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View Full Version : Making Acid a viable damage type for casters.



Infernum
2010-06-05, 11:01 AM
After doing a lot of research and delving into more books than id care to admit, i cant really seem to find a way to make acid as useful as some for the other elemental types as far as using it for damage and spells goes. I recently had a focused caster use Energy Substitution with a level of Elemental Savant to help make him a bit more scary, and he did mess the part up. But he just didnt have that same feel you can get when using either a fire based of cold based magi.

I would like to try an make acid a much more dangerous and viable option for characters and npcs and I would like the forums help to do it. Any and all ideas are welcome.

Prodan
2010-06-05, 11:02 AM
Orb of Acid

Eldan
2010-06-05, 11:03 AM
Acid has the advantage that it can damage objects most easily of the basic energy types. Perhaps that helps?

Otherwise, I can just say that acid burns are incredibly painful.

alchemyprime
2010-06-05, 11:09 AM
I notice you said it was the "feel". Perhaps I can help.

Acid is the least showy of damage types, even if you go with the cinematic "glowing green acid." I mean, fire is flashy, cold leaves ice behind, lightning is bright, decication leaves the victim dehydrated.

Acid is more subtle. Make a lair for an acid using mage. Maybe a black dragon. And make little things happen. Make the acid the theme. Make it do things like the fighter tries to run through to small puddle of water that goes up to his knees and realizes the water... itches. Burns. OH GOD MY LEGS!

Have my favorite trap set up. Steel doors slam around you. Magic symbols cover the doors. Water (or in this case, acid) begins to fill the room. A large hole in the center opens up (use a Huge sized hole) already filled with acid.

In the hole are acid breathing sharks.

If they manage to get through that one, the next few rooms, just go with some simpler things, maybe a room with a small shrine or something, maybe a rat.

Then in the room they begin to rest, give them a small brook for them to drink from. Watch the bard yell in terror as the stream cuts through his hands.

Acid has that nice little advantage over the other energy types. It's SCARY.

Azernak0
2010-06-05, 11:10 AM
Every elemental type attack has it's advantages. Acid's advantage is that it can eat through materials easier. Of course, focusing on Acid in a game that almost always leads to fighting Demons means that you are pretty much hosed.

Energy Substitution can turn Fireball into Acid ball as well.

Alchemyprime's trap wouldn't really work though, considering Ochul got out of it no problem.

alchemyprime
2010-06-05, 11:16 AM
Every elemental type attack has it's advantages. Acid's advantage is that it can eat through materials easier. Of course, focusing on Acid in a game that almost always leads to fighting Demons means that you are pretty much hosed.

Energy Substitution can turn Fireball into Acid ball as well.

Alchemyprime's trap wouldn't really work though, considering Ochul got out of it no problem.

Eh, it's worked before. My players are not O-Chul. They like to think they are, but they are no O-Chul. If I remember correctly, it took a water element template ape, a bottle of air, and a lot of luck to get them out of it. And the dwarf had some acid resistance potion (he fell down the hole...)

Infernum
2010-06-05, 11:35 AM
All very good points, i agree that acid is alot more subtle than the other types. The magi i had was and evocation specialist using the alternate ability from the unearthed arcana where he gets a +1 CL when using acid, along with the acid reserve feat that also grants a +1 to the CL of acid spells. Are there any other feats that help move acid along or perhaps a PrC?

As for my magi, Jarris is a crazed wizard who worships an ancient and forgotten god and his goal is to turn the world into slag with his acid magic. He has some alliances with acidic like beings such as oozes and other nefarious creatures. He has currently teamed up with a aberrant blooded grapple fighter whos goals are mysterious and a priest of Thazrudin who wishes to bring his god to this world. He got away in the last fight and i really liked him as a character and will use him again. So any more ideas are always welcome, either mechanical or fluff wise.

alchemyprime
2010-06-05, 12:04 PM
All very good points, i agree that acid is alot more subtle than the other types. The magi i had was and evocation specialist using the alternate ability from the unearthed arcana where he gets a +1 CL when using acid, along with the acid reserve feat that also grants a +1 to the CL of acid spells. Are there any other feats that help move acid along or perhaps a PrC?

