Four new spells. All pretty much the same thing.

[Dalcassius]

I was mulling over the Distilled Joy and Liquid Pain spells in my mind when I thought that neutral versions of those would be neat and/or handy. So here they are.


Draught of Earth
Conjuration
Level: Sor/Wiz 5
Components: V, S, F
Casting Time: 1 day
Range: see text.
Effect: One dose of Earth Essence.
Duration: 1 round/Permanent
Saving Throw: N/A
Spell Resistance: N/A

The casting of this spell causes a small, temporary, one way (from the elemental plane only) fracture in the fabric of the planes in the square directly in front of the caster. The fracture is little more than a foot long and a scant inch or more wide. Looking through you see a glimpse of a small portion of the elemental plane of earth. Immediately after ripping open in midair the fracture begins to leak a clear viscous fluid; The pure essence of the element of earth. Touching the Earth Essence unprotected causes 4d6 acid damage. One dose is drawn through the fracture. The dose is useless if not collected into a glass vial for safe keeping. After a full round the fracture seals itself. The fluid is a permanent substance and remains so until used in some fashion.

Many casters use Earth Essence as an optional material component. Using it as such increases the caster level of any spell with the earth subtype by +2. This does not stack with other uses of Draught of Earth, Earth Essence or other bonuses to effective caster level. Earth Essence can also be used in the creation of magic items. Any time Earth Essence is used to create a magic item that has ties to the elemental plane of earth (ei. an elemental gem, stone salve, staff of earth and stone, etc.) each dose used acts as 4 experience points. If used in conjuntion with the alchemy skill, various items could be crafted. For example, a grenade like weapon filled with one dose would do the appropriate amount of damage. Increasing the number of doses also increase the damage.

Casters should always take precaustions when casting this spell as most residents of the Elemental Planes are not fond of its essence being stolen.


Draught of Air
Conjuration
Level: Sor/Wiz 5
Components: V, S, F
Casting Time: 1 day
Range: see text.
Effect: One dose of Air Essence.
Duration: 1 round/Permanent
Saving Throw: N/A
Spell Resistance: N/A

The casting of this spell causes a small, temporary, one way (from the elemental plane only) fracture in the fabric of the planes in the square directly in front of the caster. The fracture is little more than a foot long and a scant inch or more wide. Looking through you see a glimpse of a small portion of the elemental plane of air. Immediately after ripping open in midair the fracture begins to leak a clear viscous fluid; The pure essence of the element of air. Touching the Air Essence unprotected causes 4d6 electricity damage. One dose is drawn through the fracture. The dose is useless if not collected into a glass vial for safe keeping. After a full round the fracture seals itself. The fluid is a permanent substance and remains so until used in some fashion.

Many casters use Air Essence as an optional material component. Using it as such increases the caster level of any spell with the air subtype by +2. This does not stack with other uses of Draught of Air, Air Essence or other bonuses to effective caster level. Air Essence can also be used in the creation of magic items. Any time Air Essence is used to create a magic item that has ties to the elemental plane of air (ei. an elemental gem, boots of air walking, scroll of chain lightning, etc.) each dose used acts as 4 experience points. If used in conjuntion with the alchemy skill, various items could be crafted. For example, a grenade like weapon filled with one dose would do the appropriate amount and type of damage. Increasing the number of doses also increase the damage.

Casters should always take precaustions when casting this spell as most residents of the Elemental Planes are not fond of its essence being stolen.


Shards of Fire
Conjuration
Level: Sor/Wiz 5
Components: V, S, F
Casting Time: 1 day
Range: see text.
Effect: One dose of Fire Essence.
Duration: 1 round/Permanent
Saving Throw: N/A
Spell Resistance: N/A

The casting of this spell causes a small, temporary, one way (from the elemental plane only) fracture in the fabric of the planes in the square directly in front of the caster. The fracture is little more than a foot long and a scant inch or more wide. Looking through you see a glimpse of a small portion of the elemental plane of fire. Immediately after ripping open in midair the fracture begins to leak clear tiny shards of crystal much like ground up glass; The pure essence of the element of fire. Touching the Fire Essence unprotected causes 4d6 fire damage. One dose is drawn through the fracture. The dose is useless if not collected into a glass vial for safe keeping. After a full round the fracture seals itself. The shards are a permanent substance and remains so until used in some fashion.

Many casters use Fire Essence as an optional material component. Using it as such increases the caster level of any spell with the fire subtype by +2. This does not stack with other uses of Shards of Fire, Fire Essence or other bonuses to effective caster level. Fire Essence can also be used in the creation of magic items. Any time Fire Essence is used to create a magic item that has ties to the elemental plane of fire (ei. an elemental gem, elixir of fire breath, necklace of fireballs, etc.) each dose used acts as 4 experience points. If used in conjuntion with the alchemy skill, various items could be crafted. For example, a grenade like weapon filled with one dose would do the appropriate amount of damage. Increasing the number of doses also increase the damage.

Casters should always take precaustions when casting this spell as most residents of the Elemental Planes are not fond of its essence being stolen.


