# Mearls talks about how he hates resistances



## catsclaw227 (Feb 23, 2009)

There's an interesting blog entry from Mike Mearls about his dislike for resistances.  He talks about some other mechanics he was considering, but the resistances won out.

The Keep on the Gaming Lands: I Hate Resistances

Interesting look into 4e development...

EDIT:  And, also worth noting, is a deeper look at Mearls ideas from the guys at One Bad Egg.


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## avin (Feb 23, 2009)

Meh, I disagree with almost anything Mearls says... at least until he releases 4E Modrons, of course.


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## Oni (Feb 23, 2009)

Ugh, I really dislike his suggestions on replacing resistance.  You go from caster X being screwed over to caster X screwing over the whole party, sounds like it would make the situation even worse than before.  

IMO there should be some reward for thematic focus, like a feat that lets you overcome 1 point of resistance for each power of a like energy type you know.  For instance if you know 3 fire based powers,  you ignore 3 points of fire resistance on your attacks.


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## Jack99 (Feb 23, 2009)

I think the idea has merits, and would make for a much more dynamic combat. I also think that it would slow down the game more.

Maybe it would be interesting exploring for "special" monsters, on a case by case basis.


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## Irda Ranger (Feb 23, 2009)

His suggestion wouldn't fix the problem of "wizard from the north" not learning ice magic, as those spells could give his enemies AC bonuses. Still better off with Fireball.

I like Oni's suggestion. S'mon's too (see the comments on the blog).


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## Belphanior (Feb 23, 2009)

I can sort of see the point about wanting to play an ice-mage in an ice-campaign, but such a specific campaign should come up with its own rules on energy types anyway. I don't see why vanilla D&D should have to incorporate all those permutations.

The idea of strengthening monsters through your attacks is horrible. Your entire party will hate you for giving the dragon its breathweapon back, making it an even stronger deterrent. Under the current system you can just throw your daily at the dragon and accept you'll do 10 points of damage less. At least that makes you inefficient, not suicidal.

The idea that a fire elemental can walk through magma but is hurt if you poke it three times with a torch is also fascinatingly bizarre.

That said, _some_ of these ideas are still cool and can be recycled somewhere. Most frost knights should just crumble away a bit from icy blasts, but I can totally see a special version that recharges an encounter power or draws strength from it.

Such monsters would have to come with a special warning though. Depending on the party makeup they are either highly lethal, or half their powers are meaningless. A kind of design 4e so far doesn't want to promote, beyond undead and radiant/necrotic.


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## Stalker0 (Feb 23, 2009)

I like the guy at One Bad Eggs suggestion about making vulnerability have seperate effects to just more damage. We already have a theme where cold slows, fire has ongoing damage, etc etc. I think adding these effects into vulnerabilities would help to seperate the elements in an interesting way.


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## WhatGravitas (Feb 23, 2009)

Interesting. Coincidentally, a couple of weeks ago, my personal discovery was that vulnerabilities are fitting 4E's "yes" mindset better than resistances.

But Mearls idea of triggers and the vulnerability extension from One Bad Egg are much, much better. I really think that 4E - though less than 3E - wasted an opportunity in underusing keywords a lot , there are a few things that could have been implemented beautifully with a more generous use of keywords and subsequent interactions.

Cheers, LT.


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## The Ghost (Feb 23, 2009)

From a theoretical standpoint I think his ideas are intriguing and could possibly lead to more exciting and dynamic combats. However, there are two practical arguments that need to be overcome. 

First, resistances are a pretty simple concept to understand. They are easy enough to re-skin. And they are simple enough to narrate. I can easily say this creature has a mild resistance to fire and the players immediately know what that means and can prepare accordingly. If, on the other hand, I say this creature is "Magma Born" while another is "Glacier Forged" and yet another is "Wind Willed", will those abilities be similar enough for the players to understand and prepare accordingly or does it add a needless layer of confusion on the game?

Second, the retributive abilities cannot be too overpowering - but that may lead to them being less interesting. For example, a fire mage going against a creature with a resistance may not be very effectual and have to resort to non-magical actions. A fire mage going against a creature with a retributive ability may be very effective but at the cost of the fighter up front taking more hits. Which is more interesting? I am not sure.


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## Akaiku (Feb 23, 2009)

You could mix up how resistances work a bit by making it so enemies ignore under X amount of damage from appropriate source, but take full damage if it's over X. That way, a wizard or whatever can try to overpower the resist, which comes up somewhat often with elemental magic in stories.


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## maddman75 (Feb 23, 2009)

It would seem to me the solution to the ice mage/fire mage is not in changing the monsters, but in changing the spells.  Maybe the ice mages from the north have spells, especially dailies, that have a 'resistence effect'.  They Slow the opponent in addition to the lessened damage.  Maybe the fire spells of the desert nomads flare up on the skin of the resistant, dazing them.  It would seem to be a faster fix than changing the effects of the keywords.


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## Phaezen (Feb 23, 2009)

I am going to be experimenting with some idea for alternative resistances/vulnerabilities in my campaign.  I am currently running Sleeper in the Tomb of Dreams, and while with my party the resistances to necrotic damage won't come up, the vulnerability to radiant for several of the creatures will.  Any suggestions for thematic vulnerabilities for 



Spoiler



ghouls, a beholder zombie and wraiths


?


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## billd91 (Feb 23, 2009)

Belphanior said:


> I can sort of see the point about wanting to play an ice-mage in an ice-campaign, but such a specific campaign should come up with its own rules on energy types anyway. I don't see why vanilla D&D should have to incorporate all those permutations.




I too can see the point of playing an ice-mage from the frozen north... but the character is truly most interesting in contrast to the prevailing environment. In any real world in which creatures would be well-insulated from the cold, relying on doing freezing damage would be crazy. The natural tactic would be to use magic that the insulated creatures are vulnerable to. The association an ice-mage from the frozen north (or from an ice-campaign) using those spells as his bread and butter in his home environment is a misplaced one.

If someone really wanted to work on resistances and evening them out, I can think of two solutions that would help though not completely fix things. 

1) Elemental damage is only half a spell's damage. Think of 3e's flame strike. Half is fire damage, half is holy. In the case of wizard spells, half would be just plain magical power. That would make even ice spells have some function against cold resistant creatures. 

2) Go the route of the psionic power energy damage and give each energy type a different profile and then work out the balance between them. 

Personally, I don't see a problem with different energy types being better than others over the course of the campaign. Characters need to adapt sometimes rather than hold to the holy grail of "the build concept" if their choices aren't doing the job against reasonable encounters that fit in with the campaign and adventure's setting.




Belphanior said:


> The idea that a fire elemental can walk through magma but is hurt if you poke it three times with a torch is also fascinatingly bizarre.




You are far more charitable with your words that I am. I think it goes beyond just bizarre and into the dumb territory.


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## RangerWickett (Feb 23, 2009)

Stalker0 said:


> I like the guy at One Bad Eggs suggestion about making vulnerability have seperate effects to just more damage. We already have a theme where cold slows, fire has ongoing damage, etc etc. I think adding these effects into vulnerabilities would help to seperate the elements in an interesting way.




I agree. Vulnerabilities could be a bit more diverse.

I had a nasty experience in Red Hand of Doom when one PC's hard core fire mage (fire genasi evoker with all the fire feats possible) was helpless against red dragons. So here's my solution for the themed wizard problem.


*Elemental Magic User Solution*
Any magic using character can grab a few fire powers, and he should rightfully expect that his fireballs shouldn't do much against fire elementals. But if a player wants to make his character heavily themed toward one element, he can select the following feat.



> *Elemental Mastery*
> _When confronted by a creature resistant to your preferred element, you can alter your attacks to disrupt the energy that fuels them._
> 
> *Benefit:* Choose an energy type -- acid, cold, fire, force, lightning, necrotic, poison, psychic, radiant, or thunder -- that at least half of your attack powers (round down) possess. Whenever you use an attack power with that energy type, you can choose to alter it so it only affects creatures with resistance or immunity to your chosen element. Against those creatures, your attack ignores their resistance or immunity to your chosen element, and your attack deals an extra 10 damages. This increases to an extra 15 damage at 11th level, and 20 damage at 21st level.
> ...





So basically, say you're a fire mage. That red dragon snarls at you? You use your mighty control of fire magic to grab the flames that run through his veins, and you rip that power out of him. Instead of attacking him _with_ fire, you attack the fire _within_ him. Instead of fireballing a swarm of fire snakes, you snuff them (in a 3-square burst).


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## Ourph (Feb 23, 2009)

Belphanior said:


> I can sort of see the point about wanting to play an ice-mage in an ice-campaign, but such a specific campaign should come up with its own rules on energy types anyway. I don't see why vanilla D&D should have to incorporate all those permutations.



I agree.  In such a campaign I'd probably create a house rule somewhat like Oni's suggestion where the player could take a feat allowing his "Ice" Wizard to ignore some amount of cold resistance in exchange for doing less damage with fire-based powers.

Another alternative might be to just get rid of resistances and keep vulnerabilities.  So the Ice Wizard can go up against a White Dragon and be on the same footing he would be against any other creature, while the Fire Wizard gets a small advantage because the White Dragon has fire vulnerability 5 or something.


