Mazrian's post inspired me and friend to try some experiments with elemental planes, which has lead to a few questions:

1. How do the boots provided by summoned domains affect spells? Do they allow more mana to be used, increase damage and/or accuracy, or some other effect?

2. Is there any way to increase elemental charge when aligned to the plane of metal other than summoning admittance or cast aethrolysis? Are there any other sorcery casts that can increase elemental charge?

3. Why doesn't using the flash point cantrip with aethrolysis allow blackfire, whereas preping analogous pattern spells does?

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1. I found that by summoning a metal elemental domain (which has very cool messaging), I seemed to be able to do more damage with aethrolysis - first time I ever saw the splash damage, but it didn't seem to allow higher mana casts, but it's also possible I failed those attempts because it was a sorcerous cast.

> cast

Your fingerbones phosphoresce hylomorphic blue as you gesture at a wind hound.

Drops of tarnished, metallic blue liquid fall sideways toward the wind hound.

The edges of the wind hound's right eye leak blue light before the ghostly orb is abruptly sucked into an aethrolytic blaze raging about its head.

The complementary nature of the spell empowers you.

The wind hound lets loose a scream like a howling blizzard and lies still.

A wind hound's movements return to their normal speed.

Emotional pain and exhaustion lingers in your mind, even after you regain rational control.

Roundtime: 1 sec.

The sorcery-thickened lightning sluices onto a wind hound.

The drops erupt into jets of blue incandescence that spear the wind hound's chest one after another, leaving jagged ruptures in its form.

The wind hound lets loose a scream like a howling blizzard and lies still.

Does anyone know what kind of affects are generated by summoning domains, and if they are the same or different for summoning a metal domain? And would those domain effects work for bard spells, or even other spells or flare effects that use the summoned domain's elemental damage?

2. When casting aethrolysis while aligned to the metal plane, I was able to gain elemental charge, but I wasn't able to gain any charge by casting lethargy (life mana debilitation spell). Does that mean elemental charge can only be increased with high sorcery (which right now is only aethrolysis, and maybe necro spells which I'm reluctant to experiment with on my main)? Or should other forms of sorcerous casting boost charge as well?

You make yourself comfortable and turn your attention inward.

Drawing down extraplanar laws, you attempt to create a metal domain spanning the area.

Discharging a burst of elemental power in the esoteric "direction" of the Elemental Plane of Metal, you carefully draw down subtle lines of power across the Void.

The strands anchor themselves to the ground, infusing the area with an additional, subordinate set of physical laws that make sorcery easier.

Roundtime: 10 sec.

A painful ripping sensation erupts through your abdomen! You seem unharmed, but something terribly... wrong just happened.

Also, will summoning the metal domain help non-aethrolysis sorcerous casts? Or is also limited to high sorcery?

I plan on testing the metal domain summoning with a necro friend to see if their spells are affected at all, but if anyone knows, I'd appreciate hearing what you found.

Since the initial oppossition when aligning to the metal domain is aether, I was also curious if, lore-wise, the idea was that "aether" is representative of potentiality and energy whereas "metal" was representative of actuality and matter?

3. I love the RP effects and lore tie-ins of using the flash point cantrip with a prepared spell for different sorts of fire effects. My favorite is the blackfire effect from preping an analogous pattern spell and using flash point.

You focus the cantrip's pattern on the icy snowball in your hand, and are soon rewarded as a searing flash of colorless flame erupts from your palm! The icy snowball explodes in a fountain of black sparks and steam, leaving nothing but a foul smoke that is quickly and utterly consumed as the Blackfire fades.

Most preped spell types seem to affect the use of the flash point, but aethrolysis seems to have only the basic fire. Was that maybe something missed, since other types of sorcery seem to alter the color of the flash point flames?

>Domains increase the charge awarded by casting a spell of the same element and reduces the min prep of spells.

Ok, thanks. Is that pretty much the case with elemental efficacy too (the stuff you see when under PERC ELEMENTS ALL)? Or does the mana efficiency affect higher mana casts as well?

Grejuva just reminded me we did, in fact, add a special effect for Hylomorphic sorcerers in sorcery domain. My memory was faulty.

-Armifer
"Perinthia's astronomers are faced with a difficult choice. Either they must admit that all their calculations were wrong ... or else they must reveal that the order of the gods is reflected exactly in the city of monsters." - Italo Calvino

>>Is it something beyond building elemental charge with hylomorphic sorcery? Could I have a hint if it is!?

It's all about hylomorphic corruption. The Metal domain's effect shouldn't be too difficult to figure out. Bonus tidbit: the Metal alignment causes corruption to decay faster.

To answer some of the other questions, all WM-specific sorcery interactions are limited to Hylomorphic Sorcery itself. Cross-realm casting (which isn't true sorcery) and low sorcery (when we actually re-release some spells in those books) are unaffected.

GM Grejuva