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D&D (2024) Elemental Adept is a Bad Feat. Elemental Damage Vs Radiance Etc

Elemental Adept isn't supposed to be good or strong. Its not a feat 99% of spellcasters will take, nor should it be

Its a feat designed specifically and exclusively to elevate the sub-optimal, but popular playstyle of the dedicated elemental caster. It succeeds at that task well enough so that a dedicated fire or frost mage isn't going to be as much of a liability to an average party.
 

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SpellObjectEnthusiast said:
Elemental Adept isn't supposed to be good or strong. Its not a feat 99% of spellcasters will take, nor should it be
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this is the problem,
it SHOULD be strong.

now, if we got a feat to pick every level instead of every 4 levels, I would not min a miss in power level of few feats, you can afford a weak feat or 3 if you get 10 of them.
but since in most campaigns you get 2 or 3 feats to pick, all of them needs to be A or S tier.

this feat is so weak it can be pasted on any Magic initiate or warcaster or maybe Fey/Shadow touched for extra effect without any trouble.
 


Zardnaar said:
Vulnerability is super rare and extra effects like vs trolls are even more rare.
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Honestly, given how rare vulnerability of any kind is? I'd say "extra effects" really aren't that much rarer than vulnerability to any specific damage type, at least in the 5.5e MM.

Which is a real shame, and IMO is further evidence that monster design has been badly neglected over 5e's run and especially in the 5.5e update. When <5% of monsters have any kind of vulnerability at all, what is vulnerability even really doing? Especially when 5e was supposed to be the edition that made damage output and HP total the primary source of scaling! That should make Resistance at least semi-special and Immunity genuinely special, and make Vulnerability a prime target for designing monsters that require specialized approaches to kill. E.g. it has 400 HP but it's vulnerable to lightning and cold, so bring ways to deal that kind of damage. Or maybe it has only 50 HP as a high-CR creature...but it's immune to acid, cold, fire, lightning, and poison (maybe some kind of mutant Tiamat spawn?), and resistant to slashing/piercing/bludgeoning, but vulnerable to force, necrotic, psychic, radiant, and thunder damage.

It genuinely just confuses me greatly, the way 5e has chosen to go about its monster design. Unlike the class-design side of things, where they were clearly waffling back and forth for literal years on the most basic stuff, when it comes to monster design they've had literal years to get it right and they've still dropped the ball, continually producing fat bags of HP that don't even make use of the explicit official mechanics available to them half the time!
 

EzekielRaiden said:
Honestly, given how rare vulnerability of any kind is? I'd say "extra effects" really aren't that much rarer than vulnerability to any specific damage type, at least in the 5.5e MM.

Which is a real shame, and IMO is further evidence that monster design has been badly neglected over 5e's run and especially in the 5.5e update. When <5% of monsters have any kind of vulnerability at all, what is vulnerability even really doing? Especially when 5e was supposed to be the edition that made damage output and HP total the primary source of scaling! That should make Resistance at least semi-special and Immunity genuinely special, and make Vulnerability a prime target for designing monsters that require specialized approaches to kill. E.g. it has 400 HP but it's vulnerable to lightning and cold, so bring ways to deal that kind of damage. Or maybe it has only 50 HP as a high-CR creature...but it's immune to acid, cold, fire, lightning, and poison (maybe some kind of mutant Tiamat spawn?), and resistant to slashing/piercing/bludgeoning, but vulnerable to force, necrotic, psychic, radiant, and thunder damage.

It genuinely just confuses me greatly, the way 5e has chosen to go about its monster design. Unlike the class-design side of things, where they were clearly waffling back and forth for literal years on the most basic stuff, when it comes to monster design they've had literal years to get it right and they've still dropped the ball, continually producing fat bags of HP that don't even make use of the explicit official mechanics available to them half the time!
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this,

there is room for almost any monster that is not basic humanoid/beast to have some resitance/immunity/vulnerability.

I.E:
Undead: immunity to necrotic&poison, resistance to cold and lightning, vulnerability to radiant and possibly fire.
skeletons with added resistance to slashing and piercing and vulnerability to bludgeoning,
that can be the basic template,
 


SpellObjectEnthusiast said:
A feat cannot both be Niche/situational and also S tier.

Not every choice should be extremely powerful. There is design space for sub-optimal choices.
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that is it, a feat should not be niche, or it should be with added caveat, that you can pick two niche feats instead of a normal one(only one +1 ASI).
sub-optimal choice=trap choice.

a feat can be flavorful, thematic and strong.
Look: Telekinetic
 

As of now Elemental Adept is virtually useless in most games. I do think that the extra damage is a bit to far just have it be that immunity is dropped to resistance and resistance is just ignored. The same should go for poisoner.
 

