Fire weapon buffs under water

[Torin]

Fire weapon buffs (like Flame Weapon) can not be cast under water - "The water quenches the flames of your spell"
so far its logical
BUT
when the spell is cast as a auto-recast, then the spell is applied.

[theultimatesin]

Maybe it just means that once it is lit it cannot be extinguished but, it can't be lit under water.

[FunkySwerve]

This is basically because it would have been a pain to code. We opted to leave it this way, for now, as changing it would involve a lot of time and a fair amount of processing overhead for little gain.

Funky

[thomascovenant]

when u think of a thing, it,s magical fire, then as it,s magic why this cannot work underwater ?? it,s not more anormal then to use magic to flame a weapon or another kind of magic effect ;-)

[Twilight Semner]

I think from both a rational and balance perspective it makes sense to have fire buffs on weapons work under water, but not fire spells.

From a rational perspective, it seems to make sense that a fire buff would persist on a weapon because its an inherent property of the weapon - or at least as much sense as the cold property of a weapon not following the typical laws of thermodynamics and merely cooling the water around it until they reach a common temperature, or along those same lines, the electrical current from an electrical damage type not causing persistent electrical damage to every creature within a certain vicinity. On the other hand, if for example you're casting Fireball, it doesn't seem to make as much sense that an independent ball of fire would be able to launch from the caster and explode without an environment suitable to combustion. In the case of the weapon, the weapon's just already really hot and the caster is simply supplying energy necessary to make it a wee bit hotter. Of course, I doubt anything I just said makes sense real sense other than me trying to over-rationalize it, but in my mixed-up brain it makes some sense.

From a balance perspective, it's kind of nice to have meleers get something of an "edge" in whatever limited way, since many underwater critters take considerable fire damage, and it just wouldn't be very fun if the casters could just blow everything away by spamming empowered Delayed Blast Fireballs. I think this provides a really nice niche for certain mega-damage builds (such as Staffmaster and Arcane Archers), who can select those damage types as inherent abilities tied to their weapons, as well as your run of the mill tank who's got a Toyshop/PoM weapon and wants to bring the hurt.

All of this is, of course, just a round-about way of say I think it's fine the way it is currently.

[Torin]

The thing is: When there is already a fire buff on the weapon and I cast it or the autocaster cast it, the flames are quenched. But when I do nothing and the spell just auto-recast, then its applied. That is imho not logical (even in a magic world). The spell should be applied or not applied in-depended of the way I clicked in the game interface.

However, its not worth to invest more than a few minutes into this and Funky stated that it would require a lot of time. So, leave it as it is.

[KnightErrant]

From a rational or logical perspective how does one use a bow or sling underwater ? or even drink a potion ? Wouldn't ice chunks from a Ice Storm spell just float towards the surface harmlessly ? (I'm sure if I dug out one of the ancient D&D underwater adventure mods there's quite a few more listed)

There seems to be a lot of stuff in game that shouldn't function underwater besides fire buffs on weapons...I would love to see it all brought more in line with "common sense" myself but it seems like way too much work involved for little gain and a huge nerf to Slingers, Zen Rangers and AA's... (Unless we added Slings, Crossbows and Bows that had ammo or created ammo specifically designed to work underwater).

.02
KE.

[chirality]

Even just limiting the scope of discussion to weapon buffs results in a wacky standard. Like jujure said, lol, how is magical fire on a weapon underwater any less believable than magical acid or electricity on the weapon underwater, or a thunderclap being cast underwater for that matter. Why do elec spells arc through the water damaging allies, yet a sword with visible lightning crackling off the tip not only functions underwater perfectly, but furthermore doesn't ever conduct through the water?

Overall the system works great, and it's cool flavor. Ideally, I'd keep the fire spells thing, but let fire buff still work. For the reason that Torin claims--regardless of getting into semantics and invisible walls, it's just weak that it can recast underwater np, but not originally cast. This might make "sense" but all it translates to is a lame hassle (i buffed you on dry land so we're good--anyone late is out of luck).

It's not worth any time, but could that part just be turned off? Or is that linked to the fire nuke prohibition thing?

[tyranlthixis]

A problem is that D&D rule books specifically says with spells such as darkfire that they "do not function under water" and have a general rule that unless a fire spell/ability specifically says that it can function underwater in some kind of thermal heat fashion that they should not function underwater.

[chirality]

Right.

The "issue" is that they in fact *do* function underwater, thanks to the autoboff script allowing it. No, I certainly would not want that changed (even if it was something extremely fast/easy, which it's evidently not), since it's a nice loophole ("exploit" is too serious a label) that we all benefit from every time we run a sissy or zio.

As a thought experiment, it's interesting to discuss, and Torin put it succinctly from the "game interface" perspective.

On a derail-ish note, why does Detonate function underwater? More importantly, why does Detonate function but not Combust? Isn't the "spell mechanic theory" (? non-meta spell explanation) the same--the target explodes into flames?

I think it would make enough sense if Detonate could still insta the target (the primary effect evokes the image of boiling from the inside or at any rate an inner source of the fire), but the secondary effects (fire aoe explosion) is a bit incredulous.

Anyway, obviously I don't think there's anything here worth more than a discussion, but I'm curious if this (detonate) was designed by choice, or was it just a side effect of coding/zots? (again, just for academic discussion's sake)

As for the thermal heat excuse, honestly I think that should apply equally to some iconic HG stuff. I mean really...unless literally 100% of fire dmg sources is prevented underwater, then why can't some of it work in the same manner as PnP monsters that use boiling steam (quite a few breath weapons for instance) or other magical sources to transduce heat through the water and still deal "fire damage". Fire smite, Combust, and Detonate all make sense imo for this. Fireball spell, no, because the physics are different--because PnP specifically describes the spell (and DBF) as a physical bead of fire travelling through the media (air) before it explodes. However, instantaneous sources of "burst" fire damage could still be reasonably explained by thermal energy causing great "heat" damage when the source is directly "at" the target. If a mob (or PC with pre-casted fire weap) can still actually deal fire damage underwater via physical attacks, this opens the door for similar arguments.

Derail again: sonic shouldn't work in space! coff, only cuz I noticed "void" will be part of the picture in EE zone(s)

Anyway, just to be clear I'm not looking to argue, or fishing for a change in some roundabout manner. I just think it's interesting