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I am building a Tiefling Dragon Sorcerer for a one shot and the DM has told everybody to choose a legendary item. I am looking at the Dragon Masks from Hoard of the Dragon Queen.

I have chosen Blue as the colour of my dragon ancestry and at level 6 i get the ability to spend a sorcery point to gain resistance to lightning damage. My question is, in terms of resistance and immunity, if i chose the blue mask, I would have permanent resistance to lightning from the mask, but would i get immunity by spending a sorcery point?

I am aware that resistance does not usually stack into immunity however the masks specifically call out:

You have damage resistance to lightning. If you already have damage resistance to lightning from another source, you gain immunity to lightning damage.

My question specifically comes from the fact that it says if you already have it. If i gain it whilst already wearing the mask then what happens?

doppelgreener
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Ryan Chaplin
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    @DavidCoffron We don't generally put “[spoilers]” in titles here. Since the post content has multiple ways to appear to someone without them ever seeing the title, it's added visual noise without actually accomplishing the intended purpose. Instead, we use spoiler tags (>! at the front of paragraphs) to hide paragraphs within the body, which are respected by the various ways posts can be seen by someone. – SevenSidedDie Jan 19 '18 at 05:25
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    @SevenSidedDie Sorry, just saw your edit here from a few years ago and thought it was policy: https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/50264/how-does-hazirawn-work-in-hoard-of-the-dragon-queen-spoilers?rq=1 – David Coffron Jan 19 '18 at 06:27
  • @David Oh, ha, that was a long time ago. I forgot that we learned it didn't work well by trying it… I didn't know any were left around. – SevenSidedDie Jan 19 '18 at 06:46

1 Answers1

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Easy Answer

The description states (emphasis mine):

While you are wearing the mask and attuned to it, you can access the following properties.

This means you do not have to access them and can essentially turn them off only to re-enable them, so even though Damage Absorption alone is not retroactive, you can refresh it anyway.

The Full Story

If the mask said something along the lines of: "While you are wearing the mask and attuned to it, you gain the following properties" this would be entirely different and you could not gain temporary immunity. Compare to the Iron Mind feature of the Gloom Stalker Ranger:

You gain proficiency in Wisdom saving throws. If you already have this proficiency, you instead gain proficiency in Intelligence or Charisma saving throws (your choice).

This feature would not retroactively update if, for example, you took the Resilient feat. The ability to switch the properties on and off at-will give the Dragon Mask greater versatility.

Added note: This also means that once you gain immunity from the feature, this immunity is maintained as long as you wear and attune to the mask and continue to benefit from the properties since nothing in the text says the immunity you gain is removed.

David Coffron
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