D&D General Air, Earth, and Water Damage

[Indagare Nogitsune]

I'm sure I've started something like this before, but a long standing issue of mine is a dearth of spells that aren't Fire-related. And a solution to that I've thought of is to make Air, Earth, and Water energy-type damages akin to Fire, Radiant, Thunder, or so on in such a way that they could be substituted without changing anything about the spell except a cosmetic appearance.

There are folks who would say they ought to do Bludgeoning or similar, but I don't see that needing to be the case. There are other energy spells that push people back or such without doing that sort of damage. I feel that adding these would allow a caster who wants a particular elemental feel to be able to have thematic spells without having to scour through all sorts of 3PP books because WotC is full of pyromaniacs.

Thoughts?

 

[Cordwainer Fish]

I've always relied on Earth, Wind and Fire damage myself.

 

[aco175]

It is easy to just make a waterball or coldball to swap out fireball. I think that something like this should be a spell that is researched and not just allowed at will. One of the reasons that fire is the most numerous is that it is also the most resisted or immune. This is likely a reason and something that is designed. Pulling at this thread may make for problems.

Having it at a price allows for some to have it and keep is rare.

 

[cbwjm]

While you could just change a fireball to deal earth or water damage with little to no changes (I think a waterball setting things on fire would be a little weird), I think it would be more interesting for them to have different effects, a waterball might deal less damage but have some movement effect like knocking people down or dragging them to the centre of effect due to an undertow. An earthball might turn the area into difficult terrain.

 

[J-H]

This is mostly just due to the designers.
From my spells by category/theme document:

Acid 6
Beasts/vermin 20
Cold 14
Darkness 7
Earth 24
Far Realms 8
Fire 29
Force 14
Healing 24
Lightning 8
Necrotic 17
Plant 10
Poison/disease 10
Psychic 16
Radiant/holy 23
Thunder 9
Water 14
Wind 16

 

[jmartkdr2]

I once played an eladrin wildfire druid with a homebrew rule: as her season changed, the damage of her wildfire abilities changed to match: so in summer mode she was a wildfire druid, in winter mode she was a wildfrost druid, spring was lightning and autumn was acid. There's a loose elemental association here (spring = air, summer = fire, autumn = earth, and winter = cold).

This applied to produce flame, any spell granted by the subclass, and subclass features (like the companion's attack).

I was never really satisfied with autumn being acid, but I've never come up with an answer that sat particularly well instead. I suppose spring = radiant and autumn = necrotic could work, but that has potential balance issues. I never really found a good answer for "earth damage" in DnD.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

If we are talking about "earth" damage we should remember the sulfur and the boron.

Boron - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I imagine "earth" as acid damage because some minerals are toxic.

I think acid damage is the opposite of lighting damage because acids "steal" electrons.

Air is linked to lighting and water to ice and cold damage.

 

[Corinnguard]

It is easy to just make a waterball or coldball to swap out fireball. I think that something like this should be a spell that is researched and not just allowed at will. One of the reasons that fire is the most numerous is that it is also the most resisted or immune. This is likely a reason and something that is designed. Pulling at this thread may make for problems.

Having it at a price allows for some to have it and keep is rare.

While there is a way in D&D to change a fireball into a waterball or a coldball, there is the issue of what kind of damage they do against an opponent. A fireball does Fire damage. A coldball does Cold damage. But what kind of damage does a waterball do when someone is hit by one? Other than getting them, their gear and their clothing, all wet.

 

[CreamCloud0]

While i do think that water damage could most of the time be bundled under cold damage with few issues I wouldn’t object to an aqua damage type, i have however long thought now that dnd is sorely lacking a primal-nature-plant and earth damage types, and yeah an aero-wind type couldn’t go awry either.

The fact dnd leans on the 4 elements theme so often yet only has dedicated elemental damage types for like, one and a half of them is a bewildering decision to me.

 

[Koloth]

Other then switching energy types for a thematic reason, having many variations of energy would invite a corresponding numbers of DR variations or outright immunities. IMO - one of the bad things about 3x and PF1 was the long lists of DR. 'Oh caddy. hand me the cold iron sword of fire and piercing.' 'Caddy, put this sword up and give me the adamantine club of smashing and cold.' PCs in many games turned into shambling mounds of various weapon types trying to have something to bypass the next critter's DR.

Little wonder that Haversacks and Bags of Holding became standard equipment.