Keywords vs Damage Types

[No-Mouse]

Do the keywords of a power change to reflect the damage that is actually being dealt?

The PHB has this to say about keywords and damage types:

If a power allows you to choose the damage type, the power then has that keyword for feats, resistances, and any other information that applies. For example, the wizard spell elemental maw does 6d6 + Intelligence modifier damage of a type chosen from the following list: acid, cold, fire, lightning, or thunder. If you choose lightning damage, the Astral Fire feat (+1 feat bonus to damage rolls when you use powers that have the fire or radiant keywords) doesn’t add to the power’s damage, but the Raging Storm feat (+1 feat bonus to damage rolls when you use powers that have the lightning or thunder keywords) does.
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However, what about damage types that aren't defined by the power itself? There are multiple ways to either change the damage type of an attack, or to add extra damage of a different type to the attack. Do those also add their damage type to the keywords of a power?

For example, if I'm using a power with the Fire keyword that deals 2d10 Fire damage and I'm using an effect that changes all damage I deal to Cold damage. Does this mean the power counts as having the Cold keyword because that's the damage I'm dealing, or does it stay Fire because that's what the power itself says it is?

Alternatively, I'm casting the same 2d10 Fire spell, except this time I have an external effect that adds 1d4 Lightning damage to all my attacks. Does this mean the power counts as having both the Fire and the Lightning keywords because I deal both damage types with that attack, or does it stay Fire because of the base power?

 

[Jhaelen]

I think, unless the effect allowing you to replace a damage type with a different one or adding a damage type actually says so, it doesn't affect the power's keywords.

E.g. there are powers that can have a random effect, each with a different damage type. This doesn't mean that the power loses any keywords of damage types you didn't happen to roll when actually using the power. I guess, in a sense, keywords describe a spell's _potential_ damage types.

 

[pemerton]

My view is that there are two approaches to this.

One I'm not very sympathetic to myself, which I would call the "mechanics but no fiction" approach - keywords don't change unless you find a rule that says otherwise.

The other, which I personally think is much truer to the way 4e keywords are meant to work - ie as the anchors of mechanics to fiction - is that the keywords change to match what is actually going on with the power. So eg the Chaos sorcerer in my game who uses Blazing Starfall doesn't have the Fire keyword, because (not being a Cosmic sorcerer) the power doesn't deal any fire damage.

So I would say your swapped power becomes Cold, and you amplified power is Fire and Lightning.

It can get trickier if there are other effects that clearly follow the keyword - eg a Cold power that inflicts Slow. If you make that into a Fire power instead, does it still Slow (how? why? clearly it's not freezing anyone anymore) or (say) cause OG 5 Fire?

I haven't really had to deal with very much of that in my game - the only instance I can think of is the sorcerer who turned Cloak of Winter Storm into a lightning storm - there is nothing too weird about being Slowed by being zapped by lightning.

 

[No-Mouse]

I think, unless the effect allowing you to replace a damage type with a different one or adding a damage type actually says so, it doesn't affect the power's keywords.

One I'm not very sympathetic to myself, which I would call the "mechanics but no fiction" approach - keywords don't change unless you find a rule that says otherwise.

Wouldn't that mean that popular damage-type focused combos like the old "Frostcheese" (Wintertouched + Lasting Frost + Frost Weapon) don't actually work by RAW? After all, Frost Weapon only changes the damage dealt, while Wintertouched and Lasting Frost both only apply to powers with the Cold keyword, not to actual cold damage.

 

[Jhaelen]

Wouldn't that mean that popular damage-type focused combos like the old "Frostcheese" (Wintertouched + Lasting Frost + Frost Weapon) don't actually work by RAW? After all, Frost Weapon only changes the damage dealt, while Wintertouched and Lasting Frost both only apply to powers with the Cold keyword, not to actual cold damage.

Well, yes - unless the proponents of "Frostcheese" managed to find a ruling somewhere. My knowledge of 4e rules is quite rusty at this point in time...

