Elements Discussion

Why can't the sword user cut the spear too?
Water nourishes grass is the reason for Pokémon.
Is that a Jojo reference?

>Water nourishes grass is the reason for Pokémon.
that would only explain grass resisting water, not grass beating it

wont swords also cut spears?

Other way round would make more sense. Comedy beats intelligence because you can turn a serious discussion into joke and have people laugh with you at the boring egghead. Intelligence beats strength because you can outthink and outmanouver your opponent. Strength beats comedy because nothing stops laughter like violence.

I believe the original chinese game where rock paper scissors came from was centipede eats toad, toad eats snake and snake eats centipede. later the japanese changed it to village chief beats hunter, hunter beats kitsune and kitsune beats village chief

>Comedy beats intelligence because you can turn a serious discussion into joke and have people laugh with you at the boring egghead.
We're talking one on one, not group.

>Intelligence beats strength because you can outthink and outmanouver your opponent.
>armoredgladiator.jpg

>Strength beats comedy because nothing stops laughter like violence.
Are you familiar at all with the concept of slapstick?

human, cockroach, armageddon

No, swords don't cut spears, because they're not chopping weapons, they're slashing or piercing weapons. You might chip it, but you won't break it the same way a good axe hit will.

what if I make a chopping sword

The thing is that comedy characters can be as fast or as strong or as random as necessary for a joke to work, and therefore they basically can outright win at every element that makes a strong character strong. But Intelligent characters can see a joke coming a mile away and ruin it, rending comedy characters powerless.

Stone < Wood < Metal

Why not do all 4 elements?

Earth beats air as friction slows down winds at the surface level. Air beats water as moving air causes the sublimation of water into the air. Water beats fire by inhibiting it's ability to burn. And fire beats earth because the earth is home to organic materials that easily burn.

Fighting/Rock/Flying also works

Realistically, spear beat sword and axe.

You're not going to cut a spear with a blade in a real fight

>Only other combination

Digimon

Vaccine>Virus>Data>Vaccine

>but doesn't interact with fire/water/grass
Also, I don't think things like the Ghost and Dragon "trios" really count.

> Ghost ghost ghost
> dragon dragon dragon
Get the fuck out of here

also worth pointing out that elements in pokemon work on a weakness/resistance/immunity basis. The original trio works because fire/water /grass resist the elements they're strong against. So the only other ones that actually work are fighting/flying/rock, fire/steel/rock, and poison/ground/grass (and thats not even getting into move distribution, which effectively weights the individual strength of elements in a meta sense)

>Bug
>* defunct
sensible chuckle

Those aren't even true triangles in Pokemon, since in any triangle besides fire/water/grass at least one type is super effective to one type and hits the other neutrally even if defensively it resist one and is weak to the other.

>>but doesn't interact with fire/water/grass
Ground/Steel/Ice, Ice/Flying/Fighting, Fighting/Rock/Flying

Earth/Mortal Realm, Hell, Heaven.

Change names if you like, it works for any generic setting with clearly established good and evil alignment outsiders.

Heaven beats Hell because it's divine mandate and good always wins in the end
Hell beats Earth because mortals are easily tempted
Earth beats Heaven because??? Maybe mortals deny help from deities or stop worshiping, so they lose power.

Elements don't mean shit, my nigga Charmander best of the bunch. Squirtle and Bulbastard or whatever don't even need to show up.

Does it need to be 3? I came up with this sometime ago:
>Fire pollutes Air
>(Something that's can fly has advantage against something on the ground so) Air beats Earth
>Earth isolates Lightning
>Lightning disperses on Water
>Water puts out Fire

Air erodes Earth

Earth beats heaven because mortals can deny the divine. They need to choose the higher path of their own free will.

I thought about this but water does as well and most of the times better than air

Magic, Psionics, and Technology

Magic melts the laws of physics that make technology work, technology can shut down psionics, and psionics doesn't count as magic for the purpose of magical protection.

>don't try to stretch just to make it work.
>entire thread is comprised of huge stretches
I think the takeway from all of this is that this type of system is bullshit and there are much better way to achieve good theming and balance

Warrior > Mage > Rogue > Warrior

So what's earth's relation to water?

You need an odd number of elements to keep the intransitive relationship.

you are mistaken. I'm not quite autistic enough to actually write out how, so have a type chart instead

Arguably, RPS doesn't even pull it off well. covering a rock in paper doesn't do shit.

RPS is pretty shit to base an entire combat system off of.

Everyone knows that Rock-Paper-Scissors-Lizard-Spock is a stronger baseline to work from.

What about the FGO route, of having two separate wheels of three which are neutral to each other, along with a 7th which deals and receives extra damage from all types?

Nah. Grand Order isn't a good example of anything but demonstrating how best to milk money and attention from ronery gambling addicts.

I'm partial to the five-element pentagram instead.

what are those elements on pic related? fire, ice, poop, ghost?

Fifth one looks like a corset.

Why not stick with the original, and have Rocks, Scissors and Paper be elemental forces in the setting?

