Powers in all versions of Savage Worlds have rank requirements. This prevents starting characters at Novice rank from selecting powers at Seasoned or higher ranks. Also, for those who want to have greater access to using their powers, there's a variant called "No Power Points" where powers don't cost Power Points, but instead have a skill penalty equal to half of the power's Power Point cost.
@nonamenobody9083 I just got the fantasy companion and its worth it. I believe future printings of swade will also include the cantrip rules but I could be wrong. Either way Ill be using them
I see player creativity and increased agency as positives. Players, if this intimidates you, get the practice in. You'll find yourselves more immersed in the game world rather than having to track everything like if you're piloting a mech in a video game.
my players have mentioned that they struggle and are sometime frustrated by open ended systems/mechanics. i think its all about what you enjoy. but definitely should try everything once
I'm playing in a couple of Pathfinder for Savage Worlds games. It brings in some of the trappings that DnD players would be used to. I really love the system, especially the magic system. The flavor and the modifiers you can use when casting spells gives you a lot of flexibility but avoids becoming overly complicated or specific like a DnD spellcaster does.
First Fantasy AGE and now Savage Worlds? You are working your way through my personal favorite systems to run and play, it seems, and that's awesome! Savage Worlds is the system I default to for any custom games I want to run, that don't already have a system attached to them. It is so easy to run, play, and adapt settings to. I especially like to use Savage worlds for modern day superhero games, specifically because of how the system handles powers. I still prefer to use Fantasy Age for fantasy games that aren't tied to an official D&D setting, though.
Love the video. I think it is important to point out that there are power modifiers in Savage Worlds that can even further customize your powers to suit the narrative you want to provide. Power Modifiers such as "Lingering Damage" add to the flavor of an Acid Bolt, for instance. With some Power Modifiers such as "Fatigue" one can even play a debuff-only spellcaster who defeats their foes specifically by wearing them out rather than focusing on damaging them!
Expertly explained. I love the flexibility that Savage Worlds allows, it really lends to the imagination of the PC (and the GM actually) to run wild with some crazy ideas and put them to the best affect within a campaign.
Great video! As someone who is getting back to DMing and loves but has limited time for crunch I appreciate the idea of a more simple, customizable spell system. Though easily handwaved by some, to me the worldbuilding implications for a system like 5e's spell-list are massive--it's a lot to ask of a DM to have all of those mechanics down if they truly want to create a sense of immersion in the world at their table, the way some of my favorite actual-play GMs do. This sounds like it would be more easy to run casually, which is just my vibe rn for better or worse. I also recently discovered that savage pathfinder is a thing, which is great bc Golarion might be my fav setting
At about the 5 minute mark, the "spending power points to change the trappings" is only available to 1 Arcane background (magic) and only with a particular Edge (wizard)
Great video! I took what I liked about SW "powers" and bolted it onto my d20 games. I rewrite spells as needed to make them more generic and then PCs can upgrade them as they see fit, with higher rolls to cast (oh yeah, I added roll to cast and dropped spell slots) or by using hero dice (surge dice, an idea I stole from ICRPG/Altered State).
Your description of Savage Works magic would work equally well as a description for the Hero System except that HS includes built in seemless power-scaling. It would be fascinating to see those two systems compared.
Synergy can be a big part of powers as well. As a GM I'd be reluctant to allow a player to alter their trapping without a good explanation of the logic behind it. Not that it has to be realistic, just make enought sense to be believable. But yeah, so secondary effects from the power should be thought of as well. An obvious one is firebolt catching something flammable on fire as well. Nothing around? Well, spend a benny and "oh, there are half filled, leaking casks of grog and moonshine. And the bad guy accidentally stumbled into them as he tries to evade the bolt! To no avail." Also, there is a good guide for converting Vancian type spells to Savage Worlds Pathfinder. Gives a base power and trappings.
I bought the SW Core Book 14 years ago at a convention but I dismissed it because (you won´t believe it) I didn´t like the title and the art design of the book back in the day and thought a game that tried to be everything can't be good at anything. Boy, was I wrong! I read it two weeks ago because I wanted to play Deadlands. I just gmed a homebrew Horror Oneshot with t and as a huge Free LEague fan, it´s the best rule set I have ever played with. Quick encounters, dramatic encounters, chase rules, fear rules, everything is just perfect to raise tension and fun at the table without needing to prepare. It´s unbelievable. I always missed the option to create interesting characters for Year Zero engine games when it comes to rules. The handicaps and edges give players something to work towards and give so much more depth to character creation. Can´t recommend this enough.
