So we're all fretting about how out of hand the damage will get if we set up multiple ways to exploit the same weakness. But how many actions does this take to set up? If it's too many, it might not be worth exploiting.
Double and triple stacking is pretty easy because it can happen naturally via class abilities + weapon runes that you'd probably take anyway. No particular setup required. You can get an extra one from an Energy Mutagen, which if it's going to add 15 damage every hit due to weakness is easily worth drinking.
This is also a significant damage buff for very little effort. Like, people already use Flaming and Brilliant runes. Anything with fire weakness is now taking a bunch of extra damage for literally no effort whatsoever. It's just a straight buff.
Some of the bigger numbers require a lot more setup and won't be super practical (like the case where someone was able to trigger a weakness ten times), but they'll also melt any enemy in the game if a party actually does them.
The worst case scenario is a party that does build for it and picks up the means to create a weakness on demand, because they can pretty easily lean into that weakness knowing it'll reliably be there and it's more than worth the actions for one party member to set that up and then everyone else just goes to town triple dipping.
But even in a much more common case of "I just happen to have two things that do the same damage type" that take no real effort whatsoever, as soon as that weakness shows up this will dramatically increase the damage being done.
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Outside of deliberately giving weaknesses out, doubling or tripling g up on damage types really isn’t a great idea because it means you will have encounters where that weapon is all but useless, (or at least the same a weapon with no property runes on it at all), while having having different ones can mean triggering different weaknesses, and thus triggering inherent weaknesses more often.
Having a creature occasionally resist one of two or three runes is not that great a loss to your overall damage output, especially as you get higher level and the weaknesses greatly out pace the 1d6 damage of runes. A creature with resist 5 is just about as likely to take no damage from a matching rune type as a creature with resist 10 or 15, but the weaknesses keeping getting bigger and bigger.
Double stacking runes in normal circumstances when the party doesn’t know what weaknesses are ahead and can’t give specific weaknesses will just mean having fewer encounters where you trigger weaknesses at all and likely over killing encounters that were already going to be on the easier side, because you were hitting a weakness. And having 2 of the same rune that meets resistance is not just losing out on another d6, it is losing out on the opportunity to trigger a weakness that will more than offset the loss of damage from the other rune.
Obviously that is going to be difficult to precisely quantify as so much depends on creature distribution and adventures that lean into creatures with fire or spirit resistance/weakness are going to shift things heavily one way or another. For example, “hey team, let’s do the fire weakness exploit!” Is really not going to work out great in a campaign with Hell in the title.
The only place the new rule is really going to potentially change the difficulty of encounters in a significant way is when the party is giving out weaknesses, and then it comes down to actions spent and lost opportunity to exploit other weaknesses that are probably greater than the ones you are handing out.
Just like how the greatest +1 in PF2 is the one that doubles your chance of getting a crit, making sure your hits are triggering the biggest weakness you can (with spending as few actions to do so as possible), at least once, is very often going to have the largest impact on encounter difficulty. The only weakness granting option that is very obviously going to push that into the absurd is shining symbol for the party built to exploit that.
I think the elemental betrayal case is worth looking at more closely in play for a while, but probably hasn’t gotten to be much better of a strategy than it was before. Range, action cost, and only working against a single target are enough limiters that having the party over specialize in fire is going to have real consequences and make some encounters harder. The Ash Oracle can at least multi target and not have to spend as many future actions keeping things going, so might end up a bit better. Again probably worth keeping an eye on, but not nearly as broken as shining symbol and 10 minutes of weakness granting in an area, to a damage type rarely resisted (and thus less risky to specialize in).
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In many cases the answer is "none" or "just the ones you do anyway as this class" to get up to double or triple triggering, with more being optional. The reason so many people are so confused by this decision is that it doesn't take weird whiteroom setups for this to have a big impact.Can you provide any examples of a party already decked out and ready to abuse this? Even the clarification's explanation just refers to two unspecified spells that add cold damage to your Strikes.
A certain strike fighter with exemplar and draconic barrage (and as many other static damage bonuses as possible, but they aren’t spirit so we don’t care here) was already a pretty good build. Now you just swap out for an astral rune and a holy rune, and you have 4 procs. And two of them happen on misses.
I mean hell, pretty much any martial can swap two runes for astral and holy and get double shining symbol procs, with no other build decisions. With two martials on a team (typically) that justifies the cost of several shining symbols several times over - it was already a pretty good item if your martials had one proc each (possibly by swapping to astral) and (ideally) you wanted a religion item.
Don't forget that the custom-style resistances will pop for every instance that matches.
A spellheart grants resistance to "attacks by demons," another grants nonlethal resistance.
There's a handful of rare and unique AP items granting resist all. These make for a good comparison, as they were intended to multi pop resistance. They are usually single-effect, Reactions, etc.
The L8 Book of Warding Prayers can grant 30ft you & allies resist 10 spirit, or "resistance [10] to un/holy effects" for 1 min. Under the "many instances" interpretation, that 0A Activate grants the entire party pseduo-resist all to Treerazor. Every instance within unholy effects, attacks, etc, carries that unholy trait, and pops resistance.
Yeah, I get that we are primed to trust Paizo's word on rules, but come on guys.
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Also adding a new consumable to the uh-oh list. Ferrofluid Urchin is a talisman that activates when taking physical damage. The effect is
... When you activate the globule, it reshapes to deflect the incoming harm. You gain resistance to the triggering damage.
The L11 version is 6 res, and 225 gp is cheap enough to be bought in L11-20 APs
If the talisman activates off a Strike from an NPC set up like a player with runes and bonus damage, that's going to reduce the damage of every instance.
So if there were an AP with a party v party tournament arc, that would kinda make for a priority get.
There's also still plenty of "resistance to [element]" where they don't specify "type" nor "trait."
Which as far as I have to conclude, means resistance to both trait and type.
IDK how many player-hostile effects, attacks, etc, are elemental tagged, but the "add new instances" ruling does mean that "resistance to fire" enables multi resist pops for split type damage; if the greater ability carries the trait, such as Instant Minefield, both the [fire:trait][fire:type] instance and the [fire:trait][piercing:type] instance get resisted.
(putting the fire trait into each dmg instance is literally the only way spells, etc, can function in the 'many instances' interpretation. You would otherwise allow those instances to dodge immun/weak/resistances outright.)
The Immunity rules have specific text to stop a fire immunity from nullifying all of a spit fire/acid spell, because the rules otherwise have one trait immunity nullify the entire spell.
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 both has a trait and deals that type of damage (such as a lightning bolt spell). 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.
