frankthedm
First Post
I do think lightning has enough of a mythic connection with elemental Air for both to be linked.
Earth and Acid however is stretching it IMHO.
Earth and Acid however is stretching it IMHO.
D&D 4E Elements and energies in 4e
- Thread starter Li Shenron
- Start date
Plane Sailing
Astral Admin - Mwahahaha!
I strongly hope that they rethink energies and elements entirely.
What I would dearly like to see is that each energy and element type is given a minor, major and intense 'side effect', which becomes one of the main differentiators, and could potentially be applied to any kind of damaging spell.
e.g. (off the top of my head)
Fire:
minor: ignites papers and tinder
major: ignites material and wood
intense: heats metal
Earth:
minor: makes things dirty
major: knocks things back
intense: can bury things
Water:
minor: makes things wet
major: makes things slippery
intense: can cause drowning effects
(Could also use some of the mechanical effects from the psionics handbook too, perhaps)
What I would dearly like to see is that each energy and element type is given a minor, major and intense 'side effect', which becomes one of the main differentiators, and could potentially be applied to any kind of damaging spell.
e.g. (off the top of my head)
Fire:
minor: ignites papers and tinder
major: ignites material and wood
intense: heats metal
Earth:
minor: makes things dirty
major: knocks things back
intense: can bury things
Water:
minor: makes things wet
major: makes things slippery
intense: can cause drowning effects
(Could also use some of the mechanical effects from the psionics handbook too, perhaps)
Nikosandros
Golden Procrastinator
In AE there is the possibility of adding templates to spell that do something similar.
Also the various orbs spell from CA (and now in SC) have nice side effects that depend on the specific energy.
Also the various orbs spell from CA (and now in SC) have nice side effects that depend on the specific energy.
Thornir Alekeg
Albatross!
AirPlane Sailing said:
Minor: toussles hair - tumbles straw bulildings
Major: knocks people down, tumbles stick buildings
Intense: Lifts people to Oz, tumbles brick and stone buildings
Plane Sailing
Astral Admin - Mwahahaha!
Nikosandros said:
One of the 3e problems, to my mind, is that there is no regularity between energy types. Orb spells have side effects, but fireball, lightning bolt and cone of cold don't?
The idiosyncratic special effects of damage types in various spells is something that ought to curl up, expire and apply for its death certificate IMO!
Masquerade
First Post
Could someone summarize what AE did for those of us not as familiar with the system?Nifft said:
GreatLemur
Explorer
The energy types were always pretty dumb (especially sonic and freaking acid, of all things). I'd really like to see them replaced with damage types (so we can get physical attacks and energy attacks into the same subsystem), and just forget any elemental correlations. I'm pretty sure we don't really need 'em for anything.
Damned good point. I've always liked the idea of some kind of "For every ten points of electrical damage you take, add +1 to the Fort save DC to resist being stunned for a round" mechanic, or something along those lines.Plane Sailing said:
TwinBahamut
First Post
I would prefer to see greater unity between the ideas of elements and energies... If the base cosmolgy of D&D assumes four inner planes of Fire, Water, Earth, and Air, then why does magic ignore those elements completely, instead focusing on the elemental triad of Fire, Lightning, and Ice, with a few Acid and Sonic types thrown in randomly? It doesn't make much sense to me...
The energy types and the elements should match. Whether that means changing the energy types to fit the elements, or changing the elements to match the energy types, or finding a suitable compromise, I don't know, but something needs to be done.
There are two good archetypes for handling this... the historical system approach, or the game system approach.
The historical system approach would be to take one of the two or three main elemental sets, such as the classical Fire, Air, Water, Earth, the real Aristotalean Fire, Air, Water, Earth, and Aether (which matches the Japanese fifth element of Void/Sky very well), or the Taoist set of Fire, Water, Wood, Earth, and Metal. From the chosen set, create the inner planes and associated energy types.
The game system approach would be to find a decent set of elements that are easy to design spells for, and then build the elemental system upon that. Like the common Fire, Ice, and Lighting set seen in countless videogames, the Fire, Lighting, Wind, Light, and Dark set from Fire Emblem, the Fire, Earth, Water, Wind, and Lighting set from Suikoden, etc. In this situation, you either design the iner planes according to what works best for gameplay, or the elements as a whole are not referred to outside of the energy types.
