Step 3: Apply the Target’s Immunities, Weaknesses, and Resistances

Defenses against certain types of damage or effects are called immunities or resistances, while vulnerabilities are called weaknesses. Apply immunities first, then weaknesses, and resistances third. Immunity, weakness, or resistance to an alignment applies only to damage of that type, not to damage from an attacking creature of that alignment.

Immunity

When you have immunity to a specific type of damage, you ignore all damage of that type. If you have immunity to a specific condition or type of effect, you can’t be affected by that condition or any effect of that type. If you have immunity to effects with a certain trait (such as death effects, poison, or disease) you are unaffected by any effect with that trait. Often, an effect can be both a trait and a damage type (this is especially true in the case of energy damage types). In these cases, the immunity applies to the entire effect, not just the damage. You can still be targeted by an ability with an effect you are immune to; you just don’t apply the effect. 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.

Immunity to critical hits works a little differently. When a creature immune to critical hits is critically hit by a Strike or other attack that deals damage, it takes normal damage instead of double damage. This does not make it immune to any other critical success effects of other actions that have the attack trait (such as Grapple and Shove).

Another exception is immunity to nonlethal attacks. If you are immune to nonlethal attacks, you are immune to all damage from attacks with the nonlethal trait, no matter what other type the damage has. For instance, a stone golem has immunity to nonlethal attacks. This means that no matter how hard you hit it with your fist, you’re not going to damage it—unless your fists don’t have the nonlethal trait, such as if you’re a monk.

DAMAGE TYPES

Damage has a number of different types and categories, which are described below.

Physical Damage

Damage dealt by weapons, many physical hazards, and a handful of spells is collectively called physical damage. The main types of physical damage are bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing. Bludgeoning damage comes from weapons and hazards that deal blunt-force trauma, like a hit from a club or being dashed against rocks. Piercing damage is dealt from stabs and punctures, whether from a dragon’s fangs or the thrust of a spear. Slashing damage is delivered by a cut, be it the swing of the sword or the blow from a scythe blades trap.

Ghosts and other incorporeal creatures have a high resistance to physical attacks that aren’t magical (attacks that lack the magical trait). Furthermore, most incorporeal creatures have additional, though lower, resistance to magical physical damage (such as damage dealt from a mace with the magical trait) and most other damage types.

Energy Damage

Many spells and other magical effects deal energy damage. Energy damage is also dealt from effects in the world, such as the biting cold of a blizzard to a raging forest fire. The main types of energy damage are acid, cold, electricity, fire, and sonic. Acid damage can be delivered by gases, liquids, and certain solids that dissolve flesh, and sometimes harder materials. Cold damage freezes material by way of contact with chilling gases and ice. Electricity damage comes from the discharge of powerful lightning and sparks. Fire damage burns through heat and combustion. Sonic damage assaults matter with high-frequency vibration and sound waves. Many times, you deal energy damage by casting magic spells, and doing so is often useful against creatures that have immunities or resistances to physical damage.

Two special types of energy damage specifically target the living and the undead. Positive energy often manifests as healing energy to living creatures but can create positive damage that withers undead bodies and disrupts and injures incorporeal undead. Negative energy often revivifies the unnatural, unliving power of undead, while manifesting as negative damage that gnaws at the living. Powerful and pure magical energy can manifest itself as force damage. Few things can resist this type of damage—not even incorporeal creatures such as ghosts and wraiths.

Alignment Damage

Weapons and effects keyed to a particular alignment can deal chaotic, evil, good, or lawful damage. These damage types apply only to creatures that have the

opposing alignment trait. Chaotic damage harms only lawful creatures, evil damage harms only good creatures, good damage harms only evil creatures, and lawful damage harms only chaotic creatures.

Mental Damage

Sometimes an effect can target the mind with enough psychic force to actually deal damage to the creature. When it does, it deals mental damage. Mindless creatures and those with only programmed or rudimentary intelligence are often immune to mental damage and effects.

Poison Damage

Venoms, toxins and the like can deal poison damage, which affects creatures by way of contact, ingestion, inhalation, or injury. In addition to coming from monster attacks, alchemical items, and spells, poison damage is often caused by ongoing afflictions, which follow special rules described on page 457.

Bleed Damage

Another special type of physical damage is bleed damage. This is persistent damage that represents loss of blood. As such, it has no effect on nonliving creatures or living creatures that don’t need blood to live. Weaknesses and resistances to physical damage apply.

Precision Damage

Sometimes you are able to make the most of your attack through sheer precision. When you hit with an ability that grants you precision damage, you increase the attack’s listed damage, using the same damage type, rather than tracking a separate pool of damage. For example, a non-magical dagger Strike that deals 1d6 precision damage from a rogue’s sneak attack increases the piercing damage by 1d6. Some creatures are immune to precision damage, regardless of the damage type; these are often amorphous creatures that lack vulnerable anatomy. A creature immune to precision damage would ignore the 1d6 precision damage in the example above, but it would still take the rest of the piercing damage from the Strike. Since precision damage is always the same type of damage as the attack it’s augmenting, a creature that is resistant to physical damage, like a gargoyle, would resist not only the dagger’s damage but also the precision damage, even though it is not specifically resistant to precision damage.

Precious Materials

While not their own damage category, precious materials can modify damage to penetrate a creature’s resistances or take advantage of its weaknesses. For instance, silver weapons are particularly effective against lycanthropes and bypass the resistances to physical damage that most devils have.

Temporary Immunity

Some effects grant you immunity to the same effect for a set amount of time. If an effect grants you temporary immunity, repeated applications of that effect don’t affect you for as long as the temporary immunity lasts. Unless the effect says it applies only to a certain creature’s ability, it doesn’t matter who created the effect. For example, the blindness spell says, “The target is temporarily immune to blindness for 1 minute.” If anyone casts blindness on that creature again before 1 minute passes, the spell has no effect.

Temporary immunity doesn’t prevent or end ongoing effects of the source of the temporary immunity. For instance, if an ability makes you frightened and you then gain temporary immunity to the ability, you don’t immediately lose the frightened condition due to the immunity you just gained—you simply don’t become frightened if you’re targeted by the ability again before the immunity ends.

Weakness

If you have a weakness to a certain type of damage or damage from a certain source, that type of damage is extra effective against you. Whenever you would take that type of damage, increase the damage you take by the value of the weakness. For instance, if you are dealt 2d6 fire damage and have weakness 5 to fire, you take 2d6+5 fire damage.

If you have more than one weakness that would apply to the same instance of damage, use only the highest applicable weakness value. This usually happens only when a monster is weak to both a type of physical damage and the material a weapon is made of.

Resistance

If you have resistance to a type of damage, each time you take that type of damage, you reduce the amount of damage you take by the listed amount (to a minimum of 0 damage). Resistance can specify combinations of damage types or other traits. For instance, you might encounter a monster that’s resistant to non-magical bludgeoning damage, meaning it would take less damage from bludgeoning attacks that weren’t magical, but would take normal damage from your +1 mace (since it’s magical) or a non-magical spear (since it deals piercing damage). A resistance also might have an exception. For example, resistance 10 to physical damage (except silver) would reduce any physical damage by 10 unless that damage was dealt by a silver weapon.

If you have more than one type of resistance that would apply to the same instance of damage, use only the highest applicable resistance value.

It’s possible to have resistance to all damage. When an effect deals damage of multiple types and you have resistance to all damage, apply the resistance to each type of damage separately. If an attack would deal 7 slashing damage and 4 fire damage, resistance 5 to all damage would reduce the slashing damage to 2 and negate the fire damage entirely.