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<blockquote data-quote="Dausuul" data-source="post: 7287092" data-attributes="member: 58197">For those not familiar with Spirit Shield, it's a barbarian ability that says (paraphrasing slightly), &quot;When a creature within 30 feet takes damage, you can use your reaction to reduce that damage by 2d6.&quot;The question: If a creature gets hit by a flame tongue sword for 5 slashing and 4 fire damage, does that count as a single instance of taking 9 damage, which could be entirely negated with a good roll on the 2d6? Or does it count as two separate instances of taking damage, and the barbarian has to pick one to reduce, while letting the other through?I'm inclined to say it should count as one instance of taking damage. That's how these attacks are generally worded: &quot;You take X slashing and Y fire damage.&quot; Or, in the case of flame tongue weapons, &quot;The attack deals X extra fire damage.&quot; Both imply a single damage &quot;event.&quot;(Of course, that brings up another question: Say you roll a 7 on the 2d6. Do you negate all of the slashing and some of the fire? Or all of the fire and some of the slashing? Or split the reduction evenly between both? Or do you get to pick? Most of the time it won't matter, but there are corner cases where it might: Maybe you've talked a troll into helping the party, and you want to prevent it taking fire damage. For simplicity's sake, I'd just let the barbarian pick.)I don't see how any of that is relevant. That tells you how to adjudicate multiple damage modifiers. There's only one damage modifier here; the question is how to apply a single modifier to multiple types of damage.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Dausuul, post: 7287092, member: 58197"] For those not familiar with Spirit Shield, it's a barbarian ability that says (paraphrasing slightly), "When a creature within 30 feet takes damage, you can use your reaction to reduce that damage by 2d6." The question: If a creature gets hit by a [I]flame tongue[/I] sword for 5 slashing and 4 fire damage, does that count as a single instance of taking 9 damage, which could be entirely negated with a good roll on the 2d6? Or does it count as two separate instances of taking damage, and the barbarian has to pick one to reduce, while letting the other through? I'm inclined to say it should count as one instance of taking damage. That's how these attacks are generally worded: "You take X slashing and Y fire damage." Or, in the case of [I]flame tongue[/I] weapons, "The attack deals X [I]extra[/I] fire damage." Both imply a single damage "event." (Of course, that brings up another question: Say you roll a 7 on the 2d6. Do you negate all of the slashing and some of the fire? Or all of the fire and some of the slashing? Or split the reduction evenly between both? Or do you get to pick? Most of the time it won't matter, but there are corner cases where it might: Maybe you've talked a troll into helping the party, and you want to prevent it taking fire damage. For simplicity's sake, I'd just let the barbarian pick.) I don't see how any of that is relevant. That tells you how to adjudicate multiple damage modifiers. There's only one damage modifier here; the question is how to apply a single modifier to multiple types of damage. [/QUOTE]

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