Dragon Totem Resilience


Rules Questions

Scarab Sages

14 people marked this as FAQ candidate. 1 person marked this as a favorite.

I want to make sure I am reading this rage power correctly

Dragon Totem Resilience(SU) wrote:
While raging, the barbarian gains resistance to the energy type that is associated with her dragon totem—acid (black, copper, green), cold (silver, white), electricity (blue, bronze), or fire (brass, gold, red). This resistance equals double her current DR/— from her barbarian damage reduction class feature; this DR increases by 2 for each dragon totem rage power she possesses, including this one. A barbarian must have the dragon totem rage power and be at least 8th level before selecting this rage power.

My interpretation is, the rage power is increasing the barbarian's DR/- by 2 for each dragon totem rage power.

According to this FAQ it should combine with the Invulnerable Rager's invulnerability

Invulnerability(EX) wrote:

At 2nd level, the invulnerable rager gains DR/— equal to half her barbarian level. This damage reduction is doubled against nonlethal damage.

This ability replaces uncanny dodge, improved uncanny dodge, and damage reduction.

If I am reading this right, an Invulnerable Rager with Dragon Totem Resilience should have DR 8/- and Resistance: Fire 16 at 8th level.

*No matter how you interpret the combination, Hero Labs is calculating incorrectly, I just want to make absolutely sure I have the numbers right before I file a bug report. Hero Labs is not counting the Invulnerable Rager's DR/- gained from Invulnerability. According to the FAQ, this is a bug.


Lvl 8 invulnerable rager would normally have DR 4/-.

With two dragon totem rage powers thats +4 DR which gives DR 8/- (and fire resist 16 for those that choose the brass, gold or red options).

So I agree.

Paizo Employee Design Manager

There's also the possibility that Dragon Totem Resilience should only be giving Resist Fire 8. It doubles the DR from your Barbarian Damage Reduction Class Feature, which the Invulnerable Rager doesn't have. He has Invulnerability. This would mean that you actually have 2 sets of DR, the DR 4/- provided by the Dragon totem, and the DR 4/- provided by Invulnerability.

Scarab Sages

Ssalarn wrote:
There's also the possibility that Dragon Totem Resilience should only be giving Resist Fire 8. It doubles the DR from your Barbarian Damage Reduction Class Feature, which the Invulnerable Rager doesn't have. He has Invulnerability. This would mean that you actually have 2 sets of DR, the DR 4/- provided by the Dragon totem, and the DR 4/- provided by Invulnerability.

The FAQ I linked addresses this issue. Class abilities replaced by archetypes that are mechanically the same are counted as the original class ability, even if named differently.

Invulnerability is mechanically the same as a standard barbarian's Damage Reduction. Only the rate of gain is altered.

*This is the disagreement I was anticipating. I just want to see if there is a consensus on this interpretation or the one I presented. With this interpretation, a regular barbarian can have higher DR/- than an Invulnerable Rager of the same level and far higher Resistance (up to 22, where the Invulnerable Rager would cap at 12).

Scarab Sages

Hero labs is currently give a value of DR 4/- and Resistance: Fire 4 for the Invulnerable Rager.

Hero Labs is Giving DR 1/- and Resistance: Fire 6 without an archetype.

In both cases, the 4 points of DR/- is instead being applied to Resistance: Fire.

Paizo Employee Design Manager

Archetype: If an archetype replaces a class ability with a more specific version of that ability (or one that works similarly to the replaced ability), does the archetype's ability count as the original ability for the purpose of rules that improve the original ability?
It depends on how the archetype's ability is worded. If the archetype ability says it works like the standard ability, it counts as that ability. If the archetype's ability requires you to make a specific choice for the standard ability, it counts as that ability. Otherwise, the archetype ability doesn't count as the standard ability. (It doesn't matter if the archetype's ability name is different than the standard class ability it is replacing; it is the description and game mechanics of the archetype ability that matter.)

Example: The dragoon (fighter) archetype (Ultimate Combat) has an ability called "spear training," which requires the dragoon to select "spears" as his weapon training group, and refers to his weapon training bonus (even though this bonus follows a slightly different progression than standard weapon training). Therefore, this ability counts as weapon training for abilities that improve weapon training, such as gloves of dueling (Advanced Player's Guide), which increase the wearer's weapon training bonus.

Example: The archer (fighter) archetype gets several abilities (such as "expert archer") which replace weapon training and do not otherwise refer to the weapon training ability. Therefore, this ability does not count as weapon training for abilities that improve weapon training (such as gloves of dueling). This is the case even for the "expert archer," ability which has a bonus that improves every 4 fighter levels, exactly like weapon training.

—Pathfinder Design Team, 07/12/13 Back to Top

I would say Invulnerable rager's Invulnerability actually falls into the same category as the Archer's "Expert Archer" ability. It doesn't in any way reference the original ability, so wouldn't act as that ability.

Paizo Employee Design Manager

Artanthos wrote:

Hero labs is currently give a value of DR 4/- and Resistance: Fire 4 for the Invulnerable Rager.

