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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cheiromancer" data-source="post: 2726084" data-attributes="member: 141">You could have symmetries that also allow differences.For example, take the elemental symmetries.  I regard the energies of fire and lightning to be aspects of the element of fire.  Force and sonic energies I assign to the element of air.  Cold and acid are the purview of the element of water.  And positive and negative energy are related to earth.In a lot of ways the associated energies are opposites.  Force is air that is rigid; sonic is air that is vibrating.  Positive and negative energy are related to the earth in its dual aspect of womb and grave.  Cold preserves (freezes) materials while acid destroys (melts) them.Using arcane magic it is easiest to access the element of fire; that is why fireball and lightning bolt have been on the wizard's spell list since forever.  Force and sonic effects are in many ways "better" (i.e. fewer creatures have resistance to sonic or force effects)- but these energies are harder to get access to in a useful way; the associated spells should generally be of higher level, have expensive components or have more limited effects.  Positive and negative energy is basically the purview of clerical magic and is outside of the wizard's purview except for a few limited cases.  Acid and cold are somewhere in between fire and air in terms of accessibility.But I agree that the standard implementation erodes the distinctiveness of the members of a group by allowing too many symmetries.  If every spell has all the elemental variants, then the elemental form is irrelevant, and elemental magic becomes bland.  It is hard to reintroduce the distinctiveness again, since to do so you have to reduce the number of possibilities and variants allowed in the game.p.s.  I endorse the idea about areas of effect mentioned above!__________________<a href="http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=58227&perpage=20" target="_blank">[Highlight]Tales of Wyre: Compiled Sepulchrave Story Hour (updated 05-15)[/highlight]</a><a href="http://www.enworld.org/showpost.php?p=1709876#post1709876" target="_blank">and associated Rogue's Gallery (master list of links)</a></blockquote>

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