Reflow Elements

[Aristophanes]

If my Water Kineticist takes Torrent in the Blood, a 6th-level Impulse, at 8th level,
Would he, at 11th level, be able to use reflow elements, to change it to Call the Hurricane, an 8th-level Impulse, since he would have been eligible to take it at 8th?

[Finoan]

Reflow Elements wrote:

This follows the same rules as retraining

So I'd allow it. You could Retrain your 8th level feat slot to be a different level 8 Feat even if you have a level 6 Feat (or any other lower level Feat) in it currently. So Reflow Elements should follow the same logic.

[NorrKnekten]

Yes ofcourse thats legal, a good way to think about it is to think of it in feat slots or a chain due to how the rules are telling you to keep track of what increases and prerequisites you had at each level and what levels you selected each feat at. Retraining is effectively rewriting 'history' in that essence.

The feat selected at level 8 functions as level 8 feat slot as it can hold any feat of level 8 or lower. You selected it at level 8 so any feat that you could've picked at level 8 is fair game.

A more common restriction for retraining that Reflow doesnt really have to deal with is prerequisites, For example if your level 8 feat is Elemental Familiar, Then you cannot retrain your level 6 feat into fearsome familiar since your levels 1-5 feats doesn't include a familiar...but to my knowledge none of the feats that can be retrained with reflow even have prerequisites.

[Aristophanes]

NorrKnekten wrote:

Yes ofcourse thats legal, a good way to think about it is to think of it in feat slots or a chain due to how the rules are telling you to keep track of what increases and prerequisites you had at each level and what levels you selected each feat at. Retraining is effectively rewriting 'history' in that essence.

The feat selected at level 8 functions as level 8 feat slot as it can hold any feat of level 8 or lower. You selected it at level 8 so any feat that you could've picked at level 8 is fair game.

A more common restriction for retraining that Reflow doesnt really have to deal with is prerequisites, For example if your level 8 feat is Elemental Familiar, Then you cannot retrain your level 6 feat into fearsome familiar since your levels 1-5 feats doesn't include a familiar...but to my knowledge none of the feats that can be retrained with reflow even have prerequisites.

Yeah, that makes sense.

Thanks

[Errenor]

Hmm, now I think I understand this feature worse than I thought. It it permanent or temporary? Does it revert itself the next day unless you do it once more or does it not only 'follow the same rules' but effectively IS retraining each day? Can you change all your impulses over several days?

[Finoan]

Errenor wrote:

Hmm, now I think I understand this feature worse than I thought.

Agreed.

The questions you asked, I can't actually answer just from the rules text.

The safer option is to have the replacement only last for the day. If they want to completely switch up their bank of Impulses, then they will have to use the full Retraining rules including the amount of time that it takes.

Not that the amount of time Retraining takes is all that definitively specified... So it would probably also be fine to allow the switch to be permanent.

[Squiggit]

There's no duration described in Reflow Elements. You don't swap them until your next daily preparations or for an hour or whatever, the text just says you swap them.

[NorrKnekten]

It is indeed effectively retraining each and every day.

-During your daily preparations (same time as the wizard prepping spells)
-Replace an inpulse feat for another of the same element
-You can only feats with a single element
-You can not swap feats that very by element.
-This follows retraining rules (as described above)
-You can retrain feats granted by your Features.

Nothing states that they ever swap back or the likes, the new feat is yours to keep until you reflow it for another.

[Errenor]

Yeah, but why didn't they write simply 'you can retrain one impulse feat each day with the following restrictions:<...>'? It would be so much more easy and straightforward.
Rhetorical question, but most of the time they don't miss such obvious simplifications and reusing existing mechanics.

[NorrKnekten]

Good question, my only guess is that they thought the mechanics different enough from Retraining and made it its own thing to be similar to Inventors Reconfigure which does the same thing.

[The Raven Black]

Just checked Swapping spells for the Sorcerer. It also mentions retraining only at the end. I guess to avoid people using all the retraining rules (time needed ...) when these are more specific.

And yes, it is permanent. Otherwise, there would be a caveat similar to that of Ancestral Longevity : "Since this proficiency is temporary, you can’t use it as a prerequisite for a skill increase or a permanent character option like a feat."