Energy substitution

[Legildur]

I did my homework ahead of time on this one. The 3.5 SRD says "This spell provides a defense against sonic or language-based attacks." I can't see how you would construe any spell that does damage and has the sonic descriptor as NOT a sonic attack. But I bet someone still will!

LOL! You are probably right. But I do recall that someone did construe that it didn't, but I'm not confident that is the case. Any rules lawyers out there???

 

[Hypersmurf]

I'm not confident that this is the case. While the 3.5 FAQ is silent on it <dodges rotten tomatoes>, I thought that Silence did not prevent sonic damage as (IIRC) it is an air vibration effect (or similar) rather than hearing dependent. Does anyone else have clarification on this? Have I been smoken the wrong (or right, as the case may be) stuff?

From the Silence spell: "This spell provides a defense against sonic or language-based attacks."

Interestingly, the 'Screaming' weapon ability showed up in, from memory, Magic of Faerun, granting +1d6 sonic damage, with the note that this damage applied even within a Silence spell. It was reprinted in the Arms and Equipment Guide, granting +1d6 sonic damage, with the note that this damage was negated within a Silence spell.

-Hyp.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Formians and Slaads have resistances to sonic, and I believe there are some others, too.

My Wizard uses Energy Substitution (Sonic). There weren't many occassions where it was actually neccessary, and there were a few situations where it would have been better to have an unsubstituted spell, since there are some creatures with specific weaknesses regarding fire or cold.
Sometimes, it also hurts my comrades - we began protecting us with Energy Resistance (Fire) a few times, so that I could blast away even when the cleric and fighter were in melee. Unfortunately, not all of my empowered fireballs are actually fire spells, and so I would have to fall back on my old Wand of Fireballs...

Maybe the best idea would be to have Energy Substitution (Cold) and Energy Substitution (Fire) and Energy Admixture (Fire or Cold). Make all your spells fire + cold, and you get all critters. Though nobody would want to afford three feats and the +4 to spell level.

 

[Plane Sailing]

And is it a coincindence that sonic is available for Energy Ray but acid is not?

The nice thing about psionics was that they realised that acid was, like, a chemical y'know, and not energy at all... hence the energy powers use fire/cold/electricity/sonic. It would have been nice if D&D actually had a standard side effect for each type of energy but... 4th edition perhaps

 

[Plane Sailing]

Personally I could never understand why energy substitution (blast around those resistances!) was a +0 spell level adjustment, while silent spell (for instance) was a +1 adjustment and it doesn't help you blow things up better *at all*

Slightly tongue in cheek, but to my mind energy sub at +0 was too good. Perhaps silent spell and still spell should have been +0 instead of +1 if the same reasoning was used for them as was used by the designer of the energy sub feat? I don't really understand what their thought processes were there!

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Personally I could never understand why energy substitution (blast around those resistances!) was a +0 spell level adjustment, while silent spell (for instance) was a +1 adjustment and it doesn't help you blow things up better *at all*

Well Silent or Still spell both make it harder to keep the spellcaster from using his arsenal of spells- useful no matter what opponent you're facing.

ES merely changes damage type. Yes, it gets around resistances, but for a wizard- he'd have to guess what he's going to face or risk having completely useless spells. That "Snowball" is going to suck facing that family of Trolls...

Hmmm...perhaps like the spells themselves, the metamagic feats should have varied levels of level adjustment by class. Silent or Still spell are pretty much the same for any caster, but Energy Substitution is much better for a spontaneous caster than for other casters. (4Ed, anyone?)

 

[werk]

Slightly tongue in cheek, but to my mind energy sub at +0 was too good. Perhaps silent spell and still spell should have been +0 instead of +1 if the same reasoning was used for them as was used by the designer of the energy sub feat? I don't really understand what their thought processes were there!

If still spell and silent spell were +0, they would be applied to every spell by all casters with the feat.

 

[Infiniti2000]

If still spell and silent spell were +0, they would be applied to every spell by all casters with the feat.

Not spontaneously cast spells. But, I was thinking the same thing.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

If still spell and silent spell were +0, they would be applied to every spell by all casters with the feat.

But would that be so bad? It still costs a feat.
None of my spellcasters ever considered this feat - in situations where you can't use somatic components, you usually just want to get away, and except Dimension Door and other Teleportation spells, there isn't much that can help you here effectively, and these spells are verbal only...
Silent Spell is even rarer - there aren't many uses of silence or deafness spells, since blindness/invisiblity is a lot more effective.

Energy Substitution I could see as +1 level (similar to sculpt spell)...

 

[FEADIN]

Having a question regarding this feat, I'll just add it on. I just started playing in a 3.5 game, and my DM informed me that Sonic energy is no onger included in this feat. Is this true? If so, does anyone have an opinion on what they like to replace it with? I'm playing a wizard in The shackled city campaign, who is from Cauldron.

Don't take acid, cold or fire would be the best I think, maybe cold in fact