Elemental Power Source Speculation

[Nahat Anoj]

I was reading "Beyond the Mottled Tower," February's installment of the Scales of War AP. I found this passage in a sidebar:

Spoiler

Blood chaos is a potent acidic distillation of raw elemental essence, first collected and refined from the Elemental Chaos by Djamela, a long-dead efreet conjurer. The efreet created this horrid ooze in the course of experimenting with the fundamental mutability of her home plane, storing it in a vast reservoir in her remote tower home.

The emphasis is mine. Sure, conjurer is just a generic word for wizard, but so is sorcerer or invoker, and those have specific D&D meanings... What if conjurer is the name for a class that uses the elemental power source - if it is, my bet is on Elemental Controller because, if the invoker is any indication, the old schools of magic for wizards seem natural fits for Controller classes.

So this is just one word in a sidebar - it probably may not mean anything. But, I like how WotC seems to be indicating that "elemental" doesn't mean just air, earth, fire, and water, but also chaos on in general. In 4e, "elemental" is a concept that encompasses things like Limbo, Pandemonium, and raw, wild potentiality. I think it helps broaden the possible class concepts for the Elemental source.

 

[TwinBahamut]

I am pretty sure that, at this point, the Elemental Power Source will not have much to do with the specific set of elements of Air, Earth, Water, and Fire, of for no other reason than the fact that these four elements are not given any kind of special status in the 4E cosmology whatsoever.

In various threads on the Wotc boards, there has been all kinds of interesting speculation about what Elemental may be. Certainly, it will be tied to the Elemental Chaos, but beyond that it is hard to say. Two ideas, that it will be a power source devoted to manipulating inert matter (transmutation, alchemy, and the creation of golem-like puppets), and that it will have strong Asian themes to match the Ki Power Source (like the old Wu Jen and Shugenja), both sound good to me.

However, it does seem that the "conjurer" mentioned in the quoted text is referring to an Elemental class. I'm not sure if I like the way some of that stuff is described, though...

 

[Kinneus]

Sounds good, but my only question is... why wouldn't a Wild Magic Sorcerer be 'Elemental', then?

 

[Nahat Anoj]

Sounds good, but my only question is... why wouldn't a Wild Magic Sorcerer be 'Elemental', then?

Yeah, it'll be interesting to see how they approach that, if this is the case.

I think the Arcane source can duplicate many of the trappings of other sources. For example, wizards and swordmages have many elemental (in the sense of fire, lightning, acid, etc.) themed spells. There are also some necromancy themed spells for Arcane, Primal, and Divine classes, something we might expect to be a primarily Shadow thing. So it may be possible for some overlap.

 

[Nivenus]

Here's my guess, based on what Rich Baker said on the FR forums regarding primordials and worship.

The elemental source will have some of the flavoring of the arcane source (given, for one thing, the fact that many arcane powers use elemental energy) and that of the divine source. It is my prediction that the divine connection will ultimately prove stronger and the elemental source will act as a complement to the divine source (much as the shadow source seems poised to act for the arcane source or ki seems likely for martial).

I imagine that primordial cultists will use the elemental classes, in much the way that clerics serve as the agents of gods.

 

[RyvenCedrylle]

I think the Elemental Power source will be something like this:

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0423.html

But seriously - I imagine it won't be centered around the four classic elements since that's done well by the primal, arcane and even divine classes pretty well. While it might be the 'ki' source, I think that's going to end up either on its own or lumped into psionics. My guess is that it would be the more (pseudo)scientific, technical or 'steampunk'-y sort of stuff. Releasing the "essences" or "elements" of things, like making gunpowder from sulfur, potassium nitrate and charcoal; or setting off some kind of stinkbomb from the glands of a skunk or something to repel enemies. Alchemy and such, really. Just my guess.

 

[Hawke]

With Primal power, I've got a good idea that wotc is adept at pushing the limits of classes. Every time I can come up with some type of Elemental class idea, I can't help but quickly feel that wotc can do better. I guess that's the point 4E will turn a corner - when they're doing stuff I thought up lol.

The big question I have... how is an Elemental Power Source different than Martial/Divine/Psionic/Arcane but with adding elemental keywords to the end?

If it's the same attack as anothe defender but with FIRE attached, it isn't that exciting.

I can see a Conjurer that summons elementals (more similar to animal companion ranger than to summoner invoker) as something reasonable. But that's just one role.

I can see other roles perhaps connected to some kind of mechanic that actually transmutes the player into that element. Something like with each successive attack, you come into your fire form more and more... or with each attack that hits you, you become more and more rock? Seems like it drops some of the ease of 4E... but if we're looking at PHB4 maybe that isn't so bad (also isn't so crazy compared to Dark Pact's Darkspiral Aura).

The other question is... will there be 4 classes, each with variations (builds) based on the elements? If so, it seems like adding a Chaos element in Elemental Power would be pretty cool. OR... will there be 2 classes per element distributed?

Speculation on this topic is my most favorite subject.

 

[Nahat Anoj]

Here's my guess, based on what Rich Baker said on the FR forums regarding primordials and worship.

The elemental source will have some of the flavoring of the arcane source (given, for one thing, the fact that many arcane powers use elemental energy) and that of the divine source. It is my prediction that the divine connection will ultimately prove stronger and the elemental source will act as a complement to the divine source (much as the shadow source seems poised to act for the arcane source or ki seems likely for martial).

I imagine that primordial cultists will use the elemental classes, in much the way that clerics serve as the agents of gods.

Interesting. I also remember reading something about how Orcus can bestow powers on his followers in a manner similar to divine magic but, because he's not actually a god, it's not actually divine magic. I wonder if there will be relation between what you suggest and this passage.

I suspect at least one of the chaos classes will use some form of shapeshifting. It might even be similar to a druid's beast form - there might be powers with the elemental form keyword that can only be used in this form.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Well, thematically the elemental chaos is the ever mutable well spring of creation.

So I'd expect that elementalist powers would focus on either changing things or pulling them into existence.

 

[Bold or Stupid]

I had a brainwave earlier today, what if Eberron's elemental binding is the basic inspiration behind some of the power source? Effects that bind an elemental into a target with differing effects based the elemental used.

Examples.

Defensive Infusion - You call an elemental spirit and bind it to protect an ally.
Earth - +2 AC, Fire - any one who attacks target takes 5 fire damage, Water - target gets DR all 2, Air +2 to NADs.

Offensive Infusion - You call an elemental spirit to aid an allies attack.
Earth - Taget can add push 1 to all attack, Fire - target does +1d6 fire damage...

and so on and so forth. This is fairly obviously a leader type set of powers but other roles could use it in different manners, eg striker bind to themselves to get special damage effects.