As the title, for example, will a +1 Short Sword do:
- 1d6 piercing, 1 magic damage; or
- 1d6+1 piercing magic damage?
If I'm not mistaken, it does matter when concerning resistances and such. I've tried to find clear wording for either case, and am having a bit of trouble. I'd love for a decent source for the answer as well.
Reading some replies, I think I may have misunderstood some things, as I'm playing currently in both a 3.5 and a Pathfinder game, and dealt with a Shadow in each. It seems like Incorporeal creatures actually work a little differently in each ruleset. Originally that is what I had in mind with this question (how damage works with incorporeal creatures, should have mentioned). Would the sword do all of 1d6+1 damage, half of it, just 1 damage...it seems like it varies between Pathfinder and 3.5.
From 3.5:
Incorporeal creatures can be harmed only by other incorporeal creatures, by magic weapons, or by spells, spell-like effects, or supernatural effects. They are immune to all nonmagical attack forms. They are not burned by normal fires, affected by natural cold, or harmed by mundane acids. Even when struck by magic or magic weapons, an incorporeal creature has a 50% chance to ignore any damage from a corporeal source—except for a force effect or damage dealt by a ghost touch weapon.
Pathfinder:
An incorporeal creature has no physical body. It can be harmed only by other incorporeal creatures, magic weapons or creatures that strike as magic weapons, and spells, spell-like abilities, or supernatural abilities. It is immune to all nonmagical attack forms. Even when hit by spells or magic weapons, it takes only half damage from a corporeal source (except for channel energy).
This seems to indicate that such a weapon would do all damage, but have a 50% miss chance in 3.5, and do half damage without the miss chance in Pathfinder, as far as I understand?