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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6317181" data-attributes="member: 4937">The best way to adjudicate a rule of this type is based on what it says, not what you assume it means.  I'm a computer programmer.  I'm used to things doing exactly what they say on the box and only what they say on the box.  The mistake of assuming that the ice is replaced by fire, lightning, metal, or something else is equivalent to the mistake of ruling that a creature in Magic the Gathering flies because it's picture shows it flying or that it's picture implies it has wings.Largely, there is no reason to bother.  Regardless of what you substitute it too, the spell does exactly the same thing.  But to the extent that there is any reason to bother, it is in how the largely environment reacts to a spell with the given descriptor.For example, the environment might be aligned against Cold spells, and say something like: "Reduce the caster level of any spell with the Cold descriptor by 4.  If this reduces the caster level below the minimum necessary to cast the spell, the spell fails."Or you might have a feat like, "Increase the effective caster level of any spell with the Fire descriptor that you cast by 1."However, since this spell is ALSO largely indifferent to caster level, I can't imagine any good reason to apply Energy Substitution to it.   For that matter, I can't think of good reason for it to have Cold as a descriptor, because well, per the rules, the ice isn't actually cold in the sense implied by the Cold descriptor.</blockquote>

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