The thought just struck me as I was looking at level progression for a Dragon Blood Sorcerer (White) and looking at the options for spells. Turns out there really aren't very many spells that deal Cold damage, and worse several of those are not on the Sorcerer's Spell List. This got me thinking about some other elements, and I realized that it's actually hard to find a damage spell that doesn't do Fire, Radiant, or Necrotic damage. So I went through the whole list of spells as given here on DnD:B.
There are approximately 475 spells listed here on DnD:B. The "approximately" is because I attempted to omit all of the duplicated spells that just have a person's name attacked, like Tasha's Hideous Laughter, as well as spells from Wildmount, which I do not own. That said, if a spell from Wildmount does damage, it appears that it always does Force Damage, likely for the purpose of fleshing out the gravity themed Wizard subclass from Wildmount. Speaking of spells that don't do damage, of that 475 there are 274 such spells. Buffs, condition imposing, or spells with any number of utility effects from Comprehend Languages to Identify to whatever. This would also include movement effects like Misty Step and spells that apply conditions like Entangle. So that leaves us with 201 spells remaining. Subtract the 11 spells that heal, and we're down to 190. The next group of spells, 55 in total, is a mixed bag of summon spells, which do not do damage themselves but rather create a creature that does damage on your behalf, as well as spells that do mixed damage types like Ice Knife, as well as spells with a variable damage type like Chromatic Orb or Illusory Dragon. Regrettably I didn't separate out the summon spells from the mixed/variable damage spells, so this will create some margin for error. Accounting for these 55 spells, that leaves us with a total of 135 spells that deal damage of a single type.
The remaining 135 spells break down like this:
22 spells deal Fire damage (16.3%)
17 spells deal Bludgeoning damage (12.6%)
16 spells deal Radiant damage (11.9%) and another 16 spells deal Psychic damage (11.9%)
15 spells deal Necrotic damage (11.1%)
11 spells deal Force damage (8.1%)
8 spells do Cold damage (5.9%)
7 spells do Lightning damage (5.2%)
6 spells do Piercing Damage (4.4%) and another 6 spells do Thunder damage (4.4%)
5 spells do Acid damage (3.7%)
4 spells do Poison damage (3%)
2 spells do Slashing damage (1.5%)
I can't be the only one who's bothered by the disparity going on here. If you're going to play an offense oriented magic character, you kind of have to get comfortable dealing Fire damage, because there are so many spells that deal Fire damage. This in turn means that anyone intending to use the Elemental Adept Feat had better choose Fire. I dunno, it just feels really restrictive to me.
I really hope this is something WotC intends to address.
It's incredibly annoying if you want to play any kind of themed wizard/sorcerer that isn't based on fire. Also incredibly annoying if your playing something like a storm sorcerer or a tempest cleric as your options are SUPER limited for the old thunder and lightning storming abilities.
It ALSO doesn't help that a lof of the non-fire attack spells are pretty jank compared to the fire options you can take at level
I think the next thing WOTC needs to come out with is another xanathers like book, but add a lot more spells that do new kinds of damage. To fill the gaps of magic in my games, I had to go find a hombrew book that added about 1000 new spells, just to fill the gaps of necromancy, voodoo, and many damage types.
Another thing I have noticed, is when they try to fill a gap, it seems to be weaker. Take snowball swarm, it does 3d6 cold at a 90ft range in a 5 ft sphere. Now compare it to shatter, that does 3d8 thunder damage at a 90ft range and is a 10ft sphere. Both of these spells are the level, and everyone that can get snowball swarm can get shatter.
I noticed this trying to plan out the spell progression of my Order of Scribes wizard. Being able to change the damage types of spells is so fun and freeing that it really made me realize how restricted I felt before. I wanted to have a fire/ice theme and we're limited to PHB so cold damage is even more rare, so this is pretty much the only way I can do it.
Changing damage types does so much for the character concept. You really come across as a spellcrafter rather than someone who just copies what other wizards discovered. I'm not sure I'll ever drop a fireball made of fire with this guy. Really hope this feature survives playtesting intact because the game needs it.
I don’t think it adds anything to the game to officially have five different otherwise-identical versions of Fireball in different damage flavors. Rather, the game should have some manner of allowing you to change the damage type of certain spells. The UA scribe wizard lets them do this a bit, and the Class Feature Variants UA allows sorcerers to do it too, but those are temporary and cost a resource.
