Damage reduction and varying types of damage in a single hit.

[Duality]

So apparently (at least in the case of the wild hunt), their DR applies seperately to the varying types of damage on a single hit.

Meaning, if you do 40 damage from a slashing weapon, and the weapon also has sonic damage and you do sneak attack damage, both the sonic damage and the sneak attack damage will be reduced seperately and only the initial damage will go through.

Now I was using penetrating strike and the greater version so the initial weapon damage wasn't reduced.

I haven't tested this extensively, I just noticed it using a fighter/rogue hybrid who has an elemental weapon and the elemental damage did seem to go through on some enemies, but the sneak attack damage never did unless it was over 15. (which is the wild hunts dr)

So, uh, yeah.


Is this a bug or is this how it's intended to be?

[dolby]

All extra damage gets add separately only Damage Bonus gets added to the actual hit for that roll...i reckon DR would be useless if that wasn't the case...

[Duality]

That means that funtionally sneak attacks are useless against anything with DR since the DR will be applied to the base weapon damage (well, plus modifiers) then again to the sneak attack damage meaning... Don't use a rogue against anything with DR I guess?

[mattwinfield]

Originally posted by Duality:

That means that funtionally sneak attacks are useless against anything with DR since the DR will be applied to the base weapon damage (well, plus modifiers) then again to the sneak attack damage meaning... Don't use a rogue against anything with DR I guess?

Sneak attack goes way beyond 1d6 though especially with the accomplished sneak attacker feat.

[Duality]

Um, yes it does, however, they have 15 dr, meaning that on an average attack 5d6 sneak attack will be negated. You can get 11d6. That's half the sneak attack damage.

And with the ignore DR line from fighters, it should bypass DR for sneak attack. I would assume, but it doesn't hence why I'm confused.

[dolby]

Originally posted by Duality:

Um, yes it does, however, they have 15 dr, meaning that on an average attack 5d6 sneak attack will be negated. You can get 11d6. That's half the sneak attack damage.

And with the ignore DR line from fighters, it should bypass DR for sneak attack. I would assume, but it doesn't hence why I'm confused.

sneak attack is OP just as pets and thats saying alot...:)

[Duality]

Sneak attack is not that OP and neither are pets after the early/mid game. Pet's are mostly garbage late game. There are far more massive damage output mechanics in the game.


Can someone who actually understands the mechanics of pathfinder reply here please to tell me whether this is a bug or not?

When a mob has DR, is that DR supposed to apply independantly to ALL damage sources you apply on a single attack.


For example. (and this is an actual example of what the combat log showed me, so it's not theoretical, it's what was happening in game)

I attack for 40 slashing damage, 6 electric, 16 sneak attack and I have penetrating strike/greater SP. (meaning 15 DR bypass, the mob has 15 DR) I do 40 slashing and 1 sneak attack damage because DR reduces the electric and sneak by 15 so I do 41 damage total.

Is that WAI? Is that a weird interaction with penetrating strike, how do DR bypass weapons interact with this?

That's what I want to know.

[Entropie]

Actually I am pretty sure sneak attack damage is always of the same type that the base attack, which triggered it, was.

So it should not be negated seperately by DR, if I make a slashing attack with 10 weapon dmg and 20 sneak attack damage it should be a total of 30 slashing damage which would then be reduced by DR if applicable.

[Duality]

That was my assumption, hence why I was confused by the in game damage log saying that the 15 DR was applying to each damage type, but I don't know anything about pathfinder and a lot of things have changed since 3.5 (which I didn't know that well either).

I'll post in the bugs forum and let the devs sort it out I guess.

Thank you :D

[ZiffyHead]

I think that sneak attack damage is counted as "Presicion" damage.

[Entropie]

Precision is not an actual damage type though in the same sense that acid or slashing is.
The category is mostly used for questions about stacking and whether an enemy is immune to it altogether (like elementals).

[Duality]

The only thing I can think of to explain this (which would mean a lot of extra work for the devs) is if every enemy has DR specific to every damage type. Meaning the wild hunt has 15 DR vs slashing, piercing, blunt, fire, cold, electric, holy, unholy, sneak attack (precision?), etc. And each type applies independently.

That seems like.... flexible for monster development but gack a lot of work. And extremely confusing for players.

[Entropie]

I checked and a sneak attack with acid splash does list the damage correctly as acid typed, so if DR is applied twice that would be a bug, it would be nice seeing a screenshot of DR bein applied twice though, just to be sure that we are not overlooking something here.

[Peregry]

In all 3x d20 systems (which includes Pathfinder), Sneak Attack damage SHOULD be added to the base weapon damage before applying DR.

However, energy damage (Fire, Sonic, Lightning, etc.) is treated as a seperate instance of damage. DR is only suppose to apply against physical damage, not energy, Energy is resisted by a seperate "Energy Resistance" stat. So it is feasable that DR could reduce the physical damage of an attack to 0, but the Energy Damage would still go through since the creature lacks the appropriate energy resistance. Likewise, a creatuer with ER could negate all the energy damage of an attack but still take the full physical damage.

[Duality]

Argh, steam is being weird tonight, couldn't log on for a bit... Here's the pics of some of the weirdness, but not all, I'll get more tomorrow when I have time.

Two different fighters, one with elemental gear, both with sneak attack. Both with 15 DR pen, I'll try it without pen at some point.

https://imgur.com/a/8hWprgU

[Entropie]

That one does not look that weird, DR seems to only be applied once reducing your damage total by 10, it is a little weird that it detracts from the sneak damage rather than the weapon damage but as long as it is only applied once it is working as intended.