Should magic weapons deal and resist the same damage type?

[CheeseCake72]

Hello, first time posting here.

I'm currently making some magic items to reward my players with. I specifically want to give out some weapons that deal an elemental damage type but also resist an elemental damage type. I'm wondering if those should match or if they should specifically be opposite like cold and fire.

[Castilliano]

Either, if there's reasoning. There are no metaphysical PF2 standards guiding this, only your table's sense of verisimilitude.

Hot-cold being the most obvious pair where heat would resist cold (or fire or both) and it's intuitive. Bit harder to pit sonic vs. acid, though with magic and mental gymnastics you could, if you wanted that. So yeah, in most cases "this items masters X, therefore it can deal & resist X" is straightforward and acceptable, yet other options exist. Some of the pairings in the Inventor class Armor Innovations for example are odd, but kinda work, i.e. force & sonic both being harmonic...whatever that means for force magic.

But there's no "should" except from yourself (and players).

[Ascalaphus]

What exactly do you mean by resisting? As in, the weapon is hard to damage with that energy type? Or that it gives resistance to the person wielding the weapon?

PF2 doesn't do damage to weapons very often. There's probably no more than 10 monsters of all the ones published that do it, usually oozes that do acid damage to weapons you stick into them. So giving the weapon resistance to en element might not matter very much in practice.

[Quentin Coldwater]

My assumption is giving the wielder the resistance.

Like Castilliano said, either could work. Lots of pre-remaster dragons and a lot of elementally themed monsters deal a certain damage type and resist it as well. Would be weird if a fire dragon couldn't survive in a volcano, for instance. With that reasoning, an elementally-charged weapon could also "insulate" you against that same element: you're wielding a flaming hammer, so you're used to heat. The desert heat would affect you less.

The other way around could also work, like how the new Zelda games do it: you're wielding a flaming weapon that's keeping you hot, so it counteracts the freezing cold of the arctic.

I could also imagine being extra vulnerable to either: the flaming weapon intensifies any heat that's coming your way, or the cold cooling you down more rapidly (bigger difference in temperature).

A random combination of elemental damage and resistance could work, depending on how you flavour it. Using the skull of a hellhound as the base of a mace could give it flaming properties, and because it's so used to howling so often, it grants some sonic resistance.

TL;DR: Flavour is incredibly flexible. There is no wrong answer here.

[The Raven Black]

We usually see in monsters and abilities an ability to deal elemental damage and an ability to resist the same type of damage. Monsters tend to have weakness to the opposite damage type.

[Bluemagetim]

You could do this convention if you want sets of opposed elements.
Really I'm just making this up but if it people disagree with the sets the discussion will probably end up with what you are asking for.

Fire/Cold
Void/Vitality
Electricity/Water
Wood/metal
Mental/Force
Acid/Sonic (Castilliano mentioned it as a long shot but why not go for it)

[The Raven Black]

Bluemagetim wrote:

You could do this convention if you want sets of opposed elements.

Really I'm just making this up but if it people disagree with the sets the discussion will probably end up with what you are asking for.

Fire/Cold
Void/Vitality
Electricity/Water
Wood/metal
Mental/Force
Acid/Sonic (Castilliano mentioned it as a long shot but why not go for it)

Indeed it is not only in Elements that we have this polarity.

Void/Vitality as you mentioned.

Also Holy/Unholy.