No spell resistance vs. Orb spells? Why?

[IcyCool]

Tangent question: what are water and air? They have neither hardness nor hit points, but are also not an energy type.

True, and I think that bit is ambiguous. They are defined as elements, I believe.

As a side note, the energy/element match up is thus, as far as I recall:

Air = Electricity
Water = Cold
Fire = Fire
Earth = Acid

 

[Nail]

As a side note, the energy/element match up is thus, as far as I recall:

Air = Electricity
Water = Cold
Fire = Fire
Earth = Acid

Leaving [sonic] out, of course.

 

[IcyCool]

Leaving [sonic] out, of course.

Yeah, sonic doesn't have an element that it matches up to. It's also not an option for the energy substitution feats. And since sonic resistance is rare, sonic damage tends to be much stronger than any of the elemental energies.

 

[Nail]

All true.

Now, try "matching up" the [force] "energy" type.

 

[James McMurray]

Why does every energy need an element matched to it? Negative, Positive, and viscious energies don't have elements. Force and Sonic don't need them. I think the goal was to have each element tied to an energy, not vice versa.

 

[IcyCool]

All true.

Now, try "matching up" the [force] "energy" type.

Force is, of course, stronger than Sonic (as far as resistances go), so much so that it tends to get a smaller damage die or cap.

 

[IcyCool]

Why does every energy need an element matched to it? Negative, Positive, and viscious energies don't have elements. Force and Sonic don't need them. I think the goal was to have each element tied to an energy, not vice versa.

I'm not sure anyone said that every energy needed an element matched to it, did they?

And I believe that Negative and Positive energy would be in the same boat as Sonic. There's remarkably few spells that deal either Negative or Positive energy damage though. Maybe that's the next bit of power creep we have to look forward to?

 

[Nail]

Just in case anyone is interested:

Using the spreadsheet provided by http://www.nzcomputers.net/heroforge/, I've calculated the average touch AC of all monsters in MM I - IV, Fiend Folio, Frostburn, Sandstorm, and Stormwrack. (Some may disparage the fact that I did not "do it by hand", as apparently someone did. )

The Average Touch AC is ~12. Interestingly, this is about the same as the average of the monsters in just the MM 3.5e.

FWIW, given the discussion in this thread about how effective ranged Touch Spells are.

 

[IanB]

For your next trick, let's see it just for creatures CR 12 and up and also a list of what percentage of those creatures have SLAs, spells, or other abilities not reflected in their raw stat blocks that add deflection or other touch AC-affecting AC bonuses, like unholy aura or protection from good.

(OK, just kidding. But, FWIW, the lack of inclusion of that sort of thing is why I don't find the 'average touch AC' discussion all that useful. It counts the pit fiend as 17 instead of 21 due to unholy aura, etc.)

 

[Rystil Arden]

Just in case anyone is interested:

Using the spreadsheet provided by http://www.nzcomputers.net/heroforge/, I've calculated the average touch AC of all monsters in MM I - IV, Fiend Folio, Frostburn, Sandstorm, and Stormwrack. (Some may disparage the fact that I did not "do it by hand", as apparently someone did. )

The Average Touch AC is ~12. Interestingly, this is about the same as the average of the monsters in just the MM 3.5e.

FWIW, given the discussion in this thread about how effective ranged Touch Spells are.

I thought he didn't use Stormwrack or the other terrain books. In that case, clearly those books had an average Touch AC of around -500 (since they each have far fewer monsters than the others), which throws the average back down from 50 to 12

(By the way, you know his claim was meant as a reductio ad absurdum and he expected everyone to know it was false, right?)