (page 418), your attack deals double damage.
I do not think saying "damage that happens on a normal hit, doubles on a crit" is accurate. There are plenty of ways that damage can trigger due to a successful Strike, that as separate instances of damage, do not double on crit.
Most common is Splash damage, though spells like Flame Wisp also work like this. As a very weak puff of fire damage, Flame Wisp being a separate damage instance allows it to still have some appeal by potentially allowing for multiple pops of weakness damage (and the spell's damage seems to be set deliberately low due to this, IMO).
In contrast, some spells like Organsight specifically indicate they enhance a Strike with "additional damage", which would put it in the "doubles on crit, but subject to greatest single weakness" camp.
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In practice, letting players pick which side of ambiguous rules to choose just gives them more agency during that one discussion, and for the multiple weakness question, I would honestly expect that to reoccur maybe once after the initial talk per campaign.
It's really rare to ever pop more than one weakness (outside Thaum I suppose, not played w/ one yet). More importantly, going over the table to let the players be involved in the rule-hole can only reduce the table's headache by avoiding repeat litigation and adding some future-proofing ("I changed my mind, can I swap to the separate damage instance?").
As the idea is this talk would only happen when the ambiguous rule is invoked, the only difference between a GM making their own ruling is for the GM to trust the player to be involved in that determination a little bit. And by trusting the player, not only are you improving their engagement/investment, you are further reducing the GM's load by letting the player choose, and therefore remember, their own selection.
In practice, letting players pick which side of ambiguous rules to choose just gives them more agency during that one discussion
Generally agree, but that's not really what's happening when you're just nerfing crits.
Ofc if you want to nerf crits as your table that's perfectly reasonable everyone should do what's best for their game, but it feels a little strange to present that as magnanimously offering your players a choice in resolving ambiguous rules.
In practice, letting players pick which side of ambiguous rules to choose just gives them more agency during that one discussionGenerally agree, but that's not really what's happening when you're just nerfing crits.
Ofc if you want to nerf crits as your table that's perfectly reasonable everyone should do what's best for their game, but it feels a little strange to present that as magnanimously offering your players a choice in resolving ambiguous rules.
Honestly, I think my difference here is that I lack an investment in the idea that a runed weapon is allowed to trigger multiple weaknesses.
I'm not "nerfing crits" by running them as written. Crits double the character's attack, and the damage carried by that specific swing/shot. And if some effect adds damage inside the attack to get doubled, it follows that it is the same instance of damage. Meaning it's lumped into the "same instance of damage" for the sake of weaknessness+resistances.
Trying to spin that rule reading into me personally nerfing crits is blatant mischaracterization.
To be honest, players will generally benefit waaaay more from having a multi damage typed Strike only triggering resistance once than they will ever loose from failing to pop >1 weakness.
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I am trying to convey that "you cannot have it both ways" in regard to damage instances to solely benefit without the smallest of theoretical downsides. It is honestly a little silly that I'm getting so much pushback.
I cannot express how 100% crystal clear the rules are about saying a flaming cold iron longsword only gets to pop the single highest weakness, not both.
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 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.
Like, this is literally the example the rules use to specify that you get one weakness, not both. The only question added by an elemental rune is if it's additional damage to the Strike, or a separate pop triggered by the Strike (and IMO the different rune wording btwn Corrosive & Flaming actually indicates 2 different versions).
FWIW - Foundry's PF2 system counts something as a "different instance" if its adding damage of a seperate type. So for a Cold Iron Flaming Corrosive slashing weapon attacking something with:
- Weak 5 Slashing
- Weak 10 Cold Iron
- Weak 5 Fire
- Immune to Acid
It will apply the weakness to cold iron to the base weapon damage (since that's bigger than the slashing, which is part of the same damage instance), apply the weak 5 to the damage from the flaming rune, and then removes the acid damage entirely. On a crit, the flaming damage doubles and the physical damage doubles. It also adds persistent fire from Flaming, which is not doubled.
