Should Thermal Nimbus have the Aura Trait? (swarms question)

[Jendai]

The flavor text describes it as an Aura. So it would seem that swarms would be weak to it. However, it doesn't have the Aura trait like other Aura effects do.

[Azothath]

if you post a link to the topic from AoN it is helpful. Otherwise it is likely you are in Third Party Publisher or some other Game content.

[I grok do u]

Should be in 2e forum. Thermal nimbus feat

From what I read, it is a stance that alters your kinetic aura to do damage to, "Any creature that starts its turn in your kinetic aura or moves into your aura during its turn takes damage equal to half your level of the chosen type."

So sounds like it'll damage swarms to me, but I'm not totally familiar with 2e.

[Castilliano]

It is not an aura, so lacks the Aura trait, BUT it's altering an aura: Kinetic Aura, which does have the Aura trait. So putting that trait on Thermal Nimbus would be redundant (or maybe misleading, as it's not creating an aura of its own). If someone found a workaround to acquire this feat w/o gaining Kinetic Aura, the feat would do nothing despite lacking Kinetic Aura as a prereq.

So yeah, aura damage does occur due to the feat, those should be Area Effects which nearly all swarms have a Weakness to. (I believe there's one exception that instead loses Resistance.)

[Finoan]

I don't think swarms are weak to Aura specifically. They are usually weak to area effects such as Emanation area (or Cone, Burst, or Line etc).

Aura is just an Emanation that is tied to a creature and moves when that creature moves.

Even if Thermal Nimbus (or Kinetic Aura) wasn't an Aura, it is still an Emanation and would trigger weakness against area damage.

[YuriP]

I agree with Castilliano. Thermal Nimbus doesn't have an aura trait by itself because it isn't an alone effect but an additional effect for the main kineticist aura.