As for my magi, Jarris is a crazed wizard who worships an ancient and forgotten god and his goal is to turn the world into slag with his acid magic. He has some alliances with acidic like beings such as oozes and other nefarious creatures. He has currently teamed up with a aberrant blooded grapple fighter whos goals are mysterious and a priest of Thazrudin who wishes to bring his god to this world. He got away in the last fight and i really liked him as a character and will use him again. So any more ideas are always welcome, either mechanical or fluff wise.

The Ooze Elemental template and half-black dragon template are your friends. As is giving creatures the feats "Shape Soulmeld Dissolving Spittle" and "Bonus Essentia." At will 3d6 acid ranged touch attacks based off Con.

AstralFire
2010-06-05, 12:14 PM
Psionics fixes everything.

Look at the Energy blah series of powers, come up with a pattern for acid similar to that of the other elements. Steal each as a spell.

I would recommend that acid do something like 'make melee attacks against the victim for the next round ignore 1 point of damage reduction for every d6 of damage done to the creature.'

Mando Knight
2010-06-05, 12:19 PM
Have my favorite trap set up. Steel doors slam around you. Magic symbols cover the doors. Water (or in this case, acid) begins to fill the room.

The magic symbols include some method of adding Acid resistance to the doors, right? Otherwise it'll corrode like there's no tomorrow.

alchemyprime
2010-06-05, 12:26 PM
The magic symbols include some method of adding Acid resistance to the doors, right? Otherwise it'll corrode like there's no tomorrow.

Er... Obviously, they create a minor force effect around the doors... yeah, that's the ticket...

Infernum
2010-06-05, 12:50 PM
Hehe, ya force effects alchemyprime, force effects.

All of those are interesting options. Any ideas for new feats that might make acid more interesting. Fire and cold have a crap ton of feats, with fires feats topping colds hands down.

alchemyprime
2010-06-05, 12:52 PM
Hehe, ya force effects alchemyprime, force effects.

All of those are interesting options. Any ideas for new feats that might make acid more interesting. Fire and cold have a crap ton of feats, with fires feats topping colds hands down.

There was one idea I had. Acid is subtle, so why not make it so it mixes with other energy types? Like hit them with a fireball, and they laugh, but then the acid you put into their wounds gets to work...

I don't know any real feats. Just ideas...

balistafreak
2010-06-05, 12:54 PM
I actually consider the existing element-augmenting feats to be people's attempts at bringing fire up to speed with the rest of the elements.

Correct me if I'm way off, but tn the average adventuring world, isn't fire resistance/immunity is much more common than acid immunity. Fire needs those feats to stay competitive, while acid more often than not still gets the job done without any boosts, letting you spend precious feats elsewhere. Acid also annihilates objects with an ease that fire will never achieve.

If feats also existed to boost acid up the wazoo... well, then why would you ever use anything but acid? (Barring tons of acid-immune foes thrown in response, of course.)

Infernum
2010-06-05, 01:05 PM
This is true, when it comes to resistances, fire gets the shaft. But having some feats to make acid more interesting isnt necessarily a bad thing. Ive only seen about two to three feats in total that do any thing with acid or electricity. I feel that there should be at least some out of all the books that have been produced.

Starbuck_II
2010-06-05, 01:07 PM
I actually consider the existing element-augmenting feats to be people's attempts at bringing fire up to speed with the rest of the elements.

Correct me if I'm way off, but tn the average adventuring world, isn't fire resistance/immunity is much more common than acid immunity. Fire needs those feats to stay competitive, while acid more often than not still gets the job done without any boosts, letting you spend precious feats elsewhere. Acid also annihilates objects with an ease that fire will never achieve.

If feats also existed to boost acid up the wazoo... well, then why would you ever use anything but acid? (Barring tons of acid-immune foes thrown in response, of course.)

Some Outsiders have Acid resistance.
Devils and Demons have minimum Acid Resist 10.

