Elemental Bloodline Arcana

[Joseph Davis]

I had a question about what qualifies as "energy damage"? Is it only elemental damage? (fire, cold, electricity, etc.) Or can it cover other "energy types" like force or negative energy?

[Draeke Raefel]

Joseph Davis wrote:

I had a question about what qualifies as "energy damage"? Is it only elemental damage? (fire, cold, electricity, etc.) Or can it cover other "energy types" like force or negative energy?

I'd assume any energy type. But that might just be me.

[delabarre]

For this particular case, I would restrict it to the four elemental energy types listed in the following section. In practice that means the elemental sorcerer can convert acid, cold, electricity and fire damage, but not force, negative energy, positive energy, or sonic damage.

[Remco Sommeling]

Joseph Davis wrote:

I had a question about what qualifies as "energy damage"? Is it only elemental damage? (fire, cold, electricity, etc.) Or can it cover other "energy types" like force or negative energy?

I can't be sure, fire, cold, electricity and acid are obvious.

- sonic seems ok ish, technically not an element but energy for sure, in many WotC products this is one of the 5 energy types usually mentioned.

- force is never really described as energy so I am a little doubtful..
also the spells as written won't make much sense in many cases.
trying to hit someone with a forcesword as normal attacksis fine, but making anything but touch attacks doesn't make sense for a sword created from flame.

- positive and negative, while energy I think these spells were not intended to be changed, these spells are quite different thematically from elemental spells and as such are usually necromancy school.

personally I would limit it to fire, cold, electricity and acid allowing other spells on a case by case basis.

shout for instance would make too little sense to me for being a fire spell (deafening fire ?).

on the other hand magic missile is fine as a fire spell.

[Joseph Davis]

Thanks for all the help, I wasn't sure how to approach this, it's not for alot of spells really, mainly two of them; magic missile and chill touch. I was under the impression, that energy type is based on whether it can be reduced by basic damage reduction, but was unsure. But I got my answer, thanks! If anyone else has any input, it'd be appreciated!

[MicMan]

As per descripton of the Protection from/Resist Energy spells it's acid, cold, electricity, fire, sonic.

Force is always portrait as a physical effect and I never found positive and negative energy being listed among the other energy types, though, technically, they should be energy attacks.

[Vosveldon]

A creature can have Resistance to Acid, Electricity, Cold, Fire, Sonic, Positive, and Negative energy. I can't recall ever seeing a creature with Force Resistance. Just because the spells "Protection from/Resist Energy" specifically list certain energy types does not mean those are the only kind. I feel as if this question has not yet received a satisfactory answer.

Based on the fact that it is an Elemental Bloodline ability I can see it only effecting other elements, though on the other hand the ability does say that it allows you to convert the energy damage of a spell, not the elemental damage.

Of course that would mean that an Elemental Bloodline Sorcerer could have an at will 1d6 attack every round.