Shards of Water
Conjuration
Level: Sor/Wiz 5
Components: V, S, F
Casting Time: 1 day
Range: see text.
Effect: One dose of Water Essence.
Duration: 1 round/Permanent
Saving Throw: N/A
Spell Resistance: N/A

The casting of this spell causes a small, temporary, one way (from the elemental plane only) fracture in the fabric of the planes in the square directly in front of the caster. The fracture is little more than a foot long and a scant inch or more wide. Looking through you see a glimpse of a small portion of the elemental plane of water. Immediately after ripping open in midair the fracture begins to leak clear tiny shards of crystal much like ground up glass; The pure essence of the element of water. Touching the Water Essence unprotected causes 4d6 cold damage. One dose is drawn through the fracture. The dose is useless if not collected into a glass vial for safe keeping. After a full round the fracture seals itself. The shards are a permanent substance and remains so until used in some fashion.

Many casters use Water Essence as an optional material component. Using it as such increases the caster level of any spell with the water subtype by +2. This does not stack with other uses of Draught of Water, Water Essence or other bonuses to effective caster level. Water Essence can also be used in the creation of magic items. Any time Water Essence is used to create a magic item that has ties to the elemental plane of water (ei. an elemental gem, horn of fog, pearl of the sirines, etc.) each dose used acts as 4 experience points. If used in conjuntion with the alchemy skill, various items could be crafted. For example, a grenade like weapon filled with one dose would do the appropriate amount and type of damage. Increasing the number of doses also increase the damage.

Casters should always take precaustions when casting this spell as most residents of the Elemental Planes are not fond of its essence being stolen.


I know that Distilled Joy and Liquid Pain are both Transmutation spells, but I thought these would still qualify for Conjuration.

So what do people think? Worth putting into a game?

[8bit_thief]

I like them, personally, especially for crafting those cheap items/scrolls, this could be very handy for keeping your exp intact. I also like that you could make grenades... ;D

One thing that struck me as a bit odd was that the essense of the elemental plane of earth was a liquid... Maybe make it some sort of sand... I don't know, maybe that is just me.

Anyway, congrats on the nice, creative spells.

Thief

[Dalcassius]

One thing that struck me as a bit odd was that the essense of the elemental plane of earth was a liquid... Maybe make it some sort of sand... I don't know, maybe that is just me.What can I say, I like irony. Think of it as my personal signature for this one.
;)

[Steward]

What can I say, I like irony. Think of it as my personal signature for this one.
;)

Does it have an IC reason for being this way?

[kailin]

I dunno, I had no problem with the earth essence being a thick, highly acidic liquid. OK, why not? The problem I had was it effectively producing XP for item crafting.

Picture it, as a level 12 Sorceror, I don't ever, ever want to pay XP costs for crafting 11th-level Wands of Scorching Ray. Normally that item would cost me 660 XP. This is important, because otherwise Item Creation feats would break the game by giving players free money with no tradeoff.

I buy a large glass container--I can even afford to have it custom made--or a ceramic tub, any acid-proof barrel type object. With my bonus spells, I can cast this spell at least 6 times a day. At that rate, it'll take me a month to create all the elixir I need. Of course, I don't need to do this during downtime if I have a Bag of Holding or something to store the elixer container(s) in. I just walk around doing my PC thing, and every month or two (depending on how I spend my spell slots) I get a wand at half market price with no extra cost or downside. If I don't want it, I can try to sell it for a profit.

Now, if your group is definitely NOT going to abuse the spells that way, go for it. But the spells actually seem to have been DESIGNED to be used that way.

[TBPBenni]

Kailin -- One could argue that the only difference between these essences and pain/joy is that the material components scream/laugh a bit more than the new elementally based ones.

I suppose, that following the natural progression of things, one could also throw together Essence of Free Will and Essence of Duty. Chaos and Law ahoy.

I'd throw in a spell component requirement of one pound of the appropriate element (apx. 1 pound burning material for fire.) Not quite sure what to do for air, maybe just an empty container to separate it from the rest of the air. I suggest this basically because having a pound of X melt into a puddle of extraplanar gate sounds very neato.

[Leush]

Definately a good idea if used correctly, because look at it- if you have a fifth level spell slot, you could use it instead for say a fifth level spell like cone of cold, that you could use to bag a random encounter of a reasonably low cr (hell, just go and kill a crowd of peasants if you're that way inclined, the mechanism is the same) and get yourself more than 4xp points (note xp points that can be used for anything ANYTHING at all, not just item creation)- this is a non violent way of doing the same thing. Besides it adds flavour and can anger the creatures of other planes (so it isn't risk free xp)- which IS fun.

The other thing people seem to ignore is that crafting takes time! By the time the party wizard crafted a gazillion scrolls of Power Word: Kill the BBEG has already taken over the world and the party is capitally screwed.

For that reason, I think we don't really need an xp component on crafting(but that's a completely different debate anyway, so I'll shut up), (but then again I'm a munchkin) if the DM plays the baddies correctly time will usually be of importance (unless the whole campaign is centres around say, killing a dragon which just sits in its lair forever and ever and never comes out to harrass people) and the PCs won't have time to make a horde of magical items. And besides, anything a PC can use, is also within grasp of the BBEG.

