"Taking Fire Damage"


Rules Questions


Is a character with fire resistance still considered to be taking fire damage even if the damage from the fire spell/attack damaging him does not exceed his resistance?


In order to be "taking damage" you need to lose HP. If you avoid or resist all the damage so that the fire does 0 damage, then you are not "taking damage".

The difference is between "Being the target of a fire attack" and "taking damage from a fire attack" and is treated the same way as "being the target of a sword attack" - if the sword hits you, then you probably take damage, if it misses you then you don't take damage - but if it hits you and you have magic or some other ability to resist the damage so that it does NO damage, then again, you are not taking damage.


That makes sense. Looks like there isn't going to be any exploitation of the elemental kin archetype for me then. Oh well, thank you for the quick answer.

Shadow Lodge

Actually that would be wrong, here is a copy/paste from the ifit page, bolded relevant text

Fire in the Blood Ifrits with this racial trait mimic the healing abilities of the mephits, gaining fast healing 2 for 1 round anytime they take fire damage (whether or not this fire damage gets through their fire resistance). The ifrits can heal up to 2 hit points per level per day with this ability, after which it ceases to function. This racial trait replaces fire affinity.


But that line is specific to that instance. The elemental kin archetype does not have the line that you bolded. Unless of course I completely read right over it somehow.


Lord Foul II wrote:

Actually that would be wrong, here is a copy/paste from the ifit page, bolded relevant text

Fire in the Blood Ifrits with this racial trait mimic the healing abilities of the mephits, gaining fast healing 2 for 1 round anytime they take fire damage (whether or not this fire damage gets through their fire resistance). The ifrits can heal up to 2 hit points per level per day with this ability, after which it ceases to function. This racial trait replaces fire affinity.

This quote is a specific exception that overrides the general rule. In fact, your quote supports my original post because if everything worked as the Ifrit ability described, then there would be no need to actually state this for Ifrits - the fact that they stated the exception here proves that it is an exception to the general rule that I explained in my first post.


Specific always trumps general. Words to live by.

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