Element:
Element spells affect creatures and objects with elemental energy. Most of the elements, excluding the Unifying Elements, are part of the Elemental Sphere, as shown in the following diagram (not included in the quote). Friendly elements are adjacent to each other, while opposing elements are on
the opposite sides of the sphere.
There is a difference between spells that affect elementals (the creature type) and those that affect elements. A Transform Earth spell can turn things to stone, but it cannot turn something into an earth elemental. For that you’d need both Transform Earth and Transform Elemental.
One final confusion is that Ooze is both a creature type and an element. This is mostly because all the other words for ooze as an element sound a bit silly – sludge, slime, goo, gunk, or even mud just don’t cut it. Since the only times the two Oozes overlap are for Abjure and Transform, treat Ooze as being both sorts. If you know Abjure Ooze, you can keep mud away just as easily as you can fend off slime monsters.
The Categories of Elements
The 22 elements are divided into the following categories, based on their natures.
• The Cardinal Elements: Air, Death, Earth, Fire, Life, and Water. These are the primary elements on the equator and the axis of the sphere of elements.
• The Paraelements: Lava, Lightning, Mist, and Ooze. These elements each are derived by combining two cardinal elements from the equator.
• The Negative Elements: Acid, Metal, Shadow, and Void. These elements are the combination of Death and one of the equatorial elements.
• The Positive Elements: Crystal, Ice, Light, and Sound. These elements are the combination of Life and one of the equatorial elements.
• The Unifying Elements: Force, Nature, Space, and Time. Nature is within the sphere of elements and is a balanced mixture of all the elements. Space, force, and time are all outside the sphere and represent the normally intangible concepts of space, forces, and time.
Elemental Relations
All of the physical elements have several friendly or opposed elements, but the unifying elements do not, and neither do Life or Death. These relations affect how different elements interact.
Elemental Subtypes:
All creatures have elemental subtypes, and some have two or more. Most aberrations, animals, dragons, fey, giants, humanoids, magical beasts, monstrous humanoids, oozes, outsiders, plants, and vermin have the [Life] subtype in addition to any listed in their descriptions. Thus a red dragon would be a [Fire, Life] creature. Undead have the [Death] subtype. Elementals obviously have the same subtype as their element. Constructs are animated by elemental spirits, and so have a subtype appropriate to the elemental that animates them; for most golems this is an Earth elemental.
Every element deals its own type of damage, and creatures are immune to damage of their own subtype. For instance, fire damage cannot harm fire elementals, and death damage does not harm undead. The physical attacks of creatures do not count as energy damage, however, so if you have acid resistance, it won’t help protect you from a black dragon’s claws.
The exceptions to this rule are the Crystal, Earth, Metal, and Nature elements. These elements simply deal physical damage, not energy damage, so energy resistance against one of these types won’t actually protect against the chosen type. However, most elements have friendly elements, detailed below, which can make even Earth Resistance useful.
Life damage usually cannot deal lethal damage to [Life] creatures, but it does have the exception that it can be used to cause nonlethal damage, even to humans, elves, etc.
Friendly Elements:
Creatures of a given elemental type cannot be harmed by energy damage of that type, nor can they be harmed by energy damage from elements listed as ‘friendly’ to their own element. Whenever an effect grants energy resistance versus a type of element, that protection also applies to the friendly elements. For example, if you have Shadow Resistance 5, this prevents the first 5 points of damage each time you take shadow, acid, or void damage.
Note that friendly elements don’t always match both ways. You are protected against your friendly elements, but they are not necessarily protected against you. For instance, shadow has the friendly elements void and acid, but acid has the friendly elements void and water. Thus, a creature with Shadow resistance is resistant to Acid damage, but Shadow damage can harm an Acid creature just fine.
Opposed Elements:
Whenever a creature receives energy damage from a source that is of an opposed elemental type, that creature takes half again as much damage, even if a save is allowed, or if the save is a success or failure.
Related Ability Scores:
The Infuse [Element] spell list can grant bonuses to ability scores. The ability scores you can enhance depend on what element you use.
Side Effect:
Evoke [Element] spells have additional effects based on the type of element used. These side effects are presented in more detail in Chapter Three.
Opposed Alignments:
There are five alignments used in Elements of Magic spells – Chaos, Evil, Good, Law, and Balance. When an Evoke spell or other damaging effect deals alignment-based damage, its effect depends on the alignment of the targets. Some settings may not use alignments for normal characters, and if so, either get rid of alignment damage entirely, or only have it affect outsiders with the appropriate alignment, since outsiders are considered to inherently have that alignment.
Evoke Chaos, Evil, Good, and Law do normal damage to creatures of diametrically opposed alignments, half damage to creatures that are neutral in respect to the appropriate alignment, and no damage to creatures that
share the alignment.
Evoke Balance does normal damage to creatures with extreme alignments (LE, CE, LG, and CG), half damage to creatures that are neutral along one axis (NE, NG, LN, and CN), and no damage to true neutral creatures.
Damage Types and Objects:
In the core rules, acid, fire, and electricity effects do half damage to objects, and cold does quarter damage. In Elements of Magic, however, all elements simply do half damage to objects, unless noted in the side effects section in Chapter Three.
Objects that are magically imbued with elemental energy take damage just the same as creatures, receiving half again as much damage from opposed elements and none from friendly elements. Normal objects, however, can be harmed just fine. Nonmagical mud can be harmed by Ooze damage, for example.
Code:
Element Friendly Elements Opposed Elements Related Ability Scores Side Effect
Acid Void, Water Fire, Light, Sound Intelligence, Wisdom Dissolve
Air Lightning, Mist, Sound Lava, Ooze Dexterity Knockback
Crystal** Ice, Light - Constitution, Strength Physical Damage (piercing)
Death* - Life Intelligence Inflict
Earth** Lava, Ooze - Strength Physical Damage (bludgeoning)
Fire Lava, Lightning Acid, Ice, Water Charisma Ignite
Force - - - Force
Ice Mist, Shadow Fire, Lava Wisdom, Constitution Freeze
Lava Fire Air, Ice, Water Charisma, Strength Bake
Life* - Death Constitution Life
Light Sound, Void Ice, Shadow Charisma, Constitution Blind
Lightning Air, Fire, Light Ooze, Shadow, Water Charisma, Dexterity Stun
Metal** Ooze - Intelligence, Strength Physical Damage (slashing)
Mist Air, Water Fire, Lava Dexterity, Wisdom Fog
Nature** - - - Physical Damage
Ooze Sound, Water Air, Lightning Strength, Wisdom Slime
Shadow Acid, Void Light, Lightning Charisma, Intelligence Extinguish
Sound Air, Ice, Light Void Dexterity, Constitution Deafen
Space - - - Planar
Time - - - Temporality
Void Shadow Air, Mist, Sound Dexterity, Intelligence Suffocate
Water Acid, Mist, Ooze Fire, Lava, Lightning Wisdom Wash
* Note that the Death and Life elements oppose each other, but they do not deal half again as much damage to each other, as is the case with most opposed elements, like fire and water. This opposition is important for Hex spells, even though it doesn’t affect Evoke spells.
** No effects can deal energy damage of the Crystal, Earth, Metal, or Nature elements, so resistance against these elements only protects against the damage from listed friendly elements. Thus, an Earth creature is still immune to energy damage of Lava or Ooze sources. No effects provide Nature Resistance, however.
ositive, Humanoid: Dragon, Abberation:Ooze or Beast:Fey) isn't a bad way to go
, eliminating the need for the Monstrous Humanoid type.
