Shield Other + Damage Reduction

A Ghaele casts Shield Other on his pet cat. The cat is then hit with a maximized fireball from a 15th level caster (60 damage). What happens?

Assuming the cat fails its reflex save, it takes half of the fireball's damage (killing it). Has it taken 30 points of damage, or 12 (the maximum it could take before death)?

Assuming it took 30 points, the other 30 points are transferred to the ghaele. The ghaele has fire resistance 10. Does this reduce the damage it takes?

The ghaele also has SR 28. Does the caster of the fireball have to make a caster level check to overcome this?

Nareau

My interpretation is as follows.

Ghaele casts Shield Other on the cat.

Fireball assigns 30pts of [Fire] damage to the cat.

Shield Other splits that damage, assigning 15pts of untyped damage to Ghaele.

Cat takes 15pts of [Fire] damage and dies.

Ghaele takes 15pts of untyped magical damage from the Shield Other spell already in effect upon his person.

The important distinction here is he's taking damage from the Shield Other spell, not the Fireball spell

Next Example: Toss in a Resist Energy: Fire

Ghaele casts Resist Energy: Fire on the cat granting it Fire Resistance 30.

Ghaele casts Shield Other on the cat.

Maximized Fireball assigns 60pts of [Fire] damage to the cat.

Resist Energy: Fire reduces that damage to 30pts.

Shield Other splits that damage, assigning 15pts of untyped damage to Ghaele.

Cat takes 15pts of [Fire] damage and dies.

Ghaele takes 15pts of untyped magical damage from the Shield Other spell already in effect upon his person.

Pyrex said:

My interpretation is as follows.

Ghaele casts Shield Other on the cat.

Fireball assigns 30pts of [Fire] damage to the cat.

Shield Other splits that damage, assigning 15pts of untyped damage to Ghaele.

Cat takes 15pts of [Fire] damage and dies.

Ghaele takes 15pts of untyped magical damage from the Shield Other spell already in effect upon his person.

The important distinction here is he's taking damage from the Shield Other spell, not the Fireball spell

Next Example: Toss in a Resist Energy: Fire

Ghaele casts Resist Energy: Fire on the cat granting it Fire Resistance 30.

Ghaele casts Shield Other on the cat.

Maximized Fireball assigns 60pts of [Fire] damage to the cat.

Resist Energy: Fire reduces that damage to 30pts.

Shield Other splits that damage, assigning 15pts of untyped damage to Ghaele.

Cat takes 15pts of [Fire] damage and dies.

Ghaele takes 15pts of untyped magical damage from the Shield Other spell already in effect upon his person.

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this is the correct way.
poor kitten either way.

the big question is: can you hit the cat hard enough to transfer hit point damage to the next of his 9 lives?

Kmart Kommando said:

the big question is: can you hit the cat hard enough to transfer hit point damage to the next of his 9 lives?

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Sure, just use the Repeat Spell metamagic feat.

Just a heads up. It's not "poor kitten either way". The second example had the fireball dealing an inital 60 points of damage instead of 30. If it was 30 with resist energy 30 up, then the damage is negated and the cat is saved.

The question I would have is this: does the overkill damage transfer over shield other?

If a 60 point fireball hits the cat (without resist energy up) with 12 hp. The cat would receive 30 points of damage but only takes 22 (12 + 10 to reach -10hp). Would you send 30 or 22 points of damage to the Ghaele? I'm a fairly lenient DM (what's good for PCs works for NPCs too) and would only transfer 22.

I would agree with Pyrex in that a 60 damage fireball does 30 damage to the cat, and 30 damage to the shield other caster. (No account needs be made that the cat is dead after 22 damage - that's just wasted damage.) The caster's SR makes no difference, because the initial target was the cat, and it had no SR - thus the spell "happened" and it can't "unhappen" to the caster.

However, there is a case to be made that the halved damage is not untyped magical, but is the same type as the original form and can be resisted or reduced with DR. In this case, fire resistance 10 would cause the caster to take only 20 damage.

I am pretty sure that this is a very, very old debate, however, and there are probably lots of existing threads that have hashed this out many times over.

underfoot said:

Just a heads up. It's not "poor kitten either way". The second example had the fireball dealing an inital 60 points of damage instead of 30. If it was 30 with resist energy 30 up, then the damage is negated and the cat is saved.

