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You are of course free to make some sort of houserule, but, despite physics, shocking grasp, as written, doesn't interact with water in any way. You can even cast it underwater just fine.
Effect up to 2 gallons of water/level
Two gallons isn't a lot of water. Certainly not enough to create a puddle filling more than a single 5' x 5' square (unless than it is less than half an inch deep - at which point the insulation of the enemies shoes is likely to protect them.
From a pure rules perspective shocking grasp does not say anything about it working or reacting differently when used in water - so it does not. (Though it is reasonable for a GM to house rule some effect in). Personally I'd probably split the damage between all creatures in the pool of water - and probably reduce the damage per die by 1 or 2.
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You are of course free to make some sort of houserule, but, despite physics, shocking grasp, as written, doesn't interact with water in any way. You can even cast it underwater just fine.
Yeah, shocking grasp + water = wasted shocking grasp by the rules. Probably because magic. If you want to introduce some real-world physics you'd need to decide on what you consider a fair result, but keep in mind that spells are balanced assuming they do exactly what they say they do, no more and no less, so you're opening yourself up for the possibility of potentially potent unexpected consequences.
To support what the others have said. Magic does exactly what is written. Shocking grasp for example only has the bonus vs metal armor because it says it does.
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So, in previous editions, spells cast under water had different rules. (Fire spells either didn't work or at best created super heated steam, lighting bolts created a sphere, not a line, etc.)
They got rid of that in pathfinder.
Actually, rain water should have plenty of suspended ions to transmit electricity. *Pure* water would not be "wholesome, drinkable" water (It can have negative health effects, we think, though the science is not completely clear)
Certainly, the difference in conductivity between rain water and river water is less than the difference between a target in dry leather boots standing on a wood floor, and a target standing barefoot in mud.
So lets not bring physics into this. (Lets also not bring up the fact that a fighter in full plate might be less affected by shocking grasp, not more, because the metal would act as a lightning rod, routing the electricity around him.)
About the only circumstance where I could see this working, is as a clever way of dealing damage to a swarm: (Player A creates water on the swarm, player B goes immediately after him and casts shocking grasp and then plunges his hand into the swarm.) But that would come under "GM rewarding cleverness" rather than rules.
Re: size
1st level makes 2 pounds.
1 cubic foot is 8 pounds
1st level can make a minimum size of 6" x 6" x 6"
maximum size is 3 times that area: 18" x 18"
Volume doesn't change, so total depth, once it finishes falling:
18" x 18" x 2/3"
so, less than a square.
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Also, you could rule that it's pure water, which won't conduct electricity at all. Normal water conducts electricity because of ionized impurities. My science teacher back in 8th grade demonstrated this. He put a LED and a power source into opposite ends of a water-filled basin. Tap water conducted electricity well enough that the LED lit up strongly, bottled water was a little weaker, but still lit up. Distilled water barely conducted any water at all, and the LED was faint.
From what I understand shocking grasp doesn't interact with water.
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Re: size
1st level makes 2 pounds.
1 cubic foot is 8 pounds
1st level can make a minimum size of 6" x 6" x 6"
maximum size is 3 times that area: 18" x 18"
Volume doesn't change, so total depth, once it finishes falling:
18" x 18" x 2/3"so, less than a square.
1 gallon is eight pounds: "A pint's a pound, the world round."
1 Cubic foot is close to eight gallons.
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Aside from the physics that pure water doesn't help conduct electricity, combining spell effects is up to GM fiat.
I once asked the boards if Stone Call could be used to detect invisibility because of all the pebbles flying about. Obviously there were major disagreements.
These sort of things are Rule of Cool territory. I'd advise bribing your GM with cake and beer and giving a winning in-story reason.
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So lets not bring physics into this. (Lets also not bring up the fact that a fighter in full plate might be less affected by shocking grasp, not more, because the metal would act as a lightning rod, routing the electricity around him.)