(note that there's no mention of the fire/acid damage being separate instances here, they are 'parts' of the effect)
The Immunity rule also does not even remove the fire trait from the acid damage, so it's still there. (but if the whole spell is one instance, there would be no need for that rule anyway)
More prudently, there's no matching rule in resistance to limit trait resistances.
By errata-rules right now, a fire trait resistance does reduce both the acid and fire type instances, because those are now 2 different instances.
There's no rule anywhere, not even a vague one, that says a spell's traits might only apply to some portions of its effects. The whole spell gets all the traits, but immunities might only nullify some sub-effects.
It's almost like the entire spell's impact was always supposed to be one instance, which would delete the edge case multi resist outright.
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The more items & spells I read, the more convinced I am that Paizo contributors really, really thought that one Strike, etc, was a single instance of damage, and never imagined this "each additional adds an instance" ruling. A single extra word could cut out the danger of many of these, such as injecting a "physical" resistance in that ferrofluid.
The "one impact is one instance containing many types" idea really seems like the only RaW compatible reading when you look at spells.
Spells are just not set up to be broken into different instances like that, at all. Spells themselves carry traits, not their sub-effects.
Every single spell with type damage gets the matching trait, which now applies the trait to the entire thing. It's like coding error where it doesn't crash outright, but is blatantly unintended behavior.
You think that [Acid] [Air] [Cold] [Concentrate] [Earth] [Electricity] [Fire] [Manipulate] [Water] spell Cataclysm was designed around the idea of a single trait resistance dampening every other type chunk of damage?
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And before anyone retorts "but that's obviously wrong, you don't get to reduce cold damage with a fire trait resistance"
congratulations, that's the whole point. This is what happens when you rule that each component damage type, or source of additional damage, for some reason creates a new instance of damage.
There's a Mark reddit comment I forgot to save that was linked somewhere in here where he directly said that Cataclysm does pop area weakness once per type.
Idk what year he said that, but if you subscribe to the "many instances" ruling, it really is mandatory that every instance of damage carries the attributes and traits. It's also clear that Mark remembered that attributes like [area damage] were inherited, but forgot about traits, and how spells don't work like Strikes.
Your Strike w/ a Flaming weapon is properly split up where only the fire type dmg carries the fire trait.
But spells, as well as abilities, don't work like that.
(This is another reason why the remastered holy rune and holy errata weakness nonsense is so headache inducing. Without any actual rules text, and just errata interpretation, it's become it's own special contradiction that I don't want to touch in my examples)
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Resistance to a specific attack is not the same as resistance to all to that attack.
Resistance to a specific attack is not the same as resistance to all to that attack.
If, like this errata, you canonize that a single attack contains many instances, that is exactly what you are doing; you are granting resistance to every contained instance.
That's the whole problem, rofl. When you make something a different instance, that means you are instructing a separate run through of the damage rules.
There has been enough osmosis for the word "instance" to exit the comp sci space and to be understood thanks to things like MMO "instancing" of dungeons, player hubs, world servers, etc.
Instances are parallel and isolated. That's the point of using the word.
Granting resistance to the whole attack, without limiting it to only some of the contained instances, does just that. It applies to all the instances.
Under a different definition of "instance," one that matched "the whole attack," there would be no problem.
Canonizing that attacks, spells, etc, contain many instances creates this multi pop problem. And Mark's last word via that Cataclysm multi pop is that he thinks pf2 works this way.*
(*again, he recognized area damage weakness multi popping, but it doesn't look like he thought about trait inheritance multi popping)
That pickled demon tongue is going to reduce any xd6[pierce] + xd6[spirit] + xd4[poison] demon claw attacks three times on its own.
All of those instances check, trigger, and are reduced by, 'attacks by demons' resistance.
(unless an instance has another, higher resistance to use instead, like 10 resist spirit, etc.)
For a proof by counterexample, you have Forced Mercy.
The spell only makes physical damage nonlethal, all other damage does not get affected. Under the 'many instances' interpretation, that nonlethal resistance would affect a runed up Strike only for that phys, and not for any of the elemental runes, etc.
But that resistance is still being checked inside every contained instance, it is simply not matching and therefore not triggering to reduce that Flaming's fire damage.
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I don’t think the game is all that committed to the idea that every time a character takes damage, the exact same thing happens in the same way, no matter what the actual text says.
If an ability gives you resistance all, it will say that. If it doesn’t, it gives you resistance only to what it says. Resistance to an attack is just a reduction of damage to that whole attack, just like we have been told an attack gaining holy affects the damage only one time.
I think maybe it might be better to stop getting so mechanical with a definition of the word “instance” and think more narratively.
Holy is a special instance of damage that applies categorically to the whole attack. A cold Iron axe making a strike is collectively one instance. The example doesn’t really make it clear if runes are a part of this or not, and that is confusing.
Each spell that adds damage to the attack should be counted as a separate instance (as we are told in the errata).
This probably makes it harder for automation engines, but the game is a table top rpg meant to be interpreted.
Outside of deliberately giving weaknesses out, doubling or tripling g up on damage types really isn’t a great idea because it means you will have encounters where that weapon is all but useless, (or at least the same a weapon with no property runes on it at all), while having having different ones can mean triggering different weaknesses, and thus triggering inherent weaknesses more often.
Doubling up on fire requires two runes (flaming and brilliant). Greater Flaming ignores fires resistance. So if you do encounter fire resistance, you lose 1d4 damage (and another d6 on immunity). That's a small loss vs gaining double weakness against everything with fire weakness, which is 186 non-unique creatures.
This requires no setup. Both those runes are pretty good and folks often take them anyway. It needs no feats, no class features, and no teamwork. It's things you probably would have used anyway except now they're hitting way harder against some of the most commonly used enemies in the game.
Throw in a dirt cheap energy mutagen when weakness shows up and you're triple dipping.
If you actually do use teamwork and get things like Elemental Betrayal to get that weakness up more reliably, this scales out of hand very quickly.
Likewise, a Monk can just use Astral & Holy runes and cast Inner Upheavel to triple dip. This requires nothing except two already good runes and a class focus spell. Use a Shining Symbol to get a weakness up and you can add piles of bonus damage very easily. This still requires no teamwork and nothing that wasn't already good. Spirit Damage works on most enemies already and for the ones that doesn't, the Monk is losing 2d6 damage but is still going work since Flurry helps them deal with resistance. It'll also get Holy weakness and will shred incorporeal enemies since Astral includes Ghost Touch.
So this is already a big boost, and we're not doing anything particularly difficult here. ScooterScoots showed how to quadruple stack it, which is an absurd amount of extra damage that you can turn on basically at will.
