Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 kobold_esq Mar 28, 2008 19:50:20	Lets say I want an element themed caster (arcane or divine, doesn't matter). For the purposes of this discussion, wood and metal count as elements (for the Wujen lovers out there) and we will treat cold as being different than water. I want as many spells of my element as possible prepared each day. I want to be able to affect as many foes as possible, as well as have interesting utility spells. So which element is the best choice? Consider power of individual spells, number of spells available, and breadth of selection (in terms of what you can do). Also consider specialist prestige classes (Frostburn, Stormwrack, and Sandstorm all have various elemental casters) and feats which synergize with the element (Piercing Cold, etc). So given all that, which element comes out on top from an optimization standpoint? I haven't done thorough research myself, but I feel like [cold] has the lead. It has almost as many damaging spells as fire or lightning, but many other effects as well (Freezing Fog, Freezing Glance, Entomb, various cold weather creating spells, etc). Is my first guess wrong?
#2 cyrocloud Mar 28, 2008 20:07:15	Honestly cold would be the second worst energy type to pick if you're focusing on direct damage, unless you take alot of metamagic to substitute the cold damage for negetive energy and such. This is because fire and cold are the two most commonly immune energy types ther are. Honestly the best would probably be sonic, then acid (force would be the best if it's considered one.). If your just going for the overall themantics and power then maybe a silverbrow human with snow casting, eshew materials and draconic arura to boost the DC's of all your spells would be very good.
#3 littlekid Mar 28, 2008 20:12:31	Electricity, Born of three thunders.
#4 skydragonknight Mar 28, 2008 20:23:37	Acid would be the hardest to resist normally. The typical elemental-themed PrC is Elemental Savant. I'll also suggest Sancified One of Kord's Holy Fire ability along with Elemental Savant so all your damage spells pierce elemental resistance and so I can ninja ChristopherGroves again.
#5 kobold_esq Mar 28, 2008 21:48:14	I'm trying to expand the discussion beyond just the damaging spells. You can do decent damage with any element via energy substitution (which is also required if you're going elemental savant anyways). I guess I just gravitated towards cold because it seemed to me to have a wider variety of things it could do (as opposed to say fire, which appears to just hurt things in various ways). Is the possibility of stunning a couple opponents worth the dazing for Born of Three Thunders? I always felt the daze would be crippling.
#6 jameswilliamogle Mar 28, 2008 21:54:53	It doesn't matter once you take energy substitution, honestly. The only ones that have metamagics to beat energy resistance are cold and fire, though. If you have Forgotten Realms access, feats that boost your CL for Fire are easiest to obtain. Cold has the most "focused" PrCs for that particular energy type due to frostburn; Sandstorm's arcane PrCs are not as fire based. Electricity also has quite a few PrCs (Stormwrack, Complete Divine). For Elemental Savants, I prefer Acid / Earth, as Earth Glide is awesome (though you can get that through Earth Dreamer as well, which fits in all 5 levels very well). Fire is the most common subtype for a monster, followed by earth, then water. Air is the rarest. That's not to say that these will all have the associated energy resistance, but I don't have that data.