Personally, I don't like any kind of cheese in my RPGs. It's why I'm rather strict in my rule interpretations and don't allow all of the published material (notably: dragon articles). My rule of thumb is "if it's too good to be true, it probably isn't."

 

[No-Mouse]

Personally, I don't like any kind of cheese in my RPGs. It's why I'm rather strict in my rule interpretations and don't allow all of the published material (notably: dragon articles). My rule of thumb is "if it's too good to be true, it probably isn't."

Frostcheese isn't actually that cheesy in my opinion. You're locking in two feats and a weapon enchant (and more, if you're facing enemies with cold resistance or immunity) just to get an effect that isn't usually very hard to get otherwise (combat advantage). It's just the most popular example, as far as I know, of people assuming that damage types and keywords are linked.

 

[D'karr]

What I have found is that the power mechanics kind of vary all over the place. Some powers specifically require the player to designate the type of damage at selection. In that case I would say the power takes on the keyword selected. Some feats and items allow you to change damage types when the power is used. In that case the power's keywords don't change, but damage type itself is a keyword. FIRE Damage, and COLD Damage are two distinct keywords with separate mechanical assumptions and repercussions.

What I have found works best in my game is to attempt, as much as possible, to go with the interpretation that has the least consequences. The least abusive interpretation. A power that adds a damage type now has 2 keywords. This has an impact on vulnerabilities/resistances and makes it more difficult to resist. A power that only changes damage type takes on the new keyword and drops the previous one. This changes what vulnerabilities/resistances come into effect, but it is still one of them rather than combined damage types. Which is also plausible.

It also helps when the powers/feats/items are read/parsed almost in a pedantic plain language. AND, OR, etc. become important to that parsing. If it does not say AND then it does not combine. If it says OR, it is one option OR the other, not both. When something says ALL it means ALL. It sounds silly at times but for parsing the mechanical aspects it works rather well.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Ahhhh, yes, the refreshing smell of burning RAW!

It has been a number of years now since I did my stint on ye old Q&A forum, but if my rusty brain is correct, there's a clause, possibly in AV1, maybe also reiterated in PHB2? Somewhere, in any case, there is a statement that says that keywords 'follow' damage types.

THAT BEING SAID, [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] has certainly brought up the most obvious related issue, and there are plenty of other quirks. My recollection is that the actual phraseology of the statement was itself also not entirely clear about all cases. If memory serves it particularly mentioned the Flametongue (which has a power that can add fire damage to attacks) and its doppleganger, the very popular Frostbrand (cheeze on a stick so to speak). I believe the verbiage is something about an attack having 'all the keywords' of the damage types it inflicts. I think this also didn't address what happens when a damage type is REMOVED, though certainly we can speculate (and again [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] does so).

Still, this is all old memories. I don't tend to bother to consult 4e books much anymore when I run things. 'rules questions' being answered as it pleases us (and I really don't play with people who aren't cool with that in my old age).

I think [MENTION=336]D'karr[/MENTION] has it about right. Just go with whatever is cool and not absurd and seems to put the fiction and the rules on the same track. Gygax was, off course, totally correct, the rules are only there to make it more fun, its an RPG, not a board game.

 

[No-Mouse]

It has been a number of years now since I did my stint on ye old Q&A forum, but if my rusty brain is correct, there's a clause, possibly in AV1, maybe also reiterated in PHB2? Somewhere, in any case, there is a statement that says that keywords 'follow' damage types.

Ah, you're right. I did some digging, and it's in the PHB3.

Changing Damage Types: If the damage types in a power change, the power both loses the keywords for any damage types that are removed and gains the keywords for any damage types that are added (the poison keyword is removed from a power only if that power neither deals poison damage nor has any nondamaging effects). For example, if a sorcerer casts dragonfrost through a flaming dagger and uses the dagger's ability to change the damage to fire, dragonfrost gains the fire keyword and loses the cold keyword for that use, since the power is dealing fire damage instead of cold damage. That use of the power can therefore benefit from effects, like feats, that affect fire powers, but not from effects that affect cold powers.​

That answers my original question in detail.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Huh, XP isn't working now. I wonder if that is a FF 57 thing. OT, but its REALLY fast!