Obviously that is going to be difficult to precisely quantify as so much depends on creature distribution and adventures that lean into creatures with fire or spirit resistance/weakness are going to shift things heavily one way or another. For example, “hey team, let’s do the fire weakness exploit!” Is really not going to work out great in a campaign with Hell in the title.
But if it's got Hell in the title, Spirit stacking is going to absolutely destroy things. And you'd know that going in.
The only place the new rule is really going to potentially change the difficulty of encounters in a significant way is when the party is giving out weaknesses, and then it comes down to actions spent and lost opportunity to exploit other weaknesses that are probably greater than the ones you are handing out.Just like how the greatest +1 in PF2 is the one that doubles your chance of getting a crit, making sure your hits are triggering the biggest weakness you can (with spending as few actions to do so as possible), at least once, is very often going to have the largest impact on encounter difficulty. The only weakness granting option that is very obviously going to push that into the absurd is shining symbol for the party built to exploit that.
I think the elemental betrayal case is worth looking at more closely in play for a while, but probably hasn’t gotten to be much better of a strategy than it was before. Range, action cost, and only working against a single target are enough limiters that having the party over specialize in fire is going to have real consequences and make some encounters harder. The Ash Oracle can at least multi target and not have to spend as many future actions keeping things going, so might end up a bit better. Again probably worth keeping an eye on, but not nearly as broken as shining symbol and 10 minutes of weakness granting in an area, to a damage type rarely resisted (and thus less risky to specialize in).
If you're triple or quadruple stacking weaknesses, the one action for Elemental Betrayal is more than worth it, especially on a class with Effortless Concentration. It's not hard to sustain and it's adding so much damage that the caster will be a massive contributor to the overall fight. This is not really that limiting.
Like, this change takes a bunch of existing stuff and says "this is now four times the power that it was before." That's a gigantic buff and as soon as players start taking advantage of it results in massive power creep.
Even in "simple" scenarios where someone isn't actively trying to exploit it, it can still create major power creep when the weakness appears naturally because double dipping isn't a difficult thing to do at all and can happen naturally just due to other choices made. And then you can add another dip by throwing a mutagen on.
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This probably makes it harder for automation engines, but the game is a table top rpg meant to be interpreted.
Literally the reason why we asked for an errata is because the rules were being inconsistently interpreted and people couldn't agree on what they meant.
We have that, now. The new problem is massive power inflation.
Saying that we need to stop interpreting it the way they told us to interpret it is effectively saying "don't use the new errata and interpret it yourself again", which is what we were doing before.
To be fair - that is what I did. I told my players this morning that I'm house ruling this errata out of existence. I've literally never done that with an errata before and I've been in this hobby over 30 years. I guess it's nice to have a first time for everything?
The thing that is unclear in the example is whether runes weapons are one instance of damage or not. It is perfectly reasonable to read each rune as a separate instance, but that is one thing the errata example doesn’t clarify.
If we look at “instance” as something defined mechanically as a cause of damage, that is how we get people trying to apply it to every bonus to damage possible and why trip is so against it.
If “instance” instead is a narrative thing, it is possible for spells to be separate instances but not runes carved into a weapon. Which is still upsetting to a lot of people because it is so much more interpretive than people thought the rules were going to be, but I think it works the best with the information we are given with the errata example to be more narrative and less mechanical.
The example absolutely contradicts a mechanical reading of the word instance
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Okay, I'm sort of convinced that this errata isn't really working entirely as intended. That said, getting all the intended things working was pretty hard.
* It hadn't occurred to me that you could put multiple flaming runes on a single weapon. I'm skeptical that's really intended to be possible.
* It does seem intended that a champion using a cold iron sword should be able to trigger both weaknesses on a demon.
* I think abilities that create new weaknesses in monsters are a relatively new design niche that wasn't used much originally. But that design pattern now needs to be reevaluated for power against this new errata. When a rule "cuts" a lot of design space, that's a red flag; the rule might not be good. Basically, this sort of errata means we can't have shiny symbol things.
* Excessive weakness stacking isn't really desirable.
* Using the same weakness stacking trick against most monsters really isn't in the spirit of PF2. PF2 doesn't like one-trick ponies and leveraging the same tactic against everything. It wants you to try different things now and then.
I'm leaning more and more in the direction that Foundry allowing every weakness/resistance to proc exactly once might have been the right call, even though it's hard to perfectly square with the whole "instance" logic.
* That would allow the champion to hit both holy and cold iron weakness.
* That doesn't make the thaumaturge look stupid for bringing the actual right kind of weapon a monster is weak to, because you can benefit from both weakness and personal antithesis.
* It actually makes Arcane Cascade reasonably useful because you can keep tagging weaknesses without having to use the same spells every time.
* But, it prevents excessive piling-on.
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Words have actual meanings.
Instance is not a narrative thing, it's not a pf2 codified term either.
Instance is being used for its normal definition. That which most folk will recognize from MMO games with "instanced dungeons," or Warframe's "Orcus relay #11," etc.
There is an ocean of a difference between "the rules dictate ___" versus "the rules say maybe, you might want to, I dunno, do ___ sometime"
And the rules very much dictate a set order of operations for its damage system. That's kinda a rather core thing that ought not have multiple variants, lol.
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No, it's not. There's no necessity to have all traits be treated the same in that regard. Case in point, the Holy trait doesn't work this way, as we now know.
Yes, all traits have to have a default procedure. They can, and literally are, given custom rules to override that default all the time.
For now, I'm washing my hands of holy, because Paizo seem to think they've given it a special rule that does not exist in the text.(One of) The reason holy cannot work as Paizo claim is that you have to mirror weaknesses with resistances. You can add a special bucket for holy that doesn't trigger the "only the highest" rule, and it'll math fine. You can add to a null, pretending that null was a 0 the whole time, and nothing breaks.
But resistance doesn't work like that. You can only resist a damage chunk to 0, you cannot go negative. You have to target a specific instance of damage for resistance to be a possible mechanic. If the whole attack was one instance, then you're applying resistance to the instance, everything's hunky dory. But if you desync from that, and change "the attack" into becoming a container of instances, you cannot apply resistance to "the attack" anymore. (null) - (5) = runtime error.
And there's still the "only the highest" rule lurking over there. If something has holy resist 10, spirit resist 5, slash resist 3, and no other dmg types, wtf do you do? Do you reduce incoming damage 3 times for 2 instances? Really? Even when the rules literally say when you trigger 2 resistances, you only use the highest?
And to really hammer that home, if there is no rule that you resist traits like holy separately from typed instances, then you are being ordered by the rules to not do that. You cannot invent new rule procedures like that ex nihilo.