For subclasses that are themed on certain damage types, like draconic or storm sorcerers, there should be some feature along the lines of kensei’s additional monk weapons where every few levels you get to pick a spell or two and permanently change its damage type to your thematic type.
There could be feats that do this so more general characters can still theme themselves around a damage type too.
But what we absolutely do not need is more spells that are all the same except for damage type.
The ability to chance damage types is not at all what I claim to want to avoid; rather, it's literally my suggestion about what the game should provide. I'm not sure you really read what I wrote?
Omitting the spells which can deal mixed/chosen types feels like a disingenuous way of making your point. If you actually wanted to roleplay an acidmancer (or cryomancer or whatever) then you'd still consider taking Dragon's Breath / Elemental Weapon / Hunger of Hadar and just flavour accordingly when you cast them. You certainly wouldn't ignore a spell just because it has the additional potential of dealing another type.
This reduces the disparity of fire vs cold (for example) from 22 vs 8 to a much more balanced reality of 34 vs 23.
P.S. I'm curious where you found a 5th acid spell - under your methodology I count only 4? (Acid Splash, Primal Savagery, Melf's Acid Arrow, Vitriolic Sphere)
I don’t think it adds anything to the game to officially have five different otherwise-identical versions of Fireball in different damage flavors. Rather, the game should have some manner of allowing you to change the damage type of certain spells.
It's a shame D&D didn't go more the direction of Champions. In Champions, they defined the damage amount and area of effect of a power, but they let the player pick the effect. So for example, any ranged normal attack was called an "Energy blast", and then the player could define his Energy Blast" as a blast of fire, ice, water, wood, metal, steam, or whatever he wanted.
You couldn't be as wide-open in D&D as you can in Champions, but I wish they'd called it "Element Ball" or something instead of fire ball, and then let the player choose to make it a lightning ball, fire ball, poison ball, etc. It would do exactly the same thing as a fireball in terms of range, AOE, and damage dice, but just different types of damage, based on the character's choice or theme.
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
I don’t think it adds anything to the game to officially have five different otherwise-identical versions of Fireball in different damage flavors. Rather, the game should have some manner of allowing you to change the damage type of certain spells. The UA scribe wizard lets them do this a bit, and the Class Feature Variants UA allows sorcerers to do it too, but those are temporary and cost a resource.
For subclasses that are themed on certain damage types, like draconic or storm sorcerers, there should be some feature along the lines of kensei’s additional monk weapons where every few levels you get to pick a spell or two and permanently change its damage type to your thematic type.
There could be feats that do this so more general characters can still theme themselves around a damage type too.
But what we absolutely do not need is more spells that are all the same except for damage type.
I think that we have to be careful with changing damage types. Changing between the elemental damage types I don't see a huge problem with. Being able to change to more rare, exotic damage types like force and pyschic could become a bit problematic. We don't need easy access to force fireballs.
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Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
I also want to avoid Force Fireballs as much as possible. Imo, a caster should be able to specialice in their damage type but not change it on the spot to circumvent or abuse monster immunities/vulnerabilities. This seems easiest to realize by deciding on a damage type when you learn the spell.
If you're a cryomancer, live with it. You'll have encounters that are hard for you, so you can always learn a backup damage type. One of the reasons I dislike the scribe UA is for the unrestricted, spontaneous change in damage types.
Ofc, this will just bring up the issue with monster resistances being strongly weighted...
It's a shame D&D didn't go more the direction of Champions. In Champions, they defined the damage amount and area of effect of a power, but they let the player pick the effect. So for example, any ranged normal attack was called an "Energy blast", and then the player could define his Energy Blast" as a blast of fire, ice, water, wood, metal, steam, or whatever he wanted.
Yeah but you have to remember how a primary goal of 5e was to bring back the early edition players. Spells like Fireball and Lightning Bolt are treated like holy relics of a bygone age. A spell structure like this would have absolutely put off a good chunk of those old school players.
But what we absolutely do not need is more spells that are all the same except for damage type.
