You can conjure a magical boulder to slam into an earth elemental and it will take full damage

So what's the DC to get someone to kill themselves? Because as far as I have found, Diplomacy is a loose framework with a fuckton of DM Fiat for the rest.

Fire is plasma, and plasma is matter.

Honestly, I think games are better when enemy type doesn't make particular modes of attack less viable, and if the system doesn't give you multiple damage type options at low levels, players shouldn't be punished for making one choice of many.

Also, fire damage on fire elementals should have an in-setting reason to damage them.

Chokes them out, mayhap.

>what's the DC to get someone to kill themselves

About 40 to 60, I should think.

Which still doesn't justify "burning a fire".

Well, it's not REALLY mundane fire, it's literally cosmic fire embodied. You might be able to short it out with fire.

So you don't actually know, and are guessing? Cause I was looking for actual rules. Diplomancers are actually terrible characters and it really only gets you out of certain combat situations. Like I said, it's mostly DM fiat and with five states of attitude attached. There is very little you can actually do with diplomacy by the rules.

Going off the SRD for 3.5, it explicitly says that all can do is change attitudes and do negotiations.

PF has more you can do , but also nerfs diplomancer builds hard by only allowing 2 attitude state adjustments per day along with spelling out to DMs that some things are just not possible (like convincing someone you just met to kill themselves).

I don't know about 5es rules because WotC is terrible about online resources. But from what little I have seen, they can't do much with it.

Really makes ya think.

>Diplomancers are actually terrible characters and it really only gets you out of certain combat situations.

Go read up a real Diplomancer's build, with a marshal dip, a warlock dip, and the Naberius vestige.

Come back when you can turn hostiles friendly with a standard action.

You are made of mostly water.

Do you know what happens when you drink too much water?

You die.

This is because you are not water, you are just made out of a lot of it. Water is inimical you your existence. So is pure oxygen. Pure anything you are made of, in larger quantities that you have in your system, are absolutely poisonous to you.

Elementals aren't just an element. They are a spirit living inside an element. If you dilute that spirit by adding more pure element than they are made of, it kills them, just as too much of something you are made out of in a pure form will kill you.

100% utter fabrication, but it makes sense, doesn't it?

This is a valid balance complaint mostly because fire damage sucks fat cock.

>Diplomancers are actually terrible characters

Oh you sweet summer child.

Please do tell me of what exploits a diplomancer can get away with by the rules. Because as far as I have seen, and i've looked extensively, people really seem to blow the abilities of the diplomancer way out of proportion.

Yes I suppose by RAW it works, but at the table it can only end in the DM laughing in your face for thinking he'd let a skill do that, or you'll end up with every combat being against mindless creatures.

The user you're replying to was speaking of Pathfinder, where the marshal, warlock and vestige stuff doesn't apply.

Earth, water, and air aren't being used as actual damage types in those examples. They're just being used to inflict physical damage, like steel in a sword. People can touch steel just fine, but its still a problem when it hits them really hard.

Fire spells don't usually work like that, they just put the fire where it needs to be and allow the element itself to do the damage. If you did that with other elements they wouldn't work on their elementals either. You can't bury an earth elemental alive (well, you could but it would be fine), you can't drown a water elemental, and you can't gas an air elemental.

Fire just gets shafted because no one bothered writing spells that use solid fire, which does exist in D&D.

Marshal dip, warlock dip, Naberius vestige, Courtier's Obi (now that DM's regretting saying "No Dragon mag"...), Black Fan Talisman.

Blow Diplomacy checks out of the fucking water.

How about a Calm Emotions effect at 1st level that scales with your Diplomacy, one of the most hilariously easy skills to get bonuses in?

Cool, you can turn some enemies friendly and win all negotiations. What an awesome character.

So hows that mind affecting effect working out for you versus those zombies?

Well, you still have spells and an attack bonus. And you can always convince someone to fight the zombies for you, in a pinch.

One of the core tenants of the Diplomancer is that if you can't deal with a problem, you sure as hell can convince someone who can to do it for you.

>So hows that mind affecting effect working out for you versus those zombies?

realmshelps.net/charbuild/feat/Undead_Empathy

Undead status:
[X] BTFO
[ ] Not BTFO

>player wants to kill fire elemental with fire
>tell them its immune to fire damage
>they concoct a plan where they trap it in a room full of alchemist fire flasks and everything starts to burn
>the fire elemental's max hp starts going down as the oxigen in the room gets depleted
>they get on the room after the flames go down and quickly destroy the waning fire than was the 2 HP fire elemental

Those crafty little fuckers.

And constructs?
And vermin?
And animals? (that's a handle animal skill check)
And creatures shielded from mind affecting effects?
Or those who can't understand the character? (diplomacy requires shared language and the ability to hear the character)

~10% of encounters at best.