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## jgsugden (Feb 23, 2009)

Everyone picks on resistances, but to me the real culprit is on the opposite side of the fence - it is the damage that causes the problems.

D&D has always handled damage and hps poorly. 

The idea that wearing platemail makes it harder to hit you rather than making you better able to endure it when things hit you is counterintuitive and causes ridiculous situations to occur. Being unconcious suddenly negates all benefits of wearing a massive tin can? 

The idea that a fireball deals only heat damage, but has no concussive force is ridiculous. Blowing things up is not a gentle process.

A lot of Mearls complaints could be addressed with better damage dealing mechanics. As the damage dealing is the thing that seems less intutitive as written, I suggest we address it rather than pick on the poor resistances...


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## Ed_Laprade (Feb 23, 2009)

This is amazing. The answer to this 'problem' is incredibly simple. Chuck the keywords. Everything becomes Elemental. Period. The player writes in his prefered element, which is pure fluff and has no mechanical effect whatsoever. Everything is now balanced.

Done.


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## Varianor Abroad (Feb 23, 2009)

jgsugden said:


> Everyone picks on resistances, but to me the real culprit is on the opposite side of the fence - it is the damage that causes the problems.
> 
> D&D has always handled damage and hps poorly.
> 
> ...




While I agree that D&D on the whole emphasizes that dealing hit points of damage is the fastest way to dispose of enemies and get on to the next encounter, I think that's a broader scope of a topic than the discussion at hand.

I really like Mike's thinking. I would say though that the problem is a little different than defined.

If I want to play an ice-themed wizard in a game (or a fire-themed wizard), and I want to use my spells, the issue isn't the resistances. The issue is that the DM will want to use resistant creatures against me so they don't all die off instantly. There's a sort of silent arms race that I see all too often (including in my own play habits) where the DM wants to have a critter or BBEG threaten the party so they pick out ways to resist the players' big attacks, especially powerful spellcasters. This leaves the grinding force of combat to the heavy fighter types who get to wear away at the enemy.

I think in D&D right now you can have an elemental-themed character who is effective as long as the DM avoids having too many opponents who can resist your powers. It requires clever encounter design and more thought.


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## Cadfan (Feb 23, 2009)

I kind of hate resistances too, mostly because I like themed spellcasters, and D&D sucks at them almost entirely because of elemental resistance.

I don't have a good solution for this, except to make resistances much less common, and much less powerful.  Use them where they make thematic sense, and leave them out where its questionable.  In my way of thinking, fire elementals might continue to resist fire, but red dragons wouldn't, and duergar definitely wouldn't.  And if they did, they'd resist very small amounts.  Just enough so that the PCs notice, but not enough that they will greatly care.


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## Plane Sailing (Feb 23, 2009)

billd91 said:


> I too can see the point of playing an ice-mage from the frozen north... but the character is truly most interesting in contrast to the prevailing environment. In any real world in which creatures would be well-insulated from the cold, relying on doing freezing damage would be crazy. The natural tactic would be to use magic that the insulated creatures are vulnerable to. The association an ice-mage from the frozen north (or from an ice-campaign) using those spells as his bread and butter in his home environment is a misplaced one.
> 
> If someone really wanted to work on resistances and evening them out, I can think of two solutions that would help though not completely fix things.
> 
> 1) Elemental damage is only half a spell's damage. Think of 3e's flame strike. Half is fire damage, half is holy. In the case of wizard spells, half would be just plain magical power. That would make even ice spells have some function against cold resistant creatures.




Indeed - or even none of the damage.

A 'hail of icicles' spell needn't be doing cold damage at all, just damage from big jagged icicles. Same with 'ice storm'.

In fact a good option would be to have more elemental spells which have two keywords, so you are only resistant if you have resistance to both, but you are vulnerable if you have vulnerability to either. There are a few which exist in the wizards lexicon, but they could be much more widely spread.

Regards,


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## Legildur (Feb 23, 2009)

Ed_Laprade said:


> This is amazing. The answer to this 'problem' is incredibly simple. Chuck the keywords. Everything becomes Elemental. Period. The player writes in his prefered element, which is pure fluff and has no mechanical effect whatsoever. Everything is now balanced.



This appeals to me.  What if it was half elemental damage and half magical damage? That way even a resistant creature is subjetc to some damage regardless of resistances.

Or, the other possibility is to keep your suggestion (elemental keyword) in its entirety, but attach a secondary effect to the 'preferred element' regardless of resistances so that it isn't just fluff... eg fire does residual damage, cold slows etc.  That way an ice wizard may not do as much damage against creatures in his home turf, but he can still have some effect.


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## Minigiant (Feb 23, 2009)

The problem with resistances is the simple design of most attacks and the crazy mechanics. 

An ice wizard just doesn't shoot cold spells. She can shoot with cold or hit you with a cold item.

In a past game, the campaign was based in an artic area. The fire wizard had the regualar bonus damage advantage. The cold wizard's cold spells had advantages based on the type of cold spell. His "pure cold" spells did less damage to ice creatures but would crit easier against them. The ice spells only did partial cold damage. So even though 75% of the PCs and enemies wore cold gear, a person with all cold attacks was still to be feared.


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## mearls (Feb 23, 2009)

I love the Internet. The collected insights are usually revelatory.

I think that simply getting rid of damage types might be a viable answer. The keywords could remain to link effects (feats that boost cold powers, that sort of thing) but an ice shard spell that damages and slows someone doesn't *need* to attach the cold keyword to the damage, just the power as a whole.

You could also even look at translating resistances into a defense bonus. I like that avenue better because you can still use combat advantage or other accuracy boosts to negate that disadvantage. Even in that case, I'd still reserve such traits for elemental creatures.


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## mearls (Feb 24, 2009)

Ed_Laprade said:


> This is amazing. The answer to this 'problem' is incredibly simple. Chuck the keywords. Everything becomes Elemental. Period. The player writes in his prefered element, which is pure fluff and has no mechanical effect whatsoever. Everything is now balanced.




I think this goes a little too far. It's fun to have fire wizards, and druids that focus on a winter theme, or whatever, with mechanics that make that interesting. However, the push to simplify is smart.

(What follows is a bit of a ramble about game design, but Ed's post struck close to home.)

IME, it's easy to add more complexity to a game design, especially when you have a time constraint. Adding stuff feels productive, and you generally add mechanics to other mechanics that already seem to work. You're building on solid ground. The problems are clear, and your new mechanics are going to solve them.

Simplifying is tougher because it forces you to make changes that are risky. It's hard to simplify an existing system while keeping its foundation. You usually have to junk that foundation and build something new, even if that something is largely based on the old foundation's intent.

Yet, once you have that new foundation, you might find that you can never really understand what you saw in the original in the first place.

(And now that I think about it, a generic elemental keyword could be interesting. You could build feats that let you do stuff like give a cold flavor to all your elemental powers, and so on. All the flavor and none of the complexity unless a player asks for it. I have a feeling that someone in this thread already suggested that idea...)


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## NMcCoy (Feb 24, 2009)

Borrowing the Ancient Red Dragon's trick:

*Scouring Flames*                Wizard Attack 7

_An intensely focused blast of white-hot flame strips your foes' defenses._

*Encounter*




*Arcane*, *Fire*, *Implement*
*Standard Action* *Close* blast 3
*Target*: Each creature in blast
*Attack*: Intelligence vs. Reflex
_Hit_: 3d6 + Intelligence modifier fire damage, and the target takes a -2 penalty to AC and Fortitude defenses (save ends). 

_Effect:_ The target's fire resistance is negated until the end of the encounter.


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## Freakohollik (Feb 24, 2009)

> Resistances create a disparity in value between energy types, but only if the DM uses a particular mix of monsters. Fire attacks blow in the campaign that has lots of red dragon and azers, while cold attacks such in an arctic campaign.




Not all monsters must be of exact equal effectiveness against every possible party. Over the course of a campaign this sort of thing should balance out, a resonable mix of resistance monsters should be encountered. If your DM is always throwing monsters that resist your stuff at you then he's not being very nice. On the other hand if your DM is throwing stuff at you that doesn't resist your attacks, you probably won't mind.

The special abilities that fire when you hit a monster with the 'wrong' type could be done right, or it could be done wrong. To me this seems like it would a lot more powerful for the monster than resistances. In the case you had best not use the wrong energy type or something bad is going to happen such as +5 AC or giving the creature an action point. Where as with resistance, its okay to use the wrong type, just slower. This makes your original problem worse.


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## Skallgrim (Feb 24, 2009)

Bleargh.  I disagree with Mearls on this almost completely.  I think resistances are a good, simple, straightforward way to handle this.  The duergar are Resistant to fire, so that they can use fire attacks safely, walk through normal fires, etc.  The White Dragon is resistant to cold, so that icy spells don't damage it as much.

I am hoping that in Arcane Power there is a way for a specialist to "ramp up" his elemental powers (there are already feats for some specialists), but I think D&D currently handles it pretty well.

Sure you get the occasional oddity (why is resistance to cold protecting me from an Icicle, which just stabs me), but no one has problems with them in thousands of other situations in D&D (how is the metal shield improving my defense against a lighting bolt?  Why does the power that shoves me have trouble hitting me in plate armor, when I move slower?).


