Elemental damage colors: how many?

[TavishArtair]

How many elemental colors should there be, really? You obviously gotta put your foot down somewhere. I've heard prime number values thrown around a lot, but is there any particular reason they have to be uneven? If you have a "basic elements" system, what kind of damage should disintegration do?

[RandomCasualty2]

Disintegration I've always had as untyped damage, assuming you have it deal damage at all. It may just be a save or die effect that either succeeds or fails.

As far as damage types. I'd say 4-8 is probably the range you want. Any more than that, and people have trouble remembering them.

[CatharzGodfoot]

It's completely arbitrary. The more there are, the less meaningful they are. The fewer there are, the less different attacks seem.

But, yeah, I think RC's range is pretty good. Remember that "untyped" is still a type

[RobbyPants]

Does untyped damage really even matter? If the only thing we're really tracking with the color system is what buffs stack with what, and what debuffs stack with what, then it shouldn't matter. My understanding is all damage stacks with other damage.

Other than that, I don't hugely care. I'd say six is a decent start (the four classic elements plus light and dark). I could see branching out a bit from there. I could see going with five and stealing MtG's model.

Trying to cram everything into the four classic elements gets pretty hard. My wife was trying to make the basis of a MtG-esque card game like that, and it got to be really hard to divide some things up into that few colors. What element is necromancy? Earth?

[Judging__Eagle]

Necromancy is Black.

You go by colours, not "elements".

[Grek]

Red, Yellow, Brown, Green, Blue and Purple.

[Username17]

It depends on what you're using your color wheel for. Odd numbers are good for making lists of "good against" and "bad against" because when you pick the one element you're inspecting the remaining elements are divisible into two equal piles. So with three you can have Rock be weak against Paper and strong against Scissors. With Five you can put two in one group and two in the other. The reason for prime numbers is simply that as it happens, all of the odd numbers between 3 and 7 are also Prime. And throwing in more than 8 starts getting hard to remember.

On the other hand, if you want simple opposition, then even numbers are good. 4 elements is pretty popular because you can have left oppose right and up oppose down.

-Username17

[Gelare]

The fewer elements you have, the more people will care about getting X resistance. Seeing as no one cares about getting X resistance in D&D, I'd say 7 (fire, acid, cold, elec, sonic, positive, negative) is probably at the upper end, and 5 is advisable.

[CatharzGodfoot]

The fewer elements you have, the more people will care about getting X resistance. Seeing as no one cares about getting X resistance in D&D, I'd say 7 (fire, acid, cold, elec, sonic, positive, negative) is probably at the upper end, and 5 is advisable.

So would a sword do negative?

[Rejakor]

Yeah, DnD has two resistance systems which kind of makes it.. eurgh.

[Orca]

If all you're using it for is to determine which buffs stack and how many kinds of energy resistance there are, 4-5 should be plenty IMO.

[RobbyPants]

Necromancy is Black.

You go by colours, not "elements".

Well, yeah, for this. That's exactly why I said I wouldn't simply use the four classic elements for this RPG design.

That question about necromancy and earth pertained to my wife's CCG design. It sparked all kinds of weird issues, and I haven't heard her talk about it for a couple of months now. Of course, getting Dominion might have something to do with that.

[erik]

I'm in near agreement with Gelare's 7 (I know, he was advocating 5-ish tho). Just swap Positive out in exchange for Force and I'm down with that.

Sonic, Heat, Force, Acid, Cold, Electric and Death create a tidy 7 that cover most angles of expected damage. (SHFACED)

I don't like life/positive damage because it sounds goofy.

[RobbyPants]

SHFACED. Priceless.

Although you could make the argument that all life/death damage is just necromancy (or whatever you want to call it).

[TavishArtair]

Elements are easier to use if you use them in a mythical way, or use exotic elements. The basic Western four tend to lead to people introducing Akasha again and just lumping everything interesting into the Quintessence, as a result. While a space for inarticulate damage types is sometimes good...

If you were to keep strict to the four Greek elements, though, Necromancy would totally be Earth, as the Underworld was literally the world underneath, most days. Money was also from Hades (which is why you could use it to pay for things in Hades), and so now we have rich people who rule through their wealth called plutocrats...

