I agree that an earth element would be nice. Does anyone else think it would be cool to- rather than spells that directly affect units. i.e. giant strength, hardened armor- have defensive spells that affect the terrain and provide defense that way? i.e: rock walls that jut from the ground (to protect against archers) stalagmite barricades (to protect against charging units- with a well timed spell cast you could catch some charging calvary unaware  ). While I think its probably taken a backseat, I remember Frogboy mentioning that they planned to use X-com as inspiration, and with as important as cover was in that game, it would have been neat to make a wall of earth appear to cover my men  

Overall, I think "mystical" should be changed to "arcane", or have "mystical" split into "holy" and "unholy" (which by the post, i would have to assume was Frogboy's intention anyways) but at this point i think it truly doesn't matter, most important thing right now is the mechanics, and im not sure how much i agree with "kits". id prefer more of an item enchantment/creation similar to unit creation- but that might be waay too much micromanagement... so i look forward to testing it out.

I completely agree with a weapons triangle for mundane damage types. I would also prefer mundane damage types be called physical or material damage. 

I agree. I would prefer not limiting it to the four elements...White/Black magic or Holy/Unholy tossed into the mix makes for lots of variation (and fun!) although it is a lot more work! I know I keep beating the same old drum, (and it is your game!) but the more MOM-like the more I will enjoy it. I think that's why a lot of us showed up here at the beginning.

Keep up the good work!

We have four elements: fire, water, air and earth. With Life/Death as an extra. If we have so many is because they are different. It wouldn't make sense to have water and fire if they were to do the same. So they are different and they should work differently, be it at battle or out of battle. Each should have a role and be meaningfull.

I understand the need for simplicity in this system. And it's not a simplicity I don't like. We could understand it as "child magic" in which anything is possible if the author says it. Those "kits" could be understood as binding some elemental spirits to the weapons, or maybe change the elemental balance of the weapon without "breaking it". But if we take that idea, those types of damage... well, they could be assumed as the standards in Elemental's world but in theory we should be able to access to fire damage, water damage, air damage, earth damage, ice damage, acid damage, lighting damage, lava damage, dust damage... It would be a matter of mixing elements in the adecuate proportions to create new kits (lighting being fire + air, lava being fire + earth, for example). But as a limitation "in character" for Elemental campaign, I can accept it.

But I wonder how the system is going to be. Will weapons be just a cosmetic thing? Will they have some differences even if small? I always liked the idea of how weapons are "better aligned" to use some elements: fan = air, hammer = earth, spear = water, sword = fire. Yes, the fan can be barely be considered a weapon and at best used to deflect some light attacks but that is beside the point now.

When talking about damage type, notice that we haven't being told the sources of such damage types. I hope it's not just Fireball, (Water/Ice)ball, Earthball... Airball? Anyhow, damage types should be: mundane (non magical), fire, earth, water, air, life/death (energy? life force? akasha?). With those types you cover all the possible sources no matter their form/use. Flame Arrow Spell? Ok, fire damage source. Sword trough the guts? Eww, mundane source there. Flaming sword through the guts? Ooook, that's some fire and mundane sources, not sure of how the proportions would work or if all damage should be considered of both types. Chain Lighting? That's fire and air sources (according to my previous example) and easier to consider than the previous example of the flaming sword.

Man, I don't even know if I'll be able to create hybrids. But I hope so. It's just a spell with more than one element attribute. We could even name them ourselves as we create them. And as long as they count as their individual elements for protections, it's fine.

So... sources.

• Fire: Offensive element by nature. Flame Arrow, Fireball, Firestorm, Breath of Fire... Not so suited to defend and the fire spells used for such are offensive in nature (a Fire Wall might not block as well as an Earth Wall, but surely hurts more). This element has the advantage of damaging the target over time.
• Earth: Raising earth pikes from the ground to impale your enemies, bowling with giant rocks against enemy formations... Earth is a more balanced element than fire in the offensive/defensive camps. Those earth pikes you raised to impale enemy soldiers? Congrats, you raised a wall too. And altough it might not do damage over time (by itself?), surely it has some nice area damage posibilities.
• Water: To use it in an offensive way, it should require more skill than with Fire or Earth. Unless you go the brute way and start using columns of water, or you are in an area with lots of water like a sea. Or Ice could be an option as long as Fire is not strong enouhg in the area. But the true strength in water damage should be things like Drown or Dehydrate. Most common uses could be to slow enemies, hasten allies, paralize (no need to be ice)... It'd be more of a support element and if I don't include healing in this element is because someone added life/magic.
• Air: This is a control element. Damage? Sure, if you summon an Air Elemental. By itself? I don't see it so much with some exceptions (Suffocate!!!). Use it to deflect arrows, to give arrows more strength when piercing armours, knock back enemies (go fan, go!)... Summon a hurricane in the enemy lines and watch not only how the cannot move (well, that uncontrolled flying doesn't count) or attack, but how they recieve (possible massive) mundane damage from the fall. And even if they weren't hurt (too much), have fun watching them trying to reorganize. If there were flying units, this would be the element that would decide sky battles tough.

Altough every element can be used as a source of damage, the sources should be different and "in character". And simply put, some elements should have more spells to do damage as others. (Yeah, everybody knows that but I like to mention the obvious) I think that Fire should excel at battle; Earth can shine in battle but should have an imporant role in kingdom/empire building; Water could help a lot in kingdom/empire building and be a great asset in armies' deployment; Air is just too sweet in anything related to spies/diplomacy.

