Thermal Nimbus does damage to you that you can stop with Consume Power to boost yourself. If I understand this sequence correctly, since the higher resistance is the one that takes preference, when at the start of your turn you would take damage by your own Thermal Nimbus, you can use Consume Power, have it take precedence over the resistance Thermal Nimbus has and get the extra damage, right? Or do you need to deactivate the resistance from the stance with Safe Elements for it to work due to something I've missed?
Personally, if you are spending a feat and your reaction every time you want to use it, I would let it work.
With the wording of the trigger "you would take damage" I am not entirely certain if you can use the reaction against damage that would be completely negated by a damage resistance that you already have.
But, if you take more damage than Thermal Nimbus prevents, then it is a bit more certain that you can use the reaction of Consume Power. From what I am reading, the resistance value is going to be the same from both of these abilities.
So I guess it is possible that a GM could rule that your Thermal Nimbus resistance is what prevents the damage and Consume Power is redundant and doesn't prevent any damage and therefore doesn't do anything.
That seems problematic though.
Honestly I think it just not work.
It's not likely that the reaction will "prevents any damage" from Thermal Nimbus nor "You would take acid, electricity, fire, or sonic damage". In practice you won't get that damage at all. It's like as you have an armor with some fire resistance rune but you choose to ignore the rune effect to be able to trigger the reaction with the fire damage.
I know that this looks as this would weaken the Consume Power impulse but IMO if you are already able to passively ignore a damage type in a value equal or higher than Consume Power you won't able to use it with this damage type.
But I would perfectly understand if some GM would allow once that this uses a reaction and depending from a situation (like a champion protecting you or you geting a good resistence to all from other source) this would end never triggered.
Now it's an edge case that's IMO is currently a GM fiat. Maybe if we get an faq about this making clear how this would trigger or not if you already have another greater resistance source.
plus, Consume power isn't even higher resistance, they are at the same level, both give resistance equal to your level.
My mistake, went by memory here instead of checking it and assumed the resistance scaled at the same pace as the damage.
This makes it way more GM dependant, I agree.
We all agree at least that the interaction works regardless with Safe Elements (targetting yourself to not get the benefits) or if you have the resistance junction (can voluntary forgo the resistance at will and the extra resistance from the stance is added to this one), right?
Since you only get one reaction, the PC is essentially giving up their feat's ability to protect them against acid, electricity, or sonic damage later in the round in order to guarantee they get a damage bonus to metal impulses on their turn (along with giving up any other reaction they might have). In an encounter where the player is very certain none of those damage types will occur, that's a nice way of squeezing use out of Consume Power.
This was exactly my intention, looks like a nice consistency insurance for fire + metal kineticists and it combos really well with the fire aura junction and Two-Element Infusion.
So I guess it is possible that a GM could rule that your Thermal Nimbus resistance is what prevents the damage and Consume Power is redundant and doesn't prevent any damage and therefore doesn't do anything.
According to the damage rules you first roll damage, then determine damage types, then check for resistances. Taking damage is step 1, reaction becomes usable by step 2 and the part that nullifies damage is step 3. So it shouldn't matter that the end result is you taking no damage because the process should go: you are receiving damage from the aura, then determine that the damage is of fire type, there you use your reaction and finally you check the resistances.
Is it spelled out anywhere that taking 0 damage is distinct from not taking damage? Because more than a few game systems treat taking 0 damage as a valid damage trigger.
Is it spelled out anywhere that taking 0 damage is distinct from not taking damage? Because more than a few game systems treat taking 0 damage as a valid damage trigger.
As I posted earlier, I don't believe a 0 damage trigger is even possible to begin with. When calculating damage, process go through steps, the first being calculating damage, second being determining damage type, third being applying weaknesses, resistances and immunities and finally reducing HP . Taking damage and losing HP are 2 different things (iirc there are effects that specify that you need to lose HP instead of taking damage when a resistance is in effect) and the 2 only ways of reducing damage I know of are resistances and immunities and having a negative strength score or a penalty to damage rolls, which never can do less than 1 point of nonlethal damage.
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Is it spelled out anywhere that taking 0 damage is distinct from not taking damage? Because more than a few game systems treat taking 0 damage as a valid damage trigger.
The bigger problem is the wording in Consume Power that makes the damage boosting ability contingent on "If this reaction prevents any damage".
If you are already taking 0 damage before you trigger the reaction, it is hard to argue that the reaction is preventing anything.