Again, it's not that I don't like more complicated damage systems (I love HERO and GURPS), but these are not the strength of D&D, in my opinion.

OK, I can see his point when the "Ice Wizards" of the north don't practice Ice Magic.  Hey, guess what?  You chose to keep a wacky-ass magic system with no prerequisites. Look at GURPS Magic for a detailed, coeherent way to handle magical "colleges".  The    wizard who knows how to throw fireballs knows how to light fires, and control fires, and do other stuff with fire, necessarily.  The guy who knows really powerful Ice spells knows most of the wimpy little cool ice spells.  The designers chose to write a system where you can know Magic Missile, Thunderwave, Burning Hands, Phantasmal Assailant, Ray of Frost, Acid Arrow, and Prismatic Spray, even though all of them are different types.  Bit late to complain about the fact that "thematic magic" is discouraged (even though the feats can still help you there).  If you wanted a system where a wide selection of spells of the same element were encouraged, you could have written one, no?


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## fba827 (Feb 24, 2009)

I agree that it creates uneveness in the campaign based on what monsters are about. Oddly enough, I was thinking something similar very recently. If my campaign heavily features a particular enemy that has cold resistance, well, any PCs that created themselves as icemages are a little screwed.

I'm not saying there aren't ways to work around it, but, yes, in a typical mix, there are some resistances that come up more often than others.


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## DaveyJones (Feb 24, 2009)

that's not RAW but would make an interesting house rule


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## I'm A Banana (Feb 24, 2009)

Crazy. FFZ just explored this idea, and while I'm not 100% satisfied with our result, it's something that solves the dilemma, even if it's not a simple one-prong solution to the problem.

The FFZ solution works on a few different angles:

#1 is rarity in monsters. Resistances and immunities and "eater" abilities (taking damage as healing) is limited to basically certain boss monsters and obvious elementals -- monsters that are supposed to be an unusual challenge, and so will need a different kind of strategy to handle. 

#2 is variety in PC's. There are no "pure elemental mages." Much like the elemental ninjas of Naruto, any "elemental effects" are actually expressed on a few different levels. If you're a fire mage, you're not just doing fire damage -- perhaps you're healing, causing Berserk, using a weapon like the Axe, etc. You can't be a one-trick pony like that. And, there are options for lowering the resistances of enemies to various elements, if you take up that vanguard. Most parties should have access, even if only in item form, to any elemental energy that they may need.

To use the example from Mearls's blog, there's a lot more to "Ice Wizard" than cold damage -- piercing damage (from icicles!) and obscuring effects (from snowstorms!) and effects that knock prone (suddenly slippery!)...cold damage will never be all that you do. 

#3 is a trade-off of resistances for vulnerabilities and transformative effects turning damage into "other stuff." If the boss monster is immune to fire damage, fire damage might still do SOMETHING to them (blind them, give them a penalty, reduce their SPD, SOMETHING!). Even if the boss is truly immune to Fire, he should have a vulnerability (say to Ice or Water or even something weirder -- there is no strict duality). 

#4 is flexible character choice and adventure choice. Chances are good that even if you have an "ice wizard" who can't damage yetis for crud, you also have two or three other characters that might work in the adventure, and have a choice of two or three other adventures that don't involve yetis. 

In tandem, these things basically patch the problem so that it's not a problem. I'd prefer to do it from the ground up, but resistances and immunities are part and parcel of the source material (true in both FFZ and in D&D), so what's left is to find a way so that your "ice wizard" can still work in a land of ice.

I approached Naruto and Avatar and the FF games (which hand out vulnerabilities like candy, but are generally choosier with immunities, and always have diverse character abilities), and these things gave me the answers FFZ used.

Overall, I like OBE's idea better than Mearls's. Making combat more dynamic like that, as others have pointed out, doesn't solve some of the more onerous problems (ice mages STILL aren't good in icy campaigns). Treating them more like weapons is a very good idea, but you don't want to get into the "ice = immobilize" thing either, because then a creature that can't be immobilized offers you the same problem as a creature that can't take ice damage.

Ultimately all the solutions share this:

*An element is not just a type of damage*.

The easiest solution, of course, is just to hand out "elemental specialist" feats that help you ignore a chunk of resistance. 

There's a lot of ways to hit this problem.


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## tomBitonti (Feb 24, 2009)

I have to say, lay of the hate, mon, it'll eat up your soul.

Now to point, I think there are a couple of mistakes in the argument.  For one, an ice mage would (or should, in my opinion) have resistance to cold damage.  That would be very useful, and thematic, in an ice campaign.  Second, the focus on doing damage, and resisting damage, seems to be rather narrow.  As pointed out earlier in the thread, adding secondary effects will avoid a bit of the problem, and will spice up encounters in the bargain.  Also, the idea that an ice mage would be able to strip away the power of another ice creature is a nice idea.  To me that translates into an spell (or power, if you will), that does damage in proportion to the target's resistance.  Having this be an opposed action sounds interesting, and if you can strip away the elemental power of someone else, perhaps they can do the same to _you_.  Or, you could have a blow-out type of effect, where you amplify and burn-out (or blow out) the target's power.

Anyways, peace, mon, and game on.

TomB


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## Spatula (Feb 24, 2009)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> #3 is a trade-off of resistances for vulnerabilities and transformative effects turning damage into "other stuff." If the boss monster is immune to fire damage, fire damage might still do SOMETHING to them (blind them, give them a penalty, reduce their SPD, SOMETHING!).



Interesting idea!

I was thinking about this topic the other day as I was flipping through the 4e MM and saw that efreets are totally immune to fire, which suprised me.  _Fire elementals_ (to the extent that such a thing exists in 4e) aren't even immune to fire, but efreets are.  I considered that they're epic level, so maybe the immunity is warranted.  And there are a couple of epic tier options that let one reduce a target's fire resistance... but it doesn't seem like they would interact with total immunity.  Infinity - 20 is still infinity.  It seems like the epic fire mage would simply be screwed against such monsters.


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## MrGrenadine (Feb 24, 2009)

How about if a specialist elementalist gains the ability to override resistance to his or her specialty?

So your ice themed wizard eventually gains a class feature (or takes a feat) which allows her to ignore resistance to cold.

It makes sense for monsters as well--two red dragons should be able to fight and actually hurt each other with their breath weapons, shouldn't they?


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## Oni (Feb 24, 2009)

MrGrenadine said:


> How about if a specialist elementalist gains the ability to override resistance to his or her specialty?
> 
> So your ice themed wizard eventually gains a class feature (or takes a feat) which allows her to ignore resistance to cold.
> 
> It makes sense for monsters as well--two red dragons should be able to fight and actually hurt each other with their breath weapons, shouldn't they?




Of course if you go too far down this road, you go from powers being useless to resistances being useless.


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## Mercule (Feb 24, 2009)

I really like a lot of what Mearls comes up with....

But, whenever he has a major epiphany or brainstorm, I almost always cringe.  In this case, I don't know that I buy the "boring" bit (yes, it's inferred, not explicitly stated), but I have some sympathy to the other issues.  I don't think he had the right answer, though.

Let's look at the "world" as a whole.  There are arctic areas, there are desert areas, there are temperate areas, and so forth.  If the campaign focuses on the temperate areas (which has generally been the default assumption), having the non-native critters (say, a viking frost giant) with the normal resistances/vulnerabilities works fine.  It reflects some fluff in an easy-to-use mechanic and makes the alien seem alien.  The problem really only comes if you use resistances all the time (like, say, most of the epic foes).

Now, let's change the focus to an arctic campaign.  How do we want this to play?  Well, the frost giant is still going to be resistant to cold, but cold effects are going to be easier to come by and easier to make more potent -- a frost brand forged at the North Pole sounds like it should be cooler than one forged in Italy, IMO.  So, how do we make that work?  I'd say start with the assumption that even basic cold effects are five points stronger.  The easiest mechanic for this is to just lower all cold resistances by five points.  Leave the spells, weapons, etc. alone, and just tweak the resistance.  If you want to keep fire from being the obvious "hit their weakness" attack, make the assumption that fire effects are harder to manifest in the setting and reduce vulnerabilities by five points.  If you want something even more extreme, reduce by ten or more.  In a desert, flip these.

"So," you ask, "what if the arctic characters move to a temperate or desert zone?"  Well, here's where I think we can actually get even more flavor from the deal.  Introduce a feat or background bit called "Frostborn" or some such.  A frostborn character manifests their personal powers (i.e. spells) with the "cold" keyword to inflict an additional 5 damage, but they also manifest "fire" spells inflicting 5 less damage, even if that brings it to zero.  The above modifications for an arctic campaign are really just a shortcut to the same math.

Sure a player might be able to abuse this and only take "cold" spells, but that's really just emphasizing the theme, and it really screws him if the GM starts sending immune creatures (which should be rather rare) against him.  

I'd also advocate some playtesting to get it right.  It's possible that the Frostborn should include "resist cold 5" or "vulnerable fire 5" or both as part of the feat/trait.  It's also possible that, rather than actually doing more/less raw damage, the character should just be able to bypass 5 points of resistance or increase existing vulnerability by five.  Either way, I think it's important to include both the bonus and the penalty together for the Frostborn, Crucibleborn, etc. both for game balance and for flavor.


