Damage and Resistance

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Types of Damage

Here is a brief discussion of damage types. There's little 'new' here, it's mainly clarification/edification.

Physical damage

This broad term represents damage caused by weapons, claws, rocks, that sort of thing. Physical damage is resisted by Damage Reduction (DR).

Weapon Damage

Weapons always do physical damage. Weapons are further subdivided into three primary category's of damage: bludgeoning, slashing, and piercing.

• Piercing Damage: Piercing damage is physical damage concentrated into a very small point on the target. Piercing weapons do less damage than bludgeoning or slashing weapons, but have a higher chance of doing critical damage.

• Bludgeoning Damage: Bludgeoning damage is impact damage that tends to spread over a large area upon the target. Bludgeoning weapons tend to do more damage but have a lower chance of doing critical damage.

• Slashing Damage: Slashing damage is more focused than bludgeoning but less concentrated than piercing. As such, slashing weapons tend to do average damage and have average chances of doing critical damage.

Epic Damage

Epic damage has been removed from the game. Epic damage served to make all lesser forms of DR useless, which hurt the Monk, Barbarian, Paladin, Fighter, etc quite a lot. So, damage is damage, even when done by high level foes, and your DR/- always protects against it. Although, see Primal Damage, next.

Primal Damage

Primal damage cannot be reduced by any type of DR or ER or any other damage-reducing ability. Any attack dealing primal damage that hits will always do its full damage to its target. To balance this, Primal damage is rare and fraught with danger. Alchemists can inflict Primal damage at level 35, and there is a weapon property that inflicts primal damage both upon the target of your attacks and the wielder of the weapon, and that is IT.

Critical Damage

Critical damage is generally associated with weapon damage. Critical damage is based upon chance. Critical damage is used to represent the 'lucky shot' that hits a vulnerable spot. As a result, critical damage is related to precision damage, but it is not the same, and uses completely different mechanisms. As a general rule, critical damage doubles (or triples or quadruples) the number of base weapon dice you roll, and doubles (or triples or quadruples) the amount of damage you do based upon your Strength and the enhancement bonus of your weapon. Note that several classes have variant, different, rules for how criticals are handled, primarily the Rogues and the Brawler. In all cases, refer to the more specific class-based rules.

Precision Damage

Precision damage is a form of physical damage which depends upon the skill of the attacker to strike a point in the structure of the target which is far more susceptible to harm than the norm. For example, a stab to the eye is more harmful than a stab to the meat of the arm.

Precision damage always requires the attacker to have a clear and unobstructed 'shot' at the target. In game terms this means that any level of concealment will stop the application of precision damage.

In general, precision damage is limited to only a few classes., which have the specific skills to apply precision damage. Each class description will detail how much precision damage each class gets, and what rules they must follow in order to apply that precision damage to a victim.

Note that precision damage is different from and handled separately to critical damage. Most physical attacks may strike for critical damage, but only a very limited set of classes have access to precision damage. It is possible to apply precision damage without making a critical strike, and vice versa. Precision damage is NOT multiplied when a critical hit is rolled.

With a weapon that deals nonlethal damage (like a sap, whip, or an unarmed strike), a player character can make a precision damage attack that deals nonlethal damage instead of lethal damage. She cannot use a weapon that deals lethal damage to deal nonlethal damage in a precision damage attack, not even with the usual –4 penalty.

Some creatures are immune or specially resistant to precision damage. Despite the name, creatures "immune to precision damage" actually take half damage from precision damage. Any creature which has little to no specialized internal structure will take half damage (be immune) to precision damage.

Immunity to Precision Damage

Creatures (or subtypes) Immune to Precision-Based Attacks (half damage from precision damage):

• Elemental (subtype)
• Incorporeal (subtype)
• Ooze (Type)
• Protean (subtype) - 50% chance to ignore precision damage.

Bonus Damage

Some classes (principally the Prowler and Ranger) receive class abilities which apply bonus damage. In all such cases, refer to the rules in the class for how that damage is applied. Bonus damage is not multiplied on a critical, as a rule. In addition, some weapon properties add bonus dice to a weapon's attacks. Such bonus dice are always handled in critical attacks as specified in the weapon property description. Usually, the bonus weapon damage dice are increased by a fixed amount when a critical is confirmed.