(which is why I hate the holy part of the errata, because that's exactly what they did, rofl)
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Leaving holy aside as a freak special case, yes, 100% attributes like "is area damage" and traits like fire, water, etc, have to be carried by the typed damage instances.
To do otherwise would be to break the Im/Wk/Res rules outright. None of the contained instances would have the traits, lol. And it would open the box to other shenanigans like bypassing the no fire underwater rule, it would break specifically [trait] effects like Elemental Betrayal, etc.
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Another way to think about traits is that traits are just attributes with really long and predefined text, with a unique shorthand key. [splash] damage versus "area damage" being a nice pair to point to. Because if you pretend they are different, oh boy. Only bombs have the splash trait, but splash damage is all over, including in spells.
Area damage honestly could have gotten a trait, and it wouldn't have changed much of anything.
But to try to invent some big mechanical divide between "traits" and the "attributes" of a damage instance is some serious folly, imo.
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Okay, I'm sort of convinced that this errata isn't really working entirely as intended. That said, getting all the intended things working was pretty hard.
If yall want to get to the platonic ideal of Mark's post on weak/res rules, I can get you there in 2 tiny steps. Creates no edge cases, legit butter smooth table play.
Define instance of damage as the impact, Strike, spell boom, etc. If an effect creates a new boom, like Fire Wisp, that's a new instance. If it adds additional damage (add dmg into what?) it's only adding damage into an existing instance.
Edit the "only the highest" rule, replacing it with:
"Each individual weakness only contributes damage once per instance of damage."
And mirror this for resistance.
And that's it, you've re-invented the weak/res rules into a better, less buggy state that what the community has been playing with for years. You still get some amount of explosive weakness damage by hitting multiple different weaknesses, but you've also added that "each only once" rule that the community pretended was there for 7ish years.
Foundry tried to get there, but didn't commit to inventing the fantasy community safety rule, so you could multi pop trait & custom weak/resistances under a lot of circumstances.
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* It hadn't occurred to me that you could put multiple flaming runes on a single weapon. I'm skeptical that's really intended to be possible.
Multiple flaming runes doesn't work RAW. Also applies to Flaming and Greater Flaming (they're different levels of the same rune).
If a suit of armor or a weapon has multiple etchings of the same rune, only the highest-level one applies.
You CAN do Flaming and Brilliant because they're two completely different runes that both do fire damage, just like you can do Astral and Holy.
* I think abilities that create new weaknesses in monsters are a relatively new design niche that wasn't used much originally. But that design pattern now needs to be reevaluated for power against this new errata. When a rule "cuts" a lot of design space, that's a red flag; the rule might not be good. Basically, this sort of errata means we can't have shiny symbol things.
Elemental Betrayal goes back to the APG which the second rulebook released after the Core Rulebook (the first one was the Gamemastery Guide).
So the concept isn't that new, but it wasn't in the spotlight.
* Excessive weakness stacking isn't really desirable.* Using the same weakness stacking trick against most monsters really isn't in the spirit of PF2. PF2 doesn't like one-trick ponies and leveraging the same tactic against everything. It wants you to try different things now and then.
Agreed.
I'm leaning more and more in the direction that Foundry allowing every weakness/resistance to proc exactly once might have been the right call, even though it's hard to perfectly square with the whole "instance" logic.
Also agreed. Foundry's implementation has its quirks, but it works from a gameplay perspective really well. It's practical and effective.
In terms of how the game flows, that implementation is WAY better than the errata implementation.
* That doesn't make the thaumaturge look stupid for bringing the actual right kind of weapon a monster is weak to, because you can benefit from both weakness and personal antithesis.
Yeah this is definitely a quirky part of Thaumaturge.
* It actually makes Arcane Cascade reasonably useful because you can keep tagging weaknesses without having to use the same spells every time.
Yeah. As opposed to the new errata where you want to match the weakness to double dip it, so you absolutely should just use the same thing over and over again.
* But, it prevents excessive piling-on.
That's the big one. Double dipping is bad. Quadruple dipping is REALLY bad.
I play Borderlands 4 and it has a balance problem in that the strongest gun in the game (the Bod) quintuple dips on gun damage bonuses. It's absolutely game warping and can shred everything, to the point that events that let you farm it more efficiently were super popular. And the devs were so terrified of nerfing it that they waited too long because now most of the playerbase has one and is used to it, and it'll feel really bad to suddenly take it away. But it never should have been allowed to stay like that in the first place given how bad it was for the game.
There's a lesson in that in regards to this errata, and it should be: allowing effects that can multi-dip this many times is a really bad idea and that reversing it ASAP is the best fix. If you let the community get used to playing with this kind of power inflation, it gets harder to undo the damage.
It's also gonna suck for some people like certain barbarians when they run into physical resistance and it double applies because they get a boost of the same damage type as their weapon attack.
I'm guessing stuff like Sorcerous Potency will also count toward this, so that's an easy way for double stacking either way.No, barbarians won't get it with just '+X damage'. Because it doesn't have a type.
And absolutely not sorcerers: they get status bonus damage. None of categories of bonus damage (item, status, circumstance) will ever be separate instances.
Some barbarians specifically get physical damage types.
Where in the rule does it prevent named bonuses?
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* It hadn't occurred to me that you could put multiple flaming runes on a single weapon. I'm skeptical that's really intended to be possible.Multiple flaming runes doesn't work RAW. Also applies to Flaming and Greater Flaming (they're different levels of the same rune).
If a suit of armor or a weapon has multiple etchings of the same rune, only the highest-level one applies.You CAN do Flaming and Brilliant because they're two completely different runes that both do fire damage, just like you can do Astral and Holy.
* I think abilities that create new weaknesses in monsters are a relatively new design niche that wasn't used much originally. But that design pattern now needs to be reevaluated for power against this new errata. When a rule "cuts" a lot of design space, that's a red flag; the rule might not be good. Basically, this sort of errata means we can't have shiny symbol things.Elemental Betrayal goes back to the APG which the second rulebook released after the Core Rulebook (the first one was the Gamemastery Guide).
So the concept isn't that new, but it wasn't in the spotlight.
* Excessive weakness stacking isn't really desirable.* Using the same weakness stacking trick against most monsters really isn't in the spirit of PF2. PF2 doesn't like one-trick ponies and leveraging the same tactic against everything. It wants you to try different things now and then.
Agreed.
I'm leaning more and more in the direction that Foundry allowing every weakness/resistance to proc exactly once might have been the right call, even though it's hard to perfectly square with the whole "instance" logic.Also agreed. Foundry's implementation has its quirks, but it works from a gameplay perspective really well. It's practical and effective.
In terms of how the game flows, that implementation is WAY better than the errata...