Note: Shocking Grasp does not do more damage to the person in metal armor than the person in plain clothing.
It is using the metal as though Shocking Grasp created a magnetic effect, and used that effect to allow ferrous metals to let the spell target them better.
Now, PF doesn't go into such detail, unfortunately, so it doesn't say, "These metals, in quantity, provide a +3 to hit; these other metals, no matter the quantity, provide no bonus to hit."
Probably because some of the fantasy metals aren't defined as ferrous/non-ferrous, like mithril and adamantine...
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Re: size
1st level makes 2 pounds.
1 cubic foot is 8 pounds
1st level can make a minimum size of 6" x 6" x 6"
maximum size is 3 times that area: 18" x 18"
Volume doesn't change, so total depth, once it finishes falling:
18" x 18" x 2/3"so, less than a square.
1 gallon is eight pounds: "A pint's a pound, the world round."
1 Cubic foot is close to eight gallons.
Yeah, no, m math was completely off, I am not sure why that even happened. There are several errors. Except that I really read it as makes 2 pounds, not makes 2 gallons.
1st level makes 2 gallons.
1 cubic foot is 8 pounds = 1 gallon
1st level can make a minimum size of 15" x 15" x 15"
maximum size is 3 times that area: 45" x 45"
Volume doesn't change, so total depth, once it finishes falling:
45" x 45" x 5"
A little under one square.
I'm not a scientist!
Would being "soaked" in water actually make you more vulnerable to electricity? Wouldn't the electricity travle in the water into the ground instead of through the body?
(As far as I know, lighting is a bunch of -'es that want to travle down to all the +'es in the ground, and that's why the clouds goes poof-poof sometimes. However, I don't know if the idea of Shocking Grasp is the same but that the -'es are in the hand, or something, when you touch).And why would electricity travle in water to go into a person? Shouldn't it just go down into the ground to meet all the +'es? Or are there a bunch of +'es in our bodys that they also want to meet?
Under some specific circumstances, the easiest path to ground may be through the water, into your skin, out of your skin, and into the ground. (Also remember that electrons are all trying to keep away from each other, so if the easier route is fully clogged, they will take the slightly harder route, that is less clogged.)
Now, usually, that is not to big a problem, it may cause your leg to spasm and burn you a bit, but it isn't going to kill you. The bigger problem happens when you reach down into the water, and now the easy path is through your hand, down your arm, past your heart, out your leg. Then you can die. It takes very little of the lightning strike taking the longer but less crowded route to kill you if the route goes past your heart.
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So lets not bring physics into this. (Lets also not bring up the fact that a fighter in full plate might be less affected by shocking grasp, not more, because the metal would act as a lightning rod, routing the electricity around him.)Note: Shocking Grasp does not do more damage to the person in metal armor than the person in plain clothing.
It is using the metal as though Shocking Grasp created a magnetic effect, and used that effect to allow ferrous metals to let the spell target them better.
It doesn't do more damage, but it is more likely to hit under the rules, which I would call "more affected"
The same factors that make metal attractive to electric arcs means that once the shocking grasp goes *into* the metal, it is going to *stay* in the metal, not go into you. It has little to do with whether the metal is ferrous, and more to do with it's conductance, as the higher the metal's conductance, the shorter path it represents to ground.
Unless the shocking grasp is spiraling through your armor, it is really unlikely to be creating a magnetic effect, and a magnetic effect wouldn't necessarily be pulling in more current, typically it would be pushing it away as the magnet resists the change in magnetic field.
Actually, the most likely effect I can see, realistically, is that you might spotweld some of your armors joints, increasing its ACP
wet skin will allow electricity to enter the body easier (dry, dead skin is actually a very good insulator). However, the movie image of the puddle of water flowing under the door and then electrocuting the bad guy with the ripped out lamp shade is incredibly unrealistic. About the most I would see doing, game-wise, would be to allow a slight bonus to hit on a wet target (similar to the metal clause).