I’m getting back into SW after a long time away and I had nearly forgotten the flexibility… time to work up a Halfling Tyromancy Arcane Background! Mmm… cheeese…
Might I introduce you to a little game called Hero 5th edition. Not 6th, it breaks the game. It is also known as Champions. Don't let the core book scare you, it's THICK. The play rules are pretty clear and don't take a lot of pages. Most of the extra are how to build powers/magic/mutations. With many many examples.
Yet with Savage Worlds you have the same flexibility in a book a third of the size and the system as a whole is MUCH easier to Grasp and then use in Games.
@mattweaver3922 ya. But it is more quirky than reliable. The system has been around for decades and isn't as flexible as it appears. You have to ignore things. It worked great for deadlands. Also the "shrugging" off of wounds, mechanic made necessary due to only three wounds. I will admit. For a die based stat system, it does it well. However suffers from a lack of definition. Here, I will give you a game system that is infinity easier to play and run in. In fact two. Both with much smaller books. R Talsorian's Mekton, Cyberpunk, and Witcher. Stat+skill+d10. Or Traveller stat mod+skill lvl+ 2d6 Basically, my big issue with sw, though I do rcognize it looks decent, is it doesn't seen to have a true element of danger. I want to at least believe my character could die. The mechanics also are kind of clunky. There is a reason our deadlands games never lasted long. Now, this all is my opinion, including... SW is very cinematic, and when a game goes too cinematic, it loses the edge. Like I stated before, no sense that my character will die or even just fail. Some of my best games have ended with my character dying or failing, sometimes both. Sometimes from a choice I made, sometimes because of one bad die roll. All fueling the narrative. But when I can Basically throw a chip and change the entire result? Feels more hollow to me. Believe me, I have played games with that ability. Seventh Sea original, is one. Only ever did it once. All other chops were turn in for xp, and due to good rp and narrative flaws doubled. Lastly, I can almost guarantee the powers, spells, and abilities are broken into categories of like. In Hero, there is no spell or psionic "category". You have a base, everything has internal logic, and you build them to do and act how you want. Yes it is a lot. But oh so glorious.
It is welcome to have those spells but it also promotes that very "gamey" personality DnD already promotes. The more I look at alternatives the more it feels like DnD is basically an "ameritrash" (not bashing those, I own and love multiple) board game where you throw dice until enemy figures die with usually little to no strategy other than "throw all the high level crap at the enemies". And I'd honestly rather just play an actual board game. While Savage Worlds is not necessarily perfect, anything that gives the player more freedom, especially more flavour or agency freedom, is just a better roleplaying experience IMO.
Mutants and Masterminds is also an effects based system that lets the GM set the power level for players It's obvi a supers game but I've used it for fantasy, it is one of my favorite lightweight systems Combat is a breeze
I've been creating a game based on this level of reflavoring "powers" and character concepts and have been largely laughed at by my D&D fanboy friends... It's very discouraging...
The rules system has a reason for being the way it is, especially the D&D one, which has been perfected for several decades until D&D 3.5, which was its peak. In the example you give, Disguise Self is a 1st level spell... you can't "spice it up by saying it's telepathy based" because the whole concept of that spell is altering only yourself, affecting another creature is in other level of complexity/difficulty/power even if the creature is willing... it would be too much if you made a spell like that affect enemy creatures against their will with no saving throw/resistance and all that just with a 1st level spell. Even changing the element of a spell is deeper than just cosmetic because there are far more creatures able to resist fire than any other element... if a player asks you to let them make their Fireball ice/cold damage instead of fire what you're doing by allowing that is making a spell that's already too powerful to be a 3rd level spell even more powerful, which is unfair to the other classes who can't just say "I want my mundane sword attacks to now deal cold damage". And why do people always think first of bending the rules and lore/setting of whatever to do whatever they want instead of trying to respect that world and its laws? Why do people always want worlds to adapt to them instead of them trying to adapt to the worlds? If you think about it... it's a pretty teenager way of thinking.
No one follows D & D's magical rules as written. Even D & D's authors bend their own rules so that we can do whatever we want instead of respecting say, verbal, somatic, and material requirements of spells. Even so, D & D's magic doesn't feel magical, and since it is supposed to be fantasy, people want to bend the magic system so you don't feel like an archer with special effects when you play a mage. That's two reasons why we want to bend the 5th edition's magic system.
