Metamagic: change element

[EricZanzibar]

How about the metamagic feat that changes elemental damage type from one to another?
So you could change your fireball to iceball or acidball but it either costs an increase in SP or maybe a number of turns /day. Not sure, open to suggestions.

I've noticed wizards always go for fire damage boosting items assumingly because fire is the most common type of damage available. I've never seen or heard of an ice or acid specialist wizard. Have you??

Your thoughts??

[PopeJual]

I really like the idea of this, but Wall of Ice and Wall of Force make this metamagic a severe problem with game balance.

[Legohaiden]

How about the metamagic feat that changes elemental damage type from one to another?
So you could change your fireball to iceball or acidball but it either costs an increase in SP or maybe a number of turns /day. Not sure, open to suggestions.

I've noticed wizards always go for fire damage boosting items assumingly because fire is the most common type of damage available. I've never seen or heard of an ice or acid specialist wizard. Have you??

Your thoughts??

actully my wizard is Lightning/Acid specced... i love it. at lvl 6 i can Shocking grasp a creature for 145ish damage... or hit an aoe (similar to fireball) with my acidblast for about 90-100 to all in the area.

[EricZanzibar]

I really like the idea of this, but Wall of Ice and Wall of Force make this metamagic a severe problem with game balance.

Cheers,
I considered those but wall of fire would end up being wall of frost no? Same effect just works with cold.
You couldn't do the same with force because force isn't an elemental effect no? :-)
Well it wasn't in PnP anyway. :-S

[Depravity]

You really think handing casters a firewall that they can change to bypass energy resistance/immunity at level 7 is a good idea?
Blackbone skeletons start showing up about the same level firewall becomes available for a reason.

[FlyingTurtle]

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/cl...rdvariants.htm

Energy Substitution (Ex)

An evoker of 5th level or higher using this variant can substitute energy of one type for another. When casting a spell that has an energy descriptor (acid, cold, electricity, fire, or sonic), the evoker can change the energy descriptor and the spell's effects to energy of a different type.

Using this ability is a free action that must be declared before the spell is cast. The evoker can use this ability once per day for each five class levels he has attained (1/day at 5th, 2/day at 10th, and so on).

An evoker using this variant does not gain bonus feats for advancing as a wizard.

[Doxmaster]

Well...Even if the damage type was limited, it would still be wierd/insane.

You just plain KNOW the Devs wouldnt allow all of the spells we would like to change to be changed. So...Firewall would be out, Polay ray would certainly be out...

[Vellrad]

http://www.imarvintpa.com/dndlive/feats.php?id=5

Energy Substitution [Metamagic]

Prerequisites: Any other metamagic feat, Knowledge (arcana) 5 ranks.

Benefit: You choose one type of energy: acid, cold, electricity, fire, or sonic. When employing a spell with the acid, cold, electricity, fire, or sonic designator, you can modify the spell to use your chosen type of energy instead. The altered spell uses a spell slot of the spell's normal level.

The altered spell works normally in all respects except the type of damage dealt.

Special: You can gain this feat multiple times. Each time the feat applies to a different type of energy.

[Antheal]

How about if you can only change the elemental type once per "day" (rest shrine use) and ALL your elemental spells become the element you chose until you rest again.

For example, if you chose to change all your elements to acid damage, then firewall, electric loop, polar ray, etc. will all do acid damage no matter the spell.

Then the effect will wear off the next time you rest until you change it again.

That way, each time you want to change the element of your spells, it's changed ALL the elements and if you want to de-activate it to make firewall do fire again, you'll have to waste a rest shrine, etc.

If you want to change the element, you have to put up with having all your spells do that element whether you want them or not.

[khaldan]

You really think handing casters a firewall that they can change to bypass energy resistance/immunity at level 7 is a good idea?
Blackbone skeletons start showing up about the same level firewall becomes available for a reason.

Quoted because this is why Archmage didn't get the energy substitution feature.

How about if you can only change the elemental type once per "day" (rest shrine use) and ALL your elemental spells become the element you chose until you rest again.

For example, if you chose to change all your elements to acid damage, then firewall, electric loop, polar ray, etc. will all do acid damage no matter the spell.

Then the effect will wear off the next time you rest until you change it again.

That way, each time you want to change the element of your spells, it's changed ALL the elements and if you want to de-activate it to make firewall do fire again, you'll have to waste a rest shrine, etc.

If you want to change the element, you have to put up with having all your spells do that element whether you want them or not.

How is this a downside

Seriously, turn everything into electric damage. No downside at all.

[phalaeo]

Wall of Force

I think I just peed myself a little.

[Quarterling]

This would be a great idea, but might make the devs worry about casters becoming too powerful (though I'm certainly for it). I don't think you could do force though, because it's not one of the five elements. Fire/Cold/Acid/Electricity/Sonic.

[Jaid314]

How is this a downside

Seriously, turn everything into electric damage. No downside at all.

you think small, apparently. i would've gone for wall of sound :P

[Vellrad]

You really think handing casters a firewall that they can change to bypass energy resistance/immunity at level 7 is a good idea?
Blackbone skeletons start showing up about the same level firewall becomes available for a reason.

