Admonishing Ray + Elemental Spell (Fire)

[Mako Senako]

Would it alter the force / nonlethal damage to Fire and thus deal normal fire energy damage?

[Fuzzy-Wuzzy]

It would deal nonlethal fire damage, since nothing about Elemental Spell changes the lethal/nonlethal nature.

(There are other ways to get nonlethal fire damage; the Merciful Spell metamagic feat on a fire spell, a merciful flaming weapon, etc.)

[Mako Senako]

hmm i was trying to get it to be lethal damage actually. :)

[Mako Senako]

Does Lethal damage and nonlethal damage attack together to determine when a creature is killed/knocked unconscious, some people have told me they are tracked separately and you need one of them to be greater than the targets current hp before they and killed or knocked unconscious.

[Zwordsman]

Elemental Spell (Metamagic)
You can manipulate the elemental nature of your spells.

Benefit: Choose one energy type: acid, cold, electricity, or fire. You may replace a spell's normal damage with that energy type or split the spell's damage, so that half is of that energy type and half is of its normal type. An elemental spell uses up a spell slot one level higher than the spell's actual level.
Special: You can gain this feat multiple times. Each time you must choose a different energy type.

admonishing ray
Each ray requires a ranged touch attack to hit and deals 4d6 points of nonlethal damage. This is a force effect.

The elemental spell says it replaces normal damage, so it should actually be half fire, half nonlethal force. Or completely fire. The nonlethal is infact the original"normal damage"

The Nonlethal damage is the normal damage of the spell, so it is replaced.
S/B/P nonlethal force acid cold fire elect are the damage types I know of. (technically there is no "lethal damage" in the game as defined as its own thing. It is one of those "well we don't really need to tell you this stuff kills folks.. Just when it won't kill folks easily))

Well I can see a GM saying it isn't a damage type, its a modifier after... Like that force effect line..
but most of the time it seems to treat nonlethal as its own damaage type, that works in tandem with other damages.
If elemental spell wasn't worded as "replace" and instead used "changed" or something I would say that it would be nonlethal fire.
but because it says replace, it replaces the whole section with fire damage.

[Fuzzy-Wuzzy]

Lethal damage lowers your HP. Nonlethal damage piles up on its own, unless it exceeds your maximum (not current) HP, in which case excess gets converted to lethal.

CRB, Combat, Injury and Death, Nonlethal damage wrote:

Nonlethal Damage

Nonlethal damage represents harm to a character that is not life-threatening. Unlike normal damage, nonlethal damage is healed quickly with rest.

Dealing Nonlethal Damage: Certain attacks deal nonlethal damage. Other effects, such as heat or being exhausted, also deal nonlethal damage. When you take nonlethal damage, keep a running total of how much you've accumulated. Do not deduct the nonlethal damage number from your current hit points. It is not "real" damage. Instead, when your nonlethal damage equals your current hit points, you're staggered (see below), and when it exceeds your current hit points, you fall unconscious.

Nonlethal Damage with a Weapon that Deals Lethal Damage: You can use a melee weapon that deals lethal damage to deal nonlethal damage instead, but you take a –4 penalty on your attack roll.

Lethal Damage with a Weapon that Deals Nonlethal Damage: You can use a weapon that deals nonlethal damage, including an unarmed strike, to deal lethal damage instead, but you take a –4 penalty on your attack roll.

Staggered and Unconscious: When your nonlethal damage equals your current hit points, you're staggered. You can only take a standard action or a move action in each round (in addition to free, immediate, and swift actions). You cease being staggered when your current hit points once again exceed your nonlethal damage.

When your nonlethal damage exceeds your current hit points, you fall unconscious. While unconscious, you are helpless.

Spellcasters who fall unconscious retain any spellcasting ability they had before going unconscious.

If a creature's nonlethal damage is equal to his total maximum hit points (not his current hit points), all further nonlethal damage is treated as lethal damage. This does not apply to creatures with regeneration. Such creatures simply accrue additional nonlethal damage, increasing the amount of time they remain unconscious.

Healing Nonlethal Damage: You heal nonlethal damage at the rate of 1 hit point per hour per character level. When a spell or ability cures hit point damage, it also removes an equal amount of nonlethal damage.

[Ascalaphus]

Lethal damage reduces current HP. Nonlethal damage knocks you out if it exceeds your current HP. So yeah, they do work together to knock people out.

Doing a lot of nonlethal damage will eventually result in lethal damage. If you do more nonlethal damage than someone's maximum HP, the rest is converted to lethal damage. But by then your enemy will be unconscious, so it's pretty rare for that to result in enough lethal damage to kill.

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Note that there are some instances of nonlethal elemental damage, such as nonlethal cold damage from cold environments. So being elemental and nonlethal are not a contradiction.