If you put water on the floor and then Shocking Grasps it, then the current is instantaneously grounded = wasted spell.
If you soaks more than one creature in water and they are all standing in the same puddle of water, one of two possibilities happen.
1. If you Shocking Grasps one of the soaked creatures, then it takes the full effect. No to-hit bonus. No AC bonus/penalty. No other creatures are affected, since the current is grounded after running through the first target.
2. If you try to affect all soaked creatures by using Shocking grasp directly on the puddle of water, then RAW states that no one is affected since you haven't touched your intended target directly by a touch attack. Also, you are effectively grounding your current before it can reach and affect your targets.
However, if you really want to Shocking Grasp more than one creature, just ask them to hold hands with each other... :-)
Re: size
1st level makes 2 pounds.
1 cubic foot is 8 pounds
1st level can make a minimum size of 6" x 6" x 6"
maximum size is 3 times that area: 18" x 18"
Volume doesn't change, so total depth, once it finishes falling:
18" x 18" x 2/3"so, less than a square.
1 gallon is eight pounds: "A pint's a pound, the world round."
1 Cubic foot is close to eight gallons.
Yeah, no, m math was completely off, I am not sure why that even happened. There are several errors. Except that I really read it as makes 2 pounds, not makes 2 gallons.
1st level makes 2 gallons.
1 cubic foot is 8 pounds = 1 gallon
1st level can make a minimum size of 15" x 15" x 15"
maximum size is 3 times that area: 45" x 45"
Volume doesn't change, so total depth, once it finishes falling:
45" x 45" x 5"A little under one square.
More math errors. Try this:
1st level makes 2 gallons.1 cubic foot is 8 gallons = 12"*12"*12" = 1728 cu in
1st level can make a minimum size of 7.56"*7.56"*7.56" = 432 cu in
maximum size is 3 times that area: 22.68"*22.68"
Volume doesn't change, so total depth, once it finishes falling:
22.68"*22.68"*0.84"
Only 14.29% of one square
/cevah
The thing about using water is that even if the water conducts perfectly most of the electricity will be absorbed by the ground, with very little actually jumping to people standing in the puddle.
It is creative though, so I would say that this allows one to make an attack against a target standing in a 5' square with the puddle in it under these conditions:
1. You have to touch the puddle with the hand that you gestured with to cast. Since you are bending over this action provokes AoOs unless you are already prone. Note that you could drop prone as a free action to deal with this issue.
2. You do not need to roll to hit, but since this has essentially become a single-square area effect, the target gets a reflex save for half damage.
3. The spell's base damage will be halved as much of the electricity dissipated harmlessly into the ground.
These may seem overly restrictive, but hey, the spell isn't supposed to work this way.
There's a reason this dude wears chainmail.
Funny enough, you'd be safest against shocking grasp in a suit of full plate.
Electricity acts like water with conduits. It's going to take the path of least resistance, and since metal conducts electricity so well the vast majority of it will flow through the suit rather than your body.
Or to use Sciency terms
Resistance_metal is far less than Resistance_body.
Current_metal= Resistance_Body*TotalCurrent/(Resistance_body + Resistance_metal)
So the larger the resistance of the human flesh in comparison to the metal, the more current is going to flow through the metal.
Now, luckily for us, Pathfinder isn't based on scientific facts. It's pure fantasy, so the type of water or armor or humanoid body, etc. etc. doesn't apply to neither Shocking Grasp, Lightning Bolt, Call Lightning, the breathweapon of a blue dragon, and so on.
I tried before to explain why Shocking Grasp doesn't work through water lying on the floor. It simply doesn't. It's magic guys. Please treat it as such. And I can't find anything in the rules telling me otherwise.
Finally, a comment on the formula above: Thomas, your math is incorrect. All formula regarding electricity is based on Mr. Ohm's formula, stating that U = I × R <=> Voltage = Current × Resistance (all totals). I can't find Voltage (U) in your formula. ;-)
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More math errors. Try this:
1st level makes 2 gallons.