[Kobajagrande]

I agree elements should be used in a mythical way.

http://www.nuklearpower.com/2009/07/11/ ... ard-to-do/

[kjdavies]

On the other hand, if you want simple opposition, then even numbers are good. 4 elements is pretty popular because you can have left oppose right and up oppose down.

-Username17

I've got a campaign cosmology where the elemental planes are arranged in a (metaphysical) tetrahedron. It was the only way, in three dimensions or less, I could have each of them opposing the other three.

Where 'opposing' isn't really the right word, but is perhaps the least wrong word.


Keith

[kjdavies]

That question about necromancy and earth pertained to my wife's CCG design. It sparked all kinds of weird issues, and I haven't heard her talk about it for a couple of months now. Of course, getting Dominion might have something to do with that.

Heh, Dominion can be a sink. I tried game with my kids (12 and 8) and it ran about an hour and a half... and between us we scored a *lot* of points (almost all estates bought up, plus Garden, I think it was, and we all had Towers of Power).

Smallworld is another one that's a lot of fun... and to bring it back on topic, you could probably expand it into an elemental-based game (or add such connotations to it) without a lot of effort.

Keith

fixed quote tags --Z

[RobbyPants]

TavishArtair, what do you mean use the elements in a "mythical" way?

kjdavies, I just saw smallworld in the store last week, but I didn't buy it. Also, you messed up the quote tags. You have to edit that post or all of the ones under it will look weird.

[kjdavies]

TavishArtair, what do you mean use the elements in a "mythical" way?

kjdavies, I just saw smallworld in the store last week, but I didn't buy it. Also, you messed up the quote tags. You have to edit that post or all of the ones under it will look weird.

Zherog beat me to it. Apologies, it was late and I must've not noticed when I previewed.

Smallworld's a quick, fun game (but a few races and combinations are broken. Merchant sorcerers (20 victory points a turn?) and dwarven anything (teh suck)). After reconsideration, though, apart from using elements as colors or team jerseys, there doesn't seem to be a lot you could do with them. *Perhaps* treat them as modifiers; attack out of a land-of-the-appropriate-color you get a bonus, attack into a land-of-the-opposed-color take a penalty, and perhaps a similar bonus for being attacked in lands of your appropriate color. Dwarves attacking out of any earth square could have +1 to their attack and be harder to dig out (+1 to defense), but if they tromp into the plains (air) they have trouble (-1 to attack), and so on.

In the end, I suspect I wouldn't bother.

Keith

[TavishArtair]

I meant pretty much what I just said. Drawing on correspondences to allow more than a couple of effects to be grouped under an element's banner. Fire grows to include "fiery" personalities as well, and as such rage, et cetera.

[kjdavies]

I meant pretty much what I just said. Drawing on correspondences to allow more than a couple of effects to be grouped under an element's banner. Fire grows to include "fiery" personalities as well, and as such rage, et cetera.

There was an article in Dragon Magazine years ago that talked about doing this to build a set of 'elemental gods'. Four gods, though with multiple aspects, that basically covered everything. I could probably dig up a reference to it if anyone's interested.

K.

[TavishArtair]

I kind of have my own ideas but I'd like to see that at least. Just telling me where it was would be good enough. Dragon had some gems.

[K]

The real question is: what energy-specific resistances do you believe in?

I mean, its all fair and good to say "you know, lightning monsters are awesome and fire monsters are awesome, so they should be separate things....", but setting up your system in such a way that you get Lightning and Fire in different camps is not completely necessary.

Personally, I know that lightning sets things on fire, so adding complexity to your system for the sake of a mistaken notion seems pointless.

Personally, I'd go with a system where resistances are an attribute of overall toughness. While we all can agree that Fire elementals should be impossible to burn, I can also buy that Earth Elementals are also impossible to burn by virtue of being super tough and made of stones.

I mean, its not like partial resistances work at all. I mean, when was the last time you cared about Fire Resistance 5? Or when there was a cool story you could tell about FR 5 (which won't even let you stand in a campfire)?

Various Rock, Paper, Scissors, and Elemental Wheel systems also set up weird typing problems where specific monsters get pigeon-holed into various templates willy nilly and iconic monsters like Tiamat cause your system to explode.

[RobbyPants]

Eh, six of one, half a dozen of the other. I can see good points to both sides, really.