It's time for true elementalism

[Urbannen]

All genasi get saving throws against spells and effects of their respective elements. Elemental archons from F&P also gain bonuses with respect to spells of their respective elements. Dragon 310 talks about a druid alternative class that gets +1 caster level for air spells. However the only spells with the air, earth, or water descriptors are summoning spells. There are no saves for these spells, and any caster level increase for these spells is of very limited use, especially when compared to an increase in caster level for fire spells. RAW, the saving throw bonuses for earth, air, and water genasi are useless.

I think that [Air], [Earth], and [Water] should be official descriptors for spells. It would be great if WotC were to make a supplement with optional rules for this. These rules might make a good Dragon article. By adding these general descriptors, you could also have true elementalist wizards like in 2E. They would get bonus spells from their element and all other elemental spells would be prohibited.

Which spells would you classify as water, earth, or air?

 

[Kira]

look at encyclopedia arcane elementalism from mongoose.. or at the shugenja spell list form rokugan..

 

[Brekki]

in 3.5 there are a lot more (druid) spells with the elemental descriptors ... like:
- create water
- gust of wind
- soften earth and stone
- meld into stone
- wind wall
- air walk
- control water
- spike stones
- the summon spells

and those are only the low lvl spells ...

 

[Voadam]

I would classify cold spells as water, and electricity as air. Earth is just out of luck for general spells.

 

[CalrinAlshaw]

Earth gets ACID!

 

[Urbannen]

I don't think that's true elementalism. Air spells would be things that actually have something to do with air - gust of wind, air wall, fly, whirlwind, whispering wind. Water spells would have something to do with water - create water, waterbreathing, water blast. Earth spells would have to do with earth - rocks to mud, earthwall, earthquake. Sure the energy types could be associated with an element, but they are not really that element.

 

[Nifft]

IMC, Air, Earth and Water are media for [Sonic] spells -- Earthquake, Shout, etc. Horrid Wilting also has the [Water] descriptor.

-- N

 

[Urbannen]

You know what? They went in and gave a lot of spells elemental descriptors in 3.5! This means that save bonuses against air, earth, and water spells do mean something, as do bonus caster levels to elemental spells.

What other changes I have missed?

 

[Brekki]

That's what I said

 

[Urbannen]

That's why I checked. In 3.0 there were no spells written with an [Element] descriptor, just a useless comment in the summon monster spell saying that summoning an air elemental was an [Air] spell even though that had no game mechanics significance.