1 cubic foot is 8 gallons = 12"*12"*12" = 1728 cu in
1st level can make a minimum size of 7.56"*7.56"*7.56" = 432 cu in
maximum size is 3 times that area: 22.68"*22.68"
Volume doesn't change, so total depth, once it finishes falling:
22.68"*22.68"*0.84"
Only 14.29% of one square/cevah
Yeah, that's right. I don't know why my brain kept substituting pounds for gallons.
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Funny enough, you'd be safest against shocking grasp in a suit of full plate.
Electricity acts like water with conduits. It's going to take the path of least resistance, and since metal conducts electricity so well the vast majority of it will flow through the suit rather than your body.
Or to use Sciency terms
Resistance_metal is far less than Resistance_body.
Current_metal= Resistance_Body*TotalCurrent/(Resistance_body + Resistance_metal)
So the larger the resistance of the human flesh in comparison to the metal, the more current is going to flow through the metal.
Now, luckily for us, Pathfinder isn't based on scientific facts. It's pure fantasy, so the type of water or armor or humanoid body, etc. etc. doesn't apply to neither Shocking Grasp, Lightning Bolt, Call Lightning, the breathweapon of a blue dragon, and so on.
I tried before to explain why Shocking Grasp doesn't work through water lying on the floor. It simply doesn't. It's magic guys. Please treat it as such. And I can't find anything in the rules telling me otherwise.
Finally, a comment on the formula above: Thomas, your math is incorrect. All formula regarding electricity is based on Mr. Ohm's formula, stating that U = I × R <=> Voltage = Current × Resistance (all totals). I can't find Voltage (U) in your formula. ;-)
You're incorrect. That determines base current, aka total current.
I already know the total current in the formula. I have two lines in parallel that are both taking a portion of the current. Voltage is not involved at all.
Or if you prefer?
Please don't try to correct a mechanical engineer who did a good bit of robotics work on the workings of basic circuitry.
Edit: The formula can be found at equations 3&4 on the very top of page 2. The first page shows you how to do voltage division, while the 2nd page does current division.
Well, that does kind of depend on whether shocking hands is a current source or a voltage source. And I really don't think we want to get into that.
Also a lot of this depends on the continuity of the path through the armor. I could make a (rather silly) argument that chain mail converts the damage from electricity to heat as the current arcs from ring to ring, heating the metal.
But that would start to get rather silly, so lets just stick to the abstract and non physics based rules, okay?
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Just pointing out, everything is a voltage source that creates a current :P Voltage is just a difference in potential from the surrounding area, a concentration of electrons. Current is the flow of electrons from that point, alleviating the high negative charge.
And arcing requires rather high power levels, for even small distances. That aside, it generally only occurs when the power doesn't already have somewhere to go, so in chainmail it would flow through link to link to allievate power rather than going through air (one of the highest resistance materials known to man)
That said, you are correct, we should drop it.
As an engineer, you know that is not what the term means.
Technically, yes, every source is both a voltage source (in that it has a maximum voltage differential that it can supply, and a current source in that it has a maximum current it can supply.) But when calculating the correct current, it is necessary to determine if the source is operating in the voltage source region, (where the current flow is low enough that the maximum voltage potential is the limiting factor) or in the current source region (where the resistance is low enough that maximum current flow is the limiting factor.)
Chain mail would be a nasty series of microscopic air gaps, since the chain links are not soldered to each other, the current would need to make hundreds of microscopic arcs going through the mesh. Only links that are actually stretched against each other would supply a solid metal / metal connection. The question would become whether that path had a higher or lower resistance than the body with all those air gaps.
Arcing can happen at *very* low voltages, it just winds up happening at microscopic distances. This is how house fires start from frayed cords at a measly 120 volts, and how 12 volt car batteries can throw off sparks when you jump start your car. (I once lived in an apartment where the front light switch was wired without a tightly wrapped wire, we found out when the heat from the electricity crossing the gap caused the switch to become hot enough to be painful to touch.)
