Energy Substitution: useless?

[Vaz]

If a Fireball is Energy Substitution to say Acid, it is an [acid] spell, but still deals fire damage. What use is that? Is this a dysfunction or am I missing something?

Sorry, substituion, no admixture.

[Grayson01]

Pretty sure it changes the Damage type unless I have been reading the feat wrong the whole time.

But the way you are saying it is read is not completely useless as there are features and feats that boost spells of certain types, like +1 caster level to [Acid] Spells or [Fire] Spells so it would benfit in those cituations. But pretty sure it chanegs the Damage type.

[Grayson01]

Wait and also in your heading you ask about Energy Admixture and in your acctual post you ask about Energy subsitution, those are two different feats ES being a pre-reg for EA.

[Elderand]

Energy substitution changes both the type of damage and the descriptor.

Energy substitution acid on a fireball therefore produce a fireball dealing acid damage and having the acid descriptor.

Energy admixture (acid) on a fireball produce a fireball doing it's normal fire damage and also an equal amount of acid damage and has both fire and acid descriptor.

In eseence you just doubled your damage output.

Fun thing to do, get energy substitution (fire), energy admixture (fire) and searing spell.

An energy admixture (fire) fireball does twice the damage as a normal fireball and ignore energy resistance and does half damage to enemy immune to fire. Which mean for all intent and purpose you affect a enemy immune to fire normaly.

[eggynack]

I don't see the problem. The fireball deals its original amount of fire damage, and then it deals an identical amount of acid damage. It's not an [acid] spell. It's an [acid, fire] spell.

Edit: As for energy substitution, that feat does change the descriptor, as well as the damage type, so I don't see the problem there either. Also, it's a +0 metamagic, which means it's pretty incapable of being useless.

[Vaz]

Sorry, just switched off stuptidity switch, was misreading it.

[Grayson01]

Also energy Adimixture mixed with Gastlt enegry has some fun combinations. NOt powerful by any means but it can cause nasuation.

[eggynack]

Sorry, just switched off stuptidity switch, was misreading it.
Is there still an issue? It looks like the feat changes both the energy type and the descriptor. Also, even if it didn't, +0 is always good, especially when it leads to the ever-reasonable energy admixture.

Edit: In particular, it says, "You can then modify any spell with an energy descriptor to use the chosen type of energy instead."

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Energy Substitution (Fire) + Searing Spell (Sandstorm, bypass fire immunity) = guaranteed damage from blastomancy. One of the few ways to make it worthwhile, actually.

[Grayson01]

Random on topic question Metor Storm is it a [energy] Spell I know it does fire damage but it it a [Fire] Spell?

[Karnith]

Random on topic question Metor Storm is it a [energy] Spell I know it does fire damage but it it a [Fire] Spell?
Yes, Meteor Swarm (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/meteorSwarm.htm) has the Fire descriptor.

[tadkins]

Energy Substitution: Cold is crucial in Uttercold Necromancer builds as well.

[Marlowe]

What I've always been concerned about i; do you have to prepare the "fireball" as an "Acid ball" in advance or can you use the feat to change the elements on the fly?

[jindra34]

What I've always been concerned about i; do you have to prepare the "fireball" as an "Acid ball" in advance or can you use the feat to change the elements on the fly?

Its a metamagic feat. So however your class applies them.

[Karnith]

What I've always been concerned about i; do you have to prepare the "fireball" as an "Acid ball" in advance or can you use the feat to change the elements on the fly?
If you're asking whether you could prepare an Energy Substituted Fireball and decide which energy type it uses when you cast it, then no, you can't. Each instance of Energy Substitution is keyed to a particular type of energy. If you have multiple instances of the feat, you can choose which one you want to use, but you must do so when you would normally apply metamagic feats (either at preparation for prepared casters, or at time of casting for spontaneous casters).

[Elderand]

Do note that if you want several instance of the feat you are probably better taking the archmage prc and getting mastery of the elements high arcana

[Ansem]

If a Fireball is Energy Substitution to say Acid, it is an [acid] spell, but still deals fire damage. What use is that? Is this a dysfunction or am I missing something?

Sorry, substituion, no admixture.

Becomes acid damage and is far from useless. It lets you bypass resistance and switching to force or acid is awesome since hardly anything has a resistance to it.

[Elderand]

Becomes acid damage and is far from useless. It lets you bypass resistance and switching to force or acid is awesome since hardly anything has a resistance to it.

You can't switch to force, it's not an option, acid is still good. Fire with searing spell is better.

[jindra34]

You can't switch to force, it's not an option, acid is still good. Fire with searing spell is better.

Searing Spell isn't a +0 metamagic feat though. And with the two you can searing spell every spell.

[AstralFire]

You can't switch to force, it's not an option, acid is still good. Fire with searing spell is better.

Consecrate Spell, for exalted characters, works with any energy damage type.

Though Consecrate and Searing Spell in tandem is even better, if your DM rules that they stack.

[Elderand]

Consecrate Spell, for exalted characters, works with any energy damage type.

Though Consecrate and Searing Spell in tandem is even better, if your DM rules that they stack.

Do note that consecrate does not require a character to be exalted, just to have a good alignement. It's opposite number corrupt spell is just as good for the exact same reasons. Violate spell is even better since vile damage is incurable.

There is also Purify spell that increase a spell damage by one die type (d6 to d8 most often) against evil outsiders.

A consecrate searing fire spell would end up doing 3/4 damage to an immune to fire creature for the cost of being 2 spell slot higher.

