Alternative Energies for Desert Wind

[silverwolfer]

I have heard some diss Desert wind, due to fire being easy to block and things being immune to, would changing the energy out put to things like elctro,sonic,acid , or even cold raise it much; or would it still be a lesser section?

[tyckspoon]

It'd help a bit, but it wouldn't make Desert Wind all that much better; the Desert Wind blasts actually have two primary problems. The first is that they're all Fire, which is the most commonly resisted element. The second is that they're fairly weak. Up until you get Inferno Blast, your firebursts are doing at best about the same damage as a Wizard casting a bog-standard, no metamagic, Generic Damage Spell of the same level (or worse. A notable low point comes in the maneuver levels 3-5 range, where all of your 'blow stuff up with fire' options do 6d6 damage. Meanwhile, the Wizard's Fireball is scaling, for free and with no other spell selections, from 5 to 9d6 damage.) Combine the relatively poor damage values with sometimes tricky requirements for getting the damage off, and you have a weaker option.

(There are some really good options in Desert Wind, they just.. usually aren't the '30 ft cone of fire' blasting maneuvers.)

[Morcleon]

I have heard some diss Desert wind, due to fire being easy to block and things being immune to, would changing the energy out put to things like elctro,sonic,acid , or even cold raise it much; or would it still be a lesser section?

Letting you select the element type as you initiate the maneuver/stance would boost it more. Depending on the campaign, it might make a difference. Still wouldn't be that good though.

[ngilop]

Desert wind has a large variety of different maneuvers.

not just =X fire damage.

changing that to Artic Wind (Cold) Cackling Wind (electricity) and Vitriolic Wind (Acid) helps a bunhc for that.

for the other manueverability based ones is doesn't do much.

It actualyl helps a lit the ones desert wind has that are more thna just lbastign X fire damage in faces don't really need a differnt dmaage type and they let you fly, give you a flanking partner and other such goodies.

It makes DW go from being teh worse to o the middle of the road.

[Twilightwyrm]

This might help:
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=67570

[Spuddles]

At will, mobile blasting is pretty useful.

The best thing about desert wind is moving + damage. Damage on it is low and easily resisted. If it was easier to get through, it would be decent, esp. vs multiple opponents.

[Qwertystop]

I remember some wall of text about reworking ToB with things like a small set of core maneuvers for each discipline, with offshoots that spread it into related areas, instead of just one big internally-redundant thematically-wide lump.


One of the things in this was that the maneuver sets in the current system that are identical except for how much of something they give (damage, usually) should be reworked into single maneuvers that scaled.


EDIT: Found it. (http://alt.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=263957)