Orb Spells

[Testament]

As it seems every so often these spells are brought up as not making sense for conjuration, as the energy damage is energy. However it seems that many of these could simply be explained as matter that is heavily charged with energy.

Orb of Fire is a lump of white phosphorus
Orb of Cold is a ball of liquid nitrogen
Orb of Acid is already conjuration, as acid is a substance by its very nature.

The other three Orbs make no sense whatsoever though. You can't 'conjure' lightning, sound or force. And if you are chanelling Dragon's breath, why are they [creation], rather than [summoning]?

 

[MerricB]

A orb of electricity is one annoyed Electric Eel.
A orb of fire is an annoyed phoenix-kin.

Cheers!

 

[Azul]

Meh, somebody at WotC seems to have a fetish for creating spells that look, act and feel like traditional evocation energy-damage spells and labelling them as conjurations, probably just to justify making them avoid spell resistance and give conjurors something new to play with. Personally, I think whoever is designing these spells needs a lesson in game balance (evocation is THE "magical smiting" school... that's what it's all about... giving superior spells to another school which already has its own perks undercuts evokers in a big way - also, ignoring SR is a nice benefit which shouldn't just be tacked on as a freebie without balancing the spell level accordingly).

IMC, all the orbs along with a few other similar "instantaneous energy-damage yet somehow a conjuration" spells (like blast of flame) are evocations and are susceptible to spell resistance. Quick damaging blasts of energy damage are archetypical evocation type spells.

Conjuration is already quite a nice school of magic. I see no reason to give it the core type of flavour spells associated with evocation. It's like classifying a object/creature summoning spell as evocation or a mind-affecting attack spell as transmutation.

 

[brehobit]

OK,
To answer the poster's question (and putting aside balance issues for the moment): there is no reason at all that energy can't be conjured in a fantasy world. To me it makes perfect sense. Orb of force and Orb of sound are simply conjurations of those "elements". Same with the others. The distinction between "thing" and "energy/force" need not exist in a fantasy world.

Onto balance:

From a balance issue, I really don't like these spells being in conjuration. It makes the school too powerful. Far too powerful. Toss in blast of flame, and I'd never use evocation again.

The spells themselves are not overly powerful.
Pluses: They don't have a save, don't allow SR and do upto 15d6 damage.
Minuses: They require a touch attack and only affect one target.

They are handy if you know you have a baddy that has SR and doesn't have significant energy resistance. But they are very rarely the best 4th level spell. Against hordes you want an area spell. Against bricks (high AC, high HP) baddies you probably to use a save-or-(die/greatly hinder) or battle-field control spells (to let the party heal, buff, or whatever). I feel the orbs are merely a good "I've not nothing else useful to do, so I'll tack on a bit of damage" spell.

As far as the 1st level spell goes, Magic missile is at least as powerful as any of the lesser orbs. MM gives the same damage (but untyped!), no touch attack, but allows SR. I think I'd stick with magic missile unless I know I'm hitting high SR baddies or that I want typed damage (there be trolls out there!)

I suspect the real issue is that people want SR to be really important. I don't worry about its general weakening by the splat books. I felt it was too powerful to begin with.....

 

[Hypersmurf]

You can't 'conjure' lightning...

Tesla would probably disagree

-Hyp.

 

[VirgilCaine]

Substitute "1 Dice/level of damage for sonic" with your favourite non-core feat, spell, or class and tell me whether one implies the other.

Well, looking at demons and devils energy resistances [3.0]...noticed none of them had sonic, and then noticed no Core spell deals more than a few dice [2d6?] of damage. So I thought, sonic resistance isn't very necessary.

 

[Thanee]

A orb of electricity is one annoyed Electric Eel.
A orb of fire is an annoyed phoenix-kin.

And Orb of Force is an annoyed GHOST! Yay! We got it!

What, ghosts are not made of force!?

Bye
Thanee

 

[Plane Sailing]

Harking back to the earlier Orb of Force thread, maybe Orb of force conjures one of the already created orbs of force. That's why they are never sold on as childrens toys - you never know when it might be conjured away for someone else to use!

(BTW, I'm also in the camp that thinks that the orbs a totally mischaracterised, created by someone who seemed unaware of even the most basic principles of 3e spell design)

 

[the Jester]

I'm well aware that some people see balance issues with these spells. I'm well aware that some people hate conjuration spells that are useful. I'm well aware that some people take exception to any school doing more than one thing. Never the less I didn't ask about any of that. Can we stay on topic?

Sorry, didn't mean to threadcrap.

(Though I would strongly disagree with the implication that conjuration isn't useful without the orb spells, or that it is limited to only doing one thing.)

To answer the original question:

I could see orb of force as conjuring a hypercompressed bit of air or something- so that the 'force' is actually matter. But that's kind of a stretch...

As to the orb of sound, I would say that it might 'conjure' incredibly loud sounds from a major earthquake's faulting, etc. Or perhaps a destrachan's sonic attack?

Neither of these really works for me as far as describing the orbs as conjuring something, though- it's just a search for some way to justify them as conjurations. Which, if you're going to use the spells as written, is prolly a good idea.

 

[Hypersmurf]

I could see orb of force as conjuring a hypercompressed bit of air or something...

... that can strike ethereal creatures

-Hyp.