@@yzfool6639 Just because it's magic doesn't mean it's just imagination. "It doesn't feel like magic" is your way of saying that if something follows certain rules on how it works then it's not magic anymore? I know that most people don't respect the lore or the rules because they're capricious and just want to do what they want even if it breaks the rules/lore on how that thing works. Old TTRPGs had tons of rules and a lot of simulationist detail... and it seems that for a while now there's been a trend towards simplification, perhaps in part because the systems of how things work aren't respected as much as they should be. And if you don't respect something, and then those who come after respect it a little less... and so on... people get used to the new level, and end up with stories of the quality and depth of The Acolyte or Rings of Power... whose authors also don't respect their worlds at all, they simply settle for making what they imagine as quickly and easily as possible. Personally I can't understand how people find it "fun" to get away with breaking or bending the rules, maybe they get pleasure from getting the immediate reward of doing what they imagine but later what remains deeper is the notion that it's all just a game and their rules and laws on how that world works don't really matter (since I stopped being a teenager, receiving something too good too soon... leaves a bitter taste in my mouth of "too easy to be true". Or what my parents usually did: they would see me making my own bookshelf, my own chair, repairing my old boots or my old jacket, etc... and they would just turn up and buy me a new one when I hadn't asked for it. The feeling of frustration and lack of purpose, receiving that new thing when what you were making with your own hands and work is left half-finished and maybe you even have to throw it away, is hard to swallow). In the other hand... the metagame of not following the rules as they are completely takes me out of the immersion in the world, and it disappoints me because it's getting something easy and fast... it reminds me that nothing really matters because everything is fake. A puppet show. In our world, you can't decide that you can ignore the laws of gravity and fly away just because your balls; but imagine how it would feel if you managed to fly despite everything after a lot of effort and ingenuity and time building a suit of armor with thrusters built using the rules. It's not "killing the fun", I have a lot of fun like that, because things are not the way they are because I decided, but because of my ingenuity in how I used what I found... I'm not impressed that your character had the power to throw a ray that could destroy a skyscraper if you got that power simply because you wanted it and someone just accepted give it to you, but I would be impressed and interested if you achieved that after messing around a lot within the rules... and that's why it's special, because it's either convoluted to do or it takes your character 2 years of work to achieve it. Anecdotes like that are more valuable and overcoming. I don't understand people who can't see that "limitations and obstacles" can be triggers for ideas and motivations for the character... and in the worst case, adapting yourself to the world and respecting it makes the world feel more real. Especially simulationist systems like Spacemaster, GURPS, Traveller or even D&D 3.5 should be fully respected, taking into account everything... from carrying capacity to the purchase/acquisition of spell materials like lock of bull's fur for the Bull's Strength spell. Over the years I have had many disappointments and disillusionments, because most of people do not have the patience or interest to really take the story/world that is being built seriously. I also laugh at the funny moments, even following the rules these occurrences happen... and in fact often following the rules these situations occur more often (often due to the impulsiveness or lack of judgment of the players incarnating their characters).
Or... you can just change the fluff so it fits the character concept better and as long as the mechanics don't change everything still works fine! There's nothing wrong with adapting something to work how you want it to, especially if the underlying mechanics don't actually change. Disguise Self as psychic projection... is fine. Changing elements I would classify as changing a piece of the underlying mechanics, so that would require an extra level of permission to do, if at all. What does work is describing it as an ice attack, but the damage type for purposes of resistances and whatnot is still Fire. It's something that can throw people out of the game more, tho, so probably not a great idea, but if the "balance" is still the same, and the table is fine with it, it's not hurting anyone.
Powers in all versions of Savage Worlds have rank requirements. This prevents starting characters at Novice rank from selecting powers at Seasoned or higher ranks.
Also, for those who want to have greater access to using their powers, there's a variant called "No Power Points" where powers don't cost Power Points, but instead have a skill penalty equal to half of the power's Power Point cost.
No Points is best, because the SW _Majick_ system does not really support the idea of 'Cantrip's.
@nonamenobody9083 as presented in the Fantasy Companion, cantrips seem ok to me....
@nonamenobody9083 I just got the fantasy companion and its worth it. I believe future printings of swade will also include the cantrip rules but I could be wrong. Either way Ill be using them
SW is the only system that made initiative fun.
