Energy Substitution and Imagination

[Qc Storm]

Been preparing a Kobold Sorcerer Blaster focusing on Electricity spells. Obviously, this means picking up Energy Substitution for a greater array of spells.

However, after discussing with my DM, we found out that many [Fire], [Cold] and [Acid] spells just seem strange when subbed into electricity. Not really problematic, he doesn't mind. We just need help figuring out how to picture them.

We agreed on Sleet Storm being replaced with a torrential thunder storm, with the rain causing the slipping (even though there is nothing electric about it). Flesh to Ice is even weirder (target evaporates into static?).

What are some nice spells to sub into Electricity?

[Feytalist]

Easiest answer: It's magic.

You're literally ripping elemental essence from its originating Plane and shaping it to your will. That means you can sort of do anything you can think of with it.


That said, with a bit of metal acrobatics you should be able to come up with suitable substitutions. Flesh to ice for instance: did you see District 9? Remember that lightning gun that gibbed everything it touched? Yeah, like that.

Or, cone of whatever? Force lightning from Star Wars. A decent-sized lightning strike can potentially cause blindness, stunning, deafness, burn, daze and a bunch of other status effects. Even shaken; have you seen a lightning strike from close by? It's terrifying.

[Chronos]

I don't think Flesh to Ice is actually eligible for Energy Substitution. It doesn't do damage, and it doesn't have an energy descriptor.

[forsaken1111]

For a cone of cold, think a sideways jacob's ladder extending out from your outstretched arms. ZZzap!

[Psyren]

@ Electric Sleet Storm - you could do rain I suppose, but I think it's more fun for the spell to statically charge everyone identically to the charge in the ground, causing it to repel you and make you lose your footing. Similar to when you try to push the identical poles of two bar magnets together, one wants to flip around.

[Slipperychicken]

Burning Hands becomes Force Lightning.

[Nightraiderx]

Fire Ball becomes Electric Ba... oh wait there is already an electric version in the Spell Compendium

Ice Gauntlet becomes da Thunder Gauntlet!

[Qc Storm]

I don't think Flesh to Ice is actually eligible for Energy Substitution. It doesn't do damage, and it doesn't have an energy descriptor.

Huh. I was sure it did.


@ Electric Sleet Storm - you could do rain I suppose, but I think it's more fun for the spell to statically charge everyone identically to the charge in the ground, causing it to repel you and make you lose your footing. Similar to when you try to push the identical poles of two bar magnets together, one wants to flip around.

That's pretty good.

What would a wall of fire, or ice, look like? Especially Ice, since it is supposed to block movement.

[Segev]

What would a wall of fire, or ice, look like? Especially Ice, since it is supposed to block movement.

Electricity-Substituted Wall of Fire: arcs of electricity shoot from ceiling to floor and arc outwards in the direction the "waves of heat" are supposed to go.

Electricity-Substituted Wall of Ice: A force-field like effect crackling with energy that electrocutes anybody who punches a hole in it and tries to pass through.

[Slipperychicken]

What would a wall of fire, or ice, look like? Especially Ice, since it is supposed to block movement.

Something like this, only on a smaller scale?

[Warning: big image]
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/wallpaper/img/2012/04/07-greece-lightening-exposures_1600.jpg

The "waves of heat" from the wall of fire become some kind of electric blasts attracted to anything nearby.

[Psyren]

Since Wall of Ice doesn't actually do damage if you touch it, I would again make it a wall of magnetism or some kind of repulsive field rather than actual lightning.

Breaking through it does hurt you though, which can be fluffed as unleashing a positronic current or being damaged by the electromagnetic forces holding the wall together.

[lsfreak]

Breaking through it does hurt you though, which can be fluffed as unleashing a positronic current or being damaged by the electromagnetic forces holding the wall together.

Positrons are antimatter, I don't think that'll end well for you :smallwink:

I'd imagine subbed wall of ice would be something like extremely densely packed, painful but non-harmful electrical discharges. Damaging the wall turns them into more chaotic, random discharges, so you can force your way through easier, but the current that does touch you is actually damaging.

[Urpriest]

A wall of ice, RAW, is still made of ice. You're replacing the cold part of the spell, the ice part stays the same. The same should apply to sleet storm.

You've got a wall of ice/a storm of ice, but rather than being uncomfortably cold it's got lighting shooting out of it. Since real ice falling from the sky/forming a wall with a hole in it isn't going to freeze you very quickly, we can conclude that the cold energy is tacked on to the spell anyway.

[Grayson01]

Urpriest I think you are missing the spirit of this thread it's about the fun ways to invision the RP game we all love. Not the RAW of "How" It works.

[Prime32]

Fire Trap -> Electrify
Flaming Sphere -> Ball Lightning
Heat Metal -> Charge Metal
Produce Flame -> Taser
Simulacrum -> Solid Static