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I'm an computer engineering consultant, with what amounts to essentially a minor in Electrical engineering and computer software on the side. I have done a lot of my work in Power systems, motor theory, sensor design, etc.
When you start getting into loose metals touching, you find out that two metals are not a solid metal to metal connection unless they are soldered or pressed together. The light switch I mentioned above, the power line *was* touching the post. But there was enough gap that it created a resistance that dissipated power and heated the switch.
Also, remember that if the contact region is small enough, that will limit the current that can flow through it, as resistance is a factor of the cross section of the path, so with two curved surfaces, you can wind up with a very small contact area, and some of the current is flowing directly from one surface to the other, while the bulk of the current is flowing directly through the microscopic air gap where the two surfaces curve away from each other. (essentially what was happening in the above switch.)
In short, you are talking about arcs over 1/16th of an inch between two 12 gauge (or more?) copper wires. I am talking about arcs over micrometers, with 16 gauge steel wire. You probably wouldn't see a spark, but you would get leakage current, and heating from that.
(It occurs to me that I have been using arc very loosely. Technically, if you just get heating and leakage current, but not enough to dissociate the air, that is not an arc. So technically I should be saying it turns the electric damage into heat damage as the electricity runs through the chain mail dissipating heat at every resistive gap between the chain links. )
I may not be an engineer (mechanics or computer), but I am working as an electrician (requiring 4 years of education in Denmark). I was actually working when I wrote my reply to Thomas, so I didn't haf the time to properly go through his math. Sorry for that.
Still, I must insist that this is a game. Shocking Grasp is magic. The soell has existed in all previous editions of the game. I generally don't think that it's a good idea to mix fantasy with advanced scientific theory, which was my point in my previous replies.
Thomas, your math may be 100% correct, but you can't apply it to Shocking Grasp. Why? Because a realworld lightning arc similar to Shocking Grasp would require in excess of 10000 Volts. This kind of power will NOT run on the surface of armor on in the skin of humans. It will go straight through the poor sud unlucky enough to be on the receiving end of things. I have seen some real live results where the muscles of a man touching some train-wires got himself fried in his muscles and through his chest.
You are all pretty good educated, but don't bully me about electricity. I also know what I'm talking about.
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Side note, I am going to back out of this conversation, cause I am getting cranky over it. "I am a (not electrical) engineer who has done some work with electricity" is a trigger phrase for me, as it usually precedes me having to clean up someone else's mess. (Which to be clear is probably not the case here, but it sets me off anyway.)
The first time it happened was when my civil engineer land lord who "taught classes in electrical wiring for the state" tried to convince me that it didn't matter if the light bulb was upstream or down stream of the switch, because both circuits were electrically identical. (It took me two hours to get him to sit down, draw out the circuits and then draw on the circuits me standing on a metal stool changing a lightbulb and accidentally forming a ground to show him why from a safety stand point the two circuits were not identical.)
So if I have come off overly confrontational or dismissive, I apologize.
(Besides, none of it is relevant to Pathfinder electricity which is in no way based on real electricity.)
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You guys are way over complicating it... This is a rules forum. There is no "rule for how it works this way" because it simply doesn't work this way.
Shocking grasp has no extra effects when you "attack water" by doing something like also damaging something standing in the water.
It doesn't really matter what would or wouldn't happen in real life. Anything beyond "dealing the damage to the water because that's what you touched" is homebrew territory and not necessary for discussion on this forum.
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You are all pretty good educated, but don't bully me about electricity. I also know what I'm talking about.
I've seen what happens when somebody accidentally touches a high voltage transformer while sitting at a metal workbench.
The spark jumped from their leg across 3" of air to the workbench. It left a hole, along with burns the length of their arm.
Personally: I still have scars on both hands where I grabbed a measly 300 vdc power supply without realizing it was active.