I disagree, I find it more tedious than most.
With all the support for SWADE in the eberron community it surprises me to here you just now had the chance to play it!
Scaling is less of an issue when hit points are no longer a thing.
I see player creativity and increased agency as positives. Players, if this intimidates you, get the practice in. You'll find yourselves more immersed in the game world rather than having to track everything like if you're piloting a mech in a video game.
player creativity and agency aren't just positives, they're the whole dang point of the medium of RPGs! I should revisit Savage Worlds
my players have mentioned that they struggle and are sometime frustrated by open ended systems/mechanics.
i think its all about what you enjoy. but definitely should try everything once
I'm playing in a couple of Pathfinder for Savage Worlds games. It brings in some of the trappings that DnD players would be used to. I really love the system, especially the magic system. The flavor and the modifiers you can use when casting spells gives you a lot of flexibility but avoids becoming overly complicated or specific like a DnD spellcaster does.
First Fantasy AGE and now Savage Worlds? You are working your way through my personal favorite systems to run and play, it seems, and that's awesome!
Savage Worlds is the system I default to for any custom games I want to run, that don't already have a system attached to them. It is so easy to run, play, and adapt settings to. I especially like to use Savage worlds for modern day superhero games, specifically because of how the system handles powers. I still prefer to use Fantasy Age for fantasy games that aren't tied to an official D&D setting, though.
Love the video. I think it is important to point out that there are power modifiers in Savage Worlds that can even further customize your powers to suit the narrative you want to provide. Power Modifiers such as "Lingering Damage" add to the flavor of an Acid Bolt, for instance.
With some Power Modifiers such as "Fatigue" one can even play a debuff-only spellcaster who defeats their foes specifically by wearing them out rather than focusing on damaging them!
Savage Worlds is taking off. It's sold out on Amazon.
Sounds interesting.
Icemancer ? --> Cyromancer is what you were looking for.
Thank you! I knew there was a correct term.
Expertly explained. I love the flexibility that Savage Worlds allows, it really lends to the imagination of the PC (and the GM actually) to run wild with some crazy ideas and put them to the best affect within a campaign.
Great video!
As someone who is getting back to DMing and loves but has limited time for crunch I appreciate the idea of a more simple, customizable spell system. Though easily handwaved by some, to me the worldbuilding implications for a system like 5e's spell-list are massive--it's a lot to ask of a DM to have all of those mechanics down if they truly want to create a sense of immersion in the world at their table, the way some of my favorite actual-play GMs do. This sounds like it would be more easy to run casually, which is just my vibe rn for better or worse.
I also recently discovered that savage pathfinder is a thing, which is great bc Golarion might be my fav setting
At about the 5 minute mark, the "spending power points to change the trappings" is only available to 1 Arcane background (magic) and only with a particular Edge (wizard)
Thanks for the detailed review! I enjoyed it! :)
Great video! I took what I liked about SW "powers" and bolted it onto my d20 games. I rewrite spells as needed to make them more generic and then PCs can upgrade them as they see fit, with higher rolls to cast (oh yeah, I added roll to cast and dropped spell slots) or by using hero dice (surge dice, an idea I stole from ICRPG/Altered State).
Your description of Savage Works magic would work equally well as a description for the Hero System except that HS includes built in seemless power-scaling.
It would be fascinating to see those two systems compared.
Synergy can be a big part of powers as well. As a GM I'd be reluctant to allow a player to alter their trapping without a good explanation of the logic behind it. Not that it has to be realistic, just make enought sense to be believable. But yeah, so secondary effects from the power should be thought of as well. An obvious one is firebolt catching something flammable on fire as well. Nothing around? Well, spend a benny and "oh, there are half filled, leaking casks of grog and moonshine. And the bad guy accidentally stumbled into them as he tries to evade the bolt! To no avail."
Also, there is a good guide for converting Vancian type spells to Savage Worlds Pathfinder. Gives a base power and trappings.
I bought the SW Core Book 14 years ago at a convention but I dismissed it because (you won´t believe it) I didn´t like the title and the art design of the book back in the day and thought a game that tried to be everything can't be good at anything. Boy, was I wrong! I read it two weeks ago because I wanted to play Deadlands. I just gmed a homebrew Horror Oneshot with t and as a huge Free LEague fan, it´s the best rule set I have ever played with. Quick encounters, dramatic encounters, chase rules, fear rules, everything is just perfect to raise tension and fun at the table without needing to prepare. It´s unbelievable. I always missed the option to create interesting characters for Year Zero engine games when it comes to rules. The handicaps and edges give players something to work towards and give so much more depth to character creation. Can´t recommend this enough.