Non-Lethal damage

Non-lethal damage is a type of physical damage which is incapacitating to living creatures, but has no effect upon any other type of entity. Further, non-lethal damage is accounted against the hit points of the target 'in reverse' from standard damage, IE, non-lethal damage is counted 'upwards' from zero. Until the total non-lethal damage exceeds the current hitpoints of the target, there is no effect. Once the current hit points are exceeded, the targeted receives the unconscious condition. Note that non-lethal damage and regular physical damage 'stack'. IE, when the total of the non-lethal and normal damage exceed the TOTAL hit points of the target, it is unconscious. Unless otherwise specified, non-lethal damage is considered bludgeoning (physical) damage.

Poison damage

Poisons deal non-lethal (bludgeoning) damage, which is resistible with DR, but they also deal ability damage (energy damage) or ability drain (energy drain). In general, no form of resistance is effective against ability damage and ability drain.

Disease damage

Diseases generally do ability damage. In general, no form of resistance is effective against ability damage and ability drain.

Illusory and shadow damage

Illusions can cause damage, but usually of the damage type that would be caused by whatever the illusion is pretending to be. That is, an illusion of an ogre swinging a giant club would deal bludgeoning damage, while an illusion of a fire-filled pit would deal fire damage (and falling (bludgeoning) damage, if someone fell into it). As such, the illusion itself dictates what type of resistance is needed to reduce its effects. Often, this damage is completely negated by someone who disbelieves the illusion, while other times the damage is reduced due to its illusory nature.

Energy Damage

Energy damage is a broad category of damage, usually caused by spells, spell-like abilities and some supernatural abilities, traditionally in the form of elemental damage, but sometimes taking the form of more exotic energy types.

• Elemental Damage: Elemental damage is the traditional 'fire, cold, sonic, acid, and lightning" damage types. These damage types are commonly applied via spells. Elemental damage MAY be associated with physical weapons, via weapon properties or the application of poisons via class abilities, feats, etc. In such cases, the elemental damage and the physical damage are resolved separately against their respective resistances.
• Positive/Negative Damage: Positive and negative damage are energy damage types that are generally associated with evil/darkness for negative damage and good/light for positive damage. Positive/negative damage are traditionally associated with divine magics, but are also accessible via arcane magics. Positive/negative damage are always energy attacks, and are resisted, if at all, by ER.

• Healing and Positive Energy ER: While healing does use positive energy, it is not considered a source of damage when used against living creatures. Therefore, ER x/positive, and ER x/- do NOT block the beneficial effects of healing. Similarly, an undead creature who is healed by negative energy, but also has ER x/-, would still receive healing from a negative energy effect cast upon him. Energy Resistance only blocks energy damage.

• Force Damage: Force damage is 'non-typed' energy damage. Force damage always deals full damage to incorporeal creatures. It is a rare damage type, and is only resisted by ER/-.
• Psychic Damage: Psychic damage is administered by mental attacks and certain types of spells. It is a rare damage type, and is only resisted by ER/-.
• Other Energy Types: There are countless other types of energy damage. For example, there is 'light' damage, 'dessication' damage, 'toxic' damage, 'sunlight' damage, and 'holy' damage. All of these damage types are treated similarly to force damage, namely, if you have a special energy resistance to it, or have resistance to all forms of energy damage (ER x/-), then you have resistance. Otherwise, not.

Siege Damage

Siege damage is damage inflicted by siege weapons, and is only distinguished from normal weapon damage in that all siege weapons have the Sunder mundane weapon property, allowing them to deal damage to unattended objects, fortifications and structures, even when those objects contain metal or stone. Rules for destroying objects, fortifications and structures are covered by the Sunder combat maneuver, and the Breaking Objects page. Most siege weapons deal bludgeoning or piercing damage, as specified in their description, but some higher level siege weapons are capable of dealing energy damage instead of, or in addition to, their physical damage.

Massive Damage

There is an optional rule in Pathfinder that any monster or PC who deals 50 points of damage or more from a single blow causes 'massive damage' and the struck creature must make a saving throw or die. We think this rule sucks for a number of reasons, the biggest one being that 'save or die' is just no fun. The GM will do 'massive damage' to the PC's far more often than the PC's do it to the GM, since he's got an infinite number of monsters to use. Furthermore, since Epic Path goes all the way up to level 35, dealing 50 points of damage with a single blow just isn't that big a deal once you get a few levels under your belt. We heartily discourage the use of the massive damage rule.