Infernum
2010-06-05, 01:18 PM
Quite true, outsiders are resistant to acid alot of the time.

boomwolf
2010-06-05, 01:43 PM
Outsiders are resistant to alot of thing. not a good example.

And now that I think abou it, there are very little acid spells out there compare to fire and cold. (electricity is also behind, but not by as much.)

Hell! you got more sonic then acid.

Maybe because acid and sonic act similarly and therefor WoTC compiled them to a single "spell element type"?

Endarire
2010-06-05, 04:33 PM
Acid is Conjuration's energy damage. In core, we get Melf's acid arrow. We get cloudkill. In other sources, we get acid sheath, acid breath, and orb of acid.

Acid kills trolls.

JaronK
2010-06-05, 06:27 PM
I'm confused. Acid is the second best damage type behind Force. There's that spell... Venombolt was I think the name? It's the best non Force damage spell in the game (I believe it's in Serpent Kingdoms). Cloudkill ain't bad either. So what's the problem?

JaronK

Kaiyanwang
2010-06-05, 07:55 PM
I actually consider the existing element-augmenting feats to be people's attempts at bringing fire up to speed with the rest of the elements.

Correct me if I'm way off, but tn the average adventuring world, isn't fire resistance/immunity is much more common than acid immunity. Fire needs those feats to stay competitive, while acid more often than not still gets the job done without any boosts, letting you spend precious feats elsewhere. Acid also annihilates objects with an ease that fire will never achieve.

If feats also existed to boost acid up the wazoo... well, then why would you ever use anything but acid? (Barring tons of acid-immune foes thrown in response, of course.)

QFT. Hey this white text thing starts to be useful.

Infernum
2010-06-05, 10:00 PM
To JaronK, I am merely stating that acid is significantly lacking in the number of available spells of its type and feats and other support material and am working on making it a more viable type of damage, say for a mage who wants to focus in doing acid damage. Fire and Cold both have PrCs that support them and a good chunk of feats as well, I dont see why we sould leave acid, and electrical and sonic as well, out in the cold as far as these are concerned.

Prodan
2010-06-05, 10:02 PM
It's already a viable type of damage.

Escheton
2010-06-05, 10:06 PM
sorta on the subject, barring items(they would be acidy molten) how can one get a decent acid resist or even immunity with minimal feat or lvl investment?

Starbuck_II
2010-06-05, 10:11 PM
sorta on the subject, barring items(they would be acidy molten) how can one get a decent acid resist or even immunity with minimal feat or lvl investment?

There are ways to get acid immune armor, but it makes the armor immune not you (armor can't be damaged by Rust/Acid). It can be found in MIC for cheap.

ShneekeyTheLost
2010-06-05, 10:13 PM
It's also called Vitriolic Blast, good sir. And it ignores SR.

It is one of those things which makes a Glaivelock viable. You use Hellfire on top of Vitriolic Blast to bypass SR and dish out a sick handful of d6's. Then use naberious or Strongheart Vest to mitigate the problem with hellfire.

AslanCross
2010-06-05, 10:15 PM
Acid is Conjuration's energy damage. In core, we get Melf's acid arrow. We get cloudkill. In other sources, we get acid sheath, acid breath, and orb of acid.

Acid kills trolls.

Just a nitpick: cloudkill is poisonous and deals Con damage. Poison immunity protects against cloudkill, but acid does not. You might be referring to acid fog.

balistafreak
2010-06-05, 10:25 PM
To JaronK, I am merely stating that acid is significantly lacking in the number of available spells of its type and feats and other support material and am working on making it a more viable type of damage, say for a mage who wants to focus in doing acid damage.

Lacking variety =!=> less viable, which is the understanding I'm getting from you. While options often equal power in D&D, here's a situation where it's not quite the case; an Admiral Ackbar sized trap, if you will.

It's kind of like giving one man the choice between a hundred different sticks and another man a gun. One is full of choice and room for improvement (a stout, thick, well-balanced cudgel over a damp, decaying twig) but in general it'll always be worse than the other. Yes, it's true that one can do something the other can't (you can't use a gun to fuel a fire... practically, that is) but for the purposes of your specific need (dealing damage with mage spells) one is obviously much better despite the lack of choice.

