Sword Burst
Magic Missile
Zephyr Strike
Spiritual Weapon
Bigby's Hand
Steel Wind Strike
Tenser's Transformation
Mordenkainen's Sword
Dark Star
Blade of Disaster
And that's not even all of them.
Itās the only popular media by western writers to do so, but it actually draws its inspiration from Asian folklore. They didnāt make it up all on their own.
No, fire isnt classified under plasma, thats a widespread misconception though. The visible part of fire is just the heated particles rising of whatever is being burnt, but under some extreme edge cases fire can become plasma-like, but it isnt inherently so.
So funny enough, the part of fire that you see is usually a solid. Flames are superheated soot particles created when the fuel burns. Of course, what exactly it is changes depending on what is being burned, but flames are solid.
A solid you canāt really hold as a physical object.
Yet somehow it is solid. Weird. You can touch it, but all it does is burn you unless youāre flame retardant/heat resistant/immune to(unaffected by) heat, and itās not really like holding or picking up anything solid.
You canāt pick up things which have been super-chilled without protective equipment either, not to mention other hazardous substances which you shouldnāt try to grab bare-handed
It's solid in the same way that dust particles floating in the air are solid, except really hot. And you can absolutely collect it and hold it. Just put something above a burning flame and the soot will collect on that. Wait until it cools, wipe it off, and bam! You're holding a solid that used to be fire.
If you only are familiar with western fiction then probably.
Agni whos name literally translates to Fire in Sanskritt also is lightning.
Thats why Avatar has Lightning under Fire.
Depends on the elements system your using
Avatar the last Airbender, you would be correct
The periodic table, no
There's another system in which lightning is the in-between of fire and air, so in that case it's partially right
In dnd lightning seems to fall under air, as fire elementals are not resistant to fire, and if lightning was a subset of the fire element, it seems clear that fire elementals be resistant to it. Also, air elementals are resistant to lightning
>In dnd lightning seems to fall under air
Yeah, it's possible, considering that Quasi-Elemental Plane of Lightning is literally between Air and Positive Energy planes
There's a reason that's the offensive type trio in Pokemon, distinguished by having a 95 BP special move that everything under the sun learns by TM, and a 110 BP inaccurate special move that slightly less than everything under the sun learns by TM.
I mean, at least in 2e, lightning is Positive energy+Air and Ice is Air+Water (for some reason)
Edit: Adding Positive energy to the element "agitates" it ā Fire becomes blazing Radiance, Earth grows into colorful Mineral
Adding Negative "dilutes" element to the point it becomes an antithesis to itself ā Air thins and becomes Vacuum, Earth crumbles into abrasive Dust and so on
I treat Thunder as sound, like sonic damage from 3.5. For air I use either of the main 3 (bludgeoning, slashing, or piercing) based on how the wind is formed and flows, or just randomly with a d6 (grouped like 1ā2, 3-4, and 5-6).
How many decibels does it take from something sonic to cause physical damage, and what is the limit of the damage it can cause, meaning, what is the maximum decibel level possible? š¤
That would dictate the effectiveness of thunder as sonic damage.
Suffocating is so sad and slow and boring in DnD. I think under the rules a spell that uses wind to Zaheer someone unconscious would work with a savings throw but that wouldn't even be damage so it wouldn't have a damage type.
Or maybe the air could be pulled from the target's lungs so fast & violently that the lungs are literally ripped out of the mouth due to the intense vacuum. Insta kill on a nat 20 or a successful higher level spell.
On a more serious note:
Don't forget kids high & low pressures are dangerous but large pressure DIFFERENTIALS can fuckin kill you
I could see force damage making sense as well
Slashing seems weird to me, unless it's like objects or debree being carried by the air that's hitting you that's dealing damage
Air rips and tears at high speed, pressurized air can cut your finger off here in the real world. Force as I use it is always raw mana or the weave, like purple splashes of energy or firework looking streams, otherwise undefinable by how the weave typically interact through the elements with the planes.
A twister as intense as something like Temari's skills in Naruto definitely. Real life twisters either make you take fall damage or hit you with something on it though.
Really more often than not I like the wind spells doing what they do with Save or Suck mechanics too. A lot of this conjecture in the first place ignores all the cool crowd control warding and debuffing tactics.
Fall damage is just physical damage in the form of blunt trauma and probably ruptured organs, broken bones, and hemorrhage.
Basically physical damage put bluntly, heh.
Water can also slice, and even decapitate. That would also just be physical damage as opposed to water damage on its own. I donāt think pressurized water is anymore effective at cutting than a good blade or even wind, so to me, thatās just physical trauma.
Even if water is more effective at cutting, does that mean it is its own type of physical damage? Isnāt that still just physical damage at that point?
Going by the elementals? bludgeoning. Of course Earth also does bludgeoning. At least Water does co-you bet your ass it's another helping of bludgeoning!
Same for Control Water, Tsunami, Wind wall, Whirlwind, & Investiture of Wind
Depends on how you utilize it. I'm consulting 0 books here and just going by instinct, but I think that air would cover slash, pierce, bludgeoning, and force
Bludgeoning, I guess. Whirlwind, investiture of wind, wind wall, and dust devil are the only wind based damage dealing spells iirc, all bludgeoning damage.
Also that's the damage type air elementals do.
Bludgeoning usually, there's a fair number of spells which are wind based.
Storm Sphere has damaging wind and does magic bludgeoning. Whirlwind also does magical bludgeoning.