12 years as an electronics tech doing component level repair on high power radio and radar systems and a degree in computer science.
I have great respect for electricity, but prefer to keep real life physics out of my gaming.
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Side note, I am going to back out of this conversation, cause I am getting cranky over it. "I am a (not electrical) engineer who has done some work with electricity" is a trigger phrase for me, as it usually precedes me having to clean up someone else's mess.
The first time it happened was when my civil engineer land lord who "taught classes in electrical wiring for the state" tried to convince me that it didn't matter if the light bulb was upstream or down stream of the switch, because both circuits were electrically identical. (It took me two hours to get him to sit down, draw out the circuits and then draw on the circuits me standing on a metal stool changing a lightbulb and accidentally forming a ground to show him why from a safety stand point the two circuits were not identical.)
So if I have come off overly confrontational or dismissive, I apologize.
Perfectly alright, message me sometime. I may not specialize in electricity but I've done a lot of crosswork, because for some reason when schweitzer power decided they wanted power equipment designed they didn't see fit to ask for an electrical engineer or programmer on the team.
Guess who got shafted into learning programming and all the advanced electrical work involved? :P
It's cool. I don't think I have messaging turn on the forums actually. :)
You guys are way over complicating it... This is a rules forum. There is no "rule for how it works this way" because it simply doesn't work this way.
Shocking grasp has no extra effects when you "attack water" by doing something like also damaging something standing in the water.
It doesn't really matter what would or wouldn't happen in real life. Anything beyond "dealing the damage to the water because that's what you touched" is homebrew territory and not necessary for discussion on this forum.
I totally agree.
I may not be an engineer (mechanics or computer), but I am working as an electrician (requiring 4 years of education in Denmark). I was actually working when I wrote my reply to Thomas, so I didn't haf the time to properly go through his math. Sorry for that.
Still, I must insist that this is a game. Shocking Grasp is magic. The soell has existed in all previous editions of the game. I generally don't think that it's a good idea to mix fantasy with advanced scientific theory, which was my point in my previous replies.
Thomas, your math may be 100% correct, but you can't apply it to Shocking Grasp. Why? Because a realworld lightning arc similar to Shocking Grasp would require in excess of 10000 Volts. This kind of power will NOT run on the surface of armor on in the skin of humans. It will go straight through the poor sud unlucky enough to be on the receiving end of things. I have seen some real live results where the muscles of a man touching some train-wires got himself fried in his muscles and through his chest.
You are all pretty good educated, but don't bully me about electricity. I also know what I'm talking about.
]Please, I worked at a train manufacturing plant. The high voltage cabinet, the highest voltage on the freaking train never runs more than 480 volts on the bigger ones, usually 440 on the smaller ones. That won't fry a man unless he's really unlucky and it goes through the heart. We had two shocks in a single day and no one died from it.
Furthermore, shocking grasp isn't even close to 10000 volts. Nothing ever says that shocking grasp arcs. It doesn't even remotely come close to that kind of potential.
Finally what is your basis on saying it comes through the person, not the armor? Its certainly not math or theory based, because all of those indicate a very strong no in those areas, platemail (which generally consists of multiple layers of metal) would almost definitely provide enough protection to keep from, at the very least, killing a man.
Thomas, NOW you really sound condescending. You have now proved that you know nothing of trains outside of the US.
Try the Youtube link provided below. It shows several trains in Copenhagen on a rainy day. The power supplied to the trains is 20000 Volts.
I could also show you a short film showing a man from India getting killed in a big flash from touching train power wires. Voltage: 35000 Volts.
You may be right about armor giving some sort of protection, but high voltage currents are going through the body through nerves (which is made for electrical signals after all) and arteries. This is a medical fact - not a mathematical one.
Yes. Shocking Grasp doesn't make a lightning arc. I was wrong when I suggested that. Sorry. The output is probably more in the three-digit area (both current and voltage).
