My rant on Energy Substitution.
The Hills Are Alive
Sound is just a pressure wave. In anything. Metal, Air, Water. Whatever. In DnD I get the impression that in general when they talk about sonic attacks they're thinking more of the High C wow look at that glass variety. But then you have things like thunder stuff, and if you really backed them into a corner with things like a gun going off next to your ear etc, you'd end up with blast waves being sonic too. And they are, they're just big piles of air.
These big piles of air can, in some cases, even sink battleships, toss cars like they're emblazened with the hot wheels logo, and worse. But they'll kill people at intensities far less than is needed for those dramatic effects. And oddly enough, being deaf, or just some random thing that can't hear offers no protection.
But all things being equal, I'd prefer to have a 100kW airborn infrared laser. Then I could go to a diner, and if someone dropped a spoon, even a ninja, I could vaporize the whole town!!!!
100kW airborn infrared lasers are cool, and by cool I mean totally sweet!
In my free time, I'd mostly fly around, but sometimes zap.
[to Kugar]: I think by eiganvalue he's refering to your resonant frequency. Or one of them. In the context of this discussion it's the only interpritation that seems to make even a little sense.
Or he's just such a totally sweet troll, I feel it in my heart.
Sound is just a pressure wave. In anything. Metal, Air, Water. Whatever. In DnD I get the impression that in general when they talk about sonic attacks they're thinking more of the High C wow look at that glass variety. But then you have things like thunder stuff, and if you really backed them into a corner with things like a gun going off next to your ear etc, you'd end up with blast waves being sonic too. And they are, they're just big piles of air.
These big piles of air can, in some cases, even sink battleships, toss cars like they're emblazened with the hot wheels logo, and worse. But they'll kill people at intensities far less than is needed for those dramatic effects. And oddly enough, being deaf, or just some random thing that can't hear offers no protection.
But all things being equal, I'd prefer to have a 100kW airborn infrared laser. Then I could go to a diner, and if someone dropped a spoon, even a ninja, I could vaporize the whole town!!!!
100kW airborn infrared lasers are cool, and by cool I mean totally sweet!
In my free time, I'd mostly fly around, but sometimes zap.
[to Kugar]: I think by eiganvalue he's refering to your resonant frequency. Or one of them. In the context of this discussion it's the only interpritation that seems to make even a little sense.
Or he's just such a totally sweet troll, I feel it in my heart.
Shard O'Glase
First Post
takyris said:
Well considering his party accuretly guaged the power of shout I'd say his logic based on what he and his players did is a much better thing to base logic on than on the supposed logic in your post. Sonic elemental orbs absurdly overpowered, hahahahaha. Please sure creatures get resistences to the other elements, but sonic is so easily nullified, not 5 points taken off the total damge, nullified. If I throw a fireball unless I'm fighting a demon or a red dragon chances are I'll wound it. If I throw some sonic balls at a cleirc or a bard or anyone with access to coutersong or silence spells I'll do nothing. If anything sonic is a much weaker element, considering how common silence spells are as anti mage spells. And really elemental resistences aren't that common and if from a spell they could be vs sonic anyways.
Face it shout sucks, oh no he did 2d6 damage to me and I'm deaf for a short while please never cast that big bad 4th level spell again. If magic missile were 4th level I'd almost rather cast that, than this piece of crap of a spell.
Hammerhead
Explorer
When I think of Sonic Balls, I don't really imagine deafing. I visualize that whitish-grey wall of solid air that tears away from the center of an explosion. I'd call it a "force" effect before a sonic one, but Force is used for specific magical energies that reach into the ethereal.
Shout should be a 2nd level spell, at best. It doesn't even compare well to magic missile, much less 3rd level spells - since there aren't any decent core attack spells at 4th level. If you're looking at the value of hitting demons, I can't see Sonic Orb being that much better than Maximized Magic Missile. 25 damage versus 31.5 with saves for 1/2 and attack rolls @ level 9, or 52.5 with saves and attack rolls at level 15. Like most meta'd spells, the magic missile is better than a comparable spell early on, but since it's already maxed out, it fades away. And since outsiders have pretty decent saves, and can often bring up a spell to add a deflection bonus, the magic missile will still be pretty decent.
I don't usually see people pick Thundering when they enchant weapons, so its value as a +2 enhancement is debateable. If sonic damage really was so special, people might actually enchant weapons with it, despite the drawbacks. However, I don't see anyone do that, so I'd think that Thundering sucks.