But being allowed to spend the reaction on the ability and then having it do no practical effect seems like a ruling that the GM should warn the player about beforehand.
We all agree at least that the interaction works regardless with Safe Elements (targetting yourself to not get the benefits)
Looking at that, yes. You can exclude yourself from the benefits of your aura using Safe Elements.
You do have to re-cast the aura in order to include yourself again though. You can't selectively exclude yourself or re-include yourself part-way through a sustained duration of the same casting.
I haven't looked at resistance junction, but I expect that it is similar. When you exclude yourself it will be for the full duration of the effect.
But now that's 2 L4 and 2 L6 impulses to make the build work. Which means it doesn't come online until...L10? Well at least by then you can easily get your three fire gates and one metal gates lol.We all agree at least that the interaction works regardless with Safe Elements (targetting yourself to not get the benefits)Looking at that, yes. You can exclude yourself from the benefits of your aura using Safe Elements.
You can pick Thermal Nimbus at 5, so level 8. Also, not like you are useless before 8 either.
I haven't looked at resistance junction, but I expect that it is similar. When you exclude yourself it will be for the full duration of the effect.
You get to deactivate it temporarily whenever you want an effect to affect you. So nope, it just works.
But now that's 2 L4 and 2 L6 impulses to make the build work. Which means it doesn't come online until...L10? Well at least by then you can easily get your three fire gates and one metal gates lol.We all agree at least that the interaction works regardless with Safe Elements (targetting yourself to not get the benefits)Looking at that, yes. You can exclude yourself from the benefits of your aura using Safe Elements.
The point isn't so much that you need to have both Thermal Nimbus and Consume Power. It is that the abilities won't step on each other's toes if you happen to have them.
Safe Elements is only required if the GM is being persnickety about it. And it is a good feat to have anyway.
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I think that metal is the worse main element in the class, but the few Impulses it has that are good are really good, so I find it a serviceable secondary element. The utility impulses it has are also very interesting and this combo, while not much, makes it so it is not worse in combat than monofire in the worst case scenario for the build.
I asked because I was tinkering in pathbuilder since my current campaign is about to end and I'm still unsure what to play next and the idea of playing an automaton that is a living furnace sounded like fun. Came up with this and thought it could be both useful and fun to do.
Yeah you'd need safe elements in order to take the fire damage needed to trigger consume power. I'm not sure if it's worth it though. There's too many hoops to go through for such a small damage bonus.
It is not about it being worth it or not, it is about having a way to still use Consume Power in the encounters in which you can't use it defensively.
Also, saying that it works that way and not saying why doesn't help much, with all the evidence provided previously looks like a GM call.
Specifically, the rules citation evidence provided previously is this:
I just gave it a cursory look, but I don't see anything in the Player Core about which resistance takes precedence or how to decide if you have two same-value resistance effects on you. It seems reasonable in such cases to let the player choose (i.e. Consume Power rather than Thermal Nimbus).
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Specifically, the rules citation evidence provided previously is this:
I just gave it a cursory look, but I don't see anything in the Player Core about which resistance takes precedence or how to decide if you have two same-value resistance effects on you. It seems reasonable in such cases to let the player choose (i.e. Consume Power rather than Thermal Nimbus).
That's fair.
Before Two Element Infusion I would just use Consume Power only for its defensive benefits, it is easier to squeeze damage out of the fire side.
Metal best impulses imo are all defensive and utility based. Flash Forge is a great boost during exploration, Plate in Treasure, while niche, is among the best solutions to silver and cold iron weak enemies there is, Consume Power we've already discussed, Scrap Barricade is with wood the earliest wall you can get your hands into and finally Alloy Flesh and Steel is a straight up nope button agaist lots of effects (and together with Effortless impulse, an amazing survivability boost, with 10-15 resistance to phisical damage and +2 to AC).
I think the best way to go about this is building the character similar to a mono-fire kineticist, but getting with the remaining feats the cool utility Metal has. Fire only needs Flying Flame, Thermal Nimbus, Aura Shaping, Effortless Impulse, Furnace Form and Ignite the Sun to be at peak performance afterall, those are lots of free feat slots.
Metal is pretty good defensively. IMO it's better than Earth. The only problem of Metal (that you can mitigate a bit with high dex) is the armor breaking in a critical. Up to now I think this is a completely unnecessary and non-sense mechanic that only puts pure-metal kineticists in a strange point.