Completely agreed. This change creates a game warping type of optimisation that is really uninteresting from a gameplay perspective, and can easily trivialise encounters which PF2e has always tried to stay away from in its balancing. It reminds me of the buff stacking in 1e which doesn't interest me in the slightest.
It's super formulaic and fairly easy to reproduce. I seriously don't see why this change is even necessary, it's not like it felt bad to be hitting a weakness when you had multiple instances of the same damage type, and there already were ways of getting multiple procs with persistent damage and some other features.
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Outside of deliberately giving weaknesses out, doubling or tripling g up on damage types really isn’t a great idea because it means you will have encounters where that weapon is all but useless, (or at least the same a weapon with no property runes on it at all), while having having different ones can mean triggering different weaknesses, and thus triggering inherent weaknesses more often.
Like even if this was rarely useful, it would still be a massive problem because of how much it warps the encounters it's effective in. PF2e strays away from people being able to be so effective in a combat niche that when it comes up the encounter is basically just completely trivialised. Not to say there isn't any of this, but when it comes to getting insane damage output it's just not really a thing.
It's also just not that hard to actually do (double dipping at least), and resistance isn't common enough to be an issue. It's not exactly like Flaming runes are bad.
You can't just excuse the weakness granting stuff either. Because this change is going to push people into using those options. When these features are used it stops becoming every now and then and starts becoming most encounters. Then there are the characters who can easily mess with damage types to just adapt to weaknesses that they come across.
Coming from the person who thought 2d8 damage per spell rank was too overpowered, I dont know how you can't see the issue with this. This is an example of something that's actually powerful in its niche, and not in a small way, and there are methods of turning it from something circumstantial to something ever present.
You can't really use the argument that it requires a lot of optimisation, because that's kind of part of the the issue.
Ok, 'certain barbarians' with different damage types, yes, I suppose. '+X damage' ('X additional damage on melee Strikes') still no. And if it's a specific type damage on a weapon with matching type, I'd add it too.
I don't agree that's this is clear in this change at all. A Dragon Barbarian with bludgeoning damage on their rage using a bludgeoning weapon is going to be double hit with resistance and weakness. This whole errata is about multiple instances of the same damage.
As for sorcerers, what do you mean, 'prevent'? With 'additional' damage, especially of different types we may have instances. But damage bonuses are never instances, that was always clear:
"As with checks, you might add circumstance, status, or item bonuses to your damage rolls, but if you have multiple bonuses of the same type, you add only the highest bonus of that type. Again like checks, you may also apply circumstance, status, item, and untyped penalties to the damage roll, and again you apply only the greatest penalty of a specific type but apply all untyped penalties together."
Even if some new effect just creates such bonus (status or circumstance most probably) of the same type as base one, that's still not a new instance.
That means Sorcerous Potency never creates another 'instance'.
Nothing you've quoted here suggests that a named or unnamed bonus doesn't count as a new instance of damage for the purpose of this errata.
Do you think I'm talking about multiple instances of the same named bonus? I'm not.
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Okay, I'm sort of convinced that this errata isn't really working entirely as intended. That said, getting all the intended things working was pretty hard.If yall want to get to the platonic ideal of Mark's post on weak/res rules, I can get you there in 2 tiny steps. Creates no edge cases, legit butter smooth table play.
Define instance of damage as the impact, Strike, spell boom, etc. If an effect creates a new boom, like Fire Wisp, that's a new instance. If it adds additional damage (add dmg into what?) it's only adding damage into an existing instance.
Edit the "only the highest" rule, replacing it with:
"Each individual weakness only contributes damage once per instance of damage."
And mirror this for resistance.And that's it, you've re-invented the weak/res rules into a better, less buggy state that what the community has been playing with for years. You still get some amount of explosive weakness damage by hitting multiple different weaknesses, but you've also added that "each only once" rule that the community pretended was there for 7ish years.
Foundry tried to get there, but didn't commit to inventing the fantasy community safety rule, so you could multi pop trait & custom weak/resistances under a lot of circumstances.
I like it in broad strokes, but I don't think this fully covers all edge cases.
For example, the cold iron slashing weapon. With the current errata those are a single instance, and that matches what the book is talking about; combining a type and a trait. So, should that trigger both weaknesses? on a fey plant critter that's weak to cold iron and slashing? It'd be one way to get a simple consistent system. It's still a change, but could be a change we don't mind so much.
Another one: how will "resistance to all damage" work? If you get hit by a flaming cold iron slashing weapon, should it trigger once, twice or three times? What about damage from some spell that happens to have ten different traits? Does resistance to all damage trigger ten times?
I don't agree that's this is clear in this change at all. A Dragon Barbarian with bludgeoning damage on their rage using a bludgeoning weapon is going to be double hit with resistance and weakness. This whole errata is about multiple instances of the same damage.You can not agree.
As for sorcerers, what do you mean, 'prevent'? With 'additional' damage, especially of different types we may have instances. But damage bonuses are never instances, that was always clear:
"As with checks, you might add circumstance, status, or item bonuses to your damage rolls, but if you have multiple bonuses of the same type, you add only the highest bonus of that type. Again like checks, you may also apply circumstance, status, item, and untyped penalties to the damage roll, and again you apply only the greatest penalty of a specific type but apply all untyped penalties together."
Even if some new effect just creates such bonus (status or circumstance most probably) of the same type as base one, that's still not a new instance.
That means Sorcerous Potency never creates another 'instance'.Nothing you've quoted here suggests that a named or unnamed bonus doesn't count as a new instance of damage for the purpose of this errata.
Do you think I'm talking about multiple instances of the same named bonus? I'm not.
But not here. Everything suggests this, it's the core of game mechanics, bonuses go here:
Melee damage roll = damage die of weapon or unarmed attack + Strength modifier + bonuses + penalties
Spell (or similar effect) damage roll = damage die of effect + bonuses + penalties
(and ranged rolls too)
It's one number, there's no instances in this case. Sorcerous Potency does exactly this.
It's not merely not agreeing, you haven't substantiated that point at all.
Do you think an instance is the whole damage roll? The errata makes it clear that it is not, the instances are what make up the damage roll. You aren't citing any rules to define the term, it's pure conjecture. The only rule you cited had no relevance to the point.
Why is a named bonus not a separate instance, but an unnamed one is? What supports this in the rules?
The current rules of the game don't define what exactly an instance is, the errata also does not do it precisely. The whole point of the errata was to clarify what the rules of the game are, and they don't point either way in this situation.
If you can provide a citation, or strong enough argument backed up with textual support I would change my mind. But you have not.
Your argument is literally contradicted by the errata. You say that a dragon barbarians physical damage increase would not count as an instance, and if that was the case, the example in the errata wouldn't work either.