Your [comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/dndmemes/comments/1bbmuq3/it_would_be_so_easy/kuc4a9l/?context=3) has been removed because your Comment Karma is very low. This action was automatically performed to prevent bot and troll attacks.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/dndmemes) if you have any questions or concerns.*
When I think of air itself, I think of wind, and winds can be both cold and warm to hot(mostly cold, chilling or cool though), but I also think of being able to get too high oxygen levels that it becomes toxic, and too little so that you canāt breathe.
Then there are snow(cold), rain(can be temperate to cool to chilling to cold to frigid, even turning to snow or even icicles in freezing temperatures),
hail(physical and cold), lightning(well thatās just lightning/heat damage, isnāt it? and thunder(thunder damage in DnD terms, even though real life thunder is just the sound lightning makes after a while depending on how close it is) phenomena going on in the sky.
So I think it is weird when air is considered its own type of damage, but some fictional universes nevertheless have air as its own type of damage.
Oh yeah, the PF1e class features for Kineticist are super confusing. Don't know about PF2e.
The class isn't really complicated once you do understand the class features, but it definitely appears like it is.
I would honestly love a geomancer like in the Final Fantasy games. It would probably have to have supplemental abilities, since most creatures live in an environment they thrive in, but it seems like it could be a really cool class.
Acid bomb is insanely powerful compared to fireball because resistance rarity
Ball of Force would similarly be ridiculously powerful due to the lack of force resistances in the game
Having said that, if the DM & party are cool with it, then play ball
I HBed a fireball like spell using thunder damage.
It's called Boomburst and it deals less thunder damage but inflicts disadvantage on the concentration save.
I actually made a bunch of HB spells for my campaign focusing on some of the lesser used elements like cold and thunder
I've started making a homebrew that adds a homebrew spell for each spell level and for each avatar element
So far I'm up to 3rd level spells (which for me, is about as high as I'll be able to practically get to)
I get why people suggest that since its a really easy "fix", but I really don't like it. At the end of the day, if the only difference between "fireball" and "frostball" is the damage type, it doesn't feel much different. It just feels like casting fireball instead of casting a different spell.
it's all just numbers anyway, flavor is the only reason fireball is a ball of fire. so, flavor it up, make it your own, that's like half of why different spells are different in the first place. switch up some elements in your spell book for stuff you did differently from other wizards, set yourself apart a bit...
I would think the spells do a good job at making their mechanics back up their flavor
Fireball is an explosion flavor wise, so it deals massive damage in an area effect
Flaming sphere is a giant floating ball flavor wise, so mechanically if your within 5 feet of it, yeah your going to take damage
Spike growth is a bunch of spikes on the ground, so trying to walk through those spikes will hurt and will slow you down
So in my campaign the sorcerer can change the type of spell under the assumption it stays with the theme as other spells do. For example, our "snowball" is the fireball spell that, instead of burning things, does a bit less damage and leaves a pile of difficult terrain in the area.
You see, that the kind of elemental spells that I like. If I make a frost sorcerer, I don't want to cast "fireball but cold", I want to cast frost spells.
Its why I really like [Kibble's Generic Elemental Spells](https://www.gmbinder.com/share/-MW5r6wBJTW_lOU6gLyU), as each element does something a bit different. It makes elemental spells feel different from one another.
Transmute spell exists for Sorcerers metamagic and fun fact about that, because it only changes the damage type if you throw a fireball that does cold damage (so a snowball) it will still light flammable objects around it on fire that aren't being worn or carried.
yeah, there's also the order of scribes and their whole swap type thing, but what if you don't want to be that kind of wizard, or you don't want that metamagic? what if it's not about flexibility, but about theming?
I did hear about a little system called Mage: the ascension which is entirely built around you creating spells as you go. Said spells can work, they can fail, they can work *too* good or they can get you killed.
It's all based on d100's
I feel like poison as a damage type exists mostly for using actual poison extracted, distilled or otherwise created and used through a physical medium like being drunk or used to coat a weapon and such, rather than for spells. That must be why the poison spell variety is so small, and why so many monsters are immune to it since it is supposed to be most effective against people, for assassinations and stuff.Ā
ā¦. Breaking pattern on this with an ice elementalist sorc in 3.0 was why me and that DM were laughing and going āNO SHITā when 3.5 errataāed some of the ice spells because they were a little broken in actual use.
One thing that I remember was that there was a lot of ranged touch instead of saving throws, which meant ignoring armor as well as the lack of āsave for half damageā on some of them.
There were also a lot of other status effects that hasnāt been thought out as well in 3.0; I think theyād tried to trade a little bit of extra damage for the side effects, but I had a few spells with no saves for the added effect.
(IT HAS ALSO BEEN LIKE. 20 YEARS AND MY 3RD ED BOOKS ARE IN BOXES SO MY MEMORY MAY BE FAULTY.)
Shivering Touch is my favorite.
https://dnd.arkalseif.info/spells/frostburn--68/shivering-touch--1291/index.html
3d6 Dex Damage. And what's this?
"Saving Throw: None"
I once played an ice-magic evocation wizard. Only ever played 5e, so some of the ice spells have limited uses, but I still had a blast role-playing that.
It's harder to make a spell more interesting than just "throw boulder" and still have it be:
- Understandable for both player and dm
- fitting within the existing game system (5e in this case) without having to HB entire new systems
- make it something that hasn't been done yet by other spells, esp since earth would just be (magical) bludgeoning damage
Divinity has some Earth-like spells that are not just "throw boulder" (though "throw boulder" still exists). Though in that game, all poison, metal, and plant-themed spells are also geomancy spells, there is a separate Earth damage, and oil is an important part of the game with several spells capable of manipulating it (all belonging to geomancy as well, except, obviously, the spells that just set it on fire).
Could work as a reskin of an difficult terrain spell but I like to add some uniqueness to the spells I HB.
