Energy Substitution - aaargh!

[Plane Sailing]

Mini-rant

I was just reading the "sorcerer picking feats and prestige classes" article in Dragon 324 and saw to my horror

"Sorcerers also greatly benefit from Energy Substitution (presented in Complete Arcane)"

I had really hoped that with 3.5 that silly feat (fancy a fireball that freezes water?) had finally been staked through the heart, had its head removed and stuffed full of holy wafers and left outside on a sunny day.

But no. It appears that it is rising from the grave it so richly deserves once again.

/Mini-rant

Coda: I know that lots of people love this feat, and that is fine. I just think it is stupid to have it change an energy type but not change special side effects. They could resolve this by giving distinct side effects for different energy types as per the XPH but I doubt they'll go that far.

Watch out for those fire substituted freezing spheres though...

p.s. the prestige class info in that one-page article leaves a lot to be desired too - it recommends "archmage" and says a sorcerous archmage loses little and gains much - well, if you don't include spending three of his five/six feats on pretty suboptimal choices (skill focus spellcraft and two spell focus feats) and ensuring that your 6 spells of 5th level and above that you know cover 5 different schools.

Or the Loremaster which he recommends... although a sorcerer would have to spend tons of cross-class skill points to be able to enter Loremaster... just after reaching 17th level. Still, who wouldn't want to spend precious slots on lots of divination and forego a couple of useful class skills in order to, uh, not get much - it is a small range of secrets to choose from unless you have a great INT.

Surely it would only take a few minutes for authors to check up prereqs and take that into consideration? The idea of the class based pages is a nice one, it would be a shame to see it not rise to its fullest potential.

Cheers

 

[Piratecat]

I quite like energy substitution, myself, but I see your point about the unchanged special effects. As for authors not checking pre-reqs, I couldn't agree with you more.

 

[Urbanmech]

I think that in light of psionics granting access to 4 energy types that Energy Substitution needs to come back to 3.5. Though I'm going to bet that you can only choose fire, cold, electricity, and acid. No more easy sonic substitution for the arcane casters.

 

[Pielorinho]

So am I right in thinking that an ice-substituted fireball "sets [cold] to combustibles and . . . can melt metals with low melting points"? A sonic-substituted acid arrow, for every three caster levels, does another 2d4 points of damage for each extra round unless somehow neutralized? A fire-substituted freezing sphere can encase underwater people in ice for one round per caster level?

Hmm. I disliked the feat even before I started thinking about it.

Daniel

 

[heirodule]

Well the minis handbook already brought back a nerfedt Energy Sub called Energy Affinity, that worked just like Substitution, but didn't do "sonic"

Maybe Subsititution will be a boost over the old one (like allowing choice of which element "on the fly", or providing a special energy quality (nausea, burning, etc)

Should this go in general as "news"?

 

[rkanodia]

Maybe what would work better would be a feat allowing a wizard to spontaneously convert spells into spells using a given energy descriptor. So energy substitution: fire would let you turn first level spells into burning hands, second-level spells into scorching ray, third level spells into fireball and so on. The only problem is, you might have a hard time finding a spell from each spell level for each energy type.

 

[Scharlata]

[...] No more easy sonic substitution for the arcane casters.

Hi!

I had a wizard in a 3.0 party that went the way of energy sonic substitution. I didn't like to see monsters dying of an irresistible energy type. Couldn't throw slaads against the party all times. I was glad to see Energy Substitution vanish. Let's see what WotC will do this time...

Kind regards

 

[Flynn]

From what I understand, many of the creatures in Monster Manual III have sonic resistance, sonic immunity and/or sonic vulnerability. In essence, I think WotC is trying to explore that oft maligned sonic energy type, and provide DMs with ammo to use in case someone does cheese like that in the future.

Hope this helps,
Flynn

 

[Spatula]

The original treatment of Energy Substitution in T&B was very lazy (unchanged side effects, etc.). That's not to say that the Complete Arcane version will be the same (although WOTC's track record on updating the 3.0 splatbook material isn't very good so far).

How to make the feat 'work':
* Each type has specific side effects, which can be "none." Fire can start fires, cold can freeze water, and I wouldn't give anything extra to the other types. Any side effects of the original spell are removed.
* If the spell had a duration, change it to Instantaneous.
* Switching a spell to use sonic damage carries a +1 increase in spell level (vs +0 for the other types).

 

[aceofgames]

First off, I believe a DM needs to step in on the effects of Energy Substitution. Putting all the various information in the feat description on how the spell effects change, is too hard to cover all bases, since several spells with energy types tend to vary quite a bit (flame strike versus fireball for instance). As a DM, I am all for the feat, but I'm going to rule against such odd things the energy type change does. A cold fireball freezes, and a acid fireball deals a little extra acid, but doesn't light anything on fire. I think thats fair to the players who want to use the feat.