Whole-heartedly agree. But what the game does need are a variety of spells that each deal damage of a given type, with certain elements focusing around certain other effects. For example, spells dealing Cold Damage should be about area control, dealing more moderate damage in exchange for reducing the target's movespeed or making it choose between an action or bonus action on its turn. Poison damage should have secondary effects like, well, real poisons -- namely status conditions like Paralyzed, or suffering from hallucinations, etc.
Omitting the spells which can deal mixed/chosen types feels like a disingenuous way of making your point. If you actually wanted to roleplay an acidmancer (or cryomancer or whatever) then you'd still consider taking Dragon's Breath / Elemental Weapon / Hunger of Hadar and just flavour accordingly when you cast them. You certainly wouldn't ignore a spell just because it has the additional potential of dealing another type.
This reduces the disparity of fire vs cold (for example) from 22 vs 8 to a much more balanced reality of 34 vs 23.
P.S. I'm curious where you found a 5th acid spell - under your methodology I count only 4? (Acid Splash, Primal Savagery, Melf's Acid Arrow, Vitriolic Sphere)
I seem to recall saying I regret doing it that way when I was counting. It was unintentional to actually omit them, I was simply already too deep to start over.
The Acid spell you are missing is [Tooltip Not Found], a 1st level spell creating a line 30 foot by 5 foot for 3d4 on a failed Dex save, then repeat at the end of each turn until an action is spent to wipe it off or concentration ends (up to 1 minute). I see issues with how the spell is worded, and there is quite an argument over it's balance on the spell details page.
I think the next thing WOTC needs to come out with is another xanathers like book, but add a lot more spells that do new kinds of damage. To fill the gaps of magic in my games, I had to go find a hombrew book that added about 1000 new spells, just to fill the gaps of necromancy, voodoo, and many damage types.
Another thing I have noticed, is when they try to fill a gap, it seems to be weaker. Take snowball swarm, it does 3d6 cold at a 90ft range in a 5 ft sphere. Now compare it to shatter, that does 3d8 thunder damage at a 90ft range and is a 10ft sphere. Both of these spells are the level, and everyone that can get snowball swarm can get shatter.
I agree it would be nice, but I'd think it would have to be a standalone encyclopedia of literally just spells, maybe with some supplementals about making spell templates and such. The issue seems to be that WotC is primarily focused on keeping the Core +1 template for AL games. Most of the existing spells are in the PHB, with subclass focused spells being very few and always in the book the subclass is in. To make an Elemental Encyclopedia of Magic, it would have to be a Core book. But making it a Core book also increases the price tag on basic entry to the game. Definitely needs to happen, but I'm not so sure it's going to.
I'm ok with less damage in exchange for other effects or for a larger AoE or something. But the trade-offs need to make sense. If Snowstorm also prevented targets from taking a Reaction until the end of their next turn, I think it'd be fair in exchange for smaller die and smaller radius. But it doesn't.
P.S. I'm curious where you found a 5th acid spell - under your methodology I count only 4? (Acid Splash, Primal Savagery, Melf's Acid Arrow, Vitriolic Sphere)
In addition to hunger of hadar 's secondary acid damage, there are a whole slew of spells with variable damage types.
Omitting the spells which can deal mixed/chosen types feels like a disingenuous way of making your point. If you actually wanted to roleplay an acidmancer (or cryomancer or whatever) then you'd still consider taking Dragon's Breath / Elemental Weapon / Hunger of Hadar and just flavour accordingly when you cast them. You certainly wouldn't ignore a spell just because it has the additional potential of dealing another type.
This reduces the disparity of fire vs cold (for example) from 22 vs 8 to a much more balanced reality of 34 vs 23.
P.S. I'm curious where you found a 5th acid spell - under your methodology I count only 4? (Acid Splash, Primal Savagery, Melf's Acid Arrow, Vitriolic Sphere)
I seem to recall saying I regret doing it that way when I was counting. It was unintentional to actually omit them, I was simply already too deep to start over.
The Acid spell you are missing is Acid Stream (UA), a 1st level spell creating a line 30 foot by 5 foot for 3d4 on a failed Dex save, then repeat at the end of each turn until an action is spent to wipe it off or concentration ends (up to 1 minute). I see issues with how the spell is worded, and there is quite an argument over it's balance on the spell details page.