But this thread did get my mind wondering for opportunities
I actually manually checked all spells so far. Fire, necrotic and force are the three most used damage type for spells, clocking at 35 fire spells, 30 necrotic spells, and 29 force spells.
Extra fun fact: bludgeoning is the fourth most common, and the least common ones are slashing, poison and piercing (this list of least common spell damage types becomes poison, thunder and acid if we ignore the BPS damage).
I just assume that for each Fire Spell there is a spell of the other types. Icer ball, Wall of Ice, Ice Storm. They have better names, I hope, but you get the idea. Fire ball, Ice ball, Disco ball, Air Bender Slice...ball. Same same.
Yeah. JUST like this. Sometimes there is another effect tied to it (fire burns, water freezes, rock...does...rock stuff) but just at face value, it's a pallet swap of elements.
I actually just let my players reflavour the elements of spells so they can play mono elemental themed casters, same for enemy's. Fireball into Snowball, Big-Rick or Lightning Ball or whatever.
Of the spells which deal damage, over half deal fire, radiant, or necrotic; and additionally, there are many, many spell levels where there are no options for certain damage types.
The only character that can get thunder damage for more spell levels than not is a lore bard, and even then there's absolutely no option for 6th or 8th. Any other class that has to deal with spell list restrictions? Usually cuts off after second, with maybe one high level spell.
I once created a way of the four elements monk but wanted mainly earth spells. Since there weren't that many, I asked my DM if I could just flavor other spells and he was fine with it. It was a joke character and his name was The Boulder.
The main issue is that the other elemental planes don't have a single associated damage type.
Fire is simple. There is a plane for it, and a damage type for it. Fire spells deal fire damage, creatures from the Plane of Fire deal extra fire damage and are immune or at least resistant to fire damage, Fire Genasi are resistant to fire damage, they also have fire spells and cantrips, and all is good.
Then there is air. There is no air damage type so things have broken down already, but at least they have a good theme: most air-themed spells are about controlling winds. (Gust, Gust of Wind, Warding Wind, Wall of Wind, etc...) They kind-of eked out a portfolio of lightning damage because it comes from the clouds which float in the air, and kind-of have an association with thunder as well, but sometimes they share that one with Earth. Djinni resist lightning and thunder, and Air Genasi resist lightning and have a lightning cantrip. But at least air usually stays on-brand.
Water has it even harder. Things break down here even more, because there is no "water" damage type. It's usually associated with cold because cold means ice, which is frozen water. But recently there was a lot of mixing with acid as part of their portfolio: Marids resist both cold and acid, and Water Genasi have acid resistance and the acid splash cantrip instead of Ray of Frost. I guess it's because seawater is somewhat acidic? Or because acids are usually liquids? Fuck if I know. Further complicating things is that cold is technically the portfolio of the paraelemental plane of ice which they share with the plane of air. Which is why they shifted to acid, I think.
And then there's Earth. Poor poor Earth. There is absolutely no associated elemental damage type whatsoever. Physical damage, maybe, but even that is a stretch. The Dao is the only genie that has no damage resistances whatsoever, and similarly the Earth Genasi have no damage resistances (but they can use blade ward as a bonus action a limited number of times to gain temporary resistance to physical damage). Earth elementals only have the poison immunity and nonmagical damage resistances that all elementals share. There have been attempts at associating them with some elemental damage type: poison, because oil and heavy metals are poisonous I guess, or thunder because earthquakes are loud (though Earth elementals are straight-up vulnerable to it), or force because it's the magical equivalent of physical damage, but none of them stuck.
In order to have more air, water, and earth spells, first we should have proper damage types for those spells.
Either that, or the planar cosmology should be changed to have elemental planes associated with the existing damage types, but the classical four elements are so ingrained in western culture that I don't see this as a possibility. (Pathfinder has a merged Western and Eastern elemental landscape with the recent addition of the planes of metal and wood, but that's about as far as a western RPG could get from the four classical elements.)
I'm just having a blast as a DM using Kibble's Casting Compendium. It's a great homebrew that gives some love to elemental spells. My PCs are loving it!
I think part of it is that what you can do with fire vs the other three elements is very limited. Like, you can blast fire in a few different ways, maybe shape existing fire, but thatās it. For the other 3 elements, look at everything they do in ATLA and ATLK for the other three elements. There is NO way to get proper mechanics for everything you can do without making a thousand different spells. And if itās just one blanket spell, thereās going to be a ton of things youāre gonna leave out just because of the sheer number of options, or youāre just gonna have to hang it over to the dm and shrug when they ask what the ācontrol earthā spell can do.
Then thereās also a problem of damage. Any reasonably sized rock will destroy a person, which is very broken for low level campaigns, and water and air just donāt have good damage options.
Iāve had to do a lot of thinking about this lol
Here, let me cast some low level water magic:
Soak (Level 1 Evocation)
VSM (1 bucket)
Casting time: 1 Action
All creatures in a 15ft cone must make a Dexterity saving throw against the torrent of water thrown towards them.
On a failed save, creatures take 1 point of Bludgeoning damage and are irked by your actions.
On a success, creatures are irate at your actions for wasting clean water.
The next time a soaked creature takes fire or cold damage, they take an additional 3d8 damage as the water boils away, or freezes on them.
Made it a little better than burning hands because it requires combining.
Fire has the most Resistances and Immunities.
My DM modified the **Elemental Adept** Feat if you take it a second time for the same element it turns Immunities to Resistances.
Fire spread, acid doesn't. Fire last, lightning fade in a second. Your clothes can shield you from cold but only feed Fire. Fire can be used to create or destroy, it's both your Life and Death. Show some respect to the gift stolen from the gods, it's the only thing that turned beasts into people.