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## MrGrenadine (Feb 24, 2009)

Oni said:


> Of course if you go too far down this road, you go from powers being useless to resistances being useless.




Then make it so the spell caster can ignore 1-3 points of resistance?


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## I'm A Banana (Feb 24, 2009)

> I was thinking about this topic the other day as I was flipping through the 4e MM and saw that efreets are totally immune to fire, which suprised me. Fire elementals (to the extent that such a thing exists in 4e) aren't even immune to fire, but efreets are. I considered that they're epic level, so maybe the immunity is warranted. And there are a couple of epic tier options that let one reduce a target's fire resistance... but it doesn't seem like they would interact with total immunity. Infinity - 20 is still infinity. It seems like the epic fire mage would simply be screwed against such monsters.




Yeah, the FFZ alternative might approach this from a few different angles, depending on what the goals for the monster were.

A (use if the monster is rare in the adventure): It's OK for this one monster to be totally immune to fire. Give him an element he takes double damage from, and it's basically a strategy. Because no character will have only attacks that ONLY deal fire damage, even "fire specialists" can do something. It's OK if they can't directly damage the critter, because this is going to be one combat out of several -- most of the time, they can still use their fire damage.

B (use if the monster occurs fairly frequently): Instead of taking fire damage, the "fire damage" the character would have done becomes something else...in FFZ, maybe it becomes MP damage, so while the critter isn't hurt at all, he can't use his powerful mega-attack as long as the "fire mage" keeps up the suppressive fire. Other alternatives might be better, but the fire can still do something. 

C (use if the monster is a boss): The monster has a "form" that is immune to fire damage, but a specific strategy will get him to drop this defense. For instance, maybe the monster can use "Flame Shroud" as a defense. He's immune to fire damage, and any physical attack gets countered with a burst of fire. BUT, if the PC's manage to push him out of the pool of lava he sits in, he'll loose that "flame shroud," and you can pummel him with fire attacks (and normal attacks).

You might use "A" if the Efreet Trooper monsters are part of an army of genies at your enemy's command (so fire immunity won't play a huge part in the campaign, just in a few battles). You might use "B" if the Brass Guard Efreet are defending the City of Brass. You might use "C" if the Efreet Pasha boss at the end of the Pyramid of Shadows has become unbound.

You could use all three at once for an extended stay on the Plane of Fire, and even "Desert McFire Genasi the Pyromaniac" would be able to do stuff to as many enemies as "Gravebound Necromancer Vampire Guy"



			
				Oni said:
			
		

> Of course if you go too far down this road, you go from powers being useless to resistances being useless.




I'd do it by maybe 5-10 points maximum, if you spend a bunch of feats, and then also allowing you to "still" deal 5-10 points of damage against immune creatures, by 30th level, and require that you can only lower one type of resistance at a time. Generally speaking, spending character resources on things that are subject to DM whimsy (like elder editions' Ranger's Favored Enemy) is sketchy, but if your DM is expressly telling you "Hey, iceman, you're in the iceland, there's going to be a lot of things that don't have a problem with ice in their face" by having an extended campaign in a place filled with names like "Winterhaven" and "Coldrock" and "Glacier Peaks" it might be smart, if you STILL want to be an iceman, to take those feats (and maybe not just take everything that deals cold damage).

I mean, realistically, this kind of focus is no different then, say, a PC taking abilities that are ONLY vs. AC, or abilities and ONLY  use the axe. Introduce something that has a high AC or something that eats axes, and said character is boned. Personally, I don't think a degree of "forced diversity" is necessarily bad.

To call back the Naruto example, there are basically a lot of "elemental mages," but elemental attacks aren't their only schtick. There's a guy who spits fireballs, and he can do it in a few different ways, but said dude also has Super Ninja Eyes that can read an enemy's moves so he can perfectly anticipate them, and also has a Mutant Tattoo that lets him hulk out into a demon, and also has basic ninja skills like sneaking around and throwing shuriken and jumping through the trees for some reason and minor illusion and evasion tricks, and explosive ninja scrolls....

"Fire" is an important part of his theme, but if he had to beat up a guy made out of fire, it's not like he'd be helpless.

Ice mages work OK in a land of ice, you just have to let them do more than just deal cold damage. Think about what else ice is -- clear, reflective, hard, jagged -- think about things related to ice -- water, snow, biting wind, glaciers -- and generally don't limit yourself to "ice = cold damage."



> "So," you ask, "what if the arctic characters move to a temperate or desert zone?" Well, here's where I think we can actually get even more flavor from the deal. Introduce a feat or background bit called "Frostborn" or some such. A frostborn character manifests their personal powers (i.e. spells) with the "cold" keyword to inflict an additional 5 damage, but they also manifest "fire" spells inflicting 5 less damage, even if that brings it to zero. The above modifications for an arctic campaign are really just a shortcut to the same math.




I really like this idea, too.


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## Ed_Laprade (Feb 24, 2009)

Legildur said:


> This appeals to me. What if it was half elemental damage and half magical damage? That way even a resistant creature is subjetc to some damage regardless of resistances.
> 
> Or, the other possibility is to keep your suggestion (elemental keyword) in its entirety, but attach a secondary effect to the 'preferred element' regardless of resistances so that it isn't just fluff... eg fire does residual damage, cold slows etc. That way an ice wizard may not do as much damage against creatures in his home turf, but he can still have some effect.



I was pretty sure that my idea might be a bit too simple, but I wrote it as I thought of it. Besides, I figured someone here would fix it if it really needed it. And I think you just did.


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## Vegepygmy (Feb 24, 2009)

Skallgrim said:


> Bleargh. I disagree with Mearls on this almost completely...
> 
> The designers chose to write a system where you can know Magic Missile, Thunderwave, Burning Hands, Phantasmal Assailant, Ray of Frost, Acid Arrow, and Prismatic Spray, even though all of them are different types. Bit late to complain about the fact that "thematic magic" is discouraged (even though the feats can still help you there). If you wanted a system where a wide selection of spells of the same element were encouraged, you could have written one, no?



Thank you for writing my post for me, Skallgrim.  +1 XP!


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## ppaladin123 (Feb 24, 2009)

edit: never mind
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEu8hvekSA4&feature=related"][/ame]


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## WalterKovacs (Feb 24, 2009)

A paragon path to really specialize a specific energy type could be one solution. It forces you to pick only one, and really forces a decision (you have lots of feats, only one paragon path). Perhaps changes immunity to half damage, and reduces vulnerability.

Could be themed that being, for example, a "master" of ice, you not only summon cold, but can withdraw cold, a sort of "anti-cold" for use against those resistant or immune to that energy type, especially if those creatures are elementals of that energy type. An ice wizard may be able to, for example, dominate an ice typed creature in place of dealing damage, as their power and control over ice damage extends to exerting control over ice based creatures as well.


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## Kobold Avenger (Feb 24, 2009)

What's even worse than elemental resistance is immunity to poison damage.  It remains the only annoying holdover in regards to "non-living" creatures, poison immunity is quite common as a lot of undead and constructs have it.  Resistance to poison damage  is rare however, but it's quite a moot point when a lot of things are immune to it.


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## Leatherhead (Feb 24, 2009)

I am a bit concerned that he believes fire mages in the north and ice mages in the desert need to be "explained around."

As someone who has been to a desert and a few places with lots of snow I must say that being extremely cold or hot sucks, and trying to alleviate the extreme temperatures was one of the first things that came to my mind. Ignoring combat, the implied utility of the elements would be so incredibly useful that northerners should have fire magic and desert-dwellers should have ice magic just for everyday survival and practical use anyway.


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## Orius (Feb 24, 2009)

billd91 said:


> 1) Elemental damage is only half a spell's damage. Think of 3e's flame strike. Half is fire damage, half is holy. In the case of wizard spells, half would be just plain magical power. That would make even ice spells have some function against cold resistant creatures.




I think this is a decent solution.  

I don't really see anything terribly wrong with resistances.  It's fairly easy to work with and remember.  I like the idea of elemental specialists eventually gaining mastery over elementals of his own specialty rather than being unable to damage then at all.  As for the more general wizard, if he's able to use a typical spread of Fire Ice Lightning spells, then it's less of a problem, just use what more advantageous (though I have no idea how it works now in 4e's system).



Varianor Abroad said:


> If I want to play an ice-themed wizard in a game (or a fire-themed wizard), and I want to use my spells, the issue isn't the resistances. The issue is that the DM will want to use resistant creatures against me so they don't all die off instantly. There's a sort of silent arms race that I see all too often (including in my own play habits) where the DM wants to have a critter or BBEG threaten the party so they pick out ways to resist the players' big attacks, especially powerful spellcasters. This leaves the grinding force of combat to the heavy fighter types who get to wear away at the enemy.




Though really, that sort of DM's "style" isn't going to be stopped by eliminating or changing elemental resistances.  That DM would just find another way to hose the mage.



Skallgrim said:


> The guy who knows really powerful Ice spells knows most of the wimpy little cool ice spells.




Unintended pun perhaps?