This errata/change is pretty much a disaster. As such, for my home game I'll be ignoring it, and as for PFS -- well, I was pretty much done running that anyway. This just cements that decision.
The only other thing I can say is that this likely won't will be the final word on that matter, because it is broken.
Is PFS even trying to implement it yet?
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Is PFS even trying to implement it yet?
My understanding of PFS is that errata are live immediately, and GMs cannot ignore them.
Per the guide to organized play:
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As a Pathfinder Society GM, you have the right and responsibility to make whatever judgments you feel are necessary—within the rules—to ensure everyone has a fair and fun experience at your table.
This does not mean you can contradict rules or restrictions outlined in this Guide, a published Pathfinder RPG source, errata document (like the Pathfinder FAQ and Errata), or official FAQ (like the Pathfinder Society FAQ) on paizo.com. It does mean that only you can judge what is right for your table in situations not covered in those sources.
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So yeah...at least as far as the rules, it appears that errata are in effect (and mandatory) as of the day they are published.
You are right about the cold iron slashing!
'single instance per impact' + 'each weakness once per instance' would allow that to pop both weaknesses. Considering that folks are defending the idea of popping both holy and slashing weakness from one swipe, it's the kind of ruleset that may appeal to them, and it is just being consistent.Your worry about resist all is not a problem, though. Resist all doesn't trigger off of custom / trait kinds of resistance, only types.
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@Trip.H: that might be the solution, although it seems a bit buried in the text. I don't like rules to be quite so subtle. Rules should be really clear and obvious.
You can have weakness to types and traits, and even to things that normally don't do damage. That's pretty clear.
You can have resistance to types, and then the text goes on to say that actually means "types and other traits". Then when it comes round to resistance to all damage, it's only talking about "types" again without mentioning traits.
I think a reasonable interpretation of that is that when you have a damage calculation, (almost) every ingredient of it has a type associated with it. That 2d8+4+2 damage from the sword + striking rune + strength + specialization would all be slashing. The 1d6 fire from the flaming rune would be fire. Most flat bonuses you can point to what base ingredient of the calculation they apply to.
There are a few odd cases. Some barbarian instincts change the type of their additional damage from rage, like Dragon. Others don't, so what was the type before? I think a reasonable default is to say it was the base thing you were striking with. So a dragon barb that chooses not to use their extra damage from instinct would just gain the +2 rage damage as part of their slashing sword. But if they choose to tap into their conspirator dragon aspect it becomes poison damage.
So if that barbarian was fighting a champion using their reaction, that would make the difference between resist all reducing damage once (just the slashing sword) or twice (the slashing sword and the poison rage).
However, when the champion is using their reaction against a rogue doing sneak attack damage, it'd trigger only once, because the slashing damage is a type, but the precision damage is very clearly listed in the book as not being a separate type.
That does create another odd case, if you had a monster that was resistant to slashing and precision damage it'd resist more of the sneak attack than if it had resistance to all damage.
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It still feels a little fiddly to me, resistance to all damage becomes quite different from regular resistance that way.
And I'm not sure then how you'd handle "resistance to attacks from demons". Would that trigger once for the demon trait, or for every type of the demon's damage ingredients?
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[demon example]
'Resistance to attacks by demons' would only trigger once per instance; once per impact, Strike, ability boom, etc.
See below spoiler for the "order of specificity" detail.[precision damage]
Because the game does have precision imm/weak/res I do think it's required to consider precision damage to be its own separate type, but a special type that has the function of upping another damage type later in the formula.
Never mind, reading it again, the gargoyle example kinda removes that other option. If phys resist triggers upon both the base and precision, then resist all definitely affects precision damage independently of the paired type.
(and resist all should already be reducing precision in the current 'many instances' version as well, btw. )
[resist all reduces all *types* of damage]
You did bump into that subtle oddity about how weakness isn't fully mirrored by resistance
In the 'many instances' interpretation, you can still pop weakness off of non-damage traits,etc, fine. You're adding to
But resistance needs typed damage to be reduced, you cannot reduce a null dmg container of instances. So you get the community's pickle of a hairball of special pleading improvisation w/ no rules text.
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But, this discomfort isn't hiding a problem in the 'one instance per Strike' version!
When dealing with multi type and traited damage, like a water spell dealing cold + bldg damage, as long as you remember that you cannot reduce a chunk of damage below zero, it works fine.
But it does mean that the order of operations could matter, so another rule saying the GM should maximize/minimize the resistance reduction would remove that ambiguity.
The easy way to remove ambiguity and keep it going fast is to dictate that you apply TYPE resistance first, then when that's complete, you check the now-typeless pool of damage for trait + custom resistances.
For the water cold + bldg spell example, you would reduce any cold & bldg damage by its type resistance first.
When you're done with the types, you have a pool of cold+bldg[typeless] damage that's all [water] trait.
Then you check and possibly apply any water resistance.
I would like to say this situation would be rather uncommon, but players can gain holy/unholy resistance, and for those PCs this detail would be significant.
This method is also how you avoid "wasting" a trait/custom resistance on a tiny damage chunk. You go in order of specificity with type first, then pool the damage by matching trait/attribute/etc, then apply that more broad resistance next.
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As long as I'm offering quick homebrew to help out, I might as well make it as good as it can be, so thank you for helping out that process.
It's absolutely worth it to edit my future suggestion to include that order of specificity detail in there.
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Another concern I have is the dying condition. If you crit someone with a +1 striking flaming longsword, and the slashing damage is enough to bring them to 0 HP, the target gains the dying 2 condition. If we treat the fire damage as a separate instance, won't that then increase to dying 4?
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Another concern I have is the dying condition. If you crit someone with a +1 striking flaming longsword, and the slashing damage is enough to bring them to 0 HP, the target gains the dying 2 condition. If we treat the fire damage as a separate instance, won't that then increase to dying 4?
The dying rules don't reference instances, they just say "if you take damage". You're still taking all the damage in one attack at the end of the day, so nothing should change here.
Any GM that decides they want to run it differently is going to start one shotting players with creatures that have multiple damage types. I don't think that's the goal here.
There is a screenshot from Discord floating around that is from Foundry after they have talked to Paiso about more clarification.
Here is a text variant from that. each - is its own message
- we got a couple of clarifications on the clarification already- I think we can distill an actual rule
- What i distilled was that an instance is some quantity of damage from a source that has an explicit damage type.
- So weapon specialication damage and vicious swing dice aren't instances, but inventor's offencive boost is--even if you make it the same damage type as your weapon
- if sneak added nd6 slashing damage that'd be something
- but not nd6 damage where the damage type is inferred somehow.