Regardless, there are a few things that could be done to simplify things. It would probably be best if, like in most videogames, there is no distinction made between Water and Ice elements. Also, following the pattern set by Avatar the Last Airbender, mixing Fire and Lightning is a good idea if you don't want lightining to be its own element. Lightning doesn't work well as the Wind energy, simply because wind is more functionable than many classical elements as an attack type, and thus Lightning would be crowding out something interesting. Acid as an energy type is ridiculous, and Sonic is also rather strange, especially with how it is named and portrayed right now.
Earth, Metal, and Wood are all tricky elements because people tend to question how they would be different than a normal physical attack. I guess Wind and Water are similar (even the obvious thought of Ashyxiation attacks is no different between those five elements). Of course, by that logic, Fire, Ice, and Acid are all the same, since in the end all they do is burn and destroy living tissue... The point of elements is determining how a creature reacts to particular attributes of an attack, so I say even having Earth as an element is important. Though in this argument, Metal weapons should count as metal-elemental, wooden weapons would count as Wood elemental, and stone weapons would be Earth elemental.
Ugh, I hope my arguments come across coherently...
The energy types and the elements should match. Whether that means changing the energy types to fit the elements, or changing the elements to match the energy types, or finding a suitable compromise, I don't know, but something needs to be done.
There are two good archetypes for handling this... the historical system approach, or the game system approach.
The historical system approach would be to take one of the two or three main elemental sets, such as the classical Fire, Air, Water, Earth, the real Aristotalean Fire, Air, Water, Earth, and Aether (which matches the Japanese fifth element of Void/Sky very well), or the Taoist set of Fire, Water, Wood, Earth, and Metal. From the chosen set, create the inner planes and associated energy types.
The game system approach would be to find a decent set of elements that are easy to design spells for, and then build the elemental system upon that. Like the common Fire, Ice, and Lighting set seen in countless videogames, the Fire, Lighting, Wind, Light, and Dark set from Fire Emblem, the Fire, Earth, Water, Wind, and Lighting set from Suikoden, etc. In this situation, you either design the iner planes according to what works best for gameplay, or the elements as a whole are not referred to outside of the energy types.
Regardless, there are a few things that could be done to simplify things. It would probably be best if, like in most videogames, there is no distinction made between Water and Ice elements. Also, following the pattern set by Avatar the Last Airbender, mixing Fire and Lightning is a good idea if you don't want lightining to be its own element. Lightning doesn't work well as the Wind energy, simply because wind is more functionable than many classical elements as an attack type, and thus Lightning would be crowding out something interesting. Acid as an energy type is ridiculous, and Sonic is also rather strange, especially with how it is named and portrayed right now.
Earth, Metal, and Wood are all tricky elements because people tend to question how they would be different than a normal physical attack. I guess Wind and Water are similar (even the obvious thought of Ashyxiation attacks is no different between those five elements). Of course, by that logic, Fire, Ice, and Acid are all the same, since in the end all they do is burn and destroy living tissue... The point of elements is determining how a creature reacts to particular attributes of an attack, so I say even having Earth as an element is important. Though in this argument, Metal weapons should count as metal-elemental, wooden weapons would count as Wood elemental, and stone weapons would be Earth elemental.
Ugh, I hope my arguments come across coherently...
Varianor Abroad
Explorer
Masquerade said:
It added elemental damage types. Earth, air, fire and water. A third level "equivalent" of fireball is sorcerous blast. At the time of casting, you choose one of those four elements. If you cast a 4th level version (called a heightened spell), you can choose to have it do energy (the traditional 5 D&D energies) instead. The system also included protection from element spells. In practice, what it meant was that you were unlikely to have a protection running that an enemy caster couldn't find a way around quickly. It's still nice in that it uses the 'traditional' elements, but it does open the doors to taking more damage from spells.
Nifft
Penguin Herder
Huh, I guess they did add Air, Earth and Water as damage types. That is indeed kinda dumb.
What I was thinking of was the separation of element and energy, and then the various Spell Templates added on top.
Like the Air template, which cost a 20 gp yellow gemstone, and would make anyone who made their save vs. your spell save again if they wanted to notice that you actually cast a spell at all. Or the Electricity template, which could Stun a target for 1 round. I thought that was cool.
Cheers, -- N
What I was thinking of was the separation of element and energy, and then the various Spell Templates added on top.
Like the Air template, which cost a 20 gp yellow gemstone, and would make anyone who made their save vs. your spell save again if they wanted to notice that you actually cast a spell at all. Or the Electricity template, which could Stun a target for 1 round. I thought that was cool.
Cheers, -- N
Similar Threads