A mage doesn't need to take boosting feats and better spells to deal acid damage at an appreciable, CR-appropriate level, because acid spells are already that much better than fire spells in general. If you created spells/feats that made acid even better, acid damage would be the only "viable" focus for a mage because it would be head and shoulders above everything else.

Fire-focused mages need feats like Searing Spell because people want to play the concept of a fire mage and yet still want to be contributing when enemies with fire resistance roll around. Acid-focused mages don't need such resistance-busters because acid resistance is comparatively rare, and anything with it, barring the occasional earth elemental, is probably loaded up the wazoo with resistances and armor anyways.

In fact, an "acid-focused" mage doesn't really need to spend much in the way of character resources to do so, letting him be more versatile/powerful in other areas of expertise while still dealing as much damage as the "fire-focused" mage in the long-term. This is the trap: if you just want a mage that deals damage, "focusing" yourself in fire achieves the same result as if you had "focused" in acid - except the "acid-focused" mage still has resources to spend elsewhere, perhaps on something like crafting or counterspelling or scrying or summoning or whatever.

It's not that we don't want more powerful choices. It's just that in this case, it doesn't need more powerful choices. Generally homebrew should either fill a niche or fix something that was underpowered for its intent while not setting a new standard of power; preferably both. In your case, you're trying to fill a niche, but you're kind of doomed in that whatever you do to improve acid will make it too good not to take.

... that kind of rambled more than I wanted it to, but I hope I made my thoughts clear in a civil, rational way. :smallredface:

Starbuck_II
2010-06-05, 10:29 PM
Fire-focused mages need feats like Searing Spell because people want to play the concept of a fire mage and yet still want to be contributing when enemies with fire resistance roll around. Acid-focused mages don't need such resistance-busters because acid resistance is comparatively rare, and anything with it, barring the occasional earth elemental, is probably loaded up the wazoo with resistances and armor anyways.


What?
Searing Spell= ignore through Resistance and deal 1/2 to immunity.

Acid damage does next to nothing to Outsiders. Not all acid ignores SR either (only some do like the Core ones).

JaronK
2010-06-05, 10:32 PM
To JaronK, I am merely stating that acid is significantly lacking in the number of available spells of its type and feats and other support material and am working on making it a more viable type of damage, say for a mage who wants to focus in doing acid damage. Fire and Cold both have PrCs that support them and a good chunk of feats as well, I dont see why we sould leave acid, and electrical and sonic as well, out in the cold as far as these are concerned.

Variety != Quality. It's better to have three awesome spells than 20 lame ones. Fire is full of lame stuff like Fireball. Acid has fewer spells, but they tend to be incredibly awesome. Making a wide variety of lame spells to round out Acid's variety is pointless, as there's no need to use them, while creating PrCs to work with Acid damage just means the really good Acid damage spells suddenly become overpowered.

If you want to be an Acid focused mage, take Venombolt (IIRC), Cloudkill, and Acid Orb. Use those as your primary attacks. There's no need for other spells (though Wings of Flurry and Maw of Chaos would be nice for acid immunes...).

JaronK

Beorn080
2010-06-05, 10:32 PM
There are ways to get acid immune armor, but it makes the armor immune not you (armor can't be damaged by Rust/Acid). It can be found in MIC for cheap.

From the SRD

Acid Resistance

A suit of armor or a shield with this property normally has a dull gray appearance. The armor absorbs the first 10 points of acid damage per attack that the wearer would normally take (similar to the resist energy spell).

Faint abjuration; CL 3rd; Craft Magic Arms and Armor, resist energy; Price +18,000 gp.

I find it amusing that an enchantment priced at 18k does the same thing a shield made out of lye would do. Plus the lye shield would double as barbarian repellent.

See if you can convince your DM to allow summoning Digesters with a summon monster spell at a proper level. In fact, there are all sorts of nifty Acid spewing creatures in the SRD alone.

balistafreak
2010-06-05, 10:37 PM
What?
Searing Spell= ignore through Resistance and deal 1/2 to immunity.