If you're gonna go with 5, you may as well just use the traditional Chinese elements.
>Wood parts Earth
>Earth dams Water
>Water extinguishes Fire
>Fire melts Metal
>Metal chops Wood

I like Megaman's Zero

Ice>Electric>Fire>Ice

there's no reason fire wouldnt burn wood

the reason these sort of systems never make perfect sense is because that's not how nature works, people are just always eager to shove things into neat little boxes

ice > electric
stretch

electric > fire
huge stretch

Fighting/Rock/Flying isn't outside of the Fire/Water/Grass triangle. Rock is weak to Grass and Water but resistant to Fire, while Flying is strong against Grass.

>Ground/Steel/Ice, Ice/Flying/Fighting, Fighting/Rock/Flying

I feel you don't understand what "doesn't interact with fire/water/grass" means.

- Ground is weak to water and grass and strong against fire.
- Steel is weak to fire and resists grass and water.
- Ice is weak to fire, is strong against grass, and I'm pretty sure is resistant to water.
- Flying is strong against grass
- Rock is weak to grass and water, and resists fire. Incidentally, Rock is the worst type.

These are all interactions with the fire/water/grass triangle. Conversely:

- Fighting is not strong, weak, or resistant to any of fire/water/grass. There is no interaction.
- Psychic is not strong, weak, or resistant to any of fire/water/grass. There is no interaction.
- Dark is not strong, weak, or resistant to any of fire/water/grass. There is no interaction.

So, like I said originally - fighting/dark/psychic is the only triangle that doesn't interact with the fire/water/grass triangle.

Eh, not really.

- Psychic beats fighting because mind over matter.
- Fighting beats dark because honorbru warriors beat underhanded tactics
- Dark beats psychic because the game needed balance because psychic-types were OP as fuck and fighting types too weak.

well if you look at >Wood feeds Fire
>Fire creates Earth (ash)
>Earth bears Metal
>Metal collects Water
>Water nourishes Wood

It's actually poison beating bug that is defunct

I'm pretty sure the reason dark/ghost/bug type beats psychic is because fear beats mind
Or some shit like that

>trying to do telekinesis with bugs crawling all over you stinging you and shit

My idea was to do away with the rock paper scissors theme and just make it more natural.

The primary elements are: fire, wind, water, Earth, lightning.

Fire has low raw damage but high status effect potential. Fire is put out by and it's status effects healed by water. Wind can spread it if it's strong or put it out if it's weak. Earth can't catch on fire.

Water requires pre existing bodies of water to be effective. Earth can open up chasms to drain it or pillars to stay above it. Lightning can spread along it, becoming more effective.

Etc.

so basically Naruto then...

And Just because I've actually thought about using the same sort of system in my own game I'll post what I have come up with for the idea as well as what sort of things can happen if you combine them.

Fire- Burning
F+A-Poison
F+L-Radiation
F+E-Magma
F+W-Steam

Air
A+F-Poison
A+L-Light
A+E-Sand
A+W-Ice

Lightning
L+F-Radiation
L+A-Light
L+E-Gravity
L+W-Acid

Earth
E+F-Magma
E+A-Sand
E+L-Gravity
E+W-Wood

Water
W+F-Steam
W+A-Ice
W+L-Acid
W+E-Wood

everything is energy.

We could go that route:

Fire = Energy Released
Air = Energy Disapated
Lightning = Energy in Motion
Earth = Energy Condensed
Water = Energy Fluid

Energy Solid Earth
Energy Fluid Water
Energy in Motion Lightning
Energy Released Fire
Energy Disapated Air

also Using this combination allows me to even determine how the races were made. as the core elements also relate to a physical trait what a person is made up of.

Fire: Muscle
Air: Breath
Lightning: Mind
Earth: Bone
Water: Blood

RUnescape has melee beat ranged, ranged beats magic, magic beats melee

and electric-earth-wind

I feel like that should be in reverse for some reason.

Magic>Ranged>Melee

And you’re totally wrong, as not only isn’t it the only one, there’s an immunity in there that throws off the resistances.

Ranged uses dragon leather, which resists magic and mages have to wear robes which get fucked by arrows. Melee don't give a fuck about arrows due to their thicc armor, but that armor does nothing to stop magic.
It makes sense.

Dark beats psychic because underhanded moves can't be predicted

>as not only isn’t it the only one

Okay, so point out to me the other triangle that does not interact with the Fire/Water/Grass triangle. As in, the types in this other triangle are not resistant to, nor weak against, nor strong against, Fire, Water, or Grass types.

>there’s an immunity in there that throws off the resistances.

I honestly don't see much of a point in distinguishing between Resistant and Immunity for the purposes of assembling a pokémon type triangle, since it's unlikely you'll use a move against the pokémon that resists the move type. That is, even if Dark only resisted Psychic rather than no-selled it, it's unlikely you'd move a Dark move against a Psychic type anyway.

>I honestly don't see much of a point in distinguishing between Resistant and Immunity

Immunity offers completely safe switch ins, which matter more are you've already suffered some damage. It makes a huge difference if you're switching in something frail.

That doesn't seem like an important thing to consider as long as you're leveling your pokémon rig...

...waaait, you're one of them competitive PvP folk, aren't you? Damnit, I just play pokémon for the game itself, I don't want to have to Eevee train or whatever.

I always liked the elemental trio from Luigi's Mansion

Fire > Ice > Water > Fire