>And creatures shielded from mind affecting effects?
Diplomacy is not [mind-affecting].

aaaaand /thread

Someone with a diplomacy focus can use the rules to leverage getting what they want out of a vague set of rules, most of the time. What does it mean when you hit a DC diplomacy enough to make a hostile encounter friendly? What then? Do the bandits keep fighting, but apologize every time they swing?

Either player feels like they're not getting what they want, because the GM has to ignore their build to keep doing th eg ame, or th e GM bends over backwards in order to accommodate and the Diplomancer gets to talk the king into handing them large piles of gold for the pleasure of sharing a conversation with them.

>S-stop proving me wrong!

You say this like there aren't similar issues in other games.

Do you actually PLAY any other games? Do you actually read their rules, or do you just parrot this stupid statement time and again? Because there are similar flaws in every other game.

The fact that you don't know this tells us everything we need to know - you're an unread, ignorant fool who doesn't actually play other games.

>fight fire elemental
>PC's light entire room on fire
>after a while open the door to fight him
>fire elemental has absorbed all the fire
>his face when

But most of the magical effects that allow you to pull off the diplomacy things, such as Calm Emotions, are. And you really think the DM is just going to let your character have an I win button for the entire campaign? They aren't going to throw some weird monsters at the PCs that shut down his ability to just spam Diplo skill checks? Or hell, implement the "Diplomacy affects the PCs" rule and throw their own diplomancer at the party?

>and the Diplomancer gets to talk the king into handing them large piles of gold for the pleasure of sharing a conversation with them.
Not covered in the rules. At all.

>O-other games have problems too!
>So stop pointing out the problems with mah waifu!
You disingenuous little cunt.

Fire elementals don't need oxygen.

>[X] Elemental isn't composed of actual [X]!
If that were the case, the water elemental would be absorbing the jet cutter, earth elemental fusing into the boulder, air elemental drawing in the gust...

No. If I'm a spirit embodying a sole pure element that makes up my form I should be able to adsorb as much of that element as I am mentally or spiritually or whatever capable of manipulating into part of my being.

You can't dilute a substance with more of the same substance.

I was honestly thinking on telling their plan backfired and this happened, but I thought that would've make them not experiment ever again and I decided to play it safely, saying that the spirit of that fire elemental was weak and lingered on a physical flame, rather than a magical one.
I really like when they get crafty and not full murderhobo, after all.

>DIE, INSECT

Have you even cracked a Rift's book open? Tried to navagate the advantages and disadvantages of the million tomes of GURPS? Have you ever tried not playing a Jedi in any version of Star Wars?

No?

Then shut up.

That's because people treat elementals like a sentient mass of stuff. A sentient mass of fire doesn't make sense.

If you want to treat elementals like material beings, a fire elemental should be a mass of burning stuff (like lava). If you want to treat elemental like immaterial beings, then they should all be sentient embodiments of energies: fire > heat, water > kinetic (pressure), earth > gravitic, air > electric.

Of course, you can also play with an inconsistent setting and just roll with it.

>presuming elementals aren't corruptions or substrate infused substances
You don't know that.

>STOP TALKING SHIT ABOUT MY WAIFU

You salty cunt. Again. Rifts being a fucking mess, or jedi being overpowered bullshit doesn't mean your girl is any less of a whore. The players of THOSE games don't throw autistic shitfits whenever someone dares to suggest the game has problems, or maybe they want to play something else for once.

Get a room.

No one suggests those games has problems. You are always stating D&D has problems.

Maybe the problem with D&D is you?

>And constructs?
Convince someone else to deal with it. How often do you encounter constructs anyway?
>And vermin?
Verminfriend if you want to blow a feat, or just convince someone else to deal with it.
>And animals?
Handle Animal is Charisma based. Put a rank in it and cruise on your ever-growing ability bonus. Or get someone else to do it.
>And creatures shielded from mind affecting effects?
Diplomacy isn't mind affecting.
>Or those who can't understand the character?
Permanent languages are hilariously easy to get and Tongues is a 2nd level Bard spell.

You're mistaking the Calm Emotions thing for the Diplomancer's entire schtick. It's not. It's one of many tools that they can use in a variety of situations.

You can kill fire elementals in Rolemaster with fire spells.

Now what?

People talk about the problems those games have all the time.

You just don't care and ignore it when it comes up, and then sperg out when it's the waifu's turn on the chopping black.

Please stop being such a lying, salty fuck.

user.
you can stop fire with fire.

I have no reason to think otherwise. Why would I assume a being described as the embodiment of a sole element contains traces of others?

