Primal Swarm with resistances

[babinro]

Situation 1: My one PC is a Primal Swarm druid receiving 6 damage reduction from ranged and melee attacks. He gains resist 5 to all damage from the clerics: Divine Armor.

The druid is then struck for 20 untyped damage from a melee claw attack. How much damage does he take?


Situation 2: Same Primal Swarm Druid with 6 damage reduction and resist necrotic 10. The druid takes 20 necrotic damage from a ranged source, how much damage does he take?

Our confusion comes from the untyped bonus rules update in combination with the unclear nature as to what the Primal Swarm actually is...be it a form or resistance or something entirely different.

For what its worth, we ruled situation 1 as being 14 damage, considering both things to be untyped resistances.

Situation 2: was 4 damage both resistances applying.

 

[OhGodtheRats]

We've always done it with the Primal Swarm feature being a Class Feature that stacks with normal Resistance abilities. So in our game Example 1 would be 9 Damage and in 2 we'd have the same as you.
Problem is that in your 1st example you didn't let them stack but in the 2nd you did....and if you're considering the Primal Swarm feature to work like regular resistance in your game, they shouldn't, since "only the highest resistance applies" to effects.

We don't play with the Primal Swarm being a regular Resist X Type ability since it isn't written that way, but I think that's the debate with Swarm Druids for some folks. Our local group was kind of surprised when they didn't alter/clarify in the latest errata.

 

[Mort_Q]

Primal Swarm is not a resist as written... so I agree with OhGodtheRats.

 

[babinro]

It is clear we were playing it wrong...Going forward we'll treat it as stacking with everything. This is a good thing as a class feature deserves to have as few limitations as possible in order to keep the option a strong one.