Fast help for sonic damage!

[Xarlen]

2) Silence specifically says it stops all sonic attacks such as a horn of blasting which I consider as similar to the effect of a sonic ball or a great shout.

See commentary about Horn of Blasting on the first page.

 

[kreynolds]

No, I wouldn't allow a flaming weapon to deliver extra fire damage underwater, although you might get a nice bubbling/steaming area around the blade.

That's strange. All fire spells still deal fire damage underwater, it's just in steam form, so flaming weapons should work underwater. Why don't you allow it?

With a screaming weapon, the vibrations propagate through the weapon itself when it hits you. The audible humming or screaming you hear is just a side effect of the weapon vibrating. the actual damage is delivered by the vibrating blade.

So maybe it should be called the Vibroblade enhancement. Oh, wait, no. Bad idea. Copyright infringement on Star Wars.

 

[Caliban]

That's strange. All fire spells still deal fire damage underwater, it's just in steam form, so flaming weapons should work underwater. Why don't you allow it?

Fire spells don't automatically deal damage underwater, at least not if you use the underwater rules the Sage published in Dragon Magazine. (Since there are very few actual rules for this in the PHB or Core Rules.)

The spellcaster needs to make a spellcraft check to allow the fire spells to deal damage underwater.

As for a flaming weapon, the water would cool the blade. It heated/steaming water would flow up, away from the blade. The area around the blade would be hotter, but the heat would diffused over a wider area, lessening the damage. I might allow it to do 1/2 the normal fire damage, but that's it.

 

[kreynolds]

Fire spells don't automatically deal damage underwater, at least not if you use the underwater rules the Sage published in Dragon Magazine. (Since there are very few actual rules for this in the PHB or Core Rules.)

The spellcaster needs to make a spellcraft check to allow the fire spells to deal damage underwater.

Then what happens when you use a wand of fireball underwater? Does it automatically work? Does it automatically fail? The wand can't make a spellcraft check of it's own and it wouldn't be appropriate for the user to make the spellcraft check, since they aren't actually casting anything.

In my opinion, magic items that create fire effects should automatically succeed underwater. It seems to me that the spellcraft check is meant to illustrate the difficulty of casting a spell in very unfamiliar territory, but a magic item doesn't care about territory, so there's no difficulty involved.

Perhaps magic items always succeed but deal only half damage, such as how you handle flaming weapons? That might be fair.

 

[IceBear]

Then what happens when you use a wand of fireball underwater? Does it automatically work? Does it automatically fail? The wand can't make a spellcraft check of it's own and it wouldn't be appropriate for the user to make the spellcraft check, since they aren't actually casting anything.

In my opinion, magic items that create fire effects should automatically succeed underwater. It seems to me that the spellcraft check is meant to illustrate the difficulty of casting a spell in very unfamiliar territory, but a magic item doesn't care about territory, so there's no difficulty involved.

Perhaps magic items always succeed but deal only half damage, such as how you handle flaming weapons? That might be fair.

I can see what you're saying there, but unfortunately, he says specifically only fire based spells need to make the spellcraft check.

IceBear

 

[Jeremy]

See commentary about Horn of Blasting on the first page.

I saw, but the fact that it doesn't call itself sonic damage only reinforces the point. Because even though it isn't named as sound, it is still specifically prevented by silence right there in the spell description.

Thus even damaging sound that doesn't have precisely accurate descriptors applied to it is still sound. And if it is the sound that is causing the damage and you are in an area where no sound can exist, you take no damage.

At least, that's the way I see it.

Besides, that's only 1 out of the 6 reasons. <shrugs>

 

[kreynolds]

I can see what you're saying there, but unfortunately, he says specifically only fire based spells need to make the spellcraft check.

No. He (Skip) said spell-like effects as well (in the underwater rules).

 

[IceBear]

No. He (Skip) said spell-like effects as well (in the underwater rules).

Crap I misunderstood you. I thought you were saying to make a Spellcraft check for all spells and spell-like effects (not just fire ones) while underwater.

Sorry.

IceBear

 

[kreynolds]

I thought you were saying to make a Spellcraft check for all spells and spell-like effects (not just fire ones) while underwater.

Nope.

Sorry.

No worries. It's all good.

 

[Zhure]

I put something akin to this in that other thread ::hissing::

A Silence is a very limited form of Antimagic Field, not an extension of the Protection from Elements and Endure Elements suite of powers. An Antimagic Field that only works on one relatively rare element should be a fairly low level spell.

I think it probably would've been a 3rd level spell except for precedence from earlier editions.

Greg