I don't know if that's "correct" given some of the edge case issues, but it's clear to follow how its coming up with that, which at least makes it so I can follow and understand what is going on. Seems to work well enough most of the time.
Trying to spin that rule reading into me personally nerfing crits is blatant mischaracterization.
?? You're creating a house rule that makes critical hits worse by making certain things no longer deal double damage on a crit. That's nerfing crits.
Again, fine if you feel that makes your own games better, but it's not spin to just repeat back your own proposition.
It is honestly a little silly that I'm getting so much pushback.
IDK I don't think anyone is pushing back on your houserules, they're probably not a big deal, just clarifying where you're making mistakes on the RAW. I mean, the rule you quote immediately after this even points out that they're talking about special materials, not all types of damage.
If it's easier for you to run it that way at your table though, that's fine.
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Trying to spin that rule reading into me personally nerfing crits is blatant mischaracterization.?? You're creating a house rule that makes critical hits worse by making certain things no longer deal double damage on a crit. That's nerfing crits.
The rule is genuinely ambiguous. Yes most people and most implementations of the rule do double it. The rules don't clearly state that you double the damage from a Flaming rune on a critical hit.
Why? Because it is called additional damage. We know additional damage is not bonus damage, because they said so. The most complete critical rule says roll the damage normally, adding all the normal modifiers, bonuses, and penalties. Then you double or halve the amount as appropriate. Then just for fun sometimes they refer to the total of this before the roll as your damage bonus. So we are left in the dark about extra damage damage or additional damage damage. Now most people just assume that you add it all in and this is probably right.Paizo could fix this problem by deleting additional and extra damage from the rules. Just use the word add where it is grammatically required. Then clarifying the damage rules about what an instance of damage is.
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Every time critical hit damage is described, it's described as doubling the damage from the attack. It doesn't go into saying only some of it should be doubled. The "normal" damage from an attack can reasonably be said to be all the damage you do on a normal hit, so you'd double all of it.
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The phrase "instance of damage" only appears twice in PC1, and never in PC2. It's never given a keyword definition. It just sounds a lot like one. But since it's used so little, it could also be just explained better on the one page where it's being used.
On the page where it's being used, there are two examples mentioned:
- A cold iron sword that does both cold iron and slashing, which is definitely one single instance of damage that only one weakness and resistance is applied to. This is referred to as the "usually only" case of a damage type + material/trait.
- A flaming sword that deals both fire and slashing damage, and resistance to all damage is applied to both of them. It doesn't say if they're separate instances of damage.
I don't immediately see any changes in the text compared to legacy. I don't think it's changed.
The idea that "usually only" a damage type + special material is going to trigger multiple weaknesses is interesting. Because take for example zombies: weak to slashing and vitality. And common low level enemies. It would be pretty easy for your cleric to cast Infuse Vitality on your longsword. That would be a case of two separate damage types, not a type+material or type+trait combo.
Likewise, elemental runes are pretty mainstream content. Doing slashing and fire is not a rare thing, and plant monsters that are weak to both are not unheard of either.
So you could draw the conclusion that the "usually only" must then mean that attacks with multiple damage types are multiple instances of damage that are part of one attack, because otherwise the "usually only" would not be true.
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It's ambiguous. The book just doesn't say enough to come down on either side with 100% certainty. We've gone round and round about this, and never reached a consensus. Meanwhile the book text hasn't changed, so there's no likelihood of progress either.
My personal preference is to take the ambiguity and ask, which variant do I think makes for the best gameplay?
I like weaknesses and resistances. They make combat more varied because you need to adapt more to enemies instead of just using the same weapon on everything. So I prefer the interpretation of the rule that makes them more important.
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The phrase "instance of damage" only appears twice in PC1, and never in PC2. It's never given a keyword definition. It just sounds a lot like one. But since it's used so little, it could also be just explained better on the one page where it's being used.
It is not so much that it has a name. It is more of a concept. The rules talk about damage in terms of as a procedure discussing all the options along the way. Which is mostly OK but it has been done in such a way that the definitions are not tight.