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## Obryn (Feb 24, 2009)

Leatherhead said:


> I am a bit concerned that he believes fire mages in the north and ice mages in the desert need to be "explained around."
> 
> As someone who has been to a desert and a few places with lots of snow I must say that being extremely cold or hot sucks, and trying to alleviate the extreme temperatures was one of the first things that came to my mind. Ignoring combat, the implied utility of the elements would be so incredibly useful that northerners should have fire magic and desert-dwellers should have ice magic just for everyday survival and practical use anyway.



No, I think that makes a good deal of sense.

However, fantasy fiction from C.S. Lewis and onward - and gaming settings from Greyhawk to the Diamond Throne - have associated cold-related casters with cold climes, and fire-related casters with warm climes.  (And poison-related casters with Jungles, etc.)

It's a generic fantasy trope that D&D has accepted wholesale.  I don't see anything wrong with wanting your game to go along with it.

-O


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## Kobold Avenger (Feb 24, 2009)

I think the whole concept of ice mages from cold places and fire mages from hot places, comes from the concept of magical sympathy.  It's best to be in a cold place to master the powers of the cold.


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## I'm A Banana (Feb 24, 2009)

Kobold Avenger said:
			
		

> I think the whole concept of ice mages from cold places and fire mages from hot places, comes from the concept of magical sympathy. It's best to be in a cold place to master the powers of the cold.




The underlying issue is that D&D didn't also accept the idea behind magical sympathy: the idea that cold magic is _easier_ in cold climates (for instance). The closest the game has ever come were the old planar affects on magic from 2e Planescape, but that was messy and awkward and probably the wrong way to go about doing it. 

The idea would be like how the dark side is supposed to be "easier" -- that you can get more power with less effort if you decide to use cold magic in the North, and that you'll get less power with more effort if you go with fire magic. Fire spells take longer (up an action category), do less damage, last shorter times, and get more difficult to perform (can't access your highest level fire powers), while ice spells take shorter (down an action category), do more damage, last longer times, and get easier to perform (you gain ice powers a level above where you are).

You could introduce the idea into D&D pretty well, but it raises some of the specres of 2e planar travel that they got rid of mostly, IMO, for the better.


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## Merlin the Tuna (Feb 24, 2009)

*Edit:* Irrelevant.


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## I'm A Banana (Feb 24, 2009)

> I'd be interested to see D&D give something like that a go, though I suspect that it'd feel too different for a lot of people.




Man, I have toyed with dropping attack rolls from FFZ all together off and on throughout most of its life. Eventually I figured they have their uses, but missing is still much more unusual in FFZ than it ever was in D&D.


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## TwinBahamut (Feb 24, 2009)

I really don't have the same problem with resistances that Mr. Mearls does. I think giving out the occasional resistance is perfectly fine. The bigger problem is when these resistances are imbalanced, such as 4E's previously mentioned widespread poison immunities. Ideally, each element should have about as many monsters with vulnerability as there are monsters with resistance, and every element should have about as many as any other. In this situation, resistance only becomes a problem if you are playing an elemental specialist and are stuck fighting an enemy resistant to your chosen element, but this can be solved by removal of total immunity and special perks (such as Paragon Paths) designed to bypass such limitations.

As for the terrain "issue"... I don't think that is a problem at all. An ice wizard from the frozen north may not be skilled at fighting ice creatures, but often such a character shouldn't need to. Such a character, like the White Witch from the Chronicles of Narnia, is almost always portrayed as someone who either commands the creatures of that element and terrain, or serves someone else who does, not as someone who fights against the creatures of that terrain. Mastering ice magic amidst cold terrain implies that you are in harmony with that terrain, not fighting against it. This calls for the addition of special abilities and powers to an elemental specialist Paragon Path that let them work well alongside creatures of the same element, and certainly doesn't call for a change to the resistance system.

I certainly can understand criticism of 4E's use of elements (mostly because of widespread poison immunity and severe lack of vulnerabilities other than the undead weakness to radiant damage), but I don't think Mr. Mearls is chasing the right target.

As a side-note, my favorite system of elements is the one seen in the _Fire Emblem_ series of videogames, since it tries the most to actually make every element well balanced. The three main "anima" elements are Fire, Wind, and Lightning, with Fire being effective against Wind, Wind against Lightning, and Lightning against Fire. Fire is effective against all beasts, Wind is effective against anything with feathered wings, and Lightning is effective against dragons. Everything has a consistent effectiveness against enemy types that appear fairly often (ideally), and they never deal with resistance at all, actually (other than the global resistance stats that serves as a defense against all kinds of magic, of course).


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## ravenheart (Feb 24, 2009)

I hope I'm not being repetitive, but I'm a bit eager and excited about my own genius, so I just have to get these ideas out there! 

*1) Change resistances to situational bonuses to defenses and saving throws
*
ie. resist fire 5 would translate into a *+2 bonus to defense against attacks with the fire keyword AND a +2 bonus to saving throws against ongoing fire damage*. This in addition to "terrain walk" abilities and such would be a sufficient fix, don't you think? Vulnerabilites would get a similar treatment - with penalties, of course. 

OR

*2) Resistance piercing (chains of) feats*

These would not necessarily be limited to specific keywords (or in that case, preferably keyword groups such as charm/fear/psychic etc.) but in general I think they should give options for the players that can counter resistances. For example:



> *Pierce Resistance*
> Prerequisite: Int 13
> Benefit: When making an attack with a specific keyword against a creature with resistance against the keyword, you can take a –2 penalty to the attack roll. If the attack hits, you ignore up to 5 points of resistance. You can ignore a greater amount of resistance as you increase in level, as shown below:
> 
> ...



Granted, this method requires a bit more work and balancing. But I still think it could be fun this way!

On the whole, I really like the idea of bestowing conditions to resistance and vulnerabilities!

But I'm still not sure how exactly to handle immunities. That is, if anything should be done in the first place.


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## Starfox (Feb 24, 2009)

Akaiku said:


> You could mix up how resistances work a bit by making it so enemies ignore under X amount of damage from appropriate source, but take full damage if it's over X. That way, a wizard or whatever can try to overpower the resist, which comes up somewhat often with elemental magic in stories.




I like this idea.

Another idea I have is where the environment plays a larger role. Say tou are in the arctic. Because everyone's cold resistance is working full-tilt on negating the cold, it is reduced by 5 or 10 points. In an elemental region of flame, fire resistance is reduced by 20. This might even translate to a vulnerability if the modifier exceeds the resistance, but I'd only let it do so to a very limited degree - say 1/5 normal. That way, the environment aids creatures that use the environment-specific element.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Feb 24, 2009)

I think the problem of resistance and the elemental energy keywords is that it's all about damage, but not about what it would also imply.

If you cast a fire spell, it's not just you creating some flames. You are taking control over the element of fire, and manipulate it to your bidding.

So a Fire Elemental is immune to fire? Great for it. But the Elemental is also entirely composed of the element _you_ control. 

So if you cast your Ice Spell on a Frost Giant, you don't deal much damage because you "cool" it. You deal damage because you take chunks of its the material it is composed of and have them do whatever you want. 
In this simple variant, this just means there is less or no resistance to the damage.

But you could go a different route. Instead of dealing damage with your Fireball spell to a Fire Elemental, you instead manipulate it - maybe you slide it to anypoint within the burst, or you daze it, or even further, you dominate it entirely for a round!

In 4E, I would probably try to implement this with
1) A few powers that have such mentions explicitely. 
2) Feats that modiify elemental spells in such a way. 
3) Paragon Paths that add such special abilities. 

Feat Example:
Elemenetal Power Enhancement Feats: 
You can apply only one of these feats benefit to any power.

- Master of Flames: [Elemental Power Enhancement]
Prerequisites: Cha13+
If you deal fire damage to a creature that is resistant or immune to fire damage, you gain an effect dependent on the amount of damage resisted or ignored. (Unless noted otherwise, the effects are cumulative).
5: Slide target 1 square (Burst only) or push it 3 squares.
10: Target is weakened until the end of its next turn.
15: Target is dazed and weakened instead of weakened.
20: Target is stunned instead of dazed and weakened.
30: Target is dominated instead of stunned.

- Master of Ice [Elemental Power Enhancement
Prerequisite: Con13+
If you deal cold damage to a creature that is resistant or immune to cold damage, you gain an effect dependent on the amount of damage resisted or ignored. (Unless noted otherwise, the effects are cumulative.)
5: The target is slowed and cannot shift until the end of its next turn.
10: The target is immobilized until the end of its next turn.
15: The target is dazed and immobilized instead of immobilized.
20: Target is stunned instead of dazed and immobilized.
30: Target is dominated instead of stunned. 

(Maybe it would be a good idea to split this feats up in Heroic/Paragon/Epic variants? Maybe "Master of Flame", "Paragon of Ice" "Control over Thunder"?)


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## Belphanior (Feb 24, 2009)

Mustrum, there's an interesting idea but it needs IMO a lot of work. A special pyromancer technique that lets you "hijack" fire elementals is cool. Hijacking tieflings is not. It would need to be limited to, perhaps, elemental origin creatures only. 

I'm also unsure if it's alright to make your attacks even more powerful depending on how resistant the creature should've been to your attack. It assumes a level of correlation between resist-fire and made-of-fire that isn't necesarily true.

