Tome & Blood Elemental Savant

[thundershot]

My wife wants her character to eventually become an Elemental Savant (water), but she noticed the "Water Mastery" Extraordinary ability in the elemental entry of the Monster Manual... She'd end up getting MINUS FOUR to hit and damage if she's not in water?!? Doesn't that seem a bit extreme after going up 10 levels in a class? Or would that only be using the SLAM attack that comes naturally with a Water Elemental?


Thanks
Chris

 

[hong]

Yes, the savant gets -4 to all attack and damage rolls when landbound. This is unlikely to be a major hindrance, though, since the savant is going to be throwing spells around, not physically bashing things. Also, don't forget she can sink ships up to 75 ft long (!), and stop or slow down those that are bigger.

This is however your wife you're talking about, and it's probably not what you want to hear. In which case, you may want to remove the water mastery ability altogether.

 

[Artoomis]

Becoming the master of water gives you penalties on land.

Wow. Who could've seen that coming?

Really, now - if you become an expert in one area, you can expect other areas to suffer. This all seems very reasonable to me.

If the campaign does not have a lot of water adventures, then this is probably not the best choice. That's simple enough, isn't it?

 

[Galfridus]

If you want to be nice, create a "Land Adaptation" feat or two which overcomes that penalty. That way, she can avoid the penalty, but at a cost, which keeps the character balanced.

Either that or flood your campaign world.

 

[Victim]

Or she could jsut not take all ten levels, and thus not become a Water Elemental thing with water mastery.

 

[thundershot]

This is however your wife you're talking about, and it's probably not what you want to hear. In which case, you may want to remove the water mastery ability altogether.

LOL!! One of the stipulations when she wanted to game with us was that I can't play favorites. Thanks for all of the suggestions, everyone. A feat sounds like a rational way to deal with it.

I thought about the 9 levels idea, but you'd miss out on the "good stuff" of the 10th level. It would just depend on what makes her happy.

In 2E (before I reset everyone back to 1st level when 3E came out... The Apocalypse Stone was so fun... <ahem>) she was an arctic elf (from.. um.. can't remember. One of the blue books. Creative campaigning, I think) who was a water elementalist. She's now a sorcerer, and takes mostly water spells (not many, really) and now that she can use 3rd level spells, she took the Energy Substitution feat and Fireball at the same time (SNOWBALL!!)... Fun stuff... So this PrC really fit her well.

Thanks again!
Chris

 

[Gromm]

Personally I don't think a feat should get around it. Its a disadvantage of being a water elemental. Each elemental has its own weaknesses and strengths. Besides, what 16th level (or is it 17th?) spell caster cares about their melee damage? I think a few Acid Balls and the like with insanely high DCs would be worth the tradeoff. At that level if your not a warrior type, fighting is almost a exercise in futility.

 

[FANGO]

If she used to be an arctic elf, you could always do what one of the players in my group has done and adapt the paraelementals from Manual of the Planes to the elemental savant class. We've got an ice elementalist in my group, and it seems to work fine. Take a look at the abilities of those things and see if you could adapt them, since I'm pretty sure they don't get any minuses (except cold subtype...)

 

[bret]

Personally I don't think a feat should get around it. Its a disadvantage of being a water elemental. Each elemental has its own weaknesses and strengths. Besides, what 16th level (or is it 17th?) spell caster cares about their melee damage? I think a few Acid Balls and the like with insanely high DCs would be worth the tradeoff. At that level if your not a warrior type, fighting is almost a exercise in futility.

That doesn't mean that all of the elemental forms are balanced.

If you look at it, the Air and Earth forms are probably the most powerful in normal circumstances. With Air you can fly. With Earth, you do acid damage (takes care of regeneration) and get a bonus to attack when both you and your opponent are in contact with the ground.

Water is actually weak in comparison to the other ES forms, mostly because it would be rare you would use the gained abilities. Whereas you can make the other Masteries work for you in a normal campaign, it would be tough with water.

It also depends on how much water you and the opponent must be standing in. If a simple rain shower is enough, I would be looking at all the ways to make it rain on an opponent.

I'm looking at the ES myself. I wanted water (the cold powers) but the trade offs for that last level are really a problem. I don't see it being nearly as much of a problem for any of the other forms.

BTW: This is for a sea faring campaign, so there are actually times that I would be facing opponents who are swimming. Even with that, I'm concerned that it would be a disadvantage too often. The Quesh Flame ability might balance that though...

Air wouldn't be a problem, but I don't think it works as well for my concept. I hate having to make style vs power choices.

 

[mzsylver]

you might want to try an Ice Savant variant. this way your wife can still be a cold/water type person but not evaporate on land. i personally think the Water Elemental Savant is kinda lame and always liked ice better... teehee.