Piercing is one of the three core physical damage types, representing stabs and punctures, and it interacts with resistances, weaknesses, and certain special rules like underwater combat and injury poisons. In Starfall, the Piercing tag covers everything from needler rounds to fang‑like bayonets—any attack built to punch through armor, hull plating, or flesh instead of smashing or cleaving it.

In PF2e and SF2e, piercing is a physical damage type alongside bludgeoning and slashing, used by weapons, natural attacks, hazards, and some spells. It represents stabs and punctures, such as the thrust of a spear, the bite of a dragon, or the impact of an arrow or needler slug.

Mechanically, piercing damage behaves like other physical damage: it is affected by resistance, weakness, and immunity keyed to “piercing,” “physical,” or combinations such as “non‑magical bludgeoning damage.” For example, a monster resistant to non‑magical bludgeoning would not reduce damage from a mundane spear (piercing) but would resist a non‑magical club; a resistance to “physical (except silver)” would reduce piercing damage from any non‑silver weapon as normal. Precision damage added to a piercing Strike (such as Sneak Attack) uses the same piercing type, so any resistance to physical damage applies to both the base hit and the precision rider.

Piercing has a few notable edge interactions:

• Underwater, piercing attacks do not take the –2 circumstance penalty that affects bludgeoning and slashing, making piercing weapons the default recommendation for serious underwater combat.

• Injury poisons require a successful piercing or slashing attack to enter the bloodstream, so weapons that can deal piercing damage are important for poison‑focused builds.

When swallowed whole, creatures can usually cut their way out only with piercing or slashing attacks, again giving piercing weapons functional value in those situations.