To all RPGers and familar ilk: What is "Earth" Damage?

Guild Wars has varous other effects under Earth magic. For example, Ebon Hawk, a projectile which exhausts the enemy, Aftershock, which is an earthquake spell that does more damage to those fallen prone (more contact with the ground?) Obsidian Flesh, which benignly transmutes the Elementalist's flesh into stone to defend them, a defensive boost called Ward Against Melee, and something called Obsidian Flame. Still not sure how that last one works.

edited 4th Nov '11 6:47:12 AM by Enlong

I have a message from another time...

I remember making this exact topic over a year ago.

Same issue. What is it about hitting somebody with rocks that's different than hitting them with a hammer? Especially if they have an elemental absorb feature and are healed from the former?

Water and Wind also apply here. Sure, they can hurt, but not in an elementally specific fashion.

Don't take life too seriously. It's only a temporary situation.

And what can fire do that you couldn't with a sword that you just had stuck in a furnace?

I have a message from another time...

I've wondered this myself n the past, and the answer is of course "nothing". It's also "nothing" for a number of other elements, often including ice when all the spell does is drop an ice cube on their head.

True. Let's just say that there's some inherent "energy" to various elements found in nature. Energies that interact with each other spectacularly when charged with magic. Feng Shui that RPG right up.

I have a message from another time...

It really depends on the setting.

Home of CBR Rumbles-in-Exile: rumbles.fr.yuku.com

Same thing with "wind". It just blows stuff around and makes things hit other things. And a lot of "ice" spells really just amount to hitting things with frozen water, which, yes, is cold, but the effects of the coldness would for most purposes be negligible relative to the effects of hitting things with large heavy blocks of stuff.

So why separate out those elements into different damage types? Because if you didn't, you wouldn't have enough elements and the game wouldn't balance the way you want it to.

...eventually, we will reach a maximum entropy state where nobody has their own socks or underwear, or knows who to ask to get them back.

Why don't we separate different damage types into things like "Kinetic", "Radiant", "Enthropic", or "Acidic" instead?

"If there is a hole then it's a man's job to thrust into it" - Ryoma from New Getter Robo

To answer the O Ps question, maybe the energies of the magic involved are more important than what physically happens when you cast a spell.

In the same vein, how can someone be resistant to magic? Is fire not just fire, even if it was created with magic? So why does having increased magic resistance make magical fires burn less?

edited 4th Nov '11 9:22:33 AM by JotunofBoredom

Umbran Climax◊

"Entropic" doesn't make sense as a distinct type (all exchanges of energy increase entropy on net,) and if you make "acidic" a distinct type there are just too many chemical processes that also merit subdivision. There are ways that you can subdivide damage types that make more sense in terms of real physics than video game "elements," but they're not thematically cohesive, nor is there any sense of balance and opposition.

Anyway, fantasy RP Gs don't make sense if you try and frame them in terms of real world physics, and you're liable to make any aesthetic mess of them trying to get them to.

edited 4th Nov '11 9:23:10 AM by Desertopa

...eventually, we will reach a maximum entropy state where nobody has their own socks or underwear, or knows who to ask to get them back.

Basically I pick up a rock and throw it at your face. That's the schtick, using the power of earth be it rocks, sand, dirt, mud, earthquakes, volcanoes (though this one overlaps with Fire) and if you are really creative gravity. All to cause damage, usually magical.

edited 4th Nov '11 9:31:03 AM by MajorTom

@Madass: actually, Water magic I picture as being a lot like how Spike Spiegel described his martial arts in Cowboy Bebop. One second its a gentle, warm current flowing by your feet, the next its a tidal wave rushing at you. Its just as physical in nature, just in a sort of "I just slammed a storm into your face" way.

earth means rocks fall everyone dies

"Seriously, don't eat the mermaid. And not just because it's half cannibalism." ~Otherarrow

I threw a rock at him.

... It was a really BIG rock.

Jonah Falcon

I personally think Adventure Quest, despite being rather mediocre, gets the "Earth Damage" thing right.

Any sort of attack with a solid object is counted as earth damage by default. If you're not hitting your opponent with something windy, hot, cold, electrically charged, wet, bright,shadowy, or whatever the hell element X is supposed to be, you're hitting them with earth. Earth is the attack element you use the most, and with good reason: swords are made of it.

Here's my thoughts.