You really think lv20 wiz/sorc piking at most epic bosses (like now) is a good idea?
After buffing party its 4 minutes pike until haste/displacement/rage/whatever ends.

[Rakian_Knight]

This (to me at least) sounds like it would do two things to the game that I am really opposed to.

1) Add an easy button:

My main reason for saying this would be if they added this, no other spell would become useful besides wall of fire and buffs because unless you found one of the few enemies that is immune to almost every element (besides force) because you could just kite them through an element that they were extremely weak to or just not immune to it.

2) Lack of anything really new:

I really like DDO and the detail that they put into everything they do to make it look nice and ready for the players but one thing I don't like is that they keep adding epic as a way of dealing with the lack of high level content or lack of stuff to do at level 20. Instead of creating different spells with different effects that would make the game more interesting and maybe start breaking the mold of spamming one or two spells they add a feature like this and call it the new spells that really are just the old ones that can bypass the elemental resistances now. I'm not trying to bash the dev's here and I want to apologize if it sounds like I am.

I think instead of asking for the meta to change element, you might want to ask for more spells to choose from.

Just my thoughts

~Rakian_Knight

[Schwarzie]

Energy substitution would be a nice Metamagic Feat but is impossible to implement into this game since the Mob-AI is simply to stupid to handle Firewall properly.

[EricZanzibar]

Antheal - brilliant idea mate. Make it useable without making it too easy.

Rakian_Knight - not sure exaclty what you're saying but the concep behind this is to move players away from concentrating on firewall/fireball/firetrap/delayed blast fireball or what ever. Its more of a flavor thing I guess but does have some practical elements (no pun intended).
If you're doing "Vault of Night" for example your acidball hitting dragon face will be much more welcome then fireball i'm sure.
I think it WILL spice things up because it opens more things to do with the same stuff. New spells are always welcome but this opens up options for those characters who want to be cold evoker specialists for example.

Without experimentation with this feat (or whatever it would be) you can't say for sure how effective it would be.

Schwarzie - I'm not programmer but i don't think changing the damage type would be massivly difficult. Changing the graphics might be a challange but damage type? Don't know... Challange yes but difficult, no. Dunno.

I think it'd be nice to see but wouldn't rate this as top of the list of things to do.

[khaldan]

Antheal - brilliant idea mate. Make it useable without making it too easy.

Rakian_Knight - not sure exaclty what you're saying but the concep behind this is to move players away from concentrating on firewall/fireball/firetrap/delayed blast fireball or what ever. Its more of a flavor thing I guess but does have some practical elements (no pun intended).
If you're doing "Vault of Night" for example your acidball hitting dragon face will be much more welcome then fireball i'm sure.
I think it WILL spice things up because it opens more things to do with the same stuff. New spells are always welcome but this opens up options for those characters who want to be cold evoker specialists for example.

Without experimentation with this feat (or whatever it would be) you can't say for sure how effective it would be.

Schwarzie - I'm not programmer but i don't think changing the damage type would be massivly difficult. Changing the graphics might be a challange but damage type? Don't know... Challange yes but difficult, no. Dunno.

I think it'd be nice to see but wouldn't rate this as top of the list of things to do.

Wall of fire, assuming you know the quest ahead of time, now works on every monster in game.

That is severely overpowered.

[gurgar78]

Antheal - brilliant idea mate. Make it useable without making it too easy.

Rakian_Knight - not sure exaclty what you're saying but the concep behind this is to move players away from concentrating on firewall/fireball/firetrap/delayed blast fireball or what ever. Its more of a flavor thing I guess but does have some practical elements (no pun intended).
If you're doing "Vault of Night" for example your acidball hitting dragon face will be much more welcome then fireball i'm sure.
I think it WILL spice things up because it opens more things to do with the same stuff. New spells are always welcome but this opens up options for those characters who want to be cold evoker specialists for example.

Without experimentation with this feat (or whatever it would be) you can't say for sure how effective it would be.

Schwarzie - I'm not programmer but i don't think changing the damage type would be massivly difficult. Changing the graphics might be a challange but damage type? Don't know... Challange yes but difficult, no. Dunno.

I think it'd be nice to see but wouldn't rate this as top of the list of things to do.

You seem to have your cause and effect switched.

Arcanes do not gravitate to scorching ray/fireball/WoF/DBF because they like fire damage.

They gravitate to fire damage because they like WoF. Period.

Changing the damage type on a spell is simply not feasible for DDO. It would make wall of fire completely broken.

Anyone with any experience at all in this game would have the ability to imagine the immensely overpowered nature of firewall combined with the ability to bypass any elemental DR and could quite easily say, with 100% certainty, how effective it would be. The answer is "far too effective"

[Carpone]

As much as I would like energy exchange for my sorc, it's never going to happen.

More than likely, the sorc PrEs will be implemented to provide select versions of spells at each level with different elements. For example, instead of Acid Fog there might be Lightning Fog; Cone of Lightning instead of Cone of Cold; Melf's Fire Arrow instead of Melf's Acid Arrow. I wouldn't expect there to be any variations on Wall of Fire though.