- We also asked about situations of combining damage, like with flurry of blows
- in that case all source information is lost. and it's down to damage types
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Interesting that they also talk about Flurry. It seems like if you go with the "old compromise" approach where each damage type becomes an instance, but only one damage instance per different type, the amount of weakness/resistance applied is more or less what we're used to.
But if you go from two standalone strikes to a combined Flurry using the new errata, the amount of weakness/resistance procs changes much more radically.
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There is a screenshot from Discord floating around that is from Foundry after they have talked to Paiso about more clarification.
Here is a text variant from that. each - is its own message
- we got a couple of clarifications on the clarification already- I think we can distill an actual rule
- What i distilled was that an instance is some quantity of damage from a source that has an explicit damage type.
- So weapon specialication damage and vicious swing dice aren't instances, but inventor's offencive boost is--even if you make it the same damage type as your weapon
- if sneak added nd6 slashing damage that'd be something
- but not nd6 damage where the damage type is inferred somehow.
- We also asked about situations of combining damage, like with flurry of blows
- in that case all source information is lost. and it's down to damage types
That Flurry one, wow. That's a huge nerf to Flurry, and also creates this bizarre exception where that case works drastically differently from every other case. Which is even more complexity.
You could go from a single attack double dipping (so four times with two attacks) to Flurry only getting it once. That's awful.
The more people dig into this, the more I hate it.
I created a new post in this rules forum for trying to get as clear an understanding as how people are reading the intended rules of the new damage instance errata as possible, with concrete examples to look at and discuss.
One that I didn’t fit in there, largely because I am not at all sure how to interpret screen shots of conversations detween developers and software engineers as official rules advice, is a flurry of blows or other “combine these for weaknesses/resistances.” How would a spell like flame wisp factor into any combined attack like that is pretty confusing. Do we already know if flame wisp would only trigger once after the whole flurry? (Not for the weaknesses/resistances conversation, but just as far as whether only one wisp would fire off after the whole combined action?)
Just to +1 onto Flame Wisp.
It has always been the example for something that is entirely outside the Strike, its trigger condition is irrelevant to if the spell is enhancing the Strike, or is a separate impact.
There's nothing in the text about it adding its damage to the trigger.
Therefore, the spell creates an entirely different "spell hit" instance of damage, like sustaining a Flaming Sphere would.
Even for those who think the RaW says that "each swing/impact is a single instance of damage containing many types," Flame Wisp is still the example for what kind of effect does create a second instance of damage.
I still point to the much lower damage and limited charges of Flame Wisp in comparison to the other fire buffs like Flame Dancer as evidence for that "each swing is one instance" claim; Flame Wisp trades away damage to gain the ability to proc weakness independently of its trigger. It even trades away the ability to buff allies, Flame Wisp is self-only.
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There is a screenshot from Discord floating around that is from Foundry after they have talked to Paiso about more clarification.
Here is a text variant from that. each - is its own message
- we got a couple of clarifications on the clarification already- I think we can distill an actual rule
- What i distilled was that an instance is some quantity of damage from a source that has an explicit damage type.
- So weapon specialication damage and vicious swing dice aren't instances, but inventor's offencive boost is--even if you make it the same damage type as your weapon
- if sneak added nd6 slashing damage that'd be something
- but not nd6 damage where the damage type is inferred somehow.
- We also asked about situations of combining damage, like with flurry of blows
- in that case all source information is lost. and it's down to damage types
Amazing how the errata that's supposed to clarify what an instance is still doesn't clarify what an instance is and needs further clarification from unofficial discord screenshots.
Wow. It's a good thing I don't need to convince you of anything. You can continue to be ... that.
You reply to my comments and call me wrong, then after getting pressed your response is to say "I don't need to convince you of anything." If you had actual points then you could say that, but you aren't disproving what I said.
Damage rolls are per effect and so per instance as in this errata. You didn't mix them before even for the same damage type (maybe in the end adding same damage types) and you definitely don't do this now. Each damage roll is only one number by definition. There's nothing to substantiate. It's what definition means.
There is quite literally nothing you've cited in the rules that backs up what you are saying.
A bonus that is unnamed is still part of the damage roll calculation, otherwise it wouldn't get doubled on a crit, or halved on a successful save. Like looking through how damage is calculated in the rules even as per the text you quoted, there is nothing in between the calculation and determining how resistances and weaknesses apply that talks about damage bonuses that aren't named, in fact, the only place this is mentioned is in the section that talks about applying untyped penalties to a roll, which is grouped into all the other penalties. Since the rules omit this for bonuses, the closest analogue is what it says about penalties so it's reasonable to apply it the same way as you would a penalty considering these function identically other than the fact it is a negative.
There's a reason I'm asking you for a citation, because by your argument the current errata doesn't actually do anything because nothing would count as a seperate instance anyway. This is especially true when you're saying that a physical damage dragon instinct barbarian's bonus would also not apply. If that doesn't apply (an unnamed bonus), and named bonuses don't apply, then what does? There could be a rule I'm missing, and since you're so confident I feel like there has to be some kind of rule here I don't know of, but if it exists, you haven't cited it.
Just to +1 onto Flame Wisp.
It has always been the example for something that is entirely outside the Strike, its trigger condition is irrelevant to if the spell is enhancing the Strike, or is a separate impact.
There's nothing in the text about it adding its damage to the trigger.
Therefore, the spell creates an entirely different "spell hit" instance of damage, like sustaining a Flaming Sphere would.Even for those who think the RaW says that "each swing/impact is a single instance of damage containing many types," Flame Wisp is still the example for what kind of effect does create a second instance of damage.
I still point to the much lower damage and limited charges of Flame Wisp in comparison to the other fire buffs like Flame Dancer as evidence for that "each swing is one instance" claim; Flame Wisp trades away damage to gain the ability to proc weakness independently of its trigger. It even trades away the ability to buff allies, Flame Wisp is self-only.
Doesn’t the errata example make it crystal clear that spells at least need to be considered as separate instances of damage? It would be nice to have real examples instead of hypothetical ones, but the only thing we know about them in the example that is meant to illuminate an instance of damage is that they are spells that add damage to the strike and that they count as separate instances, even though they do the same damage type.
People are extrapolating a lot from this, like that all things that add damage to a strike must be discrete instances of damage because these two spells are, but the example does explicitly call them out as spells, so there is still ambiguity as to whether runes are discrete instances or part of the weapon, and when/whether class or character-based bonuses are as well.
I get that some people want a consistent and easy mechanical way of separating instances of damage, but I agree with Trip H that trying to do that and treat everything in the errata example work the way it is described is not possible. Somethings, like definitely spells, are called out as separate instances in this example, but other things are definitely not.
and as for PFS -- well, I was pretty much done running that anyway. This just cements that decision.