I’m getting back into SW after a long time away and I had nearly forgotten the flexibility… time to work up a Halfling Tyromancy Arcane Background! Mmm… cheeese…
had no idea how it worked and now it seems like exactly what I'm after. so tired of slot systems and you question it and loyalist jump at you yelling
I’ve had a player use swarm of bees!!
Might I introduce you to a little game called Hero 5th edition. Not 6th, it breaks the game.
It is also known as Champions. Don't let the core book scare you, it's THICK. The play rules are pretty clear and don't take a lot of pages.
Most of the extra are how to build powers/magic/mutations. With many many examples.
Yet with Savage Worlds you have the same flexibility in a book a third of the size and the system as a whole is MUCH easier to Grasp and then use in Games.
@mattweaver3922 ya. But it is more quirky than reliable.
The system has been around for decades and isn't as flexible as it appears. You have to ignore things.
It worked great for deadlands.
Also the "shrugging" off of wounds, mechanic made necessary due to only three wounds.
I will admit. For a die based stat system, it does it well. However suffers from a lack of definition.
Here, I will give you a game system that is infinity easier to play and run in. In fact two. Both with much smaller books.
R Talsorian's Mekton, Cyberpunk, and Witcher. Stat+skill+d10.
Or Traveller stat mod+skill lvl+ 2d6
Basically, my big issue with sw, though I do rcognize it looks decent, is it doesn't seen to have a true element of danger.
I want to at least believe my character could die. The mechanics also are kind of clunky. There is a reason our deadlands games never lasted long.
Now, this all is my opinion, including...
SW is very cinematic, and when a game goes too cinematic, it loses the edge. Like I stated before, no sense that my character will die or even just fail.
Some of my best games have ended with my character dying or failing, sometimes both. Sometimes from a choice I made, sometimes because of one bad die roll. All fueling the narrative.
But when I can Basically throw a chip and change the entire result? Feels more hollow to me. Believe me, I have played games with that ability. Seventh Sea original, is one. Only ever did it once. All other chops were turn in for xp, and due to good rp and narrative flaws doubled.
Lastly, I can almost guarantee the powers, spells, and abilities are broken into categories of like.
In Hero, there is no spell or psionic "category". You have a base, everything has internal logic, and you build them to do and act how you want.
Yes it is a lot. But oh so glorious.
It is welcome to have those spells but it also promotes that very "gamey" personality DnD already promotes. The more I look at alternatives the more it feels like DnD is basically an "ameritrash" (not bashing those, I own and love multiple) board game where you throw dice until enemy figures die with usually little to no strategy other than "throw all the high level crap at the enemies". And I'd honestly rather just play an actual board game.
While Savage Worlds is not necessarily perfect, anything that gives the player more freedom, especially more flavour or agency freedom, is just a better roleplaying experience IMO.
No! NOT THE BEES!
Love the system!
Mutants and Masterminds is also an effects based system that lets the GM set the power level for players
It's obvi a supers game but I've used it for fantasy, it is one of my favorite lightweight systems
Combat is a breeze
I've been creating a game based on this level of reflavoring "powers" and character concepts and have been largely laughed at by my D&D fanboy friends... It's very discouraging...
Just keep at it and you’ll eventually come up with something that makes them be like “woah that’s cool, I can’t do that in dnd”. 💪
The rules system has a reason for being the way it is, especially the D&D one, which has been perfected for several decades until D&D 3.5, which was its peak. In the example you give, Disguise Self is a 1st level spell... you can't "spice it up by saying it's telepathy based" because the whole concept of that spell is altering only yourself, affecting another creature is in other level of complexity/difficulty/power even if the creature is willing... it would be too much if you made a spell like that affect enemy creatures against their will with no saving throw/resistance and all that just with a 1st level spell.
Even changing the element of a spell is deeper than just cosmetic because there are far more creatures able to resist fire than any other element... if a player asks you to let them make their Fireball ice/cold damage instead of fire what you're doing by allowing that is making a spell that's already too powerful to be a 3rd level spell even more powerful, which is unfair to the other classes who can't just say "I want my mundane sword attacks to now deal cold damage".