Also, a paragon path feature seems more suitable than a feat. It makes ice mages more special than just a guy who happened to have feats to spare.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Feb 24, 2009)

Belphanior said:


> Mustrum, there's an interesting idea but it needs IMO a lot of work. A special pyromancer technique that lets you "hijack" fire elementals is cool. Hijacking tieflings is not. It would need to be limited to, perhaps, elemental origin creatures only.
> 
> I'm also unsure if it's alright to make your attacks even more powerful depending on how resistant the creature should've been to your attack. It assumes a level of correlation between resist-fire and made-of-fire that isn't necesarily true.
> 
> Also, a paragon path feature seems more suitable than a feat. It makes ice mages more special than just a guy who happened to have feats to spare.



Good points, especially the note on the difference between something like "Elemental" creatures and creatures that just happen to have fire resistance.

I am not so sure about the Paragon Path, though. I think Feats could work, too. Do you want every Ice Wizard be a "Master of Ice Paragon Path" member? Isn't that a little to repetitive?


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## Belphanior (Feb 24, 2009)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> I am not so sure about the Paragon Path, though. I think Feats could work, too. Do you want every Ice Wizard be a "Master of Ice Paragon Path" member? Isn't that a little to repetitive?




I'm going to reserve judgment on feats until I see Acrane Power, to be honest. I have a suspicion we might see a lot more done with energy types there. Maybe they'll deliver us what we're looking for, or maybe at least a first stepping stone.

At the moment though I feel feats is not a perfect solution because there's not a lot of those to take for many wizards. It would make most of them specialists in one or more types as a matter of course.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Feb 24, 2009)

Belphanior said:


> I'm going to reserve judgment on feats until I see Acrane Power, to be honest. I have a suspicion we might see a lot more done with energy types there. Maybe they'll deliver us what we're looking for, or maybe at least a first stepping stone.
> 
> At the moment though I feel feats is not a perfect solution because there's not a lot of those to take for many wizards. It would make most of them specialists in one or more types as a matter of course.



I was wondering if Meals is working on classes with the Elemental Power Source for PHB III, but Arcane Power is also a possibility.


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## Tequila Sunrise (Feb 24, 2009)

One of my pet peeves is the "Desert = Hot" assumption. *Deserts are not inherently hot.* Deserts lack water, which is the earth's primary moderator of temperature. Arid climates allow the sun's energy to heat an area during the day, but also allow an area to get _very_ cold during the night. If a desert is near the equator, it'll be consistently hot but if it's near a pole, it'll be consistently freezing. If a desert is anywhere else, it'll be hot during the day and cold during the night. Seriously, just once I'd like someone to use rain forests in their example of heat-based monsters, spells or whatever.

Other than that, I don't particularly care about Mike's feelings on resistances. I don't like the "let's give this monster a random resistance just to make it tougher" kind of resistances, but sometimes resistances just make sense. If a creature breaths fire or comes from a tropical/supernaturally hot environment, you shouldn't even have to roll a knowledge check to think "Gee, maybe I shouldn't use fire attacks against this thing." Yeah resistances have the potential to screw over a PC, but that's the price for focussing on a particular energy type. All attack methods have things to screw them over--and not just in D&D. Why? Because sometimes it just makes sense, and I don't see it changing any time soon.

TS


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## Daniel D. Fox (Feb 24, 2009)

I don't use resistances whatsoever.

I add the resistance to Defense values whenever an enemy attempts to use a Power with that specific keyword against the foe.


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## Garnfellow (Feb 24, 2009)

RangerWickett said:


> I had a nasty experience in Red Hand of Doom when one PC's hard core fire mage (fire genasi evoker with all the fire feats possible) was helpless against red dragons. So here's my solution for the themed wizard problem.



I had the exact same idea when I read Mike's entry. To me, this approach is a far more elegant solution to what's really a pretty simple problem.


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## Mercule (Feb 24, 2009)

One thing I'd meant to add in my previous post is a comment on epic levels, outsiders, and resistences:

I really don't understand why 4e epic foes have lots of arbitrary resistences.  Yes, it makes sense that demons are going to be generally harder to harm with elements than, say orcs.  And a baseline resistence to most everything made sense in earlier editions where damage scaled in an absolute manner.  But, 4e "fixed the math", in part, by scaling relatively.  That's why we have minions -- they're just shorthand for critters playing out of their league.  

By the time a group reaches epic level, almost everything that isn't a minion (and some things that are) are going to be somewhat resistent to most energy forms, anyway.  It should just be assumed to be part of the math.  Only include the resistences if they are in someway noteworthy among their peers.

That assumption might also reduce the "grind" factor that seems to be happening in 4e, too.


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## Kobold Avenger (Feb 24, 2009)

Tequila Sunrise said:


> Seriously, just once I'd like someone to use rain forests in their example of heat-based monsters, spells or whatever.



I'm aware that deserts are cold at night, but many associate lack of moisture with dryness which means fire.

The area around where I live in the so-called Pacific Northwest of British Columbia and Washington is considered a rain forest as a natural environment, albeit a Temperate rain forest.  So I wouldn't necessarily associate rain forest with fire, since there's certainly the non-tropical varieties.


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## DaveyJones (Feb 24, 2009)

Kobold Avenger said:


> I'm aware that deserts are cold at night, but many associate lack of moisture with dryness which means fire.




some deserts are not just cold at night. look up the gobi desert.


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## infocynic (Feb 24, 2009)

Moniker said:


> I don't use resistances whatsoever.
> 
> I add the resistance to Defense values whenever an enemy attempts to use a Power with that specific keyword against the foe.



So resist 10 is almost the same as immune then, and resist 15 effectively is, since there are very few builds that reliably hit on a 5, and even if they could, they now need a 20.


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## Obryn (Feb 24, 2009)

DaveyJones said:


> some deserts are not just cold at night. look up the gobi desert.



...and technically Antarctica is a big desert, too.  We're not talking reality, though; we're talking tropes.

-O


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## Mark (Feb 24, 2009)

Is this 4E UA fodder (or even water-testing for the secret 4.5E that has adamantly been denied)?


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## Daniel D. Fox (Feb 24, 2009)

infocynic said:


> So resist 10 is almost the same as immune then, and resist 15 effectively is, since there are very few builds that reliably hit on a 5, and even if they could, they now need a 20.




Precisely; I like the old immunities.


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## DaveyJones (Feb 24, 2009)

Mark said:


> Is this 4E UA fodder (or even water-testing for the secret 4.5E that has adamantly been denied)?



that's not canon.

lake geneva convention common article 3 will be a parka, sir.

edit: no frozen water aka snow boarding involved


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## xechnao (Feb 24, 2009)

mearls said:


> Simplifying is tougher because it forces you to make changes that are risky. It's hard to simplify an existing system while keeping its foundation. You usually have to junk that foundation and build something new, even if that something is largely based on the old foundation's intent.
> 
> Yet, once you have that new foundation, you might find that you can never really understand what you saw in the original in the first place.





mearls I would love to see an indy of yours (not necessarily indy by the forge's standards but at least something not D20) 

excuse me for the tangent but I wanted to say this to mike mearls.


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## Derren (Feb 24, 2009)

RangerWickett said:


> I had a nasty experience in Red Hand of Doom when one PC's hard core fire mage (fire genasi evoker with all the fire feats possible) was helpless against red dragons. So here's my solution for the themed wizard problem.




Or a even better idea, you do nothing and let the player deal with this situation. After all the character did voluntarily put all "eggs in one basket".
That certainly makes for a much better character development than "My fire mage burns everything"

And I agree that it makes much, much more sense to have fire mages in the artic than frost mages. But I guess this cliché will never die.


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## Irda Ranger (Feb 24, 2009)

Just some more thoughts ...

I've decided I don't dislike Resistances nearly as much as I dislike Vulnerabilities. I like the idea of the Ice Wizard of the North fighting the Frost Giant with icicles and frozen shackles, and I don't want his allies saying "You know, you'd get an extra 5 damage if you used a _Flameburst_ ..."



Starfox said:


> Another idea I have is where the environment plays a larger role. Say you are in the arctic. Because everyone's cold resistance is working full-tilt on negating the cold, it is reduced by 5 or 10 points. In an elemental region of flame, fire resistance is reduced by 20.



_Shazam!_  That's awesome.  Monsters would be "balanced" with their natural habitats, so that if you encounter a Frost Giant in its polar lair, no particular Resistance (though you better have your own).

Another way to put it might be "Resistance 10 when not in a XX terrain."

-------------

On a related topic, I see lots of feats proposed. I think that's the wrong way to go about it because you've already expended a resource (power selection). Elemental "specialization" should be built into the selection of Powers, because the price you pay is the loss of flexibility.  The wizard who doesn't load up on one damage type gets an inherent benefit (flexibility), so there should be an inherent benefit to specialization. 

My suggestion is that Elemental Specialization should be an Arcane Power Source class feature. Each class that uses the Arcane Power source just gets benefits automatically (at the cost of lost flexibility) when the load up on one damage type. The Flexible wizard bypasses Resistance by switching to a different power. So we have to give the Elementalist a way to bypass it too, to keep encounters (and PC class builds) balanced.

