Frostbite is a 1st level spell that does non-lethal damage, invulnerable rager's get dr per level against non-lethal attacks would the dr be applied against the spell's damage because it is non-lethal damage or not because it's a spell?
The Barbarian's have a power called Guarded Life which transforms lethal damage into non-lethal damage, would a spells damage be turned into non-lethal ? and would invulnerable rager's DR apply?
Spells, spell-like abilities, and energy attacks (even non-magical fire) ignore damage reduction.
The spell would go through the DR. Especially because it's labled as non-lethal cold damage.
I always thought that spells that dealt slashing/piercing/bludgeoning damage were hindered by DR/- (or any DR that isn't DR/magic). Seems I was wrong. Learn something new every day. This makes some spells a bit more appealing (I always avoided spells that do those three damage types because I assumed DR would weaken them). I figured the same went for spells that dealt non-lethal damage.
Cold resistance would apply to that spell, though.
Spells, spell-like abilities, and energy attacks (even non-magical fire) ignore damage reduction.
Mostly accurate... but I don't think entirely. Most spells get through Damage Reduction but ones that deal a specific kind of damage still may need to contend with DR.
Example: if a spell deals bludgeoning damage, it is subject to DR/Piercing, or /Slashing, or simply DR/-.
Not necessarily official, but here's this. (And courtesy of this, because I doubt I'd have found it otherwise.)
I always thought that spells that dealt slashing/piercing/bludgeoning damage were hindered by DR/- (or any DR that isn't DR/magic). Seems I was wrong. Learn something new every day.
And now you can relearn that you were right in the same day! :)
After reading Sean's post in BBT's thread, I would say it works like this :
If a spell has a listed type (Cold in this case) then it goes up against Resistance. This is bog standard.
If a spell has a damage type (non-lethal, slashing, bludgeoning, etc), then DR may apply (depending on the DR type). For example, DR/Magic would be bypassed (the spell is magic), but DR/Good would not be bypassed unless the spell had the [Good] descriptor.
In the OP's case, the spell has a listed type (non-lethal) and so the barbarian DR for Non-Lethal would affect it (per Sean's post).
As to the second question, no, the converting of lethal to non-lethal doesn't work with the invulnerable rager's DR. DR prevents the damage from affecting you, so it applies to the attack before it damages you. The barbarian ability transforms HP damage to Non-lethal, so you have to take the damage before it's converted to non-lethal. Since you've already taken the damage, the DR has already been bypassed. The two are still both useful, in that non-lethal get's reduced, and lethal get's turned into non-lethal (which is always better than being dead).
EDIT :
As to the spell being both cold and non-lethal, it can be stopped by either resistance (cold) or DR/Lethal. Why? Because DR and Resistance are two different animals, and neither cares about the other.
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After reading Sean's post in BBT's thread, I would say it works like this :
If a spell has a listed type (Cold in this case) then it goes up against Resistance. This is bog standard.
If a spell has a damage type (non-lethal, slashing, bludgeoning, etc), then DR may apply (depending on the DR type). For example, DR/Magic would be bypassed (the spell is magic), but DR/Good would not be bypassed unless the spell had the [Good] descriptor.
In the OP's case, the spell has a listed type (non-lethal) and so the barbarian DR for Non-Lethal would affect it (per Sean's post).
As to the second question, no, the converting of lethal to non-lethal doesn't work with the invulnerable rager's DR. DR prevents the damage from affecting you, so it applies to the attack before it damages you. The barbarian ability transforms HP damage to Non-lethal, so you have to take the damage before it's converted to non-lethal. Since you've already taken the damage, the DR has already been bypassed. The two are still both useful, in that non-lethal get's reduced, and lethal get's turned into non-lethal (which is always better than being dead).
EDIT :
As to the spell being both cold and non-lethal, it can be stopped by either resistance (cold) or DR/Lethal. Why? Because DR and Resistance are two different animals, and neither cares about the other.
From what I understand, DR only applies to physical damage types no matter what. Nonlethal is not a damage type of its own, its a damage qualifier that rides on other damage types. If the other type(s) do not include bludgeoning, piercing and/or slashing then DR/Lethal* does not apply because it's not considered "physical damage". This is the same reason why the nonlethal damage from forced march would not be resisted, for example. It's untyped nonlethal damage, not B/P/S.
DR and Energy Resistance are meant to be non-overlapping (i.e. you can't use both at once). To apply both you would have to have a single instance of damage that does both (physical type) and (energy type) the same way a morningstar is both bludgeoning and piercing. This never happens. Even in cases where it might sound reasonable, the two damage doses are split up, with relevant resistances applying separately to their respective doses (such as Ice Storm: 3d6 bludgeoning, 2d6 cold; or any weapon with an elemental property).
In this case, I believe the energy resistance would be what you require, whether it's nonlethal or not. This is due to the damage being cold damage, which is never affected by DR.
*DR/Lethal does not actually exist. It is always expressed as "DR/- but only against nonlethal". This acts as evidence that nonlethal is not a damage type, but rather a damage qualifier.