 

[The Crimson Binome]

It can get trickier if there are other effects that clearly follow the keyword - eg a Cold power that inflicts Slow. If you make that into a Fire power instead, does it still Slow (how? why? clearly it's not freezing anyone anymore) or (say) cause OG 5 Fire?

If you wanted to address this mechanically, how would you do it?

The way I see it, there are two approaches. You could either have a codified list of damage types and linked conditions (cold and slow, fire and ongoing damage, radiant and blinded, thunder and deafened), and then say that swapping out the damage type also swaps out the corresponding condition. Or, you could get all vague and just leave it for the DM to figure out, with a note that you should change the effects wherever it makes sense.

The first solution seems more likely to cause unintended consequences (e.g. if it's easier to slow a group, because slowing isn't as bad of a condition, and swapping it to ongoing damage or deafened would make it too good), but the second solution isn't very satisfying either.

 

[pemerton]

If you wanted to address this mechanically, how would you do it?

If you mean, how would I do this as a publisher, then I don't know. There's no simple answer, because the range of effects (in the fictional'ingame sens) and the range of effects (in the mechanical sense) is so great, and mixy-matchy, that blanket rules would be hard.

As a referee, though, it's something I would negotiate with the player in question for the power in question. That's much easier, because any given player only has a modest number of powers that will be undergoing this sort of swap, so working out the details probably wouldn't be too hard.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

If you wanted to address this mechanically, how would you do it?

The way I see it, there are two approaches. You could either have a codified list of damage types and linked conditions (cold and slow, fire and ongoing damage, radiant and blinded, thunder and deafened), and then say that swapping out the damage type also swaps out the corresponding condition. Or, you could get all vague and just leave it for the DM to figure out, with a note that you should change the effects wherever it makes sense.

The first solution seems more likely to cause unintended consequences (e.g. if it's easier to slow a group, because slowing isn't as bad of a condition, and swapping it to ongoing damage or deafened would make it too good), but the second solution isn't very satisfying either.

You would heavily codify the effects and which ones go with powers of which levels. You might have to create more standardized effects than you've mentioned, or at least varying degrees of them. So a level 1 cold power perhaps has a modest effect, whereas a level 20 cold power has a much more pronounced effect (of course many of the condition-based effects really don't become 'better' or 'worse' except relative to other effects, slowed is modestly effective in any level band for instance, though some movement modes can effectively negate it at higher levels). So its not really simple, but you could do something in that respect.

Thus if you take your level 5 fireball and turn it into an iceball, and its effect is 'push 2 and ongoing 5 fire damage' then its pretty easy, you can make it 'slowed and ongoing 5 cold damage' or something along those lines. Knowing that this is a roughly appropriate level 5 effect for each damage type, then the switch becomes fairly easy.

I guess, from an overall game design perspective, if you were going to modularize powers like this, why not do so as a more general set of rules? Instead of having many peculiar powers, simply have 'the level 5 appropriate bursty power, flavor with damage types as you wish' (IE pick one, or specialize in a specific type, etc). Of course now you've departed substantially from 4e, at least in terms of power structure.

 

[Tony Vargas]

If you wanted to address this mechanically, how would you do it?

The way I see it, there are two approaches. You could either have a codified list of damage types and linked conditions (cold and slow, fire and ongoing damage, radiant and blinded, thunder and deafened), and then say that swapping out the damage type also swaps out the corresponding condition. Or, you could get all vague and just leave it for the DM to figure out, with a note that you should change the effects wherever it makes sense.

Or, you could change not what it does, but how it does it. A Ray of Frost does cold damage and slows, presumably because you're numbed and shivering, well, or maybe because you're encumbered by a coating of ice, or ... it doesn't actually spell it out, does it? A Ray of Frost changed to fire damage might slow you because you're coughing & choking on the smoke, or stopping to put yourself out.

But, to build on the second idea - leaving it to the DM - it's yet another place he could open to p42 and work from there. Off-label power uses aren't entirely beyond the pale, especially if the player is 'being creative,' and the DM isn't sick of that, yet.