Phew, that's called getting sidetracked.... anyway, these spells are fine, although personally I would combine them into one.

[Dalcassius]

Does it have an IC reason for being this way? Does it really need one? There are plenty of spells that have odd ways of being. There are equipment, monsters, classes and whatnots all through the books that have an odd way about them with little or no reason. It just adds flavour and is an example that not all in the universe(s) is(are) not as we would expect them to be. Why is Agony a liquid? Why is Joy however it is (It isn't described in the book)? Its just the way the spell designers wanted it.


I dunno, I had no problem with the earth essence being a thick, highly acidic liquid. OK, why not? The problem I had was it effectively producing XP for item crafting. {snip} Ambrosia gives 2xp when used to make an item with the good descriptor. Agony (Liquid Pain) gives 3xp when used to make an item with the evil descriptor. Ambrosia is level 3 and Liquid Pain is level 4. I made this spell level 5 becaue that is the level of the Plane Shift spell. It just seemed appropriate. So I followed what (I thought) was a logical progression. Also there are fewer elementally tuned items than not, and less than there are good/evil tuned items.



I suppose, that following the natural progression of things, one could also throw together Essence of Free Will and Essence of Duty. Chaos and Law ahoy.

I'd throw in a spell component requirement of one pound of the appropriate element (apx. 1 pound burning material for fire.) Not quite sure what to do for air, maybe just an empty container to separate it from the rest of the air. I suggest this basically because having a pound of X melt into a puddle of extraplanar gate sounds very neato.I love the idea of ethical essences to pair/complete with the moral essences. I can't believe I missed that. Nice one.
The components though... One pount (or preferable 1 cubic foot) of element is too easily come by. Simiply casting it on the prime material would be sufficient. If a material component is needed though, a gem worth no less than ?gp (I wold suggest 40gp as a minimum) would be better appropriate. Casting it from another elemental plane? Yes, you now need the 1 cubic foot of element. However, again, I modeled these off the Distilled Joy and Liquid Pain spells. So just being higher level was good enough for me.



Definately a good idea if used correctly, because look at it- if you have a fifth level spell slot, you could use it instead for say a fifth level spell like cone of cold, that you could use to bag a random encounter of a reasonably low cr and get yourself more than 4xp points this is a non violent way of doing the same thing. Besides it adds flavour and can anger the creatures of other planes (so it isn't risk free xp)- which IS fun.
Phew, that's called getting sidetracked.... anyway, these spells are fine, although personally I would combine them into one.If the encounter is of reasonably low CR, why not just use a lower level spel slot? Anyway, I didn't combine them into one spell for personal reasons. In the game world I'm (eventually) going to run Draught of Earth was first created so Earth Essence would be used to make liquid mercury (with a few other metals) into a non poisonous, slightly magnetic liquid currency, but now I'm sidetracked. Anyway, in my game they are divine and four seperate spells for a reason.

[Bob_the_Mighty]

I'm a little late in posting this, but is there any way to distinguish the essences, if thats a word, of earth and air or fire and water from each other? The pairs of elements are in the same form, and all of these elements are clear and deal the same amounts of damage.

Oh, and technically a fluid can be a gas.

[Dalcassius]

Well Fire Essences and Water Essence would radiate will little bit of heat and cold respectively. I suppose the Air Essence would have an air of charge around it so holding your hand over it would cause all the hairs on you hand to stand on end and give your fingers that tingly feeling. The Earth Essence I guess you could either apply an odour to or leave it without additional stimuli.You'd know it was Earth Essence and acidic because its obviously not any of the others.

[Telonius]

Hmm, idea from the description ...

Casters should always take precaustions when casting this spell as most residents of the Elemental Planes are not fond of its essence being stolen.

Maybe throw in a percentile roll. 1-97, normal spell effect. 98-100 causes a large elemental of that type to come out along with the essence, and attack the caster. Each subsequent use of the spell gets you an additional dose, but increases the failure chance by 3%.

[Dalcassius]

I gave something like that serious thought, and had put together a chart as follows.

0-65%- No elementals notice you.
66-75%- You have an encounter with elementals. The encounters ECL is 1d3 levels below yours.
76-90%- You have an encounter with elementals. The encounter is equal to your level.
91-100%- You have an encounter with elementals. The ecounters ECL is 1d3 levels above yours.

An intelligent caster of this spell does so with ward and protection spells, a group of guards and spells of elemental protection and damage at the ready. Done thusly an encounter 1d3 levels above yours (or your parties) should be something you can handle.
The reason there is such a high chance of being noticed is that 1) you are draining the essence of an elemental plane and thus the creatures bound to that plane are very likely to notice and 2) properly done, the encounters between 66 and 90% should be very easily handled.

EDIT- I didn't include this into my description of the spell because a friend of mine (a DM of skills I respect and admire) said it was extra useless work. That a DM would note the part that reads "Casters should always take precaustions when casting this spell as most residents of the Elemental Planes are not fond of its essence being stolen." and take the appropriate actions for their campaign at that time. I waffled on it for a few days then agreed with him.