Choral Support and Spell Description

[Minigiant]

Does Choral Support

D20 wrote:

As a standard action, you can attempt a DC 10 Perform (sing) check to aid an ally who also has this feat.

If you succeed at the check, spells cast by your ally before the start of your next turn that deal acid, cold, electricity, or fire damage instead deal sonic damage. Spells that would normally deal sonic damage deal half sonic damage and half damage resulting directly from divine power that is not subject to being reduced by resistance to sonic attacks.

Change for example the Fireball description from Evocation[Fire] to Evocation[Sonic]?

[Pizza Lord]

From reading it, I don't think it changes the descriptor, only the damage. For example, when your ally casts it, it will still be a [fire] spell, but it will do sonic damage instead of fire damage.

So if your ally had a feat that gave him a +2 to the DC of their [fire] spells, the spell would still have the +2 DC, but just deal sonic damage. That same if the caster had a feat or ability that made their fire spells do +1 damage per die. A 10th-level caster's fireball would deal 10d6+10 damage, it would just be sonic.

Being sonic damage, it would be stopped by a silence effect, however.

Some effects indicate they change damage from one type to another but don't change the descriptors or type of spell. Some do.

Elemental bloodline wrote:

Bloodline Arcana: Whenever you cast a spell that deals energy damage, you can change the type of damage to match the type of your bloodline. This also changes the spell’s type to match the type of your bloodline.

Admixture wrote:

Versatile Evocation (Su): When you cast an evocation spell that does acid, cold, electricity, or fire damage, you may change the damage dealt to one of the other four energy types. This changes the descriptor of the spell to match the new energy type.

The ones above change both magic and type. Choral Support and Elemental Spell (metamagic) below don't seem to do that.

Elemental Spell (metamagic) wrote:

Benefit: Choose one energy type: acid, cold, electricity, or fire. You may replace a spell’s normal damage with that energy type or split the spell’s damage, so that half is of that energy type and half is of its normal type.

It's a GM's discretion if something comes up that makes no sense, of course.

[Diego Rossi]

I agree with Pizza Lord about the RAW, but, as a GM, I would have all the effects change the spell descriptor or add to it (depending on if the effect change all the damage or only part of it). I think that not saying that the descriptor change is an oversight by authors that didn't consider that the descriptor is relevant.

[VoodistMonk]

Diego Rossi wrote:

I agree with Pizza Lord about the RAW, but, as a GM, I would have all the effects change the spell descriptor or add to it (depending on if the effect change all the damage or only part of it). I think that not saying that the descriptor change is an oversight by authors that didn't consider that the descriptor is relevant.

I believe it was intentional that it does NOT change the descriptor... they want all the murderhobo munchkin madness to still apply to the spell being casted, but now it can bypass elemental resistance. People go through great lengths to stack up every BS bonus they can apply, and a lot of those bonuses rely on the descriptor type of the spell. Your Bloodline Arcanas or whatever wouldn't apply anymore if homeboy started changing your spells on you. It is simply changing the damage to something that very few things have resistance to.

[Diego Rossi]

VoodistMonk wrote:

Diego Rossi wrote:

I agree with Pizza Lord about the RAW, but, as a GM, I would have all the effects change the spell descriptor or add to it (depending on if the effect change all the damage or only part of it). I think that not saying that the descriptor change is an oversight by authors that didn't consider that the descriptor is relevant.

I believe it was intentional that it does NOT change the descriptor... they want all the murderhobo munchkin madness to still apply to the spell being casted, but now it can bypass elemental resistance. People go through great lengths to stack up every BS bonus they can apply, and a lot of those bonuses rely on the descriptor type of the spell. Your Bloodline Arcanas or whatever wouldn't apply anymore if homeboy started changing your spells on you. It is simply changing the damage to something that very few things have resistance to.

The drawback of that approach is that then you have to check every ability to see if it is descriptor dependant or it depends on the actual kind of damage dealt.

To me, my approach seems more consistent, but, as I said, it is my opinion for my games, not a RAW answer.