So I was looking through spells and I realized that there aren't a lot of winter-related spells that don't directly deal cold damage.
As far as I can tell there's snow shape and icicle dagger (though the dagger created does cold damage, the spell itself does not deal cold damage).
Are there any more? Are there any suggestions?
Are you looking for RAW or also for other suggestions?
Plenty of spells that could be themed or redesigned to reflect a winter theme. And that's not even taking the metamagic feat Elemental Spell into account.
An example would be to interpret Grease as a patch of slippery ice.
There's also plenty of spells that have an effect that's commonly associated with cold weather exposure and the like. For example Ray of Exhaustion.
Some examples keeping to RAW:
Form of the Dragon (White or Silver)
Frostbite (kinda, it's nonlethal cold damage)
Ice Crystal Teleport
Ice Body
Icy Prison
Frost Mammoth
Beast Shape (various winter-related forms)
Elemental Body (water elementals)
Simulacrum (you make them out of ice and snow)
Planar Ally/Planar Binding (various cold subtype outsiders)
Summon Monster/Summon Nature's Ally (various cold subtype outsiders and winter-themed animals)
Chill Metal (not exactly direct)
Are you looking for RAW or also for other suggestions?
I'm looking for anything in general, whether RAW or created. The RAW suggestions you made as well as what Shain Edge provided are very helpful. I'm also grateful to Dragonborn3 - I had forgotten about sleet storm not doing damage.
I was thinking of reskinning obscuring mist to obscuring snow where instead of a mist, its a miniature snowstorm but it otherwise is the same.
Wall of Ice?
Just had a great idea: illusions.
Granted, there probably aren't a lot, but I kinda put winter and aurora borealis together, so your illusion spells could mimic it(like color spray).
I like that! You could of course extend that and replace Prismatic Spray with Auroray. Just have to find a way to pronounce it
I ran into the same problem wanting to play a cold based mage instead of a fire based one. It basically came down to taking a lot of fire spells and realistically trying to translate them to cold. Fire injures because of the great difference in temperature and the fact that it combusts and consumes material (wounds from extreme cold like liquid nitrogen, basically needed to be treated as wounds from fire). Cold can easily mimic the temperature difference but not the consuming part. It is possible to account for the great frost to affect materials as becoming more brittle than they normally are (at least for some amount of time as they will heat up eventually). And it's also possible for the material to sponteaneosly crack on accounts of extreme temperature difference and the shrinking of different materials at different rates.
The cold ball (instead of fire ball) was easily sustituted although a GM might wanna think on item damage if someone fails a save. An ice arrow could as easily be made as an acid or fire arrow. A coldbrand weapon could be something else as it would not have a serious extra effect against trolls, but using that on fire based creatures might give extra damage, so it might even be worth it after all.
As I said most fire spells translate reasonably easy to cold variants, but will have different side effects.
I ran into the same problem wanting to play a cold based mage instead of a fire based one. It basically came down to taking a lot of fire spells and realistically trying to translate them to cold.
You are/were thinking about it too much. This is PF/DnD, cold is an actual elemental force in this metaphysical system. While in the real world cold is the absence of heat, in PF/DnD cold is the opposite of heat. Thermodynamics quite simply don't apply.
If you'd really want to apply logic, you could interpret some things as ice spikes or the consuming part as the cold spreading slowly through a magical effect.
I ran into the same problem wanting to play a cold based mage instead of a fire based one. It basically came down to taking a lot of fire spells and realistically trying to translate them to cold.You are/were thinking about it too much. This is PF/DnD, cold is an actual elemental force in this metaphysical system. While in the real world cold is the absence of heat, in PF/DnD cold is the opposite of heat. Thermodynamics quite simply don't apply.
If you'd really want to apply logic, you could interpret some things as ice spikes or the consuming part as the cold spreading slowly through a magical effect.
I thought I did suggest that. I just stated that things react differently to heat as opposed to cold (like the troll example). I'd say that some materials that are destroyed by fire (like paper or parchment) but would not be affected (as much) by cold. While other materials might be (nearly) unaffected by fire (like stone or iron tools), will be affected by extreme cold (by becoming brittle).
So you might suggest to throw a cold ball at a door or wall, severely weakening it. And after that breaking it open was as easy as breaking glass. That could substitute for the normal saving throws items would have to make after their owner failed a save (with the exception of maybe potions or other liquids (waterskins???)).But maybe that's complicating things too much. And it might lead to game breaking advantages. But I still like the idea ;)
I ran into the same problem wanting to play a cold based mage instead of a fire based one. It basically came down to taking a lot of fire spells and realistically trying to translate them to cold.
Well, damaging cold spells didn't worry me at all. It's very easy to swap out cold damage for fire damage and simply rename the spells as you mentioned. I was trying to find something cold/winter related that didn't do damage yet still was thematically correct.
Fire has a great advantage in that it's both heat and light. The heat part causes the damage while the light part can be turned into all sorts of non-damaging spells that are still very useful.
Cold is, well, cold. You can combine it with water for icy or snowy effects and there are some spells that can be reskinned or renamed a bit (instead of danging lights it could be danging aurora). But cold doesn't lend itself quite as well to the light association as fire does (which is why I made this thread with winter-related rather than cold-related). On the other hand, the various darkness spells also work well with winter theme.
It's a bit of a pity that there's not some element that combines cold and darkness the way that fire combines heat and light. I had considered such a thing for a setting once, but I was unsure what to call it. Void came to mind, but that tends to imply emptiness rather than a mix of cold and darkness - though I could be wrong.
It's a bit of a pity that there's not some element that combines cold and darkness the way that fire combines heat and light. I had considered such a thing for a setting once, but I was unsure what to call it. Void came to mind, but that tends to imply emptiness rather than a mix of cold and darkness - though I could be wrong.
Entropy
Alternatively, negative energy. The various negative energy spells and abilities often combine shadow, cold and negative energy
Personally, I associate cold with light. Harsh, brutal, crystal clear light, but light nonetheless. The light of reason and logic, as opposed to the confusing and chaotic light of fire.
IMHO you can do much more thematically speaking with cold than with fire. Fire destroys, whoop-dee-doo. Cold creates ice, destroys objects, impales with spikes, slices with shards, drains energy, slows movement, fatigues the body, dulls the mind, makes the air too cold to breathe, creates equally if not more horrific scarring etc...
Bloody hell, cold has pretty much the same effects on flesh as burns do.
I could go on for a while like this :)