Now you have my most sincere apology for doubting your formulaes earlier. They are true, of course, but I still have doubts about their usefulness without adressing the issue of Voltage and Power (Watt/VA).
However, I will now bail out of this discussion. I went into it because I thought it had something do to with my big hobby: Roleplaying Games. Now, I know better. I simply cannot measure up to engineers, etc. etc.
http://youtu.be/Z13utNONa5M
You only created 20 trains? Gosh. Then both you and your company is blatantly wrong.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_c
urrent_systems_for_electric_rail_traction
You may pay special attention to the 25 kV section where danish trains are mentioned.
The matter of whether electricity spells are amplified or otherwise channeled by water (or metal armor for that matter) is as old as the game itself. As far as I've ever found, there has never been text in any of the spell descriptions (or anywhere else in the rules) that gives any kind of direction in this.
So it has always been a matter of houseruling.
However, from my own experience, and as was mentioned many times on many boards over the years, be careful allowing it. Once you open the door to real science in a fantasy game, you're going to find yourself inundated with requests to adjudicate all sorts of magic/science crossovers the game does not explicitly cover. And that can not only be cumbersome, it can also be a source of arguments at the table.
I, myself, had a troublesome player, playing a gnome wizard, who loved electricity, who either argued that it ought to be doing extra damage to his heavily armored foes (which is silly - if he wanted to go that route I argued the armor would attract more electricity, thus dealing LESS to the less-armoed foes), or at least griped about it, every single time he cast lightning bolt or chained lightning. Got old fast.
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Not that I think anyone cares or that it should have any effect on game rules:
So... Quick Primer on how electricity kills.
Electricity typically hurts you in one of three ways:
1. An electric current can flow past your heart or brain, freezing it momentarily. This requires trivial amounts of current. All it takes is a few milliamps, going in the right place and you are dead. But if those few milliamps miss, you are pretty much fine.
In game, this would be represented by a Fortitude save versus death.
This is the electrocution most electricians (and probably Thomas Long) encounter when working live. It is also the reason I never work live on anything over 9 volts, it almost never kills you if you are careful, but almost never isn't never, and it only takes once to be dead. Note also that most of the resistance in the body comes from going in and out the skin, meaning if you have a metal probe in your body, and *any* current gets into it, it is *very* bad.
Plants and elementals and oozes would be immune to this sort of electricity damage. Since they are not, this isn't shocking grasp.
2. An electric current can convulse your body hard enough to slam your head into a hard surface, killing you. This typically requires higher currents (and thus higher voltages)
This is so situational, it is hard to see how it would be represented in game. But it would also almost certainly include an effect where you would lose one or more rounds of actions. It would also probably be bashing damage, not electrical.
Typically, this is more dangerous as Voltages (and thus the currents they produce) go up. I couldn't find any definitive stats, but it would take a large, relatively sustained voltage. Many electricians have had convulsions from shocks, though it is rarer, and rarely fatal as far as I can tell. (Fortunately, AC usually throws you away from the line, though I did have an uncle whose coworker supposedly got himself in a situation where the AC tossed him away into a support beam that bounced him back onto the line....) It is also a serious freak accident sort of thing.
Again, Elementals and anything without muscles would probably be immune to this sort of electrical damage.
3. The current can be so high, that it burns as it passes through your body. The higher the current / voltage, the more burn. It may also cause either of the above deaths, or it may not, depending entirely on the situation. However, the higher the voltage, the higher the likelyhood of the above. If it doesn't kill you immediately, however, it probably just hurts your body and degrades your effectiveness. ( It can also do nerve damage. )
This is scale-able, and would be represented as dice of damage. It would effect most creatures that were not immune to electricity. This is probably the sort of electrical damage that is represented by shocking grasp and and lightning bolt.
In the real world, this is the sort of damage done by lightning bolts, really high voltage transformers, things like that. Stuff doing upward of 1000 volts. At these voltages, some of the things we think of as insulators (skin, air, etc.) break down and become conductors instead.