Damage Resistance

Damage Resistance (DR) is a special defense which is used to reduce the amount of physical damage taken, but is often overcome by one specified type of damage. One example might be a skeleton who has DR 5/bludgeoning, meaning that the skeleton subtracts 5 points of damage from each physical attack it is subject to, unless that physical attack is made with a bludgeoning weapon. Skeletons can resist damage caused by piercing and slashing weapons because they have no 'meat' to be damaged by concentrated force. Bludgeoning weapons, on the other hand, overcome that damage resistance, since blunt force trauma is highly effective against the skeleton's bones.

DR is always penetrated by the damage type listed in its name, and blocks all other damage types. If DR has no particular weakness, it is represented with a dash (i.e. DR 10/-), meaning that any physical attacks are reduced by the amount listed (in the example, 10 points). DR x/- is therefore quite powerful, but also rare.

Type of DR	Blocks	Bypassed By
DR x/bludgeoning	all physical attacks except those made with bludgeoning weapons	physical attacks with bludgeoning damage (including most non-lethal damage)
DR x/piercing	all physical attacks except those made with piercing weapons	physical attacks with piercing damage
DR x/slashing	all physical attacks except those made with slashing weapons	physical attacks with slashing damage
DR x/magic	all physical attacks from non-magical weapons	physical attacks from magical weapons, or creatures of CR 5 or higher
DR x/silver	all physical attacks except those made with silvered weapons	Silvered weapons, or those made from Bladesilver or Bloodsilver
DR x/cold iron	all physical attacks except those made with cold iron weapons	cold iron weapons
DR x/adamantine	all physical attacks except those made with adamantine weapons	adamantine weapons, or those made from dolemetal, truemetal or paramount alloy
DR x/lawful	all physical attacks except those made with lawfully aligned weapons	weapons with the Axiomatic magic weapon property, or aligned via a class ability
DR x/good	all physical attacks except those made with good aligned weapons	weapons with the Holy magic weapon property, or aligned via a class ability
DR x/chaotic	all physical attacks except those made with chaotic aligned weapons	weapons with the Anarchic magic weapon property, or aligned via a class ability
DR x/evil	all physical attacks except those made with evil aligned weapons	weapons with the Unholy magic weapon property, or aligned via a class ability
DR x/neutral	all physical attacks except those made with neutral aligned weapons	weapons with the Void magic weapon property, or aligned via a class ability
DR x/-	all physical attacks except primal damage	primal damage or non-physical (energy) attacks

• Untyped damage caused by an extraordinary ability (EX) is physical damage unless the ability states otherwise, and is therefore subject to reduction by DR. However, in most cases, such damage is only blocked by DR x/-.

Energy Resistance

Energy Resistance (ER) is used to reduce damage caused by energy attacks. Unlike Damage Resistance (DR), Energy Resistance ONLY blocks the energy type listed. For example, ER 10/fire would reduce any damage caused by fire by 10 points, but damage caused by other energy sources, such as lightning or sonic, would not be reduced.

Energy Resistance that blocks all energy types is written as ER x/- (where x represents the amount of damage to reduce energy attacks by; for example, ER 10/- reduces any energy damage by 10 points). This type of ER is highly desirable, but difficult to come by.

Note that energy resistance does not block non-damaging effects, even if it is ER x/- and blocks all energy types. This means that healing effects, which use positive energy, are not reduced or blocked by a character's ER 10/-, or even a character's ER 10/positive. Only positive energy being used to cause damage would be blocked by ER x/positive (and traditionally, only undead or very evil creatures take damage from positive energy).

Type of ER	Blocks	Bypassed By
ER x/fire	fire damage	any other energy type
ER x/cold	cold damage	any other energy type
ER x/sonic	sonic damage	any other energy type
ER x/acid	acid damage	any other energy type
ER x/lightning	lightning damage	any other energy type
ER x/positive	positive damage (but not healing, if used against the living)	any other energy type
ER x/negative	negative damage (but not healing, if used against undead)	any other energy type
ER x/-	all energy types except primal	primal damage or physical (weapon) attacks

• Untyped damage dealt by a supernatural or spell-like ability is considered energy damage unless the ability states otherwise, and can be reduced by ER. However, in most cases, such damage is only blocked by ER/-.