Essentially, the universe consists of matter and energy. Magic is something that circumvents the usual rules of these two things. As such, let's assume that that in a world with magic that gives no particular explanation for it, there is a third property we could call mana. Mana is like energy in that it makes things happen, but is different. People have mana in them like energy that can be used for magic (their MP), but unlike energy, it seems to recover naturally from resting, without any outside resource like food. It's also common for people to gain more max mana by training their magic skills. As such, we can assume that mana, unlike energy, comes for something like the mind of soul and can be freely manipulated in make magic spells.

If this is the case, it's possible that something moved by magic has different properties from something moved by energy. As such it could be assumed that rocks, dirt, air, and water, all things that seem to have no to extra non-physical properties like fire, ice, and lighting (heat, cold, and electricity), can be given extra power and properties by being charged with mana, instead of just moved with energy.

Now let's consider it likely that there being some difference in element and how it effects things that seems like they should be effected the same (differently elemented creatures or crystals or such, or characters with elemental armor), with would suggest some there being different mana. Specifically, there's element-less mana that naturally forms in most living creatures and is used for non-elemental attacks, and that this mana can be transformed into other types of mana like earth mana, wind mana, fire mana, ice mana, light mana and etc. The names would be given based on the special properties each mana has. Earth mana would be called such as it can be used to move rocks and dirt, cause earthquakes, and perhaps fertilize land.

Considering this, Earth magic would be different from a weapon in that a weapon is simply a physical object being moved by you, where as the rocks, dirt, and quakes being moved and caused by earth magic are charged with earth mana, which could potentially cause it to react differently to different magical beings. Whether that be to mess with their physical structure, hence causing more damage, or being able to use the mana to heal themselves, thus making them only take physical damage from the shock, hence causing less damage.

Makes as much sense as any reason.

As a side note, Castlevania: Circle of the Moon is another game that differentiated Earth and Stone element. Not entirely certain why, as they had a plant element as well, so Earth and Stone did end up feeling much the same.

Don't take life too seriously. It's only a temporary situation.

I can totally see entropy as its own "scientific" attack element: don't think heat, think orderliness. An "entropy" attack is one that induces disorder in the target, turning organized matter and energy into random useless mess. On the low end, it'd be stuff like "debuff equivalent to extended lack of maintenance", on the high end, it'd be stuff like "target disintegrates into random disassociated atoms." Defense would be either auto-repair systems ( the disorder is kept from exceeding critical thresholds ) or probability manipulations that reinforce order rather than break it down ( which you should have, if your capable of manipulating disorder as an attack ).

Home of CBR Rumbles-in-Exile: rumbles.fr.yuku.com

I think "Earth", in the Final Fantasy games, in any case, was originally made an element so that flying enemies can be immune to it as it made little sense for an tremor to hit something that wasn't touching the ground. Over time, this became one of the standard elements of the series, but it's a little special in that there's few that resist or are weak to it(excepting the flying ones). In a sense, it was one of the "neutral" elements.

Helpful Scripts and Stylesheets here.

I'd hardly call Earth a standard element in Final Fantasy games.

It's always a main trinity of Fire, Ice, and Electricity(with Holy and Dark damage appearing later in the games).

Water and Air show up sometimes, while Earth rarely appears outside of summoned creatures.

edited 5th Nov '11 9:19:48 PM by JotunofBoredom

Umbran Climax◊

I think Earth's been in nearly every Final Fantasy since... around IV. Along with Water, Wind/Air, and Holy, it's one of those elements that appears consistently in each game even if its not common in any one.

Helpful Scripts and Stylesheets here.

Wind also was rarely an attack element in Final Fantasy.

They pretty much treat Earth as if it was Ground from Pokemon. Even without Rock/Stone spells/attacks.

Quest 64 thread

I can recall it in V and VI, and I'm sure it's in more, even if it's restricted to Blue Magic/Summons.

Helpful Scripts and Stylesheets here.

I'm pretty sure Wind was in every Final Fantasy after V, although I don't remember it appearing earlier.

...eventually, we will reach a maximum entropy state where nobody has their own socks or underwear, or knows who to ask to get them back.

I think you might be looking to hard into how an element can damage someone.

Yes, fire is extreme heat and ice is extreme cold, both of which the human body can't handle too well.

Wind is usually associated with cutting.

Earth and Geomancy in general, you can attribute to sheer physical trauma. You can throw gravity in there as well. People falling against a hard surface, having rocks thrown on them for blunt forces, piercing forces.. rocks can be sharp.

If you're looking at the elemental opposition angle, you notice how often flying creatures are weak against earth magic. The way I figure, is that if a creature is light enough to fly, then their bones aren't all that strong to withstand a physical attack like having a rock thrown at them very well.