| Mangoray |
Ancestry: Suli
Issue: Dualborne lineage feat with Elemental Bulwark and their elemental resistances.
Suli have the Dualborn lineage feat which lets you select two of fire, earth, air, and water and gain resistances to effects with those traits.
Then, Elemental Bulwark, a level 5 feat that normally grants resistance to select elemental types and traited damage, only works to those two elements chosen by a dualborn. By RAW, this won't work with corresponding elements, such as electricity for an air dualborn, or cold for a water dualborn. Effects that have those traits are typically physical damage like Hydraulic Push.
Would it break game balance if the later Suli options worked with their corresponding energy types as well as effects with their respective traits for a dualborn? I'm thinking it would also avoid issues where an effect dealt elemental damage but didn't have the corresponding trait (such as Arcane Cascade) that would otherwise be unresisted.
But the intent is clearly there - otherwise you would only ever be able to use it against spells. Elemental Bulwark has two triggers, taking the elemental damage, or being hit by a spell with the trait. If we run it RAW, you can't even use it against non-spell effects that have that trait. For example, a sea dragon's breath deals bludgeoning damage with the water trait. But you can't even use Elemental Bulwark against that, because the effect, even though it has the water trait, is not a spell, and therefore doesn't trigger Elemental Bulwark. But not only can you not use it against a Sea Dragon's Breath, you also can't use it against a White Dragon's Breath.
That seems far too limiting, so I think assuming Water = Cold, Air = Electric, Fire = Fire, and Earth = Acid is pretty reasonable and not a huge deal.
Also Elemental Assault has the following line explicitly stating this:
"Choose one element. Until the end of your next turn, your Strikes deal an additional 1d6 damage of the indicated type and have the trait corresponding to the element: electricity for air, bludgeoning for earth, fire for fire, or cold for water."