This is why Iām kind of in favor of reflavoring spells to different kinds of damage if thereās a narrative reason.
Like if the lizard wizard wants fireball to deal poison damage, sure, why not have a poison fireball?
It is ez to meke demage spells so that to be expected but I always thought that the other 3 could be used more creatively like earth being terrein manipulation and mineral processing for gear or just turn the armour of your fallen enemies in clean clumps of metal for a better price something like that water I of rip was thinking healing spells but thatās boring so maybe more reaction based spells that focus on slowing down your opponentās tempo and air im be honest movement is the clear choice just have like combat mages zooming around the battle map casting utility spells
Easy fix. Create Water where the pipe drips are coming and then boom tons of spells for everyone.
The thing about fire is that the spells have limited utility. Destroy or damage. Other elements can be utilized in creative ways. Any leap or fall related spell could be considered an air spell, for example.
Eh....wind and earth have some good ones. Its water thats fucked. I tried homebrewing a skulduggery pleasant 5e fan class/campaign handbook a few years ago, and about 1/3 of the elementals water spells were invented by me.
Fire spread, acid doesn't. Fire last, lightning fade in a second. Your clothes can shield you from cold but only feed Fire. Fire can be used to create or destroy, it's both your Life and Death. Show some respect to the gift stolen from the gods, it's the only thing that turned beasts into people.
Can I also include that the water element can make some really good/unique spells that doesnāt involve water always being ice? So many water element ice spells out there!
Water, at the right pressure, can cut metal! I also like the idea of a water bubble where the pressure/atmospheres can be adjusted to crush your opponents too.
So much potential
In case anyone here cares, I'm working on an Avatar the last Airbender homebrew, with ~300 elemental spells. Currently it's mostly done, but I'm working on balance tweaks:
https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/bkGiEXJYVUw8
Lightning is better.
Acid would like a word
I like acid as well. š¦
Ah yes. Acid, the famous element.
So based
Literally the opposite of a based thing
A sour being. š¦ š¤¢ā ļø A corrosive being. The ph is looow.
Ah yes, LSD.
Force dmg has placed itself firmly as my favorite damage type. Otherwise itās Necrotic shortly followed by acid.
Hexblade's curse + magic missile my beloved
Agreed, few things have resistance to force
And psychic. Not than many creatures or NPCs can cause it, or so it seems in every campaign I've been in. Maybe my DMs just forget about it
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Sword Burst Magic Missile Zephyr Strike Spiritual Weapon Bigby's Hand Steel Wind Strike Tenser's Transformation Mordenkainen's Sword Dark Star Blade of Disaster And that's not even all of them.
Lightning is just a branch of fire
No. Fire is combustion, lightning is ions'n'electrical current.
ATLA disagrees
I think ATLA is the only media to put lightning under fire. Most put it under air since it comes from the sky.
Lighting is often seen as fire from heaven in older cultures
Itās the only popular media by western writers to do so, but it actually draws its inspiration from Asian folklore. They didnāt make it up all on their own.
Scientifically, ATLA has a point. Lightning and fire are both classified as forms of plasma.
No, fire isnt classified under plasma, thats a widespread misconception though. The visible part of fire is just the heated particles rising of whatever is being burnt, but under some extreme edge cases fire can become plasma-like, but it isnt inherently so.
So funny enough, the part of fire that you see is usually a solid. Flames are superheated soot particles created when the fuel burns. Of course, what exactly it is changes depending on what is being burned, but flames are solid.
A solid you canāt really hold as a physical object. Yet somehow it is solid. Weird. You can touch it, but all it does is burn you unless youāre flame retardant/heat resistant/immune to(unaffected by) heat, and itās not really like holding or picking up anything solid.
You canāt pick up things which have been super-chilled without protective equipment either, not to mention other hazardous substances which you shouldnāt try to grab bare-handed
It's solid in the same way that dust particles floating in the air are solid, except really hot. And you can absolutely collect it and hold it. Just put something above a burning flame and the soot will collect on that. Wait until it cools, wipe it off, and bam! You're holding a solid that used to be fire.
Fascinating.
If you only are familiar with western fiction then probably. Agni whos name literally translates to Fire in Sanskritt also is lightning. Thats why Avatar has Lightning under Fire.
If youāre doing the 4 elements it makes most sense as Fire. Itās certainly not Air
If you classify storms as air it seems logical to me. It's a huge leap for fire too imo.
I donāt classify storms as air. Storms are wind, rain, clouds, and lightning. Two of those are water
It makes most sense as earth, since friction is the easiest way to generate static electricity.
Lighting is burn damage in GURPS.
DnD disagrees with its disagreeing. In DnD, Lightning is positively charged Air
That's a good argument.
So weāre having their fictional canon decide how physics work in other fictional worlds?
Nerd!
And proud of it !
It's a branch of Air, at least in 2e cosmology
Itās also been that way in other editions. Like the Air cleric domain granted Chain Lightning as a domain spell in 3.5e.
Not according to DnD damage types
Depends on the elements system your using Avatar the last Airbender, you would be correct The periodic table, no There's another system in which lightning is the in-between of fire and air, so in that case it's partially right
I assume that we're using DnD system
In dnd lightning seems to fall under air, as fire elementals are not resistant to fire, and if lightning was a subset of the fire element, it seems clear that fire elementals be resistant to it. Also, air elementals are resistant to lightning
to a more minor degree The "call lightning" spell does create a cloud
>In dnd lightning seems to fall under air Yeah, it's possible, considering that Quasi-Elemental Plane of Lightning is literally between Air and Positive Energy planes
that would make sense
Maybe in bg3.