Acid damage does next to nothing to Outsiders. Not all acid ignores SR either (only some do like the Core ones).

Searing Spell takes up a feat and also costs spell-levels in metamagic adjustment (right?). Why bother when you could cast something the enemy, you know, isn't already immune to?

It's like you could ram through the Great Wall of China, but you could just fly over it.

Searing Spell does exactly what it's intended to do - make fire mages not useless against fire-resistance/immunity. But just because the resistance is there doesn't mean it has to be punched through - you could just sidestep it.

As for outsiders being acid-resistant, that is a fair point. Acid doesn't solve everything already, like the example you give. This is a good thing, because if it did, then no one would ever bother with anything else.

My point is that trying to make acid "more viable" would push it over that border. It's already good enough.

Perhaps I just don't see the loyalty people have to archetypes as opposed to roles. I don't say I want to use fire (with all the burning of enemies that implies), I say I want to eliminate threats to the party. Whatever form the effective solution comes in, whether a spanking fireball or burning acid arrow, I take. I'd rather not spend resources forcing the fireball to always work, turning that spell/selection of weapon into a "signature". After all, you can't have a signature if you're dead. :smallwink:

Infernum
2010-06-05, 10:54 PM
To balistafreak, i see your point and you make a valid argument. I agree that if you went overboard with feats and the like you would make acid to much of a "I have to have this kind of elemental damage." thing. I just think that there should be a couple of things to make these elements (acid, electricity, and sonic) more interesting and the like, kinda like the feat Blistering spell.

To JaronK, you point on a few useful spells does have merit, until people come to expect that from a person and have spell immunity and the like to your effects.

balistafreak
2010-06-05, 11:10 PM
I just think that there should be a couple of things to make these elements (acid, electricity, and sonic) more interesting and the like, kinda like the feat Blistering spell.

Hmmm... :smallconfused:

*goes into the tank*

It's true that you could write feats that only increased your power "horizontally", as opposed to "vertically". Horizontally, as in letting you cover more bases, opposed to vertically, letting you cover those bases with greater force.

A metamagic feat causing secondary effects with a reasonable cost wouldn't be bad. I myself would sidestep it because I personally feel casters in general are horizontal enough already. But if you really want to go whole hog the concept of a specialized acid mage, that would be the way to do it.


To JaronK, you point on a few useful spells does have merit, until people come to expect that from a person and have spell immunity and the like to your effects.

It's not quite fair to put those few acid spells down like that. Don't DMs always expect fire? Because D&D players are homicidal rich hobos, swinging swords and flinging fire.

I'd argue that if the DM starts anticipating acid, well, took him long enough. The game of D&D itself has been anticipating fire longer than you've probably been playing. :smallwink:

The solution for either case is the same; drop whatever obviously isn't working and whip out the next gun. Don't bother punching the wall.

Infernum
2010-06-05, 11:35 PM
I shall contemplate on this and see what i can come up with.

JaronK
2010-06-06, 04:07 AM
To JaronK, you point on a few useful spells does have merit, until people come to expect that from a person and have spell immunity and the like to your effects.

Which is precisely why I suggested having Wings of Flurry and Maw of Chaos as backup blast spells in case of acid immunes (which are still rarer than fire immunes). Immunity to both Force and Acid is extremely rare. Also, doesn't Cloudkill do con damage?

JaronK

mostlyharmful
2010-06-06, 04:38 AM
To JaronK, you point on a few useful spells does have merit, until people come to expect that from a person and have spell immunity and the like to your effects.

Spell immunity just gives an arbitrarily huge SR, the best Acid spells are SR:No so it's a great instance of proving Quality over Quantity.

Escheton
2010-06-06, 12:14 PM
you can get decent fire resist with binder, swordsage and incarnum classes as a continual thing. Cold, elek with incarnum classes, though that is 5 per incarnum invested usually. No such thing for acid. Spells dont count.
besides the armor enhancement and powerfull templates and races, how does one get acid resist?