Surely there is something I forget. As usual. Missed to write walls of text.

Which is why I've proposed the four classical elements. You can stuff everything logically (more or less) in those 4 elemental categories, which is why they've been used for quite a long time in the past.

Acid and poison would fall under earth.

Usually mind control spells fall under the water categorie. (Human body consists of lots of water.) While a rage or berserker spell would fall under fire (connection is obvious I guess) for example

I disagree. Having damage aligned with certain Elements only strengthens the connection and makes it easier to explain, in no way does it limit the types and amount of spells available.

Let's take mind spells for example. Water (blue) mind spells would be about controlling, fire (red) about anger and berserkering, earth (green) would protect against other mind spells and air could offer an increase in morale.

Now lets talk about magic damages. Air could offer fast attack spells, with bonus against low armoured targets. Fire would have its signatory explosive and burning spells. Water would offer freezing ice with movement penalties and Earth would be spikes from the ground and crushing stones falling from the sky.

Those are just some examples, that show that you can have very different spells with unique effects fit very nicely in those 4 categories. (And the fifth categories for oddball spells and the white and black mana spells.)

Well many of us really like damage types (and still play Galciv 2)  So please add as many typs as you can and allow us to mod more types as well as adjust types currently in the game.

I agree, great post Wintersong! (especially your earth section )

I don't have anything to add, just that I hope the devs put as much thought into the effects that each element will have on the world map and tactical battles as you have here.

I think frogboy is going in the right direction. Although I would still prefer more diversity in physical damage types. Really a damage type should be reflective of a fundamentaly different form of damage. I like GURPS in this way when it comes to damage types. The source of the damage does not define the damage being done.

Getting punched in the face does impact damage. So does getting hit by a rock. Does it matter if the rock way thrown by a troll or magically propelled to that velocity? I don't believe so. And armor should protect the same amount either way.

In the same grain lightening does not do lightening damage. It does burning damage because it greatly raises the temperature of a substance as it passes through, although it should have the special effect of potentially disrupting vital systems in living beings.

Potentially air magic could do physical damage. But what if you rapidly vibrate the air molecules causing friction and thus burining damage?

Damage types I think would be good. And keep in mind that all damage types (except maybe the unexplained mystical) are really physical damage types.

Mundane Physical Damage caused by the application of force: could be separated into

Blunt - Piercing - Cutting

Burning Damage

Freezing Damage

Corrosion Damage (Done by acid or application of force on a molecular level air, earth, and water could have ways of doing this)

Poison Damage (Caused over time by a substance that must make it's way inside an opponent and distupts them chemically)

Radiation Damage (Caused by high energy particles probably quite rare in a fantasy setting)

Mystical/Arcane/Magical Damage and all it's subtypes

Tasunke:

Somehow, every element could be used to control the terrain. It would depend of the terrain but in theory it could be possible. For me the best one is Earth. Why? Well, most of your battles will be land based. If your troops don't have solid ground to fight on... Raising a patch of land so your archers have higher ground to fire from, the already mentioned stone pikes that appart from killing and mining the morale can also serve as walls that block and redirect traffic, lower the terrain where the enemy is so they have to charge upwards while at the same time turn that ground into sand, earthqueakes that can shatter the land massively reconfiguring the battlefield (and maybe swallowing some soldiers in the process),.. End of game battles with Earth specialist could be epic.

Water? I agree that it's also good in terrain control but not at the same level and versatility of Earth. Flooding the battlefield sounds cool as some heavy rain to reduce movility and visibility (on everybody or just the enemy if you can shape that heavy rain). To use rivers as cheap water walls or make the waters break so your troops can pass unhindered... Yeah, Water can be very interesting as terrain control tool if the terrain allows it.

I don't see Air really as damage dealer by itself (Suffocate could be like "Die or receive damage" type of spell) but seems to offer itself quite well to be mixed with other elements to create some barbarities (like a huge storm with heavy rain, strong winds and lighting!!).

Damage effects should be separate from the actual damage type. Although certain damage effects should have an affinity with certain types and certain types my prevent some damage effects. Like poison (damage effect) would have a strong affinity to persistant damage and also an affinity to additional crippling effects like paralysis, blindness, weakness, etc.

I agree with the defensive whack-a-mole/shell game worry. Besides reducing the number of catagories, another thought is having more overlap in defense.

Let's say categories are red, blue, green and black damage.  If there are one-to-one defensive counters then red counter provides 100% defense value against red, 0% against all others. 

However, if red counter provides 100% of its point value against red and 50% vs green or black, then you can have more categories without having to be protected against one damage type and defenseless against all the others.

In the case of multiple counters, pick the best value or have diminshing returns.

I also agree with the "whack-a-mole" point.  If the damage enchantments don't do anything other than add a certain type of magic damage, than having multiple damage types is pretty much going to lead to a whack-a-mole.  The more types there are, the worse this will be.

The only way I can see damage types being useful is if the different types of magic have different sorts of effects, both in terms of large scale spells and and in terms of enchantments, and these differences can be counter with different fighting tactics and non-magic design.   The more types there are, however, the less thwey will be able ot be diffrentiated.  I certainly do not want a bunch of damage types included just because they were in previous games.

Also, to people arguing that the magic types are named incorrectly:  The backstory can be used to justify anything needed.  In one game, electrical damage might be associated with stuns, in another, single target damage, in another, wide area damage, the same applies to other types.  Different damage types will also be associated with the same effect (So hurricanes might do cold based damage in one game, physical in another, wind in a third, etc.).  so in terms of what the damage types are.