CF: Continuity check: Elements

[David Andrew Michael Noelle <dave@Straylight.org>]

I've been pondering this little discrepancy in Crossfire's design for
a while now.  I don't think there's any easy way to change it.  There
seem to be two seperate sets of "elements" in Crossfire, and that
somehow strikes me as wrong.  Aren't "elements" supposed to be a
single set of pure, basic forces?

There are the attacktype elements: fire, frost, electricity, and acid,
of which the first three have corresponding spell paths but the fourth
does not.  And there are the summoning elements, earth, fire, air, and
water. 

This gives us a rather odd set of basic elementals:

Fire elemental attacks with fire, obviously.
Earth elemental is vulnerable to fire and attacks with cold.
Water elemental is vulnerable to cold and attacks with physical.
Air elemental is vulnerable to physical and attacks with electricity.

None of them is vulnerable to electricity, and none attacks with
confusion (Fire's vulnerability.)  Therefore, Fire kills Earth, Earth
kills Water, and Water kills Air.  So much for diametrically opposed
pairs.  If we're going to use the traditional elements at all,
shouldn't they have the traditional oppositions?

But that would mean that we'd need two pairs of opposing attacktypes.
Fire is obvious, and frost is its opposite attacktype, so Water
elementals would attack with frost and be vulnerable to fire instead
of frost.  Air elementals are the obvious choice for the electrical
attacktype, but what attacktype is opposite to electrical?  I suppose
physical makes the most sense there, which would make Earth elementals
attack with physical and vulnerable to electrical, and acid would no
longer be considered an element.

Any change here would require lots of little changes throughout the
game to keep things consistent, but I think it would be worthwhile.
Basic elements are something that really should be consistent
throughout a game universe.

By the way, what exactly are "para-elementals"?  Why do only
para-elementals leave residue and not normal elementals?  Why are
there para-elementals of the same types as the normal elementals?
And why are only the four basic elementals summonable, and not
para-elementals?


-- 
            -Dave Noelle,                 dave@Straylight.org
            -the Villa Straylight,  http://www.straylight.org
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