Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Say I have an angelic eidolon with Energy Heart (fire), and a secondary wings attack that benefits from the evolution. The wings clearly deal fire damage rather than bludgeoning or some other damage type, but do they gain the FIRE trait as well, either on the attack itself or on the damage?
No, but it really should in my opinion. I was hoping this would be one of the things they’d have handled with the Remaster Errata, but they didn’t touch it.
I would give it the Fire trait, I think. I could not find any details on how/when to add a trait to an attack, but in general, when a damage type is added, it seems to also add the trait, so I would for consistency.
Elemental damage adding the relevant trait was a rule in an early version of the game that was later removed.
The Aquatic Combat rules imply it's still a thing though.
Quote: You can't cast fire spells or use actions with the fire trait underwater. As normal for how traits work, any part of the effect that's unrelated to fire still works. For example, an attack with a flaming battleaxe could still deal its physical damage, just not its fire damage. This rule only makes sense if a Strike with a flaming weapon gains the Fire trait, but as far as I can tell the rule that said that was removed years ago.
RD, could you go into a little more detail about this question? Any time someone asks an "innocuous, obvious question" like this it makes me suspicious but I'll bite
It IS fire damage, and subject to resistance, weakness, immunity, and rules like the one Squiggit quoted about Aquatic Combat. The unarmed attack does not gain the fire trait, but fire damage IS fire damage and if you performed the unarmed attack underwater it would not deal the fire damage unless some other ability or effect facilitated it. The unarmed strike as a whole gains the holy trait and everything that entails. The 1 extra spirit damage doesn't gain the fire trait. It is NOT fire damage
Don't play things so close to the chest. What /exactly/ are you asking?
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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Baarogue wrote: RD, could you go into a little more detail about this question? Any time someone asks an "innocuous, obvious question" like this it makes me suspicious but I'll bite
It IS fire damage, and subject to resistance, weakness, immunity, and rules like the one Squiggit quoted about Aquatic Combat. The unarmed attack does not gain the fire trait, but fire damage IS fire damage and if you performed the unarmed attack underwater it would not deal the fire damage unless some other ability or effect facilitated it. The unarmed strike as a whole gains the holy trait and everything that entails. The 1 extra spirit damage doesn't gain the fire trait. It is NOT fire damage
Don't play things so close to the chest. What /exactly/ are you asking?
I'm asking about how the rules are intended to work.
The specific situation is that I have a PFS player in my (PFS) group who recently rebuilt his character from a level 1 pyrokineticist into a level 1 summoner with angel eidolon and the Energy Heart (fire) feat.
I'm simply wanting, as a PFS GM, to know how the ability is intended to work.
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Ravingdork wrote: I'm asking about how the rules are intended to work.
The specific situation is that I have a PFS player in my (PFS) group who recently rebuilt his character from a level 1 pyrokineticist into a level 1 summoner with angel eidolon and the Energy Heart (fire) feat.
I'm simply wanting, as a PFS GM, to know how the ability is intended to work.
Ultimately that will need to be decided on by the PFS leaders who are in charge of making GM rulings on such matters. If they don't make an official ruling, then it is up to you as the PFS GM to make the decision for your tables.
For my opinion on things, if an ability is consistently dealing fire damage when used, then it should have the Fire trait if that is important.
Ravingdork wrote: The specific situation is that I have a PFS player in my (PFS) group who recently rebuilt his character from a level 1 pyrokineticist into a level 1 summoner with angel eidolon and the Energy Heart (fire) feat.
I'm simply wanting, as a PFS GM, to know how the ability is intended to work.
Is there an AP encounter you have coming up, where some aspect of the encounter will be different depending on whether the attack is [type fire damage but not fire trait] vs [type fire damage and fire trait]? This is not a challenge to the question, I'm asking because I'm curious about what that encounter would be and what it says, which creates the different outcomes. Particularly if you're worried about some scene in the beginner box; I could see how that might elevate clarifying it to high importance for Paizo.
Baarogue wrote: The unarmed attack does not gain the fire trait, but fire damage IS fire damage and if you performed the unarmed attack underwater it would not deal the fire damage unless some other ability or effect facilitated it. The problem is the reason stated for it not doing fire damage is because of the fire trait that it doesn't have.
Which is why I'm somewhat confused.
Squiggit wrote: Baarogue wrote: The unarmed attack does not gain the fire trait, but fire damage IS fire damage and if you performed the unarmed attack underwater it would not deal the fire damage unless some other ability or effect facilitated it. The problem is the reason stated for it not doing fire damage is because of the fire trait that it doesn't have.
