D&D General Air, Earth, and Water Damage

[CreamCloud0]

Could you do two types?

Fire - fire and radiant
Water - cold and acid
Air - lightning and thunder
Earth - bludgeoning* and force.

*I would actually have Earth do bludgeoning, piercing and/or slashing and can it physical.

i mean, you could but to me the crux of the matter is always going to come back to the fact that i think that DnD is simply lacking a couple of damage types to fill out all the array of archetypes it wants to use and so will always be trying to shoehorn other less appropriate damages into those spells/effects whenever it wants to use them.

You could also try making new "elemental" pairs of you wanted

Metal: piercing and slashing
Biolocal: poison and necrotic

i think it needs to sort out the things it's already using before adding anything else.

 

[Remathilis]

i mean, you could but to me the crux of the matter is always going to come back to the fact that i think that DnD is simply lacking a couple of damage types to fill out all the array of archetypes it wants to use and so will always be trying to shoehorn other less appropriate damages into those spells/effects whenever it wants to use them.

i think it needs to sort out the things it's already using before adding anything else.

Honestly, I think disease should be it's own type rather than rely on poison/poisoned condition, but maybe 6e.

And if air/earth/water damage get their own type, I would want to it be encompassed into the whole game. Air elementals doing air damage. Falling damage being earth damage. Drowning is continuous water damage (like being set on fire is continuous fire damage). Merfolk having resistance to water damage. Etc.

 

[Willie the Duck]

How many damage types were there in each edition of D&D? 5e streamlined the number down to 13 to keep things short and simple for us players.

5e has the ones you mentioned. 4e has the ones EzekialRadian mentioned.

3e had Acid, Bludgeoning, Cold, Electrical, Fire, Force, Negative Energy, Piercing, Positive Energy, Slashing, Sonic, and Untyped. But then also had damage resistance checked against Magic Weapon (either Boolean or +1-+5; and then Epic), and also weapon material -- generally adamantine, cold iron, and silver; but occasionally supplement specific like starmetal (and probably some things like wood, bone, or natural weapons) and likely some damage resistance against specific things (so fall-resistance damage defeated by 'anything but falling damage' or the like).

TSR-era D&D did not have categorical lists, so much as a general flags/tags system where a certain spell or item could be noted as doing X damage or a spell noted as protecting (or offering immunity) against a certain type of damage (almost always fire, lightning, cold, or poison). And then of course many creatures being immune to weapons based on them not being silver or magic.

The word Force is doing heavy lifting.

Force damage is magical Force. Mostly from magically created objects and planes.

Force in general seems like a catch-all/trump card category already. It seemed like something to assign something that you wanted creatures immune/resistant to magic weapons to still be vulnerable to. If 3e had made magic missiles 'defeats damage resistance as a magic arrow of +{some-level-dependent-formula}' and the Bigby's Hand spells the same but bludgeoning, I wouldn't have batted an eye.

 

[Staffan]

It occurs to me that just using elements for direct damage is a bit boring. I would look to Jim Butcher's Codex Alera series, where people channel elemental power (traditional four + plant/wood and metal) in different ways. Someone using metal magic would generally not be throwing giant spinning metal blades in combat, but would rather use it to conquer their fear and gaining resistance to injury (or at least pain, it's been a while since I read them). Knights Flora (wood-users) would use bows to launch unnaturally large and heavy arrows. Earth-users would improve their strength, and so on.

This would likely work best as a complete revamp of the magic system rather than as just an archetype, but it would be awesomely cool.

 

[Willie the Duck]

It occurs to me that just using elements for direct damage is a bit boring.

We ran into this with Hero System (where doing alternative damage types is an expensive add-on for your damage, but plausibly is beneficial because your opponent is unlikely to have as high a defense against say, Sound-Based Flash Defense, as they do general physical attacks) and with Wildsea (where there are damage types similar to D&D, but also ones like Hewing and Serrated; and getting resistance/immunity to many/most of them is a way of making a combat-heavy character). Eventually, if you make the tension between damage options and resistance coverage too much of the tactical interplay, it can feel very much like shield frequency guessing or something ("Oh, hey, the red lasers aren't working. Let's try the green. No? Okay, good thing Joe invested in orange.").

