I guess that one incentive to change it from earth to poison damage is immersion and logic. Although not everything in a fantasy world needs to make sense, the idea of 'earth damage' is horrendrously flawed. How does earth damage you? It can't, unless it's either poisonous or through inertia, which essentially translates to physical trauma no different from a club. There is nothing inheirently dangerous about it, unlike fire, cold or electricity.
Agreed.
And I think the change for balance could have been better too. I think Geomancy should add a bonus to poison AND earth damage, as the spells in the school are split 50/50.
As-is the earth damage spells are left out of the damage bonus and become weak compared with the poison spells.
Also the large number of undead encountered are all either immune to or heal from poison, making even the poison part useless a lot of the time.
At least there are weapons the Geomancy skill boosts now, that is in the right direction; and the swap to more poison damage made the Zombie talent more viable as well.
