Change Fire to Heat Damage

Interesting, but it's still transferring all that heat into the target. If it made any difference at all (and I'm not sure the game really needs to model this particular quirk of physics, but just for the sake of discussion), more readily transferring energy would mean more damage, not less.

I remembered reading something about that in New Scientist a couple of years ago, and I found a link to a nice paper someone wrote about their investigations into the effect.

Like the guy from Phantasm?

That doesn't change the fact my class covered it in high school physics.



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This sums up my position pretty well.

I mean, I don't really care one way or the other, but Developer time could definitely be better spent on something other than tracking down a bajillion bits of random code and changing four letters (f-i-r-e) into four different letters (h-e-a-t) for what amounts to not a damned bit of difference.

@Oathbound & @Oathbound Too

I would echo this.

Well, 'ice damage' is technically a combination of cold and smashing or cold and lethal depending on the type of ice that's used (sharp ice swords and tiny piercing raining ice pellets will pierce the target while large blunt frost-boxing-gloves and chunks of ice that basically amount to rocks will cause basic striking damage).

I think the reason 'heat' isn't a type is because heat itself is caused by friction which doesn't pertain to what's actually causing it. Other things can (technically) cause heat without friction but they all amount to the same thing:

Electricity is atomic friction of electrons.

Air can cause enough resistance to create heat from molecules.

Smashing something hard enough compresses molecules resulting in heat.

Cold is basically the lack of heat, dispersing heat over a space to lower the temperature.

Cutting things will cause heat since you're basically just forcing a wedge through solid material resulting in heat.

Bullets require combustion to propel them, resulting in heat.

Light is just another form of radiation which extend to the radiation, energy and beam rifle sets which basically set atomic particles into motion to cause friction and heat.

So basically, a lot of things respond to or cause heat. But perhaps not everything causes specifically heat-focused reactions. In CoX, perhaps it'd make somewhat sense to rename 'fire' damage to 'heat' damage but I think it rather undermines the premise of the set itself:

Water is versatile and a conductor of heat. It's not so much that water 'causes fire', but that it causes effects *similar* to fire. It can leave things blanched and scorched just like fire, except with less smoke and charring. Apparently, no other power can cause similarly devastating effects despite being able to create heat themselves.

So I can kind of agree either way (for renaming and not for renaming), but frankly, I like the types the way they are and feel we can just continue with them since going the other way would require redefining the other sets:

Fire = Fire damage + charring (DoT)

Ice = Cold + Smashing or Cold + Lethal damage

Water = Cold + Smashing

Steam = Fire or Fire + Smashing

Just like the energy types are differentiated by their combination of types and effects, the same can be said for the elemental type powers...which kind of makes me wonder what other kind of damage types we can get by combining more types. Hellfire is basically Fire + Toxic....

Originally Posted by Dispari I don't know why Dink thinks she's not as sexy as Jay was. In 5 posts she's already upstaged his entire career.

Can anything change that fact?

I'm Mister Green Christmas, I'm Mister Sun.
I'm Mister Heat Blister, I'm Mister Hundred and One.
They call me Heat Miser, whatever I touch
Starts to melt in my clutch.
I'm too much.

I don't get how it really makes a difference.

It's an entirely meta change. It doesn't change your Fire Blaster to a Heat Blaster. Your powers and powersets are virtually untouched.

You're still burning your foes exactly the same as always.




Which, conversely, is exactly why I don't see the need to change it in the first place. It's an entirely superfluous alteration that has trivial effect at best on game play or enjoyment. Seriously, if you can suspend disbelief enough to let you "arrest" a purse snatcher with a battle axe, you can suspend disbelief enough to accept that hot water does fire damage.

@Oathbound & @Oathbound Too

THIS. Who the hell cares? You beat them up, knocked them out, and go the xpdropsinfetc.

Who the hell cares what the damage was called that you did to them. They're dead, errrr knocked the bunk out.