 

[Garthanos]

Or, you could change not what it does, but how it does it.

This is exactly how I do it of course. ;-), cannot imagine why.


It also works for when my ray of frost is cast on a flyer vs cast on a grounded character... different method.
Feet sticking to the ground is significantly different perceptually than wings clumped with ice.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

This is exactly how I do it of course. ;-), cannot imagine why.


It also works for when my ray of frost is cast on a flyer vs cast on a grounded character... different method.
Feet sticking to the ground is significantly different perceptually than wings clumped with ice.

Yeah, and MOSTLY this is OK. It can seem a bit forced at times though.

I mean think about the 'Ray of Fire' example that [MENTION=996]Tony Vargas[/MENTION] uses: Why does a Ray of Fire cause you to move slower in order to put yourself out, but some other Fire power just does ongoing damage UNTIL you put yourself out (presumably covered by the save ends or the EONT or whatever it is). I'm not saying this doesn't work, but 4e always left me wondering why the same 'narrative' effects get mapped so inconsistently to mechanical effects. Of course I don't think 4e is especially unique in this respect. D&D in general has been fairly ad-hoc. It just seems that 4e, with its rich repertoire of standardized effects, didn't do better. Well, clearly it would have added a whole extra rule to do so.

I think maybe there should have been fewer but more interesting 'damage changers', and if effects WERE standardized then those could have been where some more comprehensive approach would be undertaken. In other words you could create a set of powers that exchange damage types and encapsulate the rules (however complex) for changing effects. Then anything which performs such an exchange would merely invoke one of these powers (as a free action probably, that should be flexible enough to cover pretty much all cases).

 

[Garthanos]

Yeah, and MOSTLY this is OK. It can seem a bit forced at times though.

I mean think about the 'Ray of Fire' example that [MENTION=996]Tony Vargas[/MENTION] uses: Why does a Ray of Fire cause you to move slower in order to put yourself out, but some other Fire power just does ongoing damage UNTIL you put yourself out (presumably covered by the save ends or the EONT or whatever it is). I'm not saying this doesn't work, but 4e always left me wondering why the same 'narrative' effects get mapped so inconsistently to mechanical effects.

When I was mapping disarm to many different effects the majority were variable "narratively" due to npc response ... For instance I knock his weapon from his grip and he dives after it going prone is one possible or he clings tighter and he stumbles sideways in order to maintain grip.

If you arent spamming the mechanical effect situational variation within the narrative works but the tactical over specialization that is oft encouraged by the game actually fights against this by targeting a single mechanical effect.

 

[MwaO]

If you wanted to address this mechanically, how would you do it?

You make a few charts and then say item X uses chart Y when turning damage into Z.

So as an example, a flame tongue sword might say that it changes various elemental damage minor effects into ongoing 5 fire, medium effects into ongoing 5 fire plus refer to chart Y, and major effects into ongoing 10 fire plus refer to chart Y.

As an example, let's say you have a Stunned Save Ends. That's a relatively major effect. So the chart says make that into Dazed Save Ends+Ongoing Fire 10. But Slow, Prone, etc...make into Ongoing fire 5.

 

[Garthanos]

You make a few charts and then say item X uses chart Y when turning damage into Z.

So as an example, a flame tongue sword might say that it changes various elemental damage minor effects into ongoing 5 fire, medium effects into ongoing 5 fire plus refer to chart Y, and major effects into ongoing 10 fire plus refer to chart Y.

As an example, let's say you have a Stunned Save Ends. That's a relatively major effect. So the chart says make that into Dazed Save Ends+Ongoing Fire 10. But Slow, Prone, etc...make into Ongoing fire 5.

Removing tactical predictability/agency ought to really be worth the end results. In my opinion.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Removing tactical predictability/agency ought to really be worth the end results. In my opinion.

Again, it also reduces the sheer number of powers that you need to produce for a game. A single basic close blast can be almost trivially converted to any damage type and thus introduce a range of effects.