Sonic Damage Equalization

[Destil]

Trust me, we had a huge debate and even the Sage said that Sonic does not work in Silence. But you can take that with a grain of salt. ;p

I disagree regarding elementals. Sound is more powerful in water (Same reason for the Green Dragon). And, just because they have no bodies... It's MAGIC. Why would an Air Elemental take damage from Acid? They have no corporal body to be harmed by acid.

If you want to be stickler, why is Cold damage damaging to water elementals? The Cold is a natural property of water, and thus a water-elemental would simply be frozen (Held? Slowed?), but could simply dissolve the iced portions.

And why would Sonic effect Fire Elementals? They have no corporal bodies.

Grrr... must resist urge to smash... it's a huge pet peeve of mine when games equate cold and water*.

In general I'm just trying to find a 'plausible' reason to give a certain set of creatures sonic resistance. It's not at all scientific, or inclusive. I just want to take some of the teeth out of sonic and make it not a clearly superior choice. Creatures without a rigid antimony made the most sense to me. Water and Air elementals, in their element, I see as simply vibrating along with the air and water around them. It passes through them like they’re not even there, basically. The same would hold true for fire, but fire elementals are rarely immersed in flame…

*A) Why ice? Shouldn't water be... uhm... water. If there's ice, than there should be steam, too.
B) In fact the heat of vaporization for water (how much heat is transferred by condensing a set mass of steam or boiling water) is far greater than the heat of fusion of water (heath transfer to freeze water or melt ice). There's more energy to be transferred condensing steam than melting ice, by a factor of 6.7 or so (at standard atmospheric pressure). Steam spells make far more sense, and are just cooler in general, IMHO. Steam burns are nasty.

 

[Hashmalum]

And Sound doesnt have the damaging characteristics that Sonic does. Just because WotC used a simple term like Sonic, instead of Harmonic or Concussive, doesnt mean that you need to go around applying broad generalities.

And an ice cube doesn't have the damaging characteristics that cone of cold does. The difference is quantitative rather than qualitative.

No one knows what Sonic is, Thats the problem. It was a bad idea to include it and we can only hope it vanishes in the revision.

Actually, it's quite obvious what sonic is--at least to everyone except you. But I do agree that including a new damage type to deal with a handful of spells, and then making it on par with the common damage types of fire, cold, electricity, and acid was a bad idea. Failing to give existing monsters any resistance to the new damage type, thus severely imbalancing it by comparison with the other four, was an even worse idea. And creating the ridiculous and ill-conceived Energy Substitution and Energy Admixture feats just to fill space in a splatbook was the icing on the maggot-ridden cake.

Unfortunately, I doubt very much that sonic damage will vanish in the revision after they invented a bunch of new spells and monsters to try and pretend that it is a legitimate damagetype. And, of course, all the munchkins with Energy Substitution (sonic) will whine like whipped puppies. So I intend to make the best of it by keeping sonic damage in line somehow. Recognizing that sonic damage can be prevented by silence helps in that regard, but I'm willing to go above and beyond the basic rules if necessary--which is why I've been following this thread.

Note that the lower level Shatter spell ignores Silence and you find that this is a special case rule.

The description of shatter doesn't mention silence at all. The wall of fire spell doesn't mention the rules for creatures catching on fire, either, even though as a long-duration magical fire, it certainly has the power to do so. The designers didn't always feel the need to spell everything out in simple terms for those who don't apply simple logic. You'll notice, however, that one thing that the shatter spell description DOES mention is that it "creates a loud, ringing noise that shatters brittle, nonmagical objects; sunders a single solid, nonmagical object; or damages a crystalline creature." Silence ensures that, among other othings, "no noise whatsoever issues from, enters, or passes through the area." Shatter works by creating a noise, and silence stops all noise. Ergo, shatter can't penetrate silence.

 

[Plane Sailing]

The problem isn't with sonic damage spells - all the ones in the core rule books are clearly weaker in terms of damage than equivalent spells of other "energy types".

The problem is the stupid "energy substitution" "feat" from Tome & Blood, which completely screws up the balance between damaging spells.

You could make similar arguments for acid... the basic spell list has some spells which cause acid damage but none of them do damage on the scale of a fireball or lightning bolt - and that is for several good reasons, not the least of which is that there are more creatures with fire and electricity resistance than with acid resistance.

Energy substitution is poorly concieved, an awful idea awfully implemented.

Per the books, sonic damage is limited to shatter against crystal creatures (pretty limited), Sound burst (1d8 damage), Shout (2d6 damage) and the Blast Glyph of Warding can do sonic damage (1d8/2 caster levels).

Does this suggest why there isn't much in the way of resistance against sonic damage? As originally designed sonic stuff just doesn't do much damage anyway!

Cheers

 

[Hashmalum]

The problem is the stupid "energy substitution" "feat" from Tome & Blood, which completely screws up the balance between damaging spells.

Yes! Someone who agrees with me that the Energy Substitution feat must go. Even before I realized that the main use for Energy Substitution was to allow every munchkin and their brother to seriously abuse sonic damage, I didn't like it because it just didn't make any sense at all.