Here's the thought:

*Elemental Mastery *(Arcane Power Source Feature)
For each power with an Elemental keyword of a particular type beyond the first power with that keyword, the Arcanist gains Terrainborn 5, Pierce Resistance 5. If you have five or more powers of the same type you gain Terrainwalk (Acid, Fire, Cold, Thunder, Lightning) or _????_ (Psychic, Necrotic).

_Terrainborn X_: You are immune to the first X damage dealt by an environment of the given type.

_Pierce Resistance X_: You bypass the first X points of damage type resistance.

_Terrainwalk_: You can walk on terrain of a given type as normal terrain. Cold wizards can walk on snow and ice; Acid wizards on liquids of all sorts; Thunder & Lightning wizards (aka, Storm Wizards) on clouds and mist; Fire wizards on flame and lava.

_????_: I haven't thought of a good benefit here. Anyone?

_Limitation_: You can only have one Elemental Mastery at a time and it is always in the Element you have the most Powers keyworded to. If you have 3 Powers with the Fire keyword and 4 with the Acid keyword you are an Acid Master and have no special Fire related abilities. 

_Exception to the Limitation_: If you take a Dual-Mastery Heroic Tier Feats (_e.g._, Burning Blizzard) you may then have Mastery in both of those damage types if you otherwise qualify for it by power selection.


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## Phaezen (Feb 24, 2009)

infocynic said:


> So resist 10 is almost the same as immune then, and resist 15 effectively is, since there are very few builds that reliably hit on a 5, and even if they could, they now need a 20.




How about trying a 5 for 1 conversion, in otherwords 5 points of vulnerability/resistance is equal to a 1 point penalty/bonus in defences?

Phaezen


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## Irda Ranger (Feb 24, 2009)

Derren said:


> Or a even better idea, you do nothing and let the player deal with this situation. After all the character did voluntarily put all "eggs in one basket".



Some people like to reward players for building on a theme, rather than punish them for daring to deviate from mix-maxed super-builds.



Derren said:


> And I agree that it makes much, much more sense to have fire mages in the artic than frost mages. But I guess this cliché will never die.



A cliché? In D&D? _Sacre bleu!!_


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## billd91 (Feb 24, 2009)

Irda Ranger said:


> Some people like to reward players for building on a theme, rather than punish them for daring to deviate from mix-maxed super-builds.




Building on a theme is fine, but there is also such a thing as over-building on a theme. In other words, min-maxing too much along a narrow or over-specialized theme. If the only tool you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail...


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## NMcCoy (Feb 24, 2009)

Of course, the new multi-element rules give you a handy way to circumvent resistances. You could easily expect a feat like the following in Arcane Power, I think:
*
Blazing Light
Paragon Tier*
*Prerequisite*: Dex 13, Cha 13
*Benefit*: When you use a power that has the fire or the radiant keyword, you can choose to make all damage that power deals fire and radiant damage.


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## apoptosis (Feb 24, 2009)

i always thought it was weird that creatures that produce/are fire are not more resistant to cold damage than normal critters.....


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## Spatula (Feb 24, 2009)

TwinBahamut said:


> Ideally, each element should have about as many monsters with vulnerability as there are monsters with resistance, and every element should have about as many as any other.



That would be good for giving DMs some choice in types of monsters to throw at players, but it doesn't help the players much.  You don't face a statistical spread of the available monsters in the course of a campaign, you face whatever the DM decides the throw at you.


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## Irda Ranger (Feb 24, 2009)

billd91 said:


> Building on a theme is fine, but there is also such a thing as over-building on a theme.



Now if you could just find two DMs who agree on exactly where that line is ...

Personally I'd think it was pretty neat if a PC managed to make every spell he had Fire keyworded in some respect. _Fire Shield_, _Wings of Flame_, _Fiery Portal _(allows a campfire to act as a Teleportation Circle), etc.


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## billd91 (Feb 24, 2009)

Irda Ranger said:


> Now if you could just find two DMs who agree on exactly where that line is ...
> 
> Personally I'd think it was pretty neat if a PC managed to make every spell he had Fire keyworded in some respect. _Fire Shield_, _Wings of Flame_, _Fiery Portal _(allows a campfire to act as a Teleportation Circle), etc.




Neat or not, I'm not going to have sympathy for the player if he finds that all of his spells aren't of much help against a red dragon, salamander noble, or barbed devil. And if the monster is appropriately placed, I'm not going to change the monster just so he can feel useful. He's going to have to creatively dig his way out of the hole he dug for himself.


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## ravenheart (Feb 24, 2009)

mearls said:


> You could also even look at *translating resistances into a defense bonus*. I like that avenue better because you can still use combat advantage or other accuracy boosts to negate that disadvantage. Even in that case, I'd still reserve such traits for elemental creatures.




Emphasis mine.



ravenheart said:


> *1) Change resistances to situational bonuses to defenses and saving throws
> *
> ie. resist fire 5 would translate into a *+2 bonus to defense against attacks with the fire keyword AND a +2 bonus to saving throws against ongoing fire damage*. This in addition to "terrain walk" abilities and such would be a sufficient fix, don't you think? Vulnerabilites would get a similar treatment - with penalties, of course.




This is what happens when two (at least one, and I'm not talking about mine) great minds think alike. Also when I'm so giddy with excitement I can't bother to read through the entire thread. 

But why would this only be reserved for elemental creatures? Is it too hard to imagine, for example, an undead creature resistant to necrotic damage simply being more difficult to harm or bestow a condition upon with necrotic powers? I mean, as long as it's not completely immune to the damage type/keyword, it can still be damaged by it. Ex. a wight with resist 10 necrotic is hit by a ray of enfeeblement for 16 damage. The resistance, as is, reduces the damage taken by 10. The necrotic keyword, is per definition (PHB p. 55), "Purple-black energy that deadens flesh and wounds the soul." The wight still take, and this is important, *necrotic* damage, although it is undead and has resisted it partially. 

But I digress. I still think feats could prove to be an alternate solution.


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## Belphanior (Feb 24, 2009)

mearls said:
			
		

> You could also even look at translating resistances into a defense bonus. I like that avenue better because you can still use combat advantage or other accuracy boosts to negate that disadvantage. Even in that case, I'd still reserve such traits for elemental creatures.




The problem with this approach though is the Reflex defense. I can understand why a black dragon isn't bothered by most acids, but especially potent chemicals can still eat away its scales. But I have a much harder time accepting that it's better at _dodging_ an acid arrow spell than a different dragon might be.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Feb 24, 2009)

Belphanior said:


> The problem with this approach though is the Reflex defense. I can understand why a black dragon isn't bothered by most acids, but especially potent chemicals can still eat away its scales. But I have a much harder time accepting that it's better at _dodging_ an acid arrow spell than a different dragon might be.




It's not dodging it. The resistance works like armor. His resilience "deflect" the effects of acid. The acid might hit him, it might smolder a little, but nothing bad happens, because he is pretty resistant to it. 
Just like a blow with a sword hits the character, but the armor deflects the attack, lessening its damage to a negligible amount.


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## mearls (Feb 24, 2009)

Belphanior said:


> The problem with this approach though is the Reflex defense. I can understand why a black dragon isn't bothered by most acids, but especially potent chemicals can still eat away its scales. But I have a much harder time accepting that it's better at _dodging_ an acid arrow spell than a different dragon might be.




I see it as much as Mustrum_Ridcully explained it.

For instance, in the game I ran today I used an ogre zombie. Even when an attack missed, I described it as a hit that the zombie simply ignore. Or, the attack sheared off a chunk of dead flesh but didn't seem to do any actual harm.

I'd see a defense boost as working similarly. The margin between its normal and boosted defenses represents those attacks that strike it, but fail to have an effect.


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## Spatula (Feb 24, 2009)

Belphanior said:


> The problem with this approach though is the Reflex defense. I can understand why a black dragon isn't bothered by most acids, but especially potent chemicals can still eat away its scales. But I have a much harder time accepting that it's better at _dodging_ an acid arrow spell than a different dragon might be.



Does plate armor make you better at dodging sword blows?

If anything, such a change would bring elemental damage mechanics more in line with how the rest of the game works.

EDIT: I think this is a good idea for modelling vulnerability, too.  Instead of causing more damage, an attack that the target is vulnerable too has an easier time of affecting it.


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## WhatGravitas (Feb 25, 2009)

mearls said:


> I see it as much as Mustrum_Ridcully explained it.
> 
> For instance, in the game I ran today I used an ogre zombie. Even when an attack missed, I described it as a hit that the zombie simply ignore. Or, the attack sheared off a chunk of dead flesh but didn't seem to do any actual harm.
> 
> I'd see a defense boost as working similarly. The margin between its normal and boosted defenses represents those attacks that strike it, but fail to have an effect.



...so under that system, one could basically relabel all different energy/element damage types just to "elemental damage", but leave the keywords.

Then the entire system of interactions could trigger off the keywords - defence adjustments, feats, other powers... I rather like that - but then I always felt that keywords were underused. 

Cheers, LT.


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## merelycompetent (Feb 25, 2009)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> It's not dodging it. The resistance works like armor. His resilience "deflect" the effects of acid. The acid might hit him, it might smolder a little, but nothing bad happens, because he is pretty resistant to it.
> Just like a blow with a sword hits the character, but the armor deflects the attack, lessening its damage to a negligible amount.




It's taken me a bit to wrap my head around this... but I like it. I like it VERY much.

