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Is Resistance included with spell or spell like abilities

   
Is Resistance included with spell or spell like abilities

I know this may sound a little dumb but I'm going to be using Outsiders for a small part of our game and I wanted to know about Resistance and its effect. For example a creature has resistance fire 5, electricity 5 and poison 5 does this mean spells along with natural attacks. A part of me says sure spell like effects should be included in the type of damage but then maybe it's not all inclusive.

I don't think it matters if it's a spell or a natural attack, it's the the type of damage that is done. So if you're being hit with a longsword with a fire enchantment, you'd take regular slashing damage from the longsword, but apply your resistance on the fire damage from the fire enchantment. If it's a spell like fireball, that only does fire damage, then you'd apply your fire resistance to the whole thing. (That was really confusing to type, I hope it makes sense!)

Great to know because I assumed it was something along the likes of damage reduction where the damage from the damage reduction is subtract then any other damage is then taken off. I'm a new comer to 3.5 so knowing these questions will help. I think in game, having these abilities will help lessen the amount of damage taken by the encounters because most of the players are spell casters or have spell like abilities.

[Energy] Resistance only cares about the type of damage done, not the nature of that damage's source.

Damage Reduction cares not only about the nature of the source of the damage (only weapons and 'natural weapons' are affected, but may be differentiated by special materials and whether or not they're magically enhanced) as well as the type of damage done (slashing, piercing, bludgeoning).

So what would DR 5 cold iron be? A resistance to cold iron or a vulnerability. Can't remember either way.

that works like this;

if a physical attack isn't cold iron -5 damage (sometimes magic weapons and mythic/epic count)

The number preceding the "/" tells you how much damage will be reduced. Whatever comes after the "/" is the attack type that completely bypasses the DR.

DR 5/good or silver (found on imps) subtracts five points of damage from weapons that are not either good-aligned OR silver. Those weapons you carry in case of encountering a werewolf will do just fine here. Your Holy steel, cold iron, or adamantine weapon of choice will also bypass this DR.

DR 10/magic and silver (found on vampires) will subtract ten points of damage from weapons that are not both magic AND silver. Casting magic weapon on the stuff your party normally carries for fighting werewolves will solve this issue.

DR 15/magic and bludgeoning (found on liches) can be a hassle unless you've got a magic warhammer (or the like) handy. If you're stuck using a greataxe or bow, you may end up doing little or no damage.

DR 15/good and piercing (found on rakshasas) is pretty nasty. If a paladin casts bless weapon on his longbow or spiked chain, he can enjoy some good success against rakshasas. The classic rakshasa-slayer is a holy crossbow, and in 3.0 a hit from a holy crossbow bolt spelled instant doom for the fiends. 3.5 did away with that vulnerability but toned down their DR to compensate.



Energy resistance is a bit more straightforward. If an attack is of a particular energy type, simply subtract the resistance amount from the amount of energy damage.

If someone hits a tiefling (Resist 5 to cold, electricity, and fire) with a flaming weapon, they will do normal weapon damage plus 1d6-5 fire damage. It is still possible for the tiefling to take a single point of fire damage from a flaming weapon, if the attacker is lucky.


If someone uses that same flaming weapon against a vrock (fire resist 10), they won't be getting any bonus damage from their flaming enchantment. The demon coincidentally also has DR 10/good, which can cost the attacker even more of their normal damage potential.

I'm assuming this is either 3.5 or Pathfinder, I think the rules on this are the same in either case. If not, later editions of D&D would play around with this a bit, but for 3.5/PF this thread has pretty much hit the nail on the head.

This is the short version that i use to keep it straight in my head:

Resistances always apply, but resistances are always energy, so they have to be one of Fire, Acid, Cold, Electricity, or Sonic

Damage Reduction is considerably more complicated and has a lot of edge cases for some reason. If you're looking for the official ruling on that, it's at http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/glossary.html under the heading "Damage Reduction"

Happy gaming, and all that.





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