With Energy Substitution, you can cast shout to make fire instead of noise--but it still deafens people? What's up with that? But then in the exact same sidebar it goes and says that a sonic fireball cannot set things on fire, without giving any clear guidelines as to what "side effects" are unchanged and which are not. I'd say that a sonic spell setting things on fire (from friction caused by the vibrations) makes at least as much sense as fire deafening people.

I've heard that some of the splatbook stuff will be migrating into the revised core rulebooks; let's hope the Tome and Blood energy feats don't come along for the ride.

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

The energy feats aren't bad in concept-- they just need some finetuning.

I can especially see certain Wizards or Sorcerors consistently using one type of energy in their attacks, or having certain preferences, that metamagic feats would allow them to use.

Munchkin or not, Mostin's (from Heretic of Wyre) usage of sonic-damage spells is a part of his character, and it seems to fit him. Being able to replace the energy damage of your spells with your signature type is a cool ability.

 

[Xarlen]

I would agree that they're not munchkin in simply changing the effective energy; ergo wizards would have to come up with a Seperate spell for a Lightning Ball, an Ice Ball...

Seeing as there are So Few ice spells, or acid spells, this is a Good Thing. In fact, it allows sorcerors to set up their magical theme.

But yes, sonic doesn't make sense. Why would Sonic or Acid harm Incorporal undead? Because It's Magic.

 

[Xarlen]

Grrr... must resist urge to smash... it's a huge pet peeve of mine when games equate cold and water*.

I Prefer water = Cold. Because Air certainly doesn't equal Cold (Lightning forms from clouds, and clouds are from Air). Lightning comes from Up There. Air Elementals fly, and are air. Boom. The whole Four Elements thing (Water Fire Wind Earth) and the four elemental subgroups (Cold Fire Lightning Acid). And, Ice=Water, Cold=Water.

But then again, I'm a cold freak about stuff.

And I still don't see why they have to be 'emmersed' in an element to get the benefit. Their bodies are the same, period.

But, I can understand Why you want to take the unbalance out of Sonic. Just being very stickler over it; I agree with what you're trying to do.

 

[Destil]

My problem is that enforcing acid and sonic damage to be inferrior is quite lame, and thus I want a way to equalize them... The logic of "Well, sonic is weaker in the core rules" is flawed, since universal energy spells like protection from ellements don't make any distinction. Likewise there are five energy types. Not "Three common types and two rare types". At one point I tryed to keep this fake hiarachy: my original energy substution feat worked allong these lines. Making a fire spell to a sonic spell increaded the level by 2, while fire to cold was +0, for instance. But in the end I've decided that this is too cumbersome, and I'm now on a quest to equalize the five.

I rather like energy substution, because I think it's a great flavor feat for a wizard or sorcerer, and also a nice way for a sorcerer to get around their restrictive spell limits (as is all metamagic). Subdual substution is very broken, since per the rules it get around all energy resistance. but that's easy enugh to fix...

 

[Xarlen]

I agree.

 

[Marshall]

And an ice cube doesn't have the damaging characteristics that cone of cold does. The difference is quantitative rather than qualitative.

I dont care how much Sound you have it doesnt have any damaging characteristics until you include the overpressure/concussive/harmonic effects. Its not the SOUND that does damage, Its the side-effects.

Actually, it's quite obvious what sonic is--at least to everyone except you. But I do agree that including a new damage type to deal with a handful of spells, and then making it on par with the common damage types of fire, cold, electricity, and acid was a bad idea. Failing to give existing monsters any resistance to the new damage type, thus severely imbalancing it by comparison with the other four, was an even worse idea. And creating the ridiculous and ill-conceived Energy Substitution and Energy Admixture feats just to fill space in a splatbook was the icing on the maggot-ridden cake.

Sonic is just Force damage that doesn't auto-hit incorporeal creatures. A Sonic Fireball is a Silent Blast of Concussive Force is just as viable as a Cacophonous Roar. A +1 Screaming Sword is a Star Wars Vibro-blade. Sonic doesnt have to make noise.

Actually, Cold is the most powerful substitution. There are quite a few Fire Subtypes that take double damage from Cold and fewer resistant than vice-versa. Sonic just has (nearly)no-one resistant, but also no-one vulnerable. Except Crystal creatures, which is what? 2? 3?

The Order of Preference is

1 Cold
2 Fire-Sonic
4 Acid-At Least it stops some regens
5 Electricity- Lots of Resistance, Only the Iron Golem is sort-of vulnerable

The description of shatter doesn't mention silence at all. The wall of fire spell doesn't mention the rules for creatures catching on fire, either, even though as a long-duration magical fire, it certainly has the power to do so. The designers didn't always feel the need to spell everything out in simple terms for those who don't apply simple logic. You'll notice, however, that one thing that the shatter spell description DOES mention is that it "creates a loud, ringing noise that shatters brittle, nonmagical objects; sunders a single solid, nonmagical object; or damages a crystalline creature." Silence ensures that, among other othings, "no noise whatsoever issues from, enters, or passes through the area." Shatter works by creating a noise, and silence stops all noise. Ergo, shatter can't penetrate silence.

At the point of casting Shatter makes a sound, but you dont have to hear the noise to be affected by it. Unless the caster is in the Silence effect the spell goes thru. Only Shout is affected by Silence, and Yes "the designers did always feel the need to spell everything out in simple terms." If the book doesnt say it, it isnt the Rule. That been the general rule of 3e.