I rewrote the "X Adept" feats to be more flavourful. They lose "ignore resistance" and instead let you convert half of your damage to another damage type.

Hellfire Blood​

  • When you roll damage for a spell you cast that deals fire damage, you can treat any 1 on a damage die as the maximum value on the die
  • When you deal Fire damage, you can exchange ½ of the fire damage for necrotic damage. If you do so, you gain temporary HP equal to the necrotic damage done at the end of the turn. If you gain temporary HP this way more than once, only gain the largest amount.
  • If you deal Fire damage and have temporary HP, you can sacrifice the temporary HP to deal ½ of the sacrificed temporary HP as additional Fire damage to one target.
"Treat 1s as max" adds 5/6 of a point of damage to each d6 on average. And is somewhat fun, as it makes max and near-max damage more likely.

Being able to turn 1/2 of fire damage to necrotic lets you use fire spells on targets resistance or immune to fire and still have some damage output. Foes who are immune to both you are screwed with, but that is what it is.

The temporary HP game gives you another boost; it adds up to 25% to your single-target fire damage output if nothing is hurting you. You can pre-load some temporary HP (use fire bolt against an object?).

The first feature only works on spells. The 2nd and 3rd works on any fire damage - so someone who is specialized in non-spell fire damage (or has a flaming sword they really like) can take the feat if they really want.

Storm’s Calling (thunder/lightning symmetric), Frozen Heart (cold -> movement), Etched Soul (acid/poison symmetric) are somewhat similar spells that turn some of your damage into something else.

Radiant, Force and Necrotic don't get a similar feat.

Hellfire Blood​

Fiendish blood burns in your veins.
  • When you roll damage for a spell you cast that deals fire damage, you can treat any 1 on a damage die as the maximum value on the die
  • When you deal Fire damage, you can exchange ½ of the fire damage for necrotic damage. If you do so, you gain temporary HP equal to the necrotic damage done at the end of the turn. If you gain temporary HP this way more than once, only gain the largest amount.
  • If you deal Fire damage and have temporary HP, you can sacrifice the temporary HP to deal ½ of the sacrificed temporary HP as additional Fire damage to one target.

Storm’s Calling​

You are one with the storm.
  • When you roll damage for a spell you cast that deals lightning or thunder damage, you can treat any 1 on a damage die as the maximum value on the die
  • When you deal Lighting or Thunder damage, you can choose to convert ½ of the damage to Thunder or Lightning
  • When you deal Thunder damage, you can push an enemy 1 foot for every point of damage you do (Half this for Large and Huge creatures, divide by 5 for for Gargantuan)
  • Creatures who fail saves against spells that deal Lightning damage cannot perform reactions and have disadvantage on attacks against you until the end of your next turn.

Frozen Heart​

A shard of primal ice pierces your heart.
  • When you roll damage for a spell you cast that deals cold damage, you can treat any 1 on a damage die as the maximum value on the die.
  • You have immunity to cold damage and resistance to fire damage.
  • If a creature within 60’ of you that you can see takes cold or fire damage, as a reaction you can prevent the damage. You gain temporary HP equal to ½ the damage prevented (before any resistance or immunity).
  • When you deal cold damage, you can choose to sacrifice ½ of the damage and reduce the creature’s movement speed 1 foot for every point of damage you sacrifice by imprisoning them in ice until the end of your next turn. This speed reduction applies before any resistance or immunity. The imprisoning ice is an object that has a +0 to saves and 10 AC, immunity to psychic and cold damage and vulnerability to fire, force and bludgeoning damage. Every point of damage done to the ice restores 1 foot of speed.

Etched Soul​

Powerful alchemical sigils are engraved upon your soul.
  • When you roll damage for a spell that deals poison or acid damage, you can treat a 1 on a damage die as the maximum value on that die.
  • When you deal Acid or Poison damage, you can choose to convert ½ of the damage to Poison or Acid.
  • You gain proficiency in the alchemist tool kit, and if when you add your proficiency bonus with the alchemist’s kit you instead add twice your proficiency bonus.
  • You have advantage on attack rolls on creatures you have dealt poison or acid damage to since the start of your last turn, and they have disadvantage on saves against taking acid or poison damage from your spells.

The goal is to permit a tightly-specialized spellcaster (based on damage) to be viable in almost every fight, but remain worse off when foes are resistant/immune to the damage they do.
 
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