What would you like to see in elemental magic?

[Carnifex]

Hi all!

Back to see if I can dredge up any more ideas for my elemental magic guide

So far, I've got lots of fun things: rules for elemental vortices and how to tap into them, lots of new feats including a load that allow clerics to channel elemental energies instead of positive or negative energies, a number of different elemental set-ups described, new magic items, spells and creatures...

But I'm always looking for more ideas I can add in if you've got anything you'd like to see in the final thing, please post ideas in this thread - I always look for good inspiration and these boards rarely fail me!

 

[Crothian]

I'd like to see shapeable magic, not set spells like Wizards have. THere are so many things you can do with a simgle element (let alone what can be done combining elements). So, I'd like a system that allows for character creativity.

 

[Chun-tzu]

How about elemental variants of spells, like elemental clerics who use their elements in their healing spells? A water cleric might sprinkle holy water on the patient, while a fire cleric might do the Mr.-Miyagi-from-Karate-Kid thing, where he slaps his hands together and rubs them really fast, then lays them on the patient, who feels warmth spread through their body as their woulds heal. Sorcerers should also make good elemental wizards. What would be an elemental variant of haste, or dispel magic?

Are the genasi OGC? Maybe some further development on them.

Unique elemental PrCs would be cool. We've seen different versions of fire mages already, but I'm sure there are many possibilities that have not been tapped.

Whenever anyone specializes in the elements, it's usually fire, sometimes earth or air. Water is typically far weaker than the others, but it doesn't have to be that way. Let's see new ways to make water a more viable option.

 

[Soltares]

Great ideas chun!

Adding a spell thematics note to all of the spells cast by the elementalist would be great, as would requiring some sort of energy substitution feat as a prereq (or class ability) with the majority of elemental spells being tweaked to be limited to that one elemental form (and never the 'opposing' element, so that an earth elementalist could never cast Gust of Wind, and if he did, it would be a smothering spray of sand and dust that acted identically...).

Fire, Stone or Ice version of Shocking Grap, shards of stone or wind or water instead of Burning Hands, etc would all be quite possible, with minimal game changes (mostly Descriptor changes).

>What would be an elemental variant of haste, or dispel magic?

Fire - the hasted person becomes hot, almost smoking, as if he is burning up with fever, moving quickly throughout the duration.

the dispelled spell seems to burn away and there is a smell of ash, rise of smoke from the area dispelled.

Air - the hasted person has a wind blowing at his back, tossing his hair and clothing around and throwing him forward and augmenting his blows.

a wind seems to blow away the targetted magic, snuffing it out, wisps of magic seem to stream away, like sparkling smoke.

Water - the hasted person begins to sweat, becoming slippery and cool to the touch, he moves like water, foes see him evade their blows like flowing water, and striking like a wave.

the item / area dispelled is sprinkled with pure water, washing away the 'impure' magics, leaving the area 'clean,' aspects of the dispelled magic seem to wash off of the target and pool at its feet / base, to swirl away and be lost.

Earth - the hasted person feels the earth move beneath him, seeming to propel him forward, as if he were 'surfing' on a wave of earth and stone, while his weapon seems to be strengthened by the power of stone and earth, launching him to the attack.

a dispelled area has dirt or earth tossed at it, and the earth seems to cling to the enspelled area / item for a moment, dry up and flake away as dust, taking the enchantment with it.

 

[Master of Monkeys]

Channeling

I tried to make an elementalist caster who channeled magic instead of casting spells. They had points to use like psions and used spells like true dweomers from the 2nd edition High-Level Campaigns book.

A channeler had effects to choose from, stuff like creating an object at the gp value of the object times the duration in channeling points (to reflect how difficult it would be to create something of higher quality). You could also create your element at the rate of cubic feet times duration times speed in points, so you can duplicate the effects of fireballs and such.

I never really tried the system, or balanced it, so it wouldn't work without a lot of modification.

 

[Chun-tzu]

Some nice work there, Soltares! Don't do all the work for Carnifex!

 

[MavrickWeirdo]

Speaking of Psions

In the Psion book they talk about "Astral Construct"s instead of "summoning" it would be cool to "shape" "summoned" elementals the similarly way

 

[Dark Psion]

You might also look up the 2e Dark Sun book "Earth, Air, Fire and Water". There were stats for Elemental and Para-elemental clerics covering Initiation, Granted powers, Shrines. Clerics as wanderers, in cities and as shamans. There are also a lot of spells that have not been converted to 3e yet.

 

[PenguinKing]

What I'd like to see is elements having distinct areas of influence - not just being essential duplicates of each other. That doesn't mean you can't have an "elemental" version of most common spells, but to my mind, there should be some things that some elements are quite simply better at (so they get those effects at lower levels), some things they're worse at (so that type of effect is a higher level for a given element), and some things they just can't do (so they don't have any spells with that particular effect). For example, perhaps Water is "good" at healing and divination, and "bad" at direct damage-dealing spells, while Fire is "good" at transmutation and direct damage... and so forth.

- Sir Bob.

 

[Loric]

to follow up on what penguinking said, perhaps rather than schools of spells, effects can be defined as 'good' or 'bad'. Water is often associated with change, so polymorph type effects might fall under its purview. Buffing spells can easily be assigned to elements, and so on. It would require more work, to identify specific spells or classes of spells but it might be worth it in the end. I also thing a universal elemental spell list should be established covering common effects to all elements. It would include things like dispel element, summon elemental monster (tacked on elemental templates to summon monster list might work here), detect elements, etc.

Loric