Elemental Mages

[RobbyPants]

Acid with water makes about as much sense.

Good arguments could be made for both cold and sonic for air.  I would avoid using sonic, however, because it is by far the least resisted of the five energy types (which is probably why about every 3.5 feat excludes it).  The only thing I can think of off the top of my head that is immune to sonic (or resists it) are slaad.

Still, all in all, I'm fine with the standard WotC break down of energy types and elements, so I'll probably stick with it.  Otherwise, I feel like I'll end up leaving earth without an energy type, and that makes geomancers cry.

[ZanKhellendros]

Naw, I'd have put Acid with Water myself, earth element is the most physical of the lot, so it should hit for physical damage, and scale at the rate of physical damage.

I kinda agree with veekie on this, never really like the idea of acid with earth either, but spent some time thinking about it and don't have any really good alternatives.
I mentioned the other day on the phone with you Robbypants about maybe adding a dust cloud of sorts for blinding or suffocating the enemy.

[ZanKhellendros]

Acid with water makes about as much sense.

Still, all in all, I'm fine with the standard WotC break down of energy types and elements, so I'll probably stick with it.  Otherwise, I feel like I'll end up leaving earth without an energy type, and that makes geomancers cry.

Yeah, once again I don't have any alternative so sticking with it makes sense for the time being. I personally would say Acid is a combo of earth and water but that's not the case here

[veekie]

Just give it, for a change, physical impact trauma effects. I think.

[RobbyPants]

Just give it, for a change, physical impact trauma effects. I think.

I have some of those.  I just wanted some variety.

As they level, they can make their stones magic and adamantine, silver, or cold iron for purposes of damage reduction.  They can also choose bludgeoning or slashing and piercing damage.  This helps for some versatility, but I wanted a little more.

[veekie]

Petrification and slowing?

[GawainBS]

Petrification and slowing?

Aren't those a lot more powerful than the Pyromancer's pure damage, for example?

[RobbyPants]

Yeah, I was aiming for variety in damage types at that point.  Both of them already have two save-or-dies, although the thought of petrification completely escaped me.  Maybe I should go that route instead of the Crumble Bone power.  Perhaps I could swap the Extract Earth Elemental out for a petrification that turns the creature into an earth elemental.  Nice.

[GawainBS]

An Earth Elemental under your control?

[RobbyPants]

Yep.  That's how the current version of Extract Earth Elemental works.  If the guy fails his save, he dies and an earth elemental of his size appears in his square(s), under your control.

[ZanKhellendros]

Petrification and slowing?

I like this idea, you could give the petrification a small duration or make slow a little different but I get what you are looking for too.

Maybe instead of all elementals you could throw like a short lived golem creation ability or something like that (clay then stone, iron ... I think I've seen a mud golem somewhere too) ..

[RobbyPants]

Petrification and slowing?

I like this idea, you could give the petrification a small duration or make slow a little different but I get what you are looking for too.

I'd probably consider Slow to be the short-duration, pseudo-petrification at lower levels.  By mid/high levels, I'd want access to permantent petrification. 

Level 12 was the arbitrary point I'd decided for all four classes.  At level 12, they all get a save-or-die, and at level 16, their save-or-die will also create an elemental.

Maybe instead of all elementals you could throw like a short lived golem creation ability or something like that (clay then stone, iron ... I think I've seen a mud golem somewhere too) ..

At level 9, all four classes can create a medium elemental.  The size increases every two levels thereafter.  Just for simplicity, I'd leave them all as Earth Elementals, just because I don't want to mess with multiple stats of different creature types.

Out of curiosity, where did you see the mud golem?

[GawainBS]

At lvl 16, you could make it so that even if they save vs Petrification, they're still slowed?

[RobbyPants]

Probably.  All of them still have some negative effect on a successful save.  The fire ability still deals damage.  In its current version, the earth one also deals damage, but I may change it to petrification/slowing.

[ZanKhellendros]

Maybe instead of all elementals you could throw like a short lived golem creation ability or something like that (clay then stone, iron ... I think I've seen a mud golem somewhere too) ..

At level 9, all four classes can create a medium elemental.  The size increases every two levels thereafter.  Just for simplicity, I'd leave them all as Earth Elementals, just because I don't want to mess with multiple stats of different creature types.

Out of curiosity, where did you see the mud golem?

The golem wasn't really a replacement just something to fill in somewhere else if needed, It could even be a defensive thing like gaining the golem as a shell and giving the DR or immunity to magic for a duration with some slam attack in there. Just throwing out some ideas.

Well I can't really remember where I saw it, been racking my brain over it still  , but think of all the resources I've seen and that can be a long list. 

Still thinking about the water and air ones too. 

[ZanKhellendros]

So Whats up with the other 2 (Air and Water), I would think you could nerf some stuff from the other to to make it work

[RobbyPants]

The first two I pretty much made in one shot on a Saturday while my daughter was sleeping, and spruced the rest up later.

Lately, I've been too busy doing stuff like finishing my basement, and I've had a lot less time to just sit down and write something up.  When I do run into free time, I tend not to want to think too hard.  You know how that goes.  I'd still like to put these two up, but I'm not putting myself on any kind of deadline.

[RobbyPants]

Okay, after about a month off, I've posted the Aeromancer!

Now, I need to see if I can write up a Hydromancer before 2010!

[VennDygrem]

I like what I see, overall. I'd love a chance to playtest one of them, too.

As for the Hydromancer, I see it as having aspects of all the other versions, and would overall be the most balanced, role-wise, or potentially leaning more toward battlefield control. I think after fire, cold is one of the most commonly-resisted element types, so obviously that would need to be addressed. As for save-or-die/suck effects, drowning by filling a breathing creature's lungs with water seems to be relatively equivalent to the aeromancer's suffocation, though if you go with the obvious ice/cold effects there's a good argument for slowing/freezing/shattering. Acids and poisons are also associated with water, so there are good cases for those as well.

Honestly, a hydromancer could be fairly diverse in powers, and relegating it only to water and ice attacks seems limiting. There's enough material available to simple separate out cold attacks altogether and make a cryomancer, leaving the hydromancer to thrive on its own merits.

[RobbyPants]

You pretty much hit the nail on the head with what I was thinking with the hydromancer.  I hadn't yet thought of poisons, and the only reason I was thinking of leaving acid out was for the geomancer (of course, the only reason the geomancer has acid is because it's the closest I could get to making sense of the five energy types).

I figured cold would be a shoe in.  I don't know if I'll give them the ability to pierce cold resistance.  I figure they'd get a water geyser very similar to the wind strike of the aeromancer (nonlethal damage that can push/trip) and probably extinguish flames.  I'd already planned on a drowning SoD as well.

I do like the idea of freezing/slowing.  That was something I also had not yet thought of.  Thanks for the suggestions.