As untethered/wild-west as the TSR-era was, I think was a happy medium where most things just did damage (and you resisted mostly through AC and saves), with a few spells and creature breaths/bites doing something special (that also had spell defenses against).

If they could dial it back to that level, or make the damage distinction more meaningful (metal gets spinning blades, cold freezes opponents, fire does ongoing damage, lightning stuns, and/or similar), either would be helpful.

 

[Tonguez]

But Natural Salt is as corrosive as Natural water is hot.

Earth attacks are usually represented as big hulking waves of stone, dirt, rocks, or metal that still rock you if it hits your shield or armor, slam you into a wall or the ground, or requires a massive hard and rough dodge to the side. Your arms and legs vibrating from the massive clank of a baseball sized rock hitting your armor.

The demon is resistance to your fist sized maul heal nor the 5f radius rock fist.

Some acidic clays with impurities can cause skin irritation. Usually not enough to cause more than an itchy rash but it does give a direct link between 'acid' and clay, intensified through elemental concentrations

 

[Corinnguard]

But Natural Salt is as corrosive as Natural water is hot.

It depends on the concentration of the salt in question and the location.

 

[Staffan]

We ran into this with Hero System (where doing alternative damage types is an expensive add-on for your damage, but plausibly is beneficial because your opponent is unlikely to have as high a defense against say, Sound-Based Flash Defense, as they do general physical attacks) and with Wildsea (where there are damage types similar to D&D, but also ones like Hewing and Serrated; and getting resistance/immunity to many/most of them is a way of making a combat-heavy character). Eventually, if you make the tension between damage options and resistance coverage too much of the tactical interplay, it can feel very much like shield frequency guessing or something ("Oh, hey, the red lasers aren't working. Let's try the green. No? Okay, good thing Joe invested in orange.").

Right. That's why I would prefer if elementalist magic had a wider scope than just different damage types. I could see Earth being the best at protection, battlefield manipulation, and "burly" style buffs, Fire being the best at damage and also having things like haste and maybe purification stuff, Air dealing with movement and thought, and Water being sneaky, subtle, and malleable. Or something like that, I'm just tossing ideas off the top of my head.

 

[Indagare Nogitsune]

Perhaps I’m misunderstanding the OP’s question, but I thought the corresponding energy/damage types were:

Fire - fire
Water - cold
Air - lightning and/or thunder
Earth - acid

They are, but I am thinking something more akin to the attacks Sailor Mercury, Uranus, and Neptune do. Also, on Neopets, there is literal Earth, Air, and Water damage done to opponents (with others being Fire, Light, Dark, and Physical).
For reference, Deep Submerge as a form of waterball.

 

[Corinnguard]

Right. That's why I would prefer if elementalist magic had a wider scope than just different damage types. I could see Earth being the best at protection, battlefield manipulation, and "burly" style buffs, Fire being the best at damage and also having things like haste and maybe purification stuff, Air dealing with movement and thought, and Water being sneaky, subtle, and malleable. Or something like that, I'm just tossing ideas off the top of my head.

In Ryoko's Guide to the Yokai Realms, there is a quartet of 2nd-level spells that could be used to manipulate the battlefield whenever a particular elemental attack happens. Calm Air, Calm Earth, Calm Fire and Calm Water. Here's what the Calm Earth spell can do:

Calm Earth
2nd-level transmutation
Casting Time: 1 bonus action
Range: 120 feet (60-foot cube)
Components: V, S
Duration: Concentration, up to 1 minute
Class: Bender (earth), Druid, Ranger, Wizard
With a disciplined gesture and stalwart word, you calm the earth in a 60-foot cube centered on a point within range for the duration. In the area, a rockslide grinds to a halt, ground tremors are soothed, and the effects of earth-based spells of a level equal to or lower than this spell, such as the earthen uppercut spell, are prevented and suppressed.
At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 3rd level or higher, the level of earth-based spells suppressed by this spell increases.

The other three spells work pretty much the same way as the Calm Earth spell.