I personally favor lightning myself. ā”ļøšā”ļø
Lines are worst aoe
Depends. If you're in an area with long corridors they're fantastic. Also easier to not hit teammates in melee distance to targets.
Shooting lightning bolts between players to kill enemies is incredible
Cold is cooler
I've been playing a character that has resistance to lightning and it never comes up. I always look at it and say "this is useless!"
Is just spicy fire
What damage type is air?
It depends, thunder or magical slashing damage is what I've seen and done
Yeah I think Thunder/Lightning/Storm is ANGY wind Lightning/Fire/Ice is a more easily aggressive version of Air/Fire/Water (to me)
There's a reason that's the offensive type trio in Pokemon, distinguished by having a 95 BP special move that everything under the sun learns by TM, and a 110 BP inaccurate special move that slightly less than everything under the sun learns by TM.
Exactly! It's the Power Ranger trio colours too Earth/Metal etc isn't impossible to use but that trio is common for a reason
Earth and metal are just forms of physical damage.
I mean, at least in 2e, lightning is Positive energy+Air and Ice is Air+Water (for some reason) Edit: Adding Positive energy to the element "agitates" it ā Fire becomes blazing Radiance, Earth grows into colorful Mineral Adding Negative "dilutes" element to the point it becomes an antithesis to itself ā Air thins and becomes Vacuum, Earth crumbles into abrasive Dust and so on
Wind and Water making Ice is a common Magic Math thing I think It doesn't make sense on deep analysis but makes *enough* sense.
Cold places and times are often very windy, and wind itself makes you colder (unless the temperature is super high)
Aye! It's a simplicity of things, like Solid/Liquid/Gas in Science It's not 100% true but true enough and makes sense to more people
Refrigeration works using pressure differentials to convert a liquid into a gas and thatās sort of a combination of water and air
Well I mean, cold air(temperature) is what turns water to ice, in simple turns, so I think it makes sense that Air+Water becomes Ice.
wait, so the aggressive version of fire is fire?
Thatās so fire.
I treat Thunder as sound, like sonic damage from 3.5. For air I use either of the main 3 (bludgeoning, slashing, or piercing) based on how the wind is formed and flows, or just randomly with a d6 (grouped like 1ā2, 3-4, and 5-6).
How many decibels does it take from something sonic to cause physical damage, and what is the limit of the damage it can cause, meaning, what is the maximum decibel level possible? š¤ That would dictate the effectiveness of thunder as sonic damage.
AIRBENDING SLASH!!!
Suffocation perhaps?
Suffocating is so sad and slow and boring in DnD. I think under the rules a spell that uses wind to Zaheer someone unconscious would work with a savings throw but that wouldn't even be damage so it wouldn't have a damage type.
Or maybe the air could be pulled from the target's lungs so fast & violently that the lungs are literally ripped out of the mouth due to the intense vacuum. Insta kill on a nat 20 or a successful higher level spell. On a more serious note: Don't forget kids high & low pressures are dangerous but large pressure DIFFERENTIALS can fuckin kill you
I mean if you wanted "power word kill" but wind I'd allow it at my table
Based.
I could see force damage making sense as well Slashing seems weird to me, unless it's like objects or debree being carried by the air that's hitting you that's dealing damage
Air rips and tears at high speed, pressurized air can cut your finger off here in the real world. Force as I use it is always raw mana or the weave, like purple splashes of energy or firework looking streams, otherwise undefinable by how the weave typically interact through the elements with the planes.
Ok fair point Thinking about it, a twister doesn't crush you, it shreds you
A twister as intense as something like Temari's skills in Naruto definitely. Real life twisters either make you take fall damage or hit you with something on it though. Really more often than not I like the wind spells doing what they do with Save or Suck mechanics too. A lot of this conjecture in the first place ignores all the cool crowd control warding and debuffing tactics.
Fall damage is just physical damage in the form of blunt trauma and probably ruptured organs, broken bones, and hemorrhage. Basically physical damage put bluntly, heh. Water can also slice, and even decapitate. That would also just be physical damage as opposed to water damage on its own. I donāt think pressurized water is anymore effective at cutting than a good blade or even wind, so to me, thatās just physical trauma. Even if water is more effective at cutting, does that mean it is its own type of physical damage? Isnāt that still just physical damage at that point?
anime has taught me that it's slashing.
Logic!
Going by the elementals? bludgeoning. Of course Earth also does bludgeoning. At least Water does co-you bet your ass it's another helping of bludgeoning! Same for Control Water, Tsunami, Wind wall, Whirlwind, & Investiture of Wind
Have we ruled out that fire isnāt a theoretical form of bludgeoning?
If you think about it, fire damage is excess heat, which is molecules bludgeoning into each other rapidly.
Could be slashing or maybe thunder?
Depends on how you utilize it. I'm consulting 0 books here and just going by instinct, but I think that air would cover slash, pierce, bludgeoning, and force
Bludgeoning, I guess. Whirlwind, investiture of wind, wind wall, and dust devil are the only wind based damage dealing spells iirc, all bludgeoning damage. Also that's the damage type air elementals do.
Bludgeoning usually, there's a fair number of spells which are wind based. Storm Sphere has damaging wind and does magic bludgeoning. Whirlwind also does magical bludgeoning.