Ah, fair enough then. In the interests of completeness, here're the totals (now also with UA and EGW spells) with the mixed/chosen damage type spells included:
Unfortunately, this still leaves a rather large disparity between certain damage types, with Acid, Poison, and Thunder still vastly underrepresented and Fire STILL blowing everything else out of the water...
Which is why in my play group, the kobold bronze dragon sorcerer has Ball Lightning. 3rd level, 8d6 lightning damage in a 20' radius. (Literally just fireball but different damage).
As a DM in non AL games, if someone wants to change a spell, the following two groups of damage types are interchangable:
Unfortunately, this still leaves a rather large disparity between certain damage types, with Acid, Poison, and Thunder still vastly underrepresented and Fire STILL blowing everything else out of the water...
If having seventeen different options for dealing acidic damage to your enemies isn't enough for you then I think that's a you problem. I'm struggling to think of a reasonable acidmancer who, when pondering her spells to prepare for the day, thinks to herself 'Gee, still only seventeen different ways to vomit bile upon my foes. Such a grievous imposition. If only there were an eighteenth! But alas, that will have to remain a fanciful dream for now. One day, Acridia, one day...'
Right up until you blast something with a Fireball and it laughs with it's Fire Resistance or Immunity. The spells are built with Resistance and Immunity in mind, so while there are so many Fire-based spells, Fire is also the most common Resistance/Immunity. Sidestepping balances causes problems, do so with a good idea of why you want to make spells even more powerful.
Unfortunately, this still leaves a rather large disparity between certain damage types, with Acid, Poison, and Thunder still vastly underrepresented and Fire STILL blowing everything else out of the water...
If having seventeen different options for dealing acidic damage to your enemies isn't enough for you then I think that's a you problem. I'm struggling to think of a reasonable acidmancer who, when pondering her spells to prepare for the day, thinks to herself 'Gee, still only seventeen different ways to vomit bile upon my foes. Such a grievous imposition. If only there were an eighteenth! But alas, that will have to remain a fanciful dream for now. One day, Acridia, one day...'
You're acting like all of those spells are available on the same spell list (they're not) and are evenly distributed among spell levels (again, they're not). If you want to play a wizard who specializes in acid damage, you've got one cantrip, two 1st level spells (barring UA content), two 2nd level spells, and the you have to wait until you get 4th level magic to get anything new. Compare that to a fire specialist, who gets two cantrips, two 1st level spells, three 2nd level spells, three 3rd level spells, and two 4th level spells.
The thought just struck me as I was looking at level progression for a Dragon Blood Sorcerer (White) and looking at the options for spells. Turns out there really aren't very many spells that deal Cold damage, and worse several of those are not on the Sorcerer's Spell List. This got me thinking about some other elements, and I realized that it's actually hard to find a damage spell that doesn't do Fire, Radiant, or Necrotic damage. So I went through the whole list of spells as given here on DnD:B.
There are approximately 475 spells listed here on DnD:B. The "approximately" is because I attempted to omit all of the duplicated spells that just have a person's name attacked, like Tasha's Hideous Laughter, as well as spells from Wildmount, which I do not own. That said, if a spell from Wildmount does damage, it appears that it always does Force Damage, likely for the purpose of fleshing out the gravity themed Wizard subclass from Wildmount. Speaking of spells that don't do damage, of that 475 there are 274 such spells. Buffs, condition imposing, or spells with any number of utility effects from Comprehend Languages to Identify to whatever. This would also include movement effects like Misty Step and spells that apply conditions like Entangle. So that leaves us with 201 spells remaining. Subtract the 11 spells that heal, and we're down to 190. The next group of spells, 55 in total, is a mixed bag of summon spells, which do not do damage themselves but rather create a creature that does damage on your behalf, as well as spells that do mixed damage types like Ice Knife, as well as spells with a variable damage type like Chromatic Orb or Illusory Dragon. Regrettably I didn't separate out the summon spells from the mixed/variable damage spells, so this will create some margin for error. Accounting for these 55 spells, that leaves us with a total of 135 spells that deal damage of a single type.
The remaining 135 spells break down like this:
I can't be the only one who's bothered by the disparity going on here. If you're going to play an offense oriented magic character, you kind of have to get comfortable dealing Fire damage, because there are so many spells that deal Fire damage. This in turn means that anyone intending to use the Elemental Adept Feat had better choose Fire. I dunno, it just feels really restrictive to me.