Hero Labs is Giving DR 1/- and Resistance: Fire 6 without an archetype.

In both cases, the 4 points of DR/- is instead being applied to Resistance: Fire.

That definitely seems like a bug.

Scarab Sages

Ssalarn wrote:
I would say Invulnerable rager's Invulnerability actually falls into the same category as the Archer's "Expert Archer" ability. It doesn't in any way reference the original ability, so wouldn't act as that ability.
Invulnerability(EX) wrote:

At 2nd level, the invulnerable rager gains DR/— equal to half her barbarian level. This damage reduction is doubled against nonlethal damage.

This ability replaces uncanny dodge, improved uncanny dodge, and damage reduction.

The original ability is self-descriptive. Damage Reduction. Invulnerability grants damage reduction.

The second part of the same sentence is:

FAQ wrote:
it is the description and game mechanics of the archetype ability that matter.)

I would argue that Invulnerability does meet this criteria.


I think I read the Dragon Totem Resilience power very differently than the rest of you. I read it as you treat the DR as being 2 higher for each dragon totem power you have only for calculating how much energy resistance you get.

So if you were not an invulnerable rager and you had DR 1/- (as in the hero labs example) you would have Fire Resist 6 (double the DR, add 2 for dragon totem and 2 for dragon totem resilience). This is the same as what Hero labs produced. I never got the impression that it actually raised your DR.

Scarab Sages

If you were treating DR as two points higher solely for the purpose of calculating Resistance, the standard barbarian would be counted as having DR 5/- and Resistance 10.


If it was meant to increase the resistance only then it should have been worded as "...this resistance increases by 2 for each dragon totem rage power she possesses..." instead of "...this DR increases by 2 for each dragon totem rage power she possesses...". As written it increases the DR and by extension also the resistance.


Yeah,

I am reading it the other way It doesn't increase your Class DR but the calculation of the resistance.


Artanthos wrote:
If you were treating DR as two points higher solely for the purpose of calculating Resistance, the standard barbarian would be counted as having DR 5/- and Resistance 10.

Before I start this I want to clarify I am not saying you are wrong, I am just pointing out how I read it.

I see how you could read it your way (including coming to the same conclusions you have in your posts) but the way I am reading it is that when it says "this dr increases" it refers to the doubled dr used in the calculation alone and since that is already the doubled DR it would be DR 2/- (which is double your normal DR at this level) plus another 2 for Dragon totem, and another totem for 2 for Dragon totem resilience, leaving you with a barbarian that has DR 1/- and Fire resist 6.

Again, I am not saying you are wrong or insisting that I am right, nor am I claiming that one or the other is RAW or RAI. I just am pointing out how I read it and my equation comes up with the same result as the Hero Labs.

EDIT: It gives the same result for the Vanilla barbarian I should say, the way it looks like it calculates the Invulnerable rager version is not how I would handle that. For the invulnerable rager I would expect the answer to be 12 fire resist (twice the base DR, plus 4 for the two dragon totem feats) but the DR would still be 4. It looks like Hero Labs is not counting the invulnerable rager's DR as the same ability so it is treating the ability as double 0, plus 2 for each feat.

EDIT 2: I also like your version better, because then the Feat seems much more worth while than the way I had read it. I just had never read it your way before.


1 person marked this as FAQ candidate.

I am going to necro this, because I am interested in it. Also, do you think "this DR increases by 2" was a typo and it is supposed to read "resistance"? DR 2/-, resist 4 per power is pretty strong, compared to the increased DR rage power for example.


yeah but the increased DR rage power isn't asking you to allocate all of your rage powers just to achieve it, I read it as adding DR, though I too am curious for a real answer.


Seems pretty straight forward. This DR increases. Would have been easy to just say This resistance increases. But it doesn't.

Silver Crusade

So do we have an answer for this? Does it increase the DR of the Barbarian?


I just was running book 4 of Reign of Winter, and there are some Armored Hulk barbarians in it with dragon totem and dragon totem resilience (white). They have DR 1/- listed (from barbarian), then Energy resist: cold 6. So it seems that, at least the author of the module, people say the base DR from barbarian is doubled as resistance, and that the energy resistance goes up by 2 for each rage power.

Love to hear something on this series of rage powers though.


So it has been a while, is there anything new or an errata?

Invulnerable Rager
Dragon Totem x3
Increased Damage Reduction x3
Stalwart (Acrobatic >3, fighting defensively)

Is it:
DR/- = level/2 + 6(Dragon Totem) + 3(Increased Damage Reduction) + 3(fighting defensively)
Energy Resistance = DR*2

or

DR/- = level/2 + 3(Increased Damage Reduction) + 3(fighting defensively)
Energy Resistance = (DR + 6(Dragon Totem)) *2


Is it...?
1) When they said "DR" they were getting mixed up and meant energy resistance.
2) When they said "this DR increases", they meant it increases only the DR calculated for the purposes of the obtained energy resistance.
3) It actually increases your DR.

I don't know. FAQing because this is not clear.

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