The best guess that we have is all the damage done at the one time of the same type is one instance ie one pass through the damage rules. If you do multiple damage types then each damage type goes through separately.
Neither extra damage or additional damage are defined in the damage roll, so we just add it in if it is the same type from the same source. But it might have been intended to go through resistance separately. Persistent damage explicitly goes through at a separate time (explicit in the rules) so it runs into potential resistance again.
Then there is hardness from a shield block. Maybe it is step 4 in the damage procedure, or maybe not. Multiple hardness is possible.
What happens when multiple weakness come into play? Then you need to know exactly what the instance of damage is.
My personal preference is to take the ambiguity and ask
My personal preference is for the designers to actually be clear. They read these forums.
To try to get this understood one more time, so that my mischaracterization isn't the last word:
I fully expect 99% of tables to consider things like Flaming runes to be enhancements to the attack, not separate instances of damage. In that case, they are doubled on crit.
Meaning the mischaracterized "houserule nerf" is not even to crits, it's to enforce that "single largest weakness" rule.
Again, there are effects like the Flame Wisp spell that help to understand that just because an instance of damage is triggered exclusively by an attack, does not mean it's damage is a part of that attack. People intuitively understand that Flame Wisp's damage is not doubled by critical hits.
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IMO, there is a clear line/distinction for "separate instances of damage" that are allowed to pop weakness independently, versus bonus damage that enhances attacks. Flame Wisp does not doubled on crit.
And while I would love for the wording on the elemental runes to get clarified and made consistent with each other, it's super obvious that the "enhances existing Strike" is the default assumption of how to runes work at tables.
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I fully expect 99% of tables to consider things like Flaming runes to be enhancements to the attack, not separate instances of damage.
Most tables I've seen (including PFS, the Foundry VTT implementation of the rules, and games run by the developers themselves) treat it as both. There's no particular reason to treat them as mutually exclusive.
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I fully expect 99% of tables to consider things like Flaming runes to be enhancements to the attack, not separate instances of damage. In that case, they are doubled on crit.
You're mixing two things here:
* Sure, probably 99% of tables consider the flaming rune part of the attack and double it on the critical hit. The rest are still mixing in PF1 rules by accident.
* But I don't think 99% treat one attack as necessarily one instance of damage that only triggers one weakness. You can see in this thread that opinions are a lot more divided.
The rules don't really define what one instance is. They just say that the usual way one instance could trigger two weaknesses, is when that instance has both a type and a material/trait that the enemy is weak to.
If you have 1d8 cold iron slashing damage, you can't say which part of the d8 is cold iron, and which part is slashing. That's clearly one instance and fits the example.
But if you have a flaming sword, you can point to the d8 and say that's the slashing damage, and that d6 there is the fire damage. Those don't fit the example, because they're both damage types, not materials/traits. And they're clearly separable.
So are they separate instances or the same instance? The rules just don't clearly say. (If they did, there wouldn't be a thread about it every so many months that goes round and round in the same circles.)
I fully expect 99% of tables to consider things like Flaming runes to be enhancements to the attack, not separate instances of damage.Most tables I've seen (including PFS, the Foundry VTT implementation of the rules, and games run by the developers themselves) treat it as both. There's no particular reason to treat them as mutually exclusive.
Yes in foundry everything is doubled in a critical and each extra damage with a different damage types gets a new IWR instance math by themselves.
After five years I'm not holding my breath anymore.My personal preference is to take the ambiguity and askMy personal preference is for the designers to actually be clear. They read these forums.
Just an FYI SwingRipper noticed these problems and points out the timing problem. He does include a response from Logan. Which is the GM should work it out in a way that makes narrative sense.
It is nice that Paizo acknowledge there are a number of people who run into this.
Whatever feels right to the GM is fine at the local table. It is a fair approach for most people. Just not if you play PFS, not if you write content, and not if your player group are world class optimisers. I'd much prefer to be able to say it works like this compared to this is my best guess so we will do it this way. Fortunately my gaming groups are filled with reasonable people.