The question I would have is this: does the overkill damage transfer over shield other?

If a 60 point fireball hits the cat (without resist energy up) with 12 hp. The cat would receive 30 points of damage but only takes 22 (12 + 10 to reach -10hp). Would you send 30 or 22 points of damage to the Ghaele? I'm a fairly lenient DM (what's good for PCs works for NPCs too) and would only transfer 22.

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It comes down, imo, to damage dealt vs damage taken and which is split...

The spell could split the fireball damage dealt to the kitten, with the ghaele "sheilding" it from taking 30 points of it. The other 30 points are then dealt to the kitten but absorbed by the fire resistance.

OR the spell could split the damage taken by the kitten which would be the 30 points of fireball not absorbed by its resistance. But then as your second question gets to, we have to figure out if any target actually takes more damage than what is needed to reduce it to -10 hp. ( I think in the original example the kitten had 2 hp btw, and the 12 was what reduced it to -10)

The spell uses language that could be taken either ways - both talking about transfering wounds, and splitting damage. My inclination would be to split damage after applying any applicable resistances, DR, and other reductions - split the damage taken not the damage dealt. I also agree that the death of the sheilded subject ends the spell, so the maximum transfered is the amount that reduced the subject to -10, but I could be convinced otherwise...

Pyrex said:

Ghaele takes 15pts of untyped magical damage from the Shield Other spell already in effect upon his person.

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Except Shield Other hasn't been cast on the Ghaele. It's cast by the Ghaele. For example, a targeted Dispel Magic on the Ghaele has no chance of touching the Shield Other spell.

underfoot said:

If a 60 point fireball hits the cat (without resist energy up) with 12 hp.

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Cats normally have 2 hp. My example is designed to take into account that the cat is dead at 12hp.

That said, I think I'd rule the cat can take more damage than it can survive. Therefore, the Shield Other spell would assign half of the damage dealt by the spell, regardless of how tough the cat is.

Part of the problem here is the inexact usage of "dealt" and "taken". These terms need to be equal to deal with this kind of situation.

evilbob said:

I am pretty sure that this is a very, very old debate, however, and there are probably lots of existing threads that have hashed this out many times over.

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Would you mind linking to them? I thought this surely would have been discussed before, but a quick search didn't turn anything up.

Part of my problem is the name of the spell (which makes for a terrible RAW argument, I know). The word "shield" implies to me that the caster is intervening between the subject of the spell, and things that would harm the subject of the spell. An interpretation like this leads me to think the caster should have their DR/Energy Resistance come into play. But the way the spell functions, it's more like the caster and the subject are sharing a pool of hit points. I think I might rename this spell to "Link the Soul" or somesuch in my campaign.

Nareau

Nareau said:

Except Shield Other hasn't been cast on the Ghaele. It's cast by the Ghaele. For example, a targeted Dispel Magic on the Ghaele has no chance of touching the Shield Other spell.

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Technically true. But you'd have a hard time convincing me that Sheild Other does not also place an effect on the Caster.

For example, would you argue that the Shield Other still works if the Ghaele is standing in an Antimagic Field because it does not, per se, target the caster and therefore does not require Line of Effect?

I agree that the spell is poorly worded, and shoul more accurately say "Targets: Caster and Creature Touched" but poor wording leaves us discussing the intent of the spell as much as it's listed effect.

underfoot said:

Just a heads up. It's not "poor kitten either way". The second example had the fireball dealing an inital 60 points of damage instead of 30. If it was 30 with resist energy 30 up, then the damage is negated and the cat is saved.

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Well, yeah, that's why I noted in the second example that the Fireball had been Maximized so that damage would be left to demonstrate order of operations.

underfoot said:

The question I would have is this: does the overkill damage transfer over shield other?

If a 60 point fireball hits the cat (without resist energy up) with 12 hp. The cat would receive 30 points of damage but only takes 22 (12 + 10 to reach -10hp). Would you send 30 or 22 points of damage to the Ghaele? I'm a fairly lenient DM (what's good for PCs works for NPCs too) and would only transfer 22.

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Why wouldn't the damage transfer? The cat still takes 30 pts of damage, it just so happens that the cat is dead when it reaches -10. There are several cases where damage beyond -10 needs to be tracked (Close Wounds and Delay Death being two examples that immediately come to mind.