What's the purpose of the 'elemental' keywords?

[Jhaelen]

I've just been reminded by another thread about something I've been wondering about when reading 'Plane Below'*:

What is the purpose of the 'elemental' keywords (air, earth, fire, water)?

Are there any abilities or powers that reference these?

*: on page 17 the terrain feature 'Primordial Font' is described. It's effect is that it gains a random keyword: earth, fire, ice, lightning, thunder, or water. A creature can also splash the substance on itself to gain the keyword.

But what do these keywords do (apart from granting the described effects)?

 

[bganon]

There are items that reference at least some of those keywords. Things like Earthbreaker and Waterbane weapons, for instance.

 

[Asmor]

Potential.

I'm sure there are things which use at least some of the keywords, but it doesn't matter whether they currently exist or not.

Keywords are trivial to add when you put something out, but pretty much impossible to add after the fact. So if, next year, someone decides they want to make a monster which boosts allies with the 'fire' keyword, that monster will get to play with all sorts of toys published since the beginning of 4e.

 

[john112364]

Let's not forget about resistances and vulnerabilities. Certain powers work vs. certain elememtal keywords to add or reduce damage. For instance "Resist fire 5" and "Vulnerable fire 5".
From a DM standpoint, even in the absence of any published effects I could see this as an interesting way to temporarily giving PCs a way to become more in tune with the elemental plane they're on. Maybe creatures with the "Earth" keyword react better to PCs with the "Earth keyword. Just a thought.

 

[Jhaelen]

Let's not forget about resistances and vulnerabilities. Certain powers work vs. certain elememtal keywords to add or reduce damage. For instance "Resist fire 5" and "Vulnerable fire 5".

Well, that's a different category of keywords. Those are the energy type keywords. Their purpose is pretty well defined.

I've been talking about keywords that appear in brackets after a monster's size and origin type. I.e. these keywords are in the same category as 'undead' or 'aquatic'.

Thanks to bganon for the hint about the items. So there is at least some precedence for a rule interaction with these keywords.

 

[fba827]

I have yet to see it utilized much, if at all, in the creatures and items that I have used/read (of course, I may simply not have read/used items that utilize this).

Having said that though, I always assumed it was for the reason that Asmor stated (post #3, above), that it is there for potential use if they have something useful for it down the road. elemental-stuff is an obvious game design space, so they're laying the ground work for it if/when they have an interesting creature/item to utilize it (i'd imagine we'll see it used some how when the elemental power source for classes comes out).

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Well, there is some limited use of certain creature type keywords like demon, dragon, undead, construct, etc. Mainly there are a few minor things like constructs are immune to certain classes of spells. Demons are affected by powers of certain items (Demonbane Weapon), etc.

The specific keywords you're talking about have no particular use so far that I know of, but there are certain creatures tagged with them. Its just a hook you can hang things on later if you want. If they ever do come out with the elemental power source for instance there could be some hooks there.

 

[Dr_Ruminahui]

The Planes Below does have somethings that trigger (or don't trigger) based on elemental key words - for example, I think there is a trap/terrain effect that trips if something moves next to it, unless that creature has the cold keyword.

I think there may be one or two others, I just don't remember offhand what they are. Regardless, there aren't very many of them.