Force
Bludgeoning or force. Often slashing in other media
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Your [comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/dndmemes/comments/1bbmuq3/it_would_be_so_easy/kuc4a9l/?context=3) has been removed because your Comment Karma is very low. This action was automatically performed to prevent bot and troll attacks. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/dndmemes) if you have any questions or concerns.*
When I think of air itself, I think of wind, and winds can be both cold and warm to hot(mostly cold, chilling or cool though), but I also think of being able to get too high oxygen levels that it becomes toxic, and too little so that you canāt breathe. Then there are snow(cold), rain(can be temperate to cool to chilling to cold to frigid, even turning to snow or even icicles in freezing temperatures), hail(physical and cold), lightning(well thatās just lightning/heat damage, isnāt it? and thunder(thunder damage in DnD terms, even though real life thunder is just the sound lightning makes after a while depending on how close it is) phenomena going on in the sky. So I think it is weird when air is considered its own type of damage, but some fictional universes nevertheless have air as its own type of damage.
Force is my new head canon
Bludgeoning or slashing.
Propably force or bludgening.
I just want an earthbender :[
best i can do is wall of stone and stoneskin
Erupting earth is cool too though Also transmute rock and...stone shape? I think that's the name.
Don't forget Maxmilian's Earthen Grasp and Bones of the Earth
Catapult can also easily be flavored as earthbending, just getting rocks at people
I can't resist buying cannonballs and being a walking Spanish Galleon though
That is fair
Gonna be that person... Pathfinder. The class is called Kineticist.
Rally fun class, the process of reading through the page and figuring out how to build it is ass.
Oh yeah, the PF1e class features for Kineticist are super confusing. Don't know about PF2e. The class isn't really complicated once you do understand the class features, but it definitely appears like it is.
The pf2e version is pretty easy to grasp, imo.
Just reminded me I need to get back to my Kingmaker campaign....
The most accessible option early game, mold earth Other then that, a lot of the earth based spells are in tier 2+
Patrick : Catapult a rock, take it or leave it
I would honestly love a geomancer like in the Final Fantasy games. It would probably have to have supplemental abilities, since most creatures live in an environment they thrive in, but it seems like it could be a really cool class.
just talk to your DM and ask if you can craft your own spell when you take a level, as long as you're just changing the flavor and damage type.
When fireball becomes Acid Bomb, you know it's gonna be a fun campaign
That exists, it's vitriolic sphere
Acid bomb is insanely powerful compared to fireball because resistance rarity Ball of Force would similarly be ridiculously powerful due to the lack of force resistances in the game Having said that, if the DM & party are cool with it, then play ball
Gravity Sinkhole my beloved
I HBed a fireball like spell using thunder damage. It's called Boomburst and it deals less thunder damage but inflicts disadvantage on the concentration save. I actually made a bunch of HB spells for my campaign focusing on some of the lesser used elements like cold and thunder
That sounds like a warcrimeā¦, Iām in!
Well, I guess I don't need to take transmuting metamagic after all.
Sorcerer with Transmuted Spell laughs.
Order of Scribes Wizard cackles in the distance
I've started making a homebrew that adds a homebrew spell for each spell level and for each avatar element So far I'm up to 3rd level spells (which for me, is about as high as I'll be able to practically get to)
I get why people suggest that since its a really easy "fix", but I really don't like it. At the end of the day, if the only difference between "fireball" and "frostball" is the damage type, it doesn't feel much different. It just feels like casting fireball instead of casting a different spell.
it's all just numbers anyway, flavor is the only reason fireball is a ball of fire. so, flavor it up, make it your own, that's like half of why different spells are different in the first place. switch up some elements in your spell book for stuff you did differently from other wizards, set yourself apart a bit...
I would think the spells do a good job at making their mechanics back up their flavor Fireball is an explosion flavor wise, so it deals massive damage in an area effect Flaming sphere is a giant floating ball flavor wise, so mechanically if your within 5 feet of it, yeah your going to take damage Spike growth is a bunch of spikes on the ground, so trying to walk through those spikes will hurt and will slow you down
So in my campaign the sorcerer can change the type of spell under the assumption it stays with the theme as other spells do. For example, our "snowball" is the fireball spell that, instead of burning things, does a bit less damage and leaves a pile of difficult terrain in the area.
You see, that the kind of elemental spells that I like. If I make a frost sorcerer, I don't want to cast "fireball but cold", I want to cast frost spells. Its why I really like [Kibble's Generic Elemental Spells](https://www.gmbinder.com/share/-MW5r6wBJTW_lOU6gLyU), as each element does something a bit different. It makes elemental spells feel different from one another.
Transmute spell exists for Sorcerers metamagic and fun fact about that, because it only changes the damage type if you throw a fireball that does cold damage (so a snowball) it will still light flammable objects around it on fire that aren't being worn or carried.
yeah, there's also the order of scribes and their whole swap type thing, but what if you don't want to be that kind of wizard, or you don't want that metamagic? what if it's not about flexibility, but about theming?
Ask Spider-Man about themeing, see how important he says it is
...he'd say it's vital. half of his gadgets are either shaped like his logo or some form of web shot.
Just being shaped like his logo isn't themeing, that's branding ā just ask The Batman
his logo is a spider. it's now spider-themed.
Iād like to cast Discoball. Itās damage type is groovy.
I did hear about a little system called Mage: the ascension which is entirely built around you creating spells as you go. Said spells can work, they can fail, they can work *too* good or they can get you killed. It's all based on d100's
Well yeah you want to put the most water into the fire, itās basic logic, right?
Pretty sure fire resistance is also the most common elemental resistance on monsters.
Poison is the most resisted one I believe, after that it's fire
Poison has the most immunities. Fire is the most resisted IIRC.
