Yes, if you have fire resistance from one source (such as the dragonborn racial trait) and you get fire resistance again from another source (such as the sorcerer ability or a spell), then the two resistances overlap and there's no additional benefit. For example, two resistances don't add together to create immunity.
As for your suggestion about spending sorcery points to make the elemental resistance become immunity instead, I would say that it would be fairly overpowered, especially if you're only spending a couple points to obtain it for an entire hour. The lowest spell level that I can think of that would grant fire immunity would be the 6th-level Investiture of Flame spell that lasts for only 10 minutes.
If a DM were to allow a sorcerer with the overlap to gain immunity, then I would imagine that you'd have to pay significantly more sorcerer points (such as 9 points) and/or have significantly less time than the full hour (such as 10 minutes). Maybe somewhere in between the two where you pay 5 points for 1 minute of complete fire immunity...
Alternately, I would recommend asking the DM to allow you to swap one of the resistances out for an alternate element. I was playing a tiefling sorcerer [draconic], which also had the duplication of fire resistances. DM allowed the fire resistance from the sorcerer class be cold resistance, and we played it that the sorcery point allowed the tiefling to harness so much innate heat to become resistant to the cold damage for the hour.
Elemental Immunity is very powerful and should not be trivialized in this way.
The CR24Ancient Red Dragon has a Breath Weapon that deals 26d6 fire damage (DC 24 Dex). With resistance, that's still 13d6.
If that is negated, it's basically just left with melee attacks that deal 2dX+10 damage. A low level player could give it the run around pretty easily.
Using the RAW, it seems like the Elemental Affinity (spending 1 Sorc. Pt.) and the racial resistance (both fire) would overlap. Is that accurate?
How game-breaking do you think it would be to allow such a character to, instead, spend 2 Sorcery Points to have fire immunity for 1 hour?
It's perfectly fine to not have to spend sorcery points for resistance, in my opinion.
I have a weird sense of humor.
I also make maps.(That's a link)
Yes, if you have fire resistance from one source (such as the dragonborn racial trait) and you get fire resistance again from another source (such as the sorcerer ability or a spell), then the two resistances overlap and there's no additional benefit. For example, two resistances don't add together to create immunity.
As for your suggestion about spending sorcery points to make the elemental resistance become immunity instead, I would say that it would be fairly overpowered, especially if you're only spending a couple points to obtain it for an entire hour. The lowest spell level that I can think of that would grant fire immunity would be the 6th-level Investiture of Flame spell that lasts for only 10 minutes.
If a DM were to allow a sorcerer with the overlap to gain immunity, then I would imagine that you'd have to pay significantly more sorcerer points (such as 9 points) and/or have significantly less time than the full hour (such as 10 minutes). Maybe somewhere in between the two where you pay 5 points for 1 minute of complete fire immunity...
Alternately, I would recommend asking the DM to allow you to swap one of the resistances out for an alternate element. I was playing a tiefling sorcerer [draconic], which also had the duplication of fire resistances. DM allowed the fire resistance from the sorcerer class be cold resistance, and we played it that the sorcery point allowed the tiefling to harness so much innate heat to become resistant to the cold damage for the hour.
Elemental Immunity is very powerful and should not be trivialized in this way.
The CR24 Ancient Red Dragon has a Breath Weapon that deals 26d6 fire damage (DC 24 Dex). With resistance, that's still 13d6.
If that is negated, it's basically just left with melee attacks that deal 2dX+10 damage. A low level player could give it the run around pretty easily.
All good points!
Thanks for the insights, folks