I really hope this is something WotC intends to address.
It's incredibly annoying if you want to play any kind of themed wizard/sorcerer that isn't based on fire. Also incredibly annoying if your playing something like a storm sorcerer or a tempest cleric as your options are SUPER limited for the old thunder and lightning storming abilities.
It ALSO doesn't help that a lof of the non-fire attack spells are pretty jank compared to the fire options you can take at level
I think the next thing WOTC needs to come out with is another xanathers like book, but add a lot more spells that do new kinds of damage. To fill the gaps of magic in my games, I had to go find a hombrew book that added about 1000 new spells, just to fill the gaps of necromancy, voodoo, and many damage types.
Another thing I have noticed, is when they try to fill a gap, it seems to be weaker. Take snowball swarm, it does 3d6 cold at a 90ft range in a 5 ft sphere. Now compare it to shatter, that does 3d8 thunder damage at a 90ft range and is a 10ft sphere. Both of these spells are the level, and everyone that can get snowball swarm can get shatter.
When the DM smiles, it is already to late.
I noticed this trying to plan out the spell progression of my Order of Scribes wizard. Being able to change the damage types of spells is so fun and freeing that it really made me realize how restricted I felt before. I wanted to have a fire/ice theme and we're limited to PHB so cold damage is even more rare, so this is pretty much the only way I can do it.
Changing damage types does so much for the character concept. You really come across as a spellcrafter rather than someone who just copies what other wizards discovered. I'm not sure I'll ever drop a fireball made of fire with this guy. Really hope this feature survives playtesting intact because the game needs it.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
I don’t think it adds anything to the game to officially have five different otherwise-identical versions of Fireball in different damage flavors. Rather, the game should have some manner of allowing you to change the damage type of certain spells. The UA scribe wizard lets them do this a bit, and the Class Feature Variants UA allows sorcerers to do it too, but those are temporary and cost a resource.
For subclasses that are themed on certain damage types, like draconic or storm sorcerers, there should be some feature along the lines of kensei’s additional monk weapons where every few levels you get to pick a spell or two and permanently change its damage type to your thematic type.
There could be feats that do this so more general characters can still theme themselves around a damage type too.
But what we absolutely do not need is more spells that are all the same except for damage type.
The ability to chance damage types is not at all what I claim to want to avoid; rather, it's literally my suggestion about what the game should provide. I'm not sure you really read what I wrote?
Omitting the spells which can deal mixed/chosen types feels like a disingenuous way of making your point. If you actually wanted to roleplay an acidmancer (or cryomancer or whatever) then you'd still consider taking Dragon's Breath / Elemental Weapon / Hunger of Hadar and just flavour accordingly when you cast them. You certainly wouldn't ignore a spell just because it has the additional potential of dealing another type.
This reduces the disparity of fire vs cold (for example) from 22 vs 8 to a much more balanced reality of 34 vs 23.
P.S. I'm curious where you found a 5th acid spell - under your methodology I count only 4? (Acid Splash, Primal Savagery, Melf's Acid Arrow, Vitriolic Sphere)
It's a shame D&D didn't go more the direction of Champions. In Champions, they defined the damage amount and area of effect of a power, but they let the player pick the effect. So for example, any ranged normal attack was called an "Energy blast", and then the player could define his Energy Blast" as a blast of fire, ice, water, wood, metal, steam, or whatever he wanted.
You couldn't be as wide-open in D&D as you can in Champions, but I wish they'd called it "Element Ball" or something instead of fire ball, and then let the player choose to make it a lightning ball, fire ball, poison ball, etc. It would do exactly the same thing as a fireball in terms of range, AOE, and damage dice, but just different types of damage, based on the character's choice or theme.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
I think that we have to be careful with changing damage types. Changing between the elemental damage types I don't see a huge problem with. Being able to change to more rare, exotic damage types like force and pyschic could become a bit problematic. We don't need easy access to force fireballs.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
I also want to avoid Force Fireballs as much as possible. Imo, a caster should be able to specialice in their damage type but not change it on the spot to circumvent or abuse monster immunities/vulnerabilities. This seems easiest to realize by deciding on a damage type when you learn the spell.
If you're a cryomancer, live with it. You'll have encounters that are hard for you, so you can always learn a backup damage type. One of the reasons I dislike the scribe UA is for the unrestricted, spontaneous change in damage types.