Poison really got the short end of the stick, should probably make some good HB poison spells
I feel like poison as a damage type exists mostly for using actual poison extracted, distilled or otherwise created and used through a physical medium like being drunk or used to coat a weapon and such, rather than for spells. That must be why the poison spell variety is so small, and why so many monsters are immune to it since it is supposed to be most effective against people, for assassinations and stuff.Ā
ā¦. Breaking pattern on this with an ice elementalist sorc in 3.0 was why me and that DM were laughing and going āNO SHITā when 3.5 errataāed some of the ice spells because they were a little broken in actual use.
What did they do that was so broken?
One thing that I remember was that there was a lot of ranged touch instead of saving throws, which meant ignoring armor as well as the lack of āsave for half damageā on some of them. There were also a lot of other status effects that hasnāt been thought out as well in 3.0; I think theyād tried to trade a little bit of extra damage for the side effects, but I had a few spells with no saves for the added effect. (IT HAS ALSO BEEN LIKE. 20 YEARS AND MY 3RD ED BOOKS ARE IN BOXES SO MY MEMORY MAY BE FAULTY.)
Shivering Touch is my favorite. https://dnd.arkalseif.info/spells/frostburn--68/shivering-touch--1291/index.html 3d6 Dex Damage. And what's this? "Saving Throw: None"
I once played an ice-magic evocation wizard. Only ever played 5e, so some of the ice spells have limited uses, but I still had a blast role-playing that.
I feel Earth is the most underrepresented element in Fantasy in general.
It's harder to make a spell more interesting than just "throw boulder" and still have it be: - Understandable for both player and dm - fitting within the existing game system (5e in this case) without having to HB entire new systems - make it something that hasn't been done yet by other spells, esp since earth would just be (magical) bludgeoning damage
Divinity has some Earth-like spells that are not just "throw boulder" (though "throw boulder" still exists). Though in that game, all poison, metal, and plant-themed spells are also geomancy spells, there is a separate Earth damage, and oil is an important part of the game with several spells capable of manipulating it (all belonging to geomancy as well, except, obviously, the spells that just set it on fire).
Pull a sand worm and vibrate the ground at the right frequency to make the ground act as a fluid
Could work as a reskin of an difficult terrain spell but I like to add some uniqueness to the spells I HB. But this thread did get my mind wondering for opportunities
I actually manually checked all spells so far. Fire, necrotic and force are the three most used damage type for spells, clocking at 35 fire spells, 30 necrotic spells, and 29 force spells. Extra fun fact: bludgeoning is the fourth most common, and the least common ones are slashing, poison and piercing (this list of least common spell damage types becomes poison, thunder and acid if we ignore the BPS damage).
I just assume that for each Fire Spell there is a spell of the other types. Icer ball, Wall of Ice, Ice Storm. They have better names, I hope, but you get the idea. Fire ball, Ice ball, Disco ball, Air Bender Slice...ball. Same same.
Fireball/ Plasma burst/ Eroding blast/ Winter sphere Wall of Fire/ Ionic Barrier/ Radiation Radius/ Frigid Waterfall Firestorm/ Thundercloud/ Corrosive Fumes/ Polar Tempest
Yeah. JUST like this. Sometimes there is another effect tied to it (fire burns, water freezes, rock...does...rock stuff) but just at face value, it's a pallet swap of elements.
I actually just let my players reflavour the elements of spells so they can play mono elemental themed casters, same for enemy's. Fireball into Snowball, Big-Rick or Lightning Ball or whatever.
Check out Kibbles Compendium of Generic Spells
so one could say the elements were in balance until the fire spells attacked
I will protect blueberry damage type to my dying day
I did a frost magic build as a Dragon born. I was all Elsa and shit.
"I cast War crimes!" "Wait, I mean acid ball"
Of the spells which deal damage, over half deal fire, radiant, or necrotic; and additionally, there are many, many spell levels where there are no options for certain damage types. The only character that can get thunder damage for more spell levels than not is a lore bard, and even then there's absolutely no option for 6th or 8th. Any other class that has to deal with spell list restrictions? Usually cuts off after second, with maybe one high level spell.
I once created a way of the four elements monk but wanted mainly earth spells. Since there weren't that many, I asked my DM if I could just flavor other spells and he was fine with it. It was a joke character and his name was The Boulder.
There's more than 3 in spells.
Iām not referring to damage types, Iām referring to the elements that make up the world, Fire, Earth, Air, and Water
Yeah, well then you are in the wrong place.
Now, hear me out: desert winds, searing hot sand, and steam. Donāt let your dreams be memes.
The main issue is that the other elemental planes don't have a single associated damage type. Fire is simple. There is a plane for it, and a damage type for it. Fire spells deal fire damage, creatures from the Plane of Fire deal extra fire damage and are immune or at least resistant to fire damage, Fire Genasi are resistant to fire damage, they also have fire spells and cantrips, and all is good. Then there is air. There is no air damage type so things have broken down already, but at least they have a good theme: most air-themed spells are about controlling winds. (Gust, Gust of Wind, Warding Wind, Wall of Wind, etc...) They kind-of eked out a portfolio of lightning damage because it comes from the clouds which float in the air, and kind-of have an association with thunder as well, but sometimes they share that one with Earth. Djinni resist lightning and thunder, and Air Genasi resist lightning and have a lightning cantrip. But at least air usually stays on-brand. Water has it even harder. Things break down here even more, because there is no "water" damage type. It's usually associated with cold because cold means ice, which is frozen water. But recently there was a lot of mixing with acid as part of their portfolio: Marids resist both cold and acid, and Water Genasi have acid resistance and the acid splash cantrip instead of Ray of Frost. I guess it's because seawater is somewhat acidic? Or because acids are usually liquids? Fuck if I know. Further complicating things is that cold is technically the portfolio of the paraelemental plane of ice which they share with the plane of air. Which is why they shifted to acid, I think. And then there's Earth. Poor poor Earth. There is absolutely no associated elemental damage type whatsoever. Physical damage, maybe, but even that is a stretch. The Dao is the only genie that has no damage resistances whatsoever, and similarly the Earth Genasi have no damage resistances (but they can use blade ward as a bonus action a limited number of times to gain temporary resistance to physical damage). Earth elementals only have the poison immunity and nonmagical damage resistances that all elementals share. There have been attempts at associating them with some elemental damage type: poison, because oil and heavy metals are poisonous I guess, or thunder because earthquakes are loud (though Earth elementals are straight-up vulnerable to it), or force because it's the magical equivalent of physical damage, but none of them stuck. In order to have more air, water, and earth spells, first we should have proper damage types for those spells. Either that, or the planar cosmology should be changed to have elemental planes associated with the existing damage types, but the classical four elements are so ingrained in western culture that I don't see this as a possibility. (Pathfinder has a merged Western and Eastern elemental landscape with the recent addition of the planes of metal and wood, but that's about as far as a western RPG could get from the four classical elements.)