That is too bad. PFS needs GMs.
Just to +1 onto Flame Wisp.
It has always been the example for something that is entirely outside the Strike, its trigger condition is irrelevant to if the spell is enhancing the Strike, or is a separate impact.
There's nothing in the text about it adding its damage to the trigger.
Therefore, the spell creates an entirely different "spell hit" instance of damage, like sustaining a Flaming Sphere would.Even for those who think the RaW says that "each swing/impact is a single instance of damage containing many types," Flame Wisp is still the example for what kind of effect does create a second instance of damage.
I still point to the much lower damage and limited charges of Flame Wisp in comparison to the other fire buffs like Flame Dancer as evidence for that "each swing is one instance" claim; Flame Wisp trades away damage to gain the ability to proc weakness independently of its trigger. It even trades away the ability to buff allies, Flame Wisp is self-only.
Doesn’t the errata example make it crystal clear that spells at least need to be considered as separate instances of damage? It would be nice to have real examples instead of hypothetical ones, but the only thing we know about them in the example that is meant to illuminate an instance of damage is that they are spells that add damage to the strike and that they count as separate instances, even though they do the same damage type.
People are extrapolating a lot from this, like that all things that add damage to a strike must be discrete instances of damage because these two spells are, but the example does explicitly call them out as spells, so there is still ambiguity as to whether runes are discrete instances or part of the weapon, and when/whether class or character-based bonuses are as well.
I get that some people want a consistent and easy mechanical way of separating instances of damage, but I agree with Trip H that trying to do that and treat everything in the errata example work the way it is...
Agree. said in the start that the clarification was only explicitly calling out spells as separate instances, and got heavy backlash.
Edit:
but the foundry talk puts some wrenches in that, but its what the clarification say.
personally i will wait for foundry's update and see how that is, since we use foundry anyway we have not bothered to make manual adjustments for weakness yet.
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I get that some people want a consistent and easy mechanical way of separating instances of damage, but I agree with Trip H that trying to do that and treat everything in the errata example work the way it is described is not possible. Somethings, like definitely spells, are called out as separate instances in this example, but other things are definitely not.
But then we're back to where we started: how does it work with runes and class features? The example they gave us is meant to illustrate how it works. If they gave us an example that doesn't demonstrate how it works because spells are an exception, then they gave us an actively misleading example. I don't know how we can make THAT assumption, so until told otherwise we have to assume it works like the example says it does.
This is what the Foundry devs are trying to understand with their clarification questions and the info being released.
Amazing how the errata that's supposed to clarify what an instance is still doesn't clarify what an instance is and needs further clarification from unofficial discord screenshots.There is a screenshot from Discord floating around that is from Foundry after they have talked to Paiso about more clarification.
Here is a text variant from that. each - is its own message
- we got a couple of clarifications on the clarification already- I think we can distill an actual rule
- What i distilled was that an instance is some quantity of damage from a source that has an explicit damage type.
- So weapon specialication damage and vicious swing dice aren't instances, but inventor's offencive boost is--even if you make it the same damage type as your weapon
- if sneak added nd6 slashing damage that'd be something
- but not nd6 damage where the damage type is inferred somehow.
- We also asked about situations of combining damage, like with flurry of blows
- in that case all source information is lost. and it's down to damage types
Yeah. This has really not gone the way anyone envisioned when asking for an answer on this. :\ Instead we got this Monkey's Paw situation.
See I think the potentially (hopefully) early release of the errata has actually helped generate conversation that is helping establish exactly what needs clarifying.
The example not having any runes that hit the weakness makes it more confusing. 2 such runes would really answer the specific questions about whether everything or only some things trigger a new instance and thus weaknesses again.
The example not including actual spells means that we read it as every spell will always be a new instance, where as it could be that some spells are (flame wisp, spells that give special attacks) and others are not. Currently, with hypotheticals, it seems like every spell must.
The example (or a second, separate example) doesn’t address class abilities, and how to help people decide which ones are unique abilities or not.
I imagine getting feedback like that could really help for future clarity.
Personally, I am not putting too much RAW stock in screen shots of non-public conversations , so I will wait before trying to argue that certain aspects of the above questions are now officially resolved. However, reading that example increases my confidence that the official position on an instance of damage is going to be that it is not precisely defined by mechanical terms, but in thinking about the narrative of what feels like one source of combined chunks of damage. Like the weapon is one combined chunk for strikes (which I think will include runes), but most spells should be read as a different source of damage, regardless of whether the different chunks do the same or different damages. Class and ancestry features will have to be evaluated individually and not all together.
The reasons I think this is because: it allows the game to have the most narrative flexibility; it means that the “apply only the highest” rule has something to do and isn’t vestigial (each instance will only trigger weaknesses once); it make all the feats and spells that specify that they combine damage work as exceptions to a general rule (normally, 3 separate projectiles would be 3 instances of damage regardless of whether they come from 1 spell or 3 different ones, but not in the case of force barrage). I understand that makes the rule difficult to automate, but I don’t think TRRPGs have to place that goal very high on their priority list.
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In-case peopel dont read general forum and have missed it.
You all spoke, and we’re changing course! With the Pathfinder Spring Errata blog just around the corner, take a look at this note from our design team about how we're addressing the weakness rules!
...We released a clarification on how to apply weaknesses and interpret “instance of damage” with the set of FAQs for the 2nd printing of Pathfinder Player Core. With the overall negative response to the clarification, we want to acknowledge the community's preference for something easier to apply, as well as the particular concerns about the possibility of repeatedly triggering the same weakness multiple times in a way that feels unintuitive and exploitable. We hear you about the wording of the text in Player Core being too vague for all but the simplest situations, so we’re looking at both an erratum to that text and a full clarification with a deeper level of detail for those who want it.
We’re removing the old clarification to avoid further confusion. For GMs looking for immediate guidance, here’s the general idea behind the upcoming version, which should cover most situations: Each Strike, spell, or other effect can trigger multiple weaknesses, but each weakness can be triggered only once. All the damage being done as a part of the effect, regardless of its source, is combined before processing the immunities, weaknesses, and resistances. For example, a Spellstrike using thunderstrike and a shock weapon would combine all the electricity damage. For resistances, you still apply only the highest resistance if more than one resistance would apply to a single source and type of damage. This primarily happens with weapons that have a special material; a Strike with a cold iron spear against a creature with resistance 10 to cold iron and resistance 5 to piercing would reduce the damage by 10. Resistance to "all damage" still works as written, but will be reviewed during the process for consistency with any other revisions.
In reading your responses, we are seeing that