And why do people always think first of bending the rules and lore/setting of whatever to do whatever they want instead of trying to respect that world and its laws? Why do people always want worlds to adapt to them instead of them trying to adapt to the worlds? If you think about it... it's a pretty teenager way of thinking.
No one follows D & D's magical rules as written. Even D & D's authors bend their own rules so that we can do whatever we want instead of respecting say, verbal, somatic, and material requirements of spells. Even so, D & D's magic doesn't feel magical, and since it is supposed to be fantasy, people want to bend the magic system so you don't feel like an archer with special effects when you play a mage. That's two reasons why we want to bend the 5th edition's magic system.
@@yzfool6639
Just because it's magic doesn't mean it's just imagination. "It doesn't feel like magic" is your way of saying that if something follows certain rules on how it works then it's not magic anymore? I know that most people don't respect the lore or the rules because they're capricious and just want to do what they want even if it breaks the rules/lore on how that thing works. Old TTRPGs had tons of rules and a lot of simulationist detail... and it seems that for a while now there's been a trend towards simplification, perhaps in part because the systems of how things work aren't respected as much as they should be. And if you don't respect something, and then those who come after respect it a little less... and so on... people get used to the new level, and end up with stories of the quality and depth of The Acolyte or Rings of Power... whose authors also don't respect their worlds at all, they simply settle for making what they imagine as quickly and easily as possible.
Personally I can't understand how people find it "fun" to get away with breaking or bending the rules, maybe they get pleasure from getting the immediate reward of doing what they imagine but later what remains deeper is the notion that it's all just a game and their rules and laws on how that world works don't really matter (since I stopped being a teenager, receiving something too good too soon... leaves a bitter taste in my mouth of "too easy to be true". Or what my parents usually did: they would see me making my own bookshelf, my own chair, repairing my old boots or my old jacket, etc... and they would just turn up and buy me a new one when I hadn't asked for it. The feeling of frustration and lack of purpose, receiving that new thing when what you were making with your own hands and work is left half-finished and maybe you even have to throw it away, is hard to swallow).
In the other hand... the metagame of not following the rules as they are completely takes me out of the immersion in the world, and it disappoints me because it's getting something easy and fast... it reminds me that nothing really matters because everything is fake. A puppet show.
In our world, you can't decide that you can ignore the laws of gravity and fly away just because your balls; but imagine how it would feel if you managed to fly despite everything after a lot of effort and ingenuity and time building a suit of armor with thrusters built using the rules. It's not "killing the fun", I have a lot of fun like that, because things are not the way they are because I decided, but because of my ingenuity in how I used what I found... I'm not impressed that your character had the power to throw a ray that could destroy a skyscraper if you got that power simply because you wanted it and someone just accepted give it to you, but I would be impressed and interested if you achieved that after messing around a lot within the rules... and that's why it's special, because it's either convoluted to do or it takes your character 2 years of work to achieve it. Anecdotes like that are more valuable and overcoming. I don't understand people who can't see that "limitations and obstacles" can be triggers for ideas and motivations for the character... and in the worst case, adapting yourself to the world and respecting it makes the world feel more real.
Especially simulationist systems like Spacemaster, GURPS, Traveller or even D&D 3.5 should be fully respected, taking into account everything... from carrying capacity to the purchase/acquisition of spell materials like lock of bull's fur for the Bull's Strength spell.
Over the years I have had many disappointments and disillusionments, because most of people do not have the patience or interest to really take the story/world that is being built seriously. I also laugh at the funny moments, even following the rules these occurrences happen... and in fact often following the rules these situations occur more often (often due to the impulsiveness or lack of judgment of the players incarnating their characters).
Or... you can just change the fluff so it fits the character concept better and as long as the mechanics don't change everything still works fine! There's nothing wrong with adapting something to work how you want it to, especially if the underlying mechanics don't actually change. Disguise Self as psychic projection... is fine. Changing elements I would classify as changing a piece of the underlying mechanics, so that would require an extra level of permission to do, if at all. What does work is describing it as an ice attack, but the damage type for purposes of resistances and whatnot is still Fire. It's something that can throw people out of the game more, tho, so probably not a great idea, but if the "balance" is still the same, and the table is fine with it, it's not hurting anyone.
This video would be much better with visuals rather than your talking head. No shade at you specifically, but visuals really help.
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