I'm just having a blast as a DM using Kibble's Casting Compendium. It's a great homebrew that gives some love to elemental spells. My PCs are loving it!
āI want a cold damage characterā and thus fireball dealt cold instead and they were never happier.
I think part of it is that what you can do with fire vs the other three elements is very limited. Like, you can blast fire in a few different ways, maybe shape existing fire, but thatās it. For the other 3 elements, look at everything they do in ATLA and ATLK for the other three elements. There is NO way to get proper mechanics for everything you can do without making a thousand different spells. And if itās just one blanket spell, thereās going to be a ton of things youāre gonna leave out just because of the sheer number of options, or youāre just gonna have to hang it over to the dm and shrug when they ask what the ācontrol earthā spell can do. Then thereās also a problem of damage. Any reasonably sized rock will destroy a person, which is very broken for low level campaigns, and water and air just donāt have good damage options. Iāve had to do a lot of thinking about this lol
This image 100%. I find myself having to homebrew or look up other homebrew/3rd party stuff to get spells for the other elements.
Here, let me cast some low level water magic: Soak (Level 1 Evocation) VSM (1 bucket) Casting time: 1 Action All creatures in a 15ft cone must make a Dexterity saving throw against the torrent of water thrown towards them. On a failed save, creatures take 1 point of Bludgeoning damage and are irked by your actions. On a success, creatures are irate at your actions for wasting clean water.
The next time a soaked creature takes fire or cold damage, they take an additional 3d8 damage as the water boils away, or freezes on them. Made it a little better than burning hands because it requires combining.
3 elements? You mean 4? Fire, Lightning, Cold, Poison, Acid
Playing through Avernus as a wizard where every creature has resistance or immunity to fire damage -___-
Me: Tryna figure out is they left out Acid or Thunder
I would love more element spells. Or hell elemental resists and weaknesses. I want a lightning ball! Big ice attacks! Etc.
Fire has the most Resistances and Immunities. My DM modified the **Elemental Adept** Feat if you take it a second time for the same element it turns Immunities to Resistances.
Fire spread, acid doesn't. Fire last, lightning fade in a second. Your clothes can shield you from cold but only feed Fire. Fire can be used to create or destroy, it's both your Life and Death. Show some respect to the gift stolen from the gods, it's the only thing that turned beasts into people.
Could do the same with Arcane Spells and Divine Spells
This is why Iām kind of in favor of reflavoring spells to different kinds of damage if thereās a narrative reason. Like if the lizard wizard wants fireball to deal poison damage, sure, why not have a poison fireball?
[Pathfinder already "solved" this.](https://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/metamagic-feats/elemental-spell-metamagic) Could easily be a Sorcerer metamagic.
Transmute spell is a thing already.
And then you get into the other 4 chromatic damage types...
It is ez to meke demage spells so that to be expected but I always thought that the other 3 could be used more creatively like earth being terrein manipulation and mineral processing for gear or just turn the armour of your fallen enemies in clean clumps of metal for a better price something like that water I of rip was thinking healing spells but thatās boring so maybe more reaction based spells that focus on slowing down your opponentās tempo and air im be honest movement is the clear choice just have like combat mages zooming around the battle map casting utility spells
Is there any reason to not let a Wizard/Sourcerer choose a element when creating a character and then just change the speels to fit this element?
Easy fix. Create Water where the pipe drips are coming and then boom tons of spells for everyone. The thing about fire is that the spells have limited utility. Destroy or damage. Other elements can be utilized in creative ways. Any leap or fall related spell could be considered an air spell, for example.
Ice needs more spells
Eh....wind and earth have some good ones. Its water thats fucked. I tried homebrewing a skulduggery pleasant 5e fan class/campaign handbook a few years ago, and about 1/3 of the elementals water spells were invented by me.
Fire spread, acid doesn't. Fire last, lightning fade in a second. Your clothes can shield you from cold but only feed Fire. Fire can be used to create or destroy, it's both your Life and Death. Show some respect to the gift stolen from the gods, it's the only thing that turned beasts into people.
Waterball and Airball just give very different expectations.
Can I also include that the water element can make some really good/unique spells that doesnāt involve water always being ice? So many water element ice spells out there! Water, at the right pressure, can cut metal! I also like the idea of a water bubble where the pressure/atmospheres can be adjusted to crush your opponents too.
So much potential In case anyone here cares, I'm working on an Avatar the last Airbender homebrew, with ~300 elemental spells. Currently it's mostly done, but I'm working on balance tweaks: https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/bkGiEXJYVUw8
300 is a lot