Opposing elemental subtypes


Rules Questions


I was looking into necromancer builds and came across the Frostfallen template. Interesting, but the fire weakness seems to be a pretty big drawback since fire is so common.

What I'm wondering is how this template works if you apply it to a creature that has the (fire) subtype. I vaguely recall reading something before about how a creature can't have opposing elemental subtypes, but it was almost 10 years ago now and I can't find where it was that I saw that bit of information, so I'm looking to confirm whether that's actually the case or not.

TL;DR: Can a creature have two opposing subtypes due to the effects of a spell or template? Or does the base creature's subtype get overwritten by the spell/template being applied?


Short answer: Yes, they can have two subtypes that appear to be opposing. Subtypes generally get added by templates, not removed, but every template describes what happens when applied.

I am not aware of any 1st party Paizo material that details or addresses 'opposing subtypes' unless it is hidden in one of their many adventure path books.


Diachronos wrote:

...

TL;DR: Can a creature have two opposing subtypes due to the effects of a spell or template? Or does the base creature's subtype get overwritten by the spell/template being applied?

technically first part yes and second part no. Then the GM gets hit with an imaginary wet noodle if it's his doing for being lazy. Players try crazy stuff so sometimes it fails or succeeds at the GM's call.

Now the Can of Worms -
Essentially summons just do a celestial or fiendish, then later options. Other templates require a feat to access. Animate Dead is in a worse boat as you just get the basics and declared variants without some other option, see variant Skeleton "... but they count as twice their normal number of Hit Dice per casting.". variant Zombie "... Each of the following two variant zombies modifies the base zombie in a few simple ways." at HD.
*sigh* see the Frostfallen Mammoth entry (for stealth RAW)
"A magic-user can create any form of frostfallen creature by casting animate dead upon the corpse to be animated and providing an amount of ice of equal weight, plus two blue topazes or turquoises worth at least 100 gp each. The creator can only create a number of Hit Dice of frostfallen creatures equal to the amount allowed by animate dead. Frostfallen creatures count against the number of Hit Dice of skeletons and zombies that can be created using animate dead."
The wording really needs work and a review of standard practices. As this is from 2011 AP (and not Core product line) I'd seriously consider GM review.
Cost: normallly it's $25*HD onyx, so is this implying $200*HD in material cost? Just +$200 seems awfully cheap without HD/2 for "non-simple" variants.
HD: non-simple variants are at 2::1 HD, thus only half the usual HD can be created (a much higher cost) and is this implied in the wording? So bad text again as it should be clear. I can't say as a GM I agree with that costing strategy, but it's what we have in RAW.

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