Which is why I'm somewhat confused. the attack/effect might not have the trait, but fire damage is fire damage. I doubt anyone is going to argue that fire damage doesn't have its namesake trait with a straight face
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Baarogue wrote: the attack/effect might not have the trait, but fire damage is fire damage. I doubt anyone is going to argue that fire damage doesn't have its namesake trait with a straight face Didn't you know? It is the new non-fiery type of fire damage.
Baarogue wrote: the attack/effect might not have the trait, but fire damage is fire damage. I doubt anyone is going to argue that fire damage doesn't have its namesake trait with a straight face I mean, did you read the excerpt? The problem is that it says the attack does have the fire trait. The whole premise of that section of rules is how to adjudicate actions that have the fire trait.
Also worth noting that being underwater doesn't prevent you from taking fire damage, it just gives you resistance 5, so that implication is incorrect too.
Squiggit wrote: Baarogue wrote: the attack/effect might not have the trait, but fire damage is fire damage. I doubt anyone is going to argue that fire damage doesn't have its namesake trait with a straight face I mean, did you read the excerpt? The problem is that it says the attack does have the fire trait. The whole premise of that section of rules is how to adjudicate actions that have the fire trait.
Also worth noting that being underwater doesn't prevent you from taking fire damage, it just gives you resistance 5, so that implication is incorrect too. Alright, I'm sorry. I didn't realize I was actually arguing with you and have been in low-effort mode posting on my iPad because I thought I was just clearing something up. Before I hit the sack lemme break this down
Quote: You can't cast fire spells or use actions with the fire trait underwater. As normal for how traits work, any part of the effect that's unrelated to fire still works. For example, an attack with a flaming battleaxe could still deal its physical damage, just not its fire damage. >You can't cast fire spells or use actions with the fire trait underwater.
That part's pretty straightforward. I don't believe this is causing problems
>As normal for how traits work, any part of the effect that's unrelated to fire still works.
This is setting up the next sentence. I believe the important part is "any part of the effect"
>For example, an attack with a flaming battleaxe could still deal its physical damage, just not its fire damage.
This is going to need the most analysis.
>>an attack with a flaming battleaxe
They say "attack", which is any Strike, action, or activity with the attack trait, which WILL need to include a Strike to benefit from the Flaming rune
>>>flaming battleaxe
According to the naming conventions, this is a battleaxe with the Flaming rune. The Flaming rune has the fire and magical traits, and adds 1d6 fire damage on a successful Strike, plus 1d10 persistent fire damage on a critical hit
^^^ This is the "part of the effect" that's related to fire, the Flaming rune. The Strike, attack, or activity as a whole doesn't inherit the fire trait because that rule was dropped. Before that rule was dropped, people were arguing that a creature immune to fire was immune to any attack or effect with the fire trait, such as a Strike with a flaming battleaxe. Now the attack doesn't gain the fire trait, but the Flaming rune does have it, so it doesn't function underwater
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
You can't attack with a flaming battleaxe underwater, but can you damage with a flaming battleaxe underwater? :P
At what points do traits apply and not apply?
Ravingdork wrote: You can't attack with a flaming battleaxe underwater, but can you damage with a flaming battleaxe underwater? :P
At what points do traits apply and not apply?
>Now the attack doesn't gain the fire trait, but the Flaming rune does have it, so it doesn't function underwater
Sorry, ambiguous pronouns. The attack works, but not the rune
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Squiggit wrote: Elemental damage adding the relevant trait was a rule in an early version of the game that was later removed. What is awkward is that many effects rely on the trait system and the absence of this rules makes some abilities not work as intended. These effects only check for traits alone and do not affect energy types as a whole, particularly elemental effects as elements don't overlap with energy types.
For instance, Elemental Absorption says "You gain resistance 5 to damage dealt by effects with the chosen elemental trait", and Suli's Dualborn feat has similar wording.
The question is, if the trait is not added by default, an eidolon with Energy Heart will not suffer resistance to its attacks by these effects, nor will they gain a damage bonus if a Witch cast Elemental Betrayal as it states "The target gains weakness 2 to that trait." rather than weakness to the damage type.
The same question also applies to Ranged Combatant, which gives an eidolon a new attack with the magical and propulsive traits, an energy damage type, but doesn't state that the attack gains the relevant energy trait. And my own summoner has that feat, with a Witch casting Elemental Betrayal.
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