Ofc, this will just bring up the issue with monster resistances being strongly weighted...
Yeah but you have to remember how a primary goal of 5e was to bring back the early edition players. Spells like Fireball and Lightning Bolt are treated like holy relics of a bygone age. A spell structure like this would have absolutely put off a good chunk of those old school players.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
Whole-heartedly agree. But what the game does need are a variety of spells that each deal damage of a given type, with certain elements focusing around certain other effects. For example, spells dealing Cold Damage should be about area control, dealing more moderate damage in exchange for reducing the target's movespeed or making it choose between an action or bonus action on its turn. Poison damage should have secondary effects like, well, real poisons -- namely status conditions like Paralyzed, or suffering from hallucinations, etc.
I seem to recall saying I regret doing it that way when I was counting. It was unintentional to actually omit them, I was simply already too deep to start over.
The Acid spell you are missing is [Tooltip Not Found], a 1st level spell creating a line 30 foot by 5 foot for 3d4 on a failed Dex save, then repeat at the end of each turn until an action is spent to wipe it off or concentration ends (up to 1 minute). I see issues with how the spell is worded, and there is quite an argument over it's balance on the spell details page.
I agree it would be nice, but I'd think it would have to be a standalone encyclopedia of literally just spells, maybe with some supplementals about making spell templates and such. The issue seems to be that WotC is primarily focused on keeping the Core +1 template for AL games. Most of the existing spells are in the PHB, with subclass focused spells being very few and always in the book the subclass is in. To make an Elemental Encyclopedia of Magic, it would have to be a Core book. But making it a Core book also increases the price tag on basic entry to the game. Definitely needs to happen, but I'm not so sure it's going to.
I'm ok with less damage in exchange for other effects or for a larger AoE or something. But the trade-offs need to make sense. If Snowstorm also prevented targets from taking a Reaction until the end of their next turn, I think it'd be fair in exchange for smaller die and smaller radius. But it doesn't.
In addition to hunger of hadar 's secondary acid damage, there are a whole slew of spells with variable damage types.
absorb elements
chaos bolt
chromatic orb
dragon's breath
elemental weapon
glyph of warding
elemental bane
illusory dragon
And spells with multiple effects which may include what you're looking for such as hallow , prismatic spray and prismatic wall .
Ah, fair enough then. In the interests of completeness, here're the totals (now also with UA and EGW spells) with the mixed/chosen damage type spells included:
Unfortunately, this still leaves a rather large disparity between certain damage types, with Acid, Poison, and Thunder still vastly underrepresented and Fire STILL blowing everything else out of the water...
Which is why in my play group, the kobold bronze dragon sorcerer has Ball Lightning. 3rd level, 8d6 lightning damage in a 20' radius. (Literally just fireball but different damage).
As a DM in non AL games, if someone wants to change a spell, the following two groups of damage types are interchangable:
though technically, poison should be elemental and thunder should be exotic from a monster resistance perspective.
Of course, the same applies to me as a DM with monster resistances.
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If having seventeen different options for dealing acidic damage to your enemies isn't enough for you then I think that's a you problem. I'm struggling to think of a reasonable acidmancer who, when pondering her spells to prepare for the day, thinks to herself 'Gee, still only seventeen different ways to vomit bile upon my foes. Such a grievous imposition. If only there were an eighteenth! But alas, that will have to remain a fanciful dream for now. One day, Acridia, one day...'
Right up until you blast something with a Fireball and it laughs with it's Fire Resistance or Immunity. The spells are built with Resistance and Immunity in mind, so while there are so many Fire-based spells, Fire is also the most common Resistance/Immunity. Sidestepping balances causes problems, do so with a good idea of why you want to make spells even more powerful.
It is not I who am Mad, it is I who am Krazy!
You're acting like all of those spells are available on the same spell list (they're not) and are evenly distributed among spell levels (again, they're not). If you want to play a wizard who specializes in acid damage, you've got one cantrip, two 1st level spells (barring UA content), two 2nd level spells, and the you have to wait until you get 4th level magic to get anything new. Compare that to a fire specialist, who gets two cantrips, two 1st level spells, three 2nd level spells, three 3rd level spells, and two 4th level spells.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.