According to DracoSuave, having Resist 5 Acid and Resist 5 fire against an Arcane Admixture: Fire augmented Acid Orb means that you're going to resist 10 damage of the Acid Orb. Whereas if you had just left the Admixture out, you'd only resist 5.
Except it doesn't and never did.
Arcane Admixture adds a damage type to existing damage. Thusly making 2d6 acid damage into 2d6 fire and acid damage. If you have resist 5 acid, and resist 5 fire, the rules for 'X and Y damage' already tell you that you only resist the -lowest- resistance, if it exists at all.
What about resist weapon, resist melee, resist attacks of target creature; all effects that exist in the game.
If a fire giant makes its melee weapon attack that deals "damage + fire damage" and I have resist 5 all and resist 5 weapon, I should take the same amount of damage if I only have resist 5 all; only the "all" should matter. And resist 5 fire should be no different.
No, those are all different kinds of resistance and stack if they apply to the same attack.
The only thing that does NOT stack is the -same- resist.
Resist fire does not stack with resist fire. Resist all does not stack with resist all. Resist kobold does not stack with resist kobold. However, resist fire, resist all, and resist kobold DO stack.
I can (now) see two ways to be consistent here: either the "resist 5 all" applies twice (to the damage and the fire damage),
No, because it's one incident of damage. As a check for this, ask: If you have a feat that says 'When you are damaged' would it trigger once, or twice?
As an example, there's a swordmage power that adds fire damage to attacks. Not makes them fire damage, just adds your strength modifier in additional fire damage. That's not an extra smack of damage, that's not going to trigger things twice. It's -just additional damage.- It just happens to have a type, and interacts with resistance, immunity, and vulnerability. That's all it does.
or you combine all the types together (so all the damage from the giant's attack is fire (and melee and weapon)) and apply the resistance once. (Wait, weren't fire giants rewritten in MV? What did they do for their damage expressions?)
No, you don't. If a resistance applies, it applies. If a vunerability applies, it applies. The only resistances that don't stack are the same resistance.
But this pick-and-choose thing, where you're encouraged to have multiple resistances that normally wouldn't stack... and then you have to say "well, the _precise_ type won't stack"
Which is what actually happens.
(so now I want resist 5 fire & ice, and also resist 5 fire) just seems fraught with contradictions.
Uh... what? No. That's not at all what you need.
If you're hit with 5 fire and cold damage, you'd need resist 5 fire, and resist 5 cold to resist 5 points of it. If you have some 'resist 5 fire and cold' quality, that's actually resist 5 fire, and resist 5 cold. It's two distinct resistances.
It's almost like there's a fundamental misunderstanding on what 'fire and cold damage' is here.
