CA Spell: "Blast of Flame" - What the heck?

[UltimaGabe]

If blast of flame is a Conjuration spell (and therefore doesn't allow SR), it really should be called acid gout or similar, and conjure a cone of acid. Or change it to mirror the spell flaming corrosion from Monte Cook's Book of Eldritch Might I, with is a Sor/Wiz 4 short range cone-shaped Evocation doing half acid, half fire damage, with a Reflex save and allowing SR.

Pardon me for asking, but why do all Conjuration spells have to deal Acid damage?

 

[Al'Kelhar]

Pardon me for asking, but why do all Conjuration spells have to deal Acid damage?

They don't. That just happens to be the convention in the core spells in the SRD. It seems that, although 'acid' is an energy type descriptor for spells, spells with those descriptors actually create, i.e. conjure, a physical substance, being the acid which causes the damage. By contrast spells with the fire, cold, electricity and sonic descriptors don't create a substance but manifest as a burst, stroke, aura etc. of energy. Some spells with the cold descriptor do create a substance (snow, ice etc.) but these often cause multiple types of damage to represent the distinction between the energy manifested and the object created, e.g. cold and impact, or cold and piercing.

In short, spells which manifest as damaging cold, fire, electrical or sonic energy are almost always Evocations. Spells which manifest as the creation of acid which causes acid energy damage are almost always Conjuration. As stated, this appears to be a convention, not a rule. It is for this reason that I suggested that a Conjuration spell which is causing 'energy-type' damage should (not must) manifest as the creation of acid. However, the convention continues to be broken by non-core spells; I personally dislike this as it represents lack of consistency when a core value of D&D v.3.x is internal consistency.

Cheers, Al'Kelhar

 

[Henry]

Based on what I've seen from the Expanded Psionics Handbook, I'm willing to bet that energy damage types will see a revision in the next edition of D&D. Why else would Paul the Psion's cold blasts call for Fortitude saves, while Meredith the Mage's cone of cold doesn't, or why blast of flame is conjuration, where every other fire spell is evocation? Why do cold-substituted burning hands set people on fire, etc.?

"It just don't make no sense."

 

[atom crash]

Based on what I've seen from the Expanded Psionics Handbook, I'm willing to bet that energy damage types will see a revision in the next edition of D&D. Why else would Paul the Psion's cold blasts call for Fortitude saves, while Meredith the Mage's cone of cold doesn't, or why blast of flame is conjuration, where every other fire spell is evocation? Why do cold-substituted burning hands set people on fire, etc.?

A cleaner system could be created where the damage and area of effect of energy damage spells varied by spell level. For example, the 0-level lesser energy ray does 1d3 (like ray of frost), the 3rd-level energy burst does d6/level (like fireball), etc. There could be lesser and greater versions of all the area types, with varied areas of effect and possibly different damage caps.

The secondary effect of these spells and the associated save might depend on the energy type used. So there would also be detailed entries for each energy type.

Of course, this simplified system would also make thick books of new spells totally unnecessary.

I bet there's already something similar to this idea already out there in a 3rd party publication.

 

[Plane Sailing]

I bet there's already something similar to this idea already out there in a 3rd party publication.

Indeed there is - Enworld/Natural 20 Press "Elements of Magic" had just this kind of thing.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Based on what I've seen from the Expanded Psionics Handbook, I'm willing to bet that energy damage types will see a revision in the next edition of D&D. Why else would Paul the Psion's cold blasts call for Fortitude saves, while Meredith the Mage's cone of cold doesn't, or why blast of flame is conjuration, where every other fire spell is evocation? Why do cold-substituted burning hands set people on fire, etc.?

I'd rather hoped that they'd grasp the nettle on this issue with Complete Arcane, sad to see they haven't.

It seems to me that not thinking to harmonise different damage types (acid/energy) and give consistent side effects for them was one of the big failings of 3e. There is a certain amount of implied reasoning in 3e but then other stuff comes out (even by WotC!) which ignores the implied logic e.g. energy substitution.

It could all have made so much more sense, been so much more reasonable. Ah well.

One interesting possibility would be to retrofit the XPH definitions for cold/sonic/acid/fire side effects onto all standard D&D spells.

Cheers