>But most of the magical effects that allow you to pull off the diplomacy things, such as Calm Emotions, are.

Literally wrong.

That's not how [mind-affecting] works.

Diplomancer builds don't actually use Calm Emotions.

Well, explosions work better.

>Not covered in the rules. At all.
Except it is and you're stupid. Try reading them more than not at all.

>Take the manuals and guides literally.
>Not have a DM with common sence.

Our usual DM just uses the stuff as a guide and we usually do heavily cutomized campains.

We usually do half damage for common enemies if is the same element than the atack, save for bosses. Those can have 100% inmunity to a single element. Or even get stronger if you hit with their element.

The lore we use has elementals basically like animals that eat their own kind. Fire elementals eat smaller fire elementals, water elementals and earth elementals fuse together in a single stronger being. Or that time we rolled three nat 1s, a gigantic mud elemental when combining earth and water. Wind elementals are very capricious and volatile and may go from team work to fighting each other in the same fight, unless you make them angry.

Thing is, if you are taking the time and effort to do a pen and paper rpg, or keyboard and chatroom, there is no reason to make it rigid. Discuss these things with the DM before you even start the session, agree about rules and creatures in general. A few heated arguments early on save trouble and pain later.

By using it to remove fuel, not by burning the fire itself.

That doesn't work on magically produced fire or elementals. Both can function perfectly fine in airless environments, they just wouldn't be able to start extra, nonmagical fires.

The Diplomancer has an army of fanatics to take care of the few things that can't understand their eloquence.

not him but
>Have you even cracked a Rift's book open?
nope, haven't heard much of rifts to be honest. might have to grab a PDF for that.

>Tried to navagate the advantages and disadvantages of the million tomes of GURPS?
i dunno, senpai, it's pretty easy.
>million tomes
if your dm is making you use that many splatbooks, he's a shit dm.
if you're using that many splatbooks, you're a shit dm.
it's the same as any system - pick books you'll need, don't pile shit up endlessly.
you seriously don't need ultratech, biotech, hightech, horror, and gurps asparagus to run tl2-3 greek fantasy

>Have you ever tried not playing a Jedi in any version of Star Wars?
can't say much on this front as i'm a support-based force adept in my swd20 game, but it feels like the rest of the group are definitely up to par and are entirely capable of outperforming me in the areas they've specialised in.
but they can't outperform me at healing, medical checks, or detecting shit so there's that - everyone seems to have their niche.

maybe you just need a better group, or be a better player.
also stop playing 3.pf and take some time to actually try other systems
seriously i used to be all about pf until i actually found other shit and was like 'oh this is so much better'

man, this image really could've done with using an image for the encounter that was something other than a dragon
everyone turns into a massive pedant and acts like dragons being immune to half that shit is the standard for every monster. that said i doubt a melee-based martial would be able to do SHIT to a dragon in the sky

>it's the same as any system - pick books you'll need, don't pile shit up endlessly.
That's not a great comparison.
Most games I play don't have anything to pick. It's just the one rulebook. Occasionally a single additional book.
The way I see it, as a GM, you need to read the full million tomes of GURPS to know which of them to pick.

>you need to read the full million tomes of GURPS to know which of them to pick.
you really don't
you can literally look at the titles of them or, fucking surprise, just use basic set
>hmm, i think i'll have to check gurps magic, mysteries, space, ultratech, and fantasy each cover-to-cover for my modern operators game
>yes this seems sensible
>oh wait i could literally just use basic set and, if i want to give it a look, high tech instead of being a fucking retard
like would you use weaboo fightan magic for a game where there is literally not a single martial? dark heresy's daemon hunter when you're keeping the fuck away from grey knights, the inquisition, and daemons? swd20's 'starships of the galaxy' in a campaign based entirely planetside?
put a bit of thought into it.

1>3>4>2

Yeah, it's silly.

Actually, the whole fire/ice/lightning trichotomy is silly, to be honest. I just handwave the entire thing and introduce a 10 type damage/resistance system. Fire, water, earth, air, physical, holy, profane, poison, acid, mental. It's abstracted as fuck, of course, because by D&D logic earth damage would in 90% of cases just be physical damage, but IT JUST WORKS. It's a blatant case of fiat, but it increases the number of options available and rewards planning and consideration of enemies.

>he doesn't know that fire cannot burn what is already incinerated
>he doesn't know that firemen actually torch certain areas to cut off the path of a forest fire if they absolutely need to

Man, you should inform yourself some more ffs

Earth Elementals and water Elementals should resist fire damage as well

Fire should be weak against Elementals naturally, since they are made of inflammable substance

...

>Implying

2>4>3>1

>cutting off the fuel source to magical fire
user please

3>2>1>4

3>4>2>1

close enough