If we combine everything we can get a purified energy admixture fire, searing, fiery consecrated, energy sub fire spell.

If you are going to use that many metamagic on one spell you pretty much have to use metamagic reducers.

You end up with a spell doing it's normal damage as fire, it's normal damage again as divine, all upgraded by one die against an evil outsiderand adding +1 fire damage per die.

A fireball doing it's maximum potential end up with 15d8 fire, 15d8 divine, +30 fire.

An evil outsider immune to fire woul therefore take an average of 48.75 fire damage and 67.5 divine damage.

If you start adding things like maximise and empower it gets to even higher damage output.

But generaly investing so much ressources into doing pure damage isn't worth it.

[AstralFire]

Do note that consecrate does not require a character to be exalted, just to have a good alignement.

A consecrate searing fire spell would end up doing 3/4 damage to an immune to fire creature for the cost of being 2 spell slot higher.

I would personally rule it as 100%; there are no clear rules for metamagic stacking outside of Empower and Maximize, and I prefer additive stacking like Empower/Maximize whenever possible.

[Elderand]

I would personally rule it as 100%; there are no clear rules for metamagic stacking outside of Empower and Maximize, and I prefer additive stacking like Empower/Maximize whenever possible.

It's not a question of stacking, the only way to justify 100% getting through is to say that half the fire damage goes through and you convert the other half to divine damage so it goes through too. And that make no sense because you don't control which half goes through and you can't chose to retroactively change the type after it's cast.

The most logical way to do it is 3/4.

Half is divine and goes through and half is fire and a half of that fire goes through.

[AstralFire]

This is the same principle as "two doubles make a triple." It isn't 200%*200% - it is 100%+100%.

Similarly, it is not 50% of A, then 50% of A'. It is 50% of A both times.

[Elderand]

This is the same principle as "two doubles make a triple." It isn't 200%*200% - it is 100%+100%.

Similarly, it is not 50% of A, then 50% of A'. It is 50% of A both times.

It's a question of order of opperation

When you prepare a searing spell you do not decide in advance what part of it will get through. You get after the spell is cast.

When you prepare a consecrated spell you do decide in advance which part will be divine.

Therefore the consecrated part take precedence.

The spell does half it's damage in divine and the other half is a fire hot enough to do half damage to immune creature.

You can try and think of it this way.

When you apply searing the whole thing is hot enough to do half damage. If you take half of the fire, that half is still hot enough to do half damage.

What you don't get is half the damage die being super special fire that always get through while the other half is just normal fire that gets blocked.

Compare to a violate corrupted spell

spell normaly does 6d6 damage
the energy of the spell is divided in two, half of that energy become vile damage the other half becomes unholy damage.
End result 3d6 vile and 3d6 unholy.

It works that way because both feat apply to the whole of the energy of the spell. Searing doesn't, it only apply to fire.

[The Viscount]

You can also use it in conjunction with snowcasting to add any of the four descriptors to any spell, and from there anything that takes advantage of descriptors can be used.

[Kuulvheysoon]

You can't switch to force, it's not an option, acid is still good. Fire with searing spell is better.

I'm just sad that they got rid of Energy Substitution (Sonic) in the 3.5e update to the feat.

[Ansem]

I'm just sad that they got rid of Energy Substitution (Sonic) in the 3.5e update to the feat.

Hence you go Archmage instead of wasting a feat.

[Hawriel]

If a Fireball is Energy Substitution to say Acid, it is an [acid] spell, but still deals fire damage. What use is that? Is this a dysfunction or am I missing something?

Sorry, substituion, no admixture.

It changes your fire ball to acid ball.

However if you really wanted to toss acid balls, to use your example, I would just ask the GM to allow you to know an acid ball spell instead of a fire ball spell.

I did this with scorching ray. The character I had was a forced based sorcerer in pathfinder. I liked the basic mechanics of scorching ray but fire did not fit the character. So I asked my GM to let it be force instead. Now my character has force ray.

[Totema]

Changing the descriptor can be useful on its own, too. An infamous example is the locate city bomb.

[Marlowe]

Its a metamagic feat. So however your class applies them.

Right, so a Wizard just prepares all his fire spells as acid spells instead (is there ever a good reason to want to go fire damage rather than acid?:smallconfused:) while a sorceror just gets the longer casting time. Thank you.

[TuggyNE]

(is there ever a good reason to want to go fire damage rather than acid?:smallconfused:)

Searing Spell. The few enemies that have acid immunity or resistance but not fire immunity/resistance. Low levels where the chance of setting an enemy (or object) on fire for extra damage is actually worth considering. And there are probably a few other cases.

There might even be some creature with Regeneration/Fire.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Hence you go Archmage instead of wasting a feat.

Assuming you are starting off at level 15+...

[Gadora]

Energy Substitution: Cold is crucial in Uttercold Necromancer builds as well.

I kinda like the look of Energy Substitution: Electricity for Stormcasters with Born of the Three Thunders. I mean, deal half the damage as sonic, add one point of sonic damage per spell level, and then force two fort saves against being stunned for a round, and a reflex save against falling prone.

There's just something about that huge mess of saves that seems so delicious...

[Kuulvheysoon]

I kinda like the look of Energy Substitution: Electricity for Stormcasters with Born of the Three Thunders. I mean, deal half the damage as sonic, add one point of sonic damage per spell level, and then force two fort saves against being stunned for a round, and a reflex save against falling prone.

There's just something about that huge mess of saves that seems so delicious...

It's cooler if you have immunity to daze, somehow. But yes, awesome.