Shout should be a 2nd level spell, at best. It doesn't even compare well to magic missile, much less 3rd level spells - since there aren't any decent core attack spells at 4th level. If you're looking at the value of hitting demons, I can't see Sonic Orb being that much better than Maximized Magic Missile. 25 damage versus 31.5 with saves for 1/2 and attack rolls @ level 9, or 52.5 with saves and attack rolls at level 15. Like most meta'd spells, the magic missile is better than a comparable spell early on, but since it's already maxed out, it fades away. And since outsiders have pretty decent saves, and can often bring up a spell to add a deflection bonus, the magic missile will still be pretty decent.
I don't usually see people pick Thundering when they enchant weapons, so its value as a +2 enhancement is debateable. If sonic damage really was so special, people might actually enchant weapons with it, despite the drawbacks. However, I don't see anyone do that, so I'd think that Thundering sucks.
Hm. Perhaps my campaign is different than yours.
Given the number of creatures with Blindsight based on hearing, deafness is a nasty thing to inflict.
Doing full damage to objects is powerful.
And those demons and devils ain't got squat against Sonic energy. Whereas that fireball will either be completely ignored or soaked for 20 even without SR or a save, a Sonic-substituted fireball will bypass all elemental resistances. No demon, devil, or dragon in the core books has Sonic immunity. The only guys I found with Sonic immunity were the slaads (brief search only). They have Sonic resistance 5.
If I were playing in a world with Elemental Substitution working that well, I would without doubt or hesitation cast everything as sonic. I'd even do it on trolls -- because the first thing a troll does when it gets powerful is buy a ring of fire resistance.
Right now, in the core rules, Sonic damage is clearly an afterthought -- it doesn't do a ton of damage in its spells, and very few monsters have any resistance against it. If you use Elemental Substitution to make Sonic damage as easy and as powerful as, say, Fire damage, you'll unbalance the game.
-Tacky
PS: Good point on it being the only elemental form with an area-effect spell that completely nullifies it, though. In Elemental Substitution-land, my fighters will be strong, silent types with Rings of Silence.
Given the number of creatures with Blindsight based on hearing, deafness is a nasty thing to inflict.
Doing full damage to objects is powerful.
And those demons and devils ain't got squat against Sonic energy. Whereas that fireball will either be completely ignored or soaked for 20 even without SR or a save, a Sonic-substituted fireball will bypass all elemental resistances. No demon, devil, or dragon in the core books has Sonic immunity. The only guys I found with Sonic immunity were the slaads (brief search only). They have Sonic resistance 5.
If I were playing in a world with Elemental Substitution working that well, I would without doubt or hesitation cast everything as sonic. I'd even do it on trolls -- because the first thing a troll does when it gets powerful is buy a ring of fire resistance.
Right now, in the core rules, Sonic damage is clearly an afterthought -- it doesn't do a ton of damage in its spells, and very few monsters have any resistance against it. If you use Elemental Substitution to make Sonic damage as easy and as powerful as, say, Fire damage, you'll unbalance the game.
-Tacky
PS: Good point on it being the only elemental form with an area-effect spell that completely nullifies it, though. In Elemental Substitution-land, my fighters will be strong, silent types with Rings of Silence.
takyris said:
The funny thing is that in the campaign I ran before it, I didn't have Tome & Blood available. And they *still* didn't take Shout. But here's the kicker...they didn't even take Sonic Orb! Perhaps you should calm down and actually look at the spell before going ad-hominem.
Shout does 2d6 damage and may deafen. Big deal.
Your salient points:
You can do a full 2d6 damage, as opposed to fireball, where you do 10d6 halved. Now let's think a second...
Quite so (actually formians have Sonic Res but let's not delve, shall we?) But the point is that against demons and the like, you don't memorise fireballs and the like. And let's be realistic...Magic Missile is 1st level and does 5d4+5 damage max, and there is no force resistance, but that's not broken, is it. Admittedly only against one creature, but once Empowered you're almost definitely better off in terms of damage, and one level lower.
Unless you wanted to be an elemental savant (half the point of Energy Sub). And guess what variant Protection from Elements people are going to memorise...
Bald assertion. Totally irrelevant.
As opposed to Glitterdust, the 2nd level spell which blinds people (sounds worse to me...) and even detect invisibility as a kicker.
Really? Have you playtested Elemental Substitution? I did, as have many others, and it didn't needlessly unbalance the game. You gain a feat, you get a benefit. No sleep lost. Actually play the rules, and if your game falls apart, tell me. But don't sit there pontificating and screaming 'munchkin' at everyone who disagrees with you.