See, one of the fundamental problems with 1E - 3.5E for me has been the enormous amount of on-the-fly math and calculations we have to do. 4E has cut away a lot of that. But making elemental (or even other energy-sourced) spellcasters get a bonus/penalty to hit, with the fluff description describing a more penetrating blow (or ineffectual in the case of a miss), looks elegant. Much easier to handle than adding flat damage modifiers, keeping track of how many hit points of resistance are left in the spell, or keeping track of yet another special ability versus special ability that modifies the most variable effect in the game - is it resistant to this 5 points of fire damage from the sword, the 5 points of electrical damage, both, or does it take the full 17 points? - because of multiple resistances.

Great. Now I want to back-port the idea into previous editions and test it out. 

(Edited for clarity)


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## Beginning of the End (Feb 25, 2009)

Oni said:


> Ugh, I really dislike his suggestions on replacing resistance.  You go from caster X being screwed over to caster X screwing over the whole party, sounds like it would make the situation even worse than before.




Yeah. His argument doesn't make any sense to me. He makes two critiques of resistances:

(1) Resistances create disparity in value between energy types because you don't want to use an energy are resistant against.

(2) Resistances create thematic issues because wizards in the frozen north (who should thematically be using ice magic) are better served with ice magic.

But his "solutions" don't actually solve either those problems. 

Damage negation abilities? You're still creating disparities in value between energy types. And you're still encouraging the use of fire magic against cold creatures.

Sympathetic energy damage triggers new abilities? You're still creating disparities in value between energy types. And you're still encouraging the use of fire magic against cold creatures.

They both seem like interesting mechanics and I can see lots of potential uses for them. But since neither of them fix the "problems" that Mearls is allegedly trying to fix, I have to wonder what the heck he's thinking.



Belphanior said:


> I can sort of see the point about wanting to play an ice-mage in an ice-campaign, but such a specific campaign should come up with its own rules on energy types anyway.




The only reason playing an ice mage in a cold setting is if such environmental conditions encourage the use of sympathetic magic types. (And you could certainly create an interesting system on that.)

Otherwise, it doesn't actually make much sense for a wizard in the Frozen North to specialize in ice magic -- for much the same reason that it doesn't make much sense to turn your air conditioner on in the middle of winter.


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## I'm A Banana (Feb 25, 2009)

I would not add to Defense values much at all. It's a useful alternative (e.g.: it'd be nice to see that, too, once in a while), but I don't think it's a universal solution.

Because an attack that misses is a psychologically harder blow than an attack that hits but is reduced.

That is, it's a lot less fun to roll a 14 and miss than it is to roll a 14, hit, and only do 1/2 damage. There's already a problem in 4e with slogging battles with big monsters where the party keeps missing with Dailies and Encounters. This exacerbates that problem.

That said, in moderation, it's a fantastic alternative -- something that maybe some of those poison-immune undead could pick up and run with. 

Oh, and for the record:


			
				mearls said:
			
		

> I think that simply getting rid of damage types might be a viable answer.




This train of thought struck me in the blog, too, as an especially narm-worthy kind of idea, and an example of the kind of fundamental disconnect in playstyle between me and most of 4e.

Grok this noise: *damage types, resistances, and immunities are valuable*.

Honest, they are.

They're valuable from a strategic standpoint (Ah! This foe will require a different fighting style than blowing it up with fire!).

They're valuable from a storytelling standpoint (Ah! This beast swims through lava, but if you were to fall into lava, you would die (no save)!). 

They're valuable from an emulation standpoint (Quick guess how many myths and fantasy tropes revolve around a creature who is invincible to most things? Answer: most of them).

They're valuable from a purely logical standpoint (I blast the creature made of fire with more fire, is he burned?).

The troubles that you deal with in having them should be dealt with, but that doesn't mean throwing out the baby with the bathwater (ye gods, I wish I could have had this conversation 3-5 years ago with EVERYONE who wound up working on 4e). 

Damage types are fun. Do they cause problems? Sure. But if people were looking for a problem-less existence, no one would own a dog. When you have a problem with your dog, you don't shoot the dog. You work around it, you use tools to mitigate it, and you still love that dog.

There is really a very fine line between killing a sacred cow and shooting a beloved dog.

There are things you can do to make those wacky players who absolutely MUST have ice mages fighting white dragons on a daily basis happy. This thread is FILLED with 'em, more than one of them very good ideas (and many of them useful in a sort of multi-pronged approach to the problem). 

One of the not-so-good ideas is cutting off the nose to spite the face, throwing the baby out with the bathwater, shooting the dog for having fleas, using the 'nuclear option' and eradicating all types of damage, and 1,001 other euphamisms for basically eradicating damage types in order to help out niche spellcasters who are better served by other options. 



			
				mearls said:
			
		

> IME, it's easy to add more complexity to a game design, especially when you have a time constraint. Adding stuff feels productive, and you generally add mechanics to other mechanics that already seem to work. You're building on solid ground. The problems are clear, and your new mechanics are going to solve them.
> 
> Simplifying is tougher because it forces you to make changes that are risky. It's hard to simplify an existing system while keeping its foundation. You usually have to junk that foundation and build something new, even if that something is largely based on the old foundation's intent.
> 
> Yet, once you have that new foundation, you might find that you can never really understand what you saw in the original in the first place.




Simplification and complexity both have their roles to play in game design. 4e combat is INSANELY complex compared to anything that isn't a wargame or a videogame. The amount of accessories alone that you need to make it work means that "casual" is right out the door with it. In fact, D&D overall is a HORRIBLY complex game, filled with maps and charts and subroutines and exclusive accessories, not to mention the time demands for six people to sit in a room for four hours when they undoubtedly have other demands on their time. 

But, arguably, that's kind of a positive thing. Part of the value of a game of D&D is just being able to pull it off, especially if you're lucky enough to get to do it on a semi-regular basis. Specifically with combat, complexity is usually a positive thing: more options, more stuff to do, more interesting interactions, more ways for the rules to tell you how awesome you are for playing.

The ideal is this: complexity where you want it, simplicity for everything else.

In D&D, you get into the fact that because each game is so personal, everyone wants different complexities and simplicities. I could stand with more noncombat complexity (PS: not skill challenges, y'know?) and more combat simplicity (PS: take it off the grid!), myself, but that's because I tend to run fairly "balanced" games that tow the line between different types of challenges. 

Elemental resistances and damage are a place where a little bit of complexity (but not much) is a good thing. All of those things I mentioned above are better with a bit of complexity in this avenue of the game. 

Simplicity by itself is pointless. Flipping a coin isn't a satisfying afternoon. Simplicity is also often unwanted: simplify something someone loved, and you've shot the dog. Simplify something they're interested in, and they won't be interested in using your simple rules for it. Simplicity is "Cliff's Notes" instead of _Henry VIII_. Simplicity is _The DiVinci Code_ instead of _The Dubliners_. Simplicity is The D&D Movie to the Lord of the Rings novels. Simplicity is "Loops of Fruit!" in a bag instead of "Fruit Loops" in a box. Simplicity is Limp Bizkit instead of Black Flag. Simplicity is Twinkle Twinkle Little Star instead of _The Illiad_. 

Simplicity, in otherwords, is overrated.

What you want (or what I want, at least), ideally, is to design something with *scaling complexity* so that you can ignore it if you want, but if you pay a lot of attention to it, it manages to grow complex with it. Something maybe like Harry Potter, or the Lord of the Rings movies, that starts off easy, but can get pretty deep. Something in the middle ground. Something that has a bit for the casual player, something that has a bunch for the hardcore trufan. 

What you don't want (what I don't want) is simplicity itself enshrined like it is a good goal in and of itself.

Simplicity isn't a goal. It's a way to get something out of the way of you reaching your goal. It's a tool, and like every tool, it has things that it is well-suited for, and things that it sucks at. 

What it sucks at is making anything interesting.


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## DaveyJones (Feb 25, 2009)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> What it sucks at is making anything interesting.



 then you need to stop and smell the roses

there is a lot more to the simple things in life if you take the time to enjoy them


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## hbarsquared (Feb 25, 2009)

I like Mearls.  He's a great guy.

Some of his ideas are pretty good, too.  For unique monsters, though, and not as a general revamping of elemental resistances.

*The actual problem is that this thread is striving to find a mechanical solution to a flavor problem.*

Ice mages don't learn fire magic in the arctic because _there is no fire magic._  Who would teach a young mage?  From what resources does a "point of light" at the top of a snow-shrouded mountain find the secrets of fire magic?  Magic takes years of study, and many young mages probably give up summoning a simple flame cantrip when it is blown out immediately every single time.

Ice mages are successful in the arctic not because of damage they do to enemies, but in their ability to manipulate the cold (this was mentioned by several posters, already).  They can summon that wall of ice to protect their allies, they can obscure terrain with fog, they can hurl icicles that happen to deal physical damage instead of just "cold."  Not even the ice mages would attempt to actually "freeze" that ice monster.

I do like the "get rid of elemental keywords" idea, and make elemental damage all fluff.  But elemental resistances/vulnerabilities, both as flavor and a mechanic, are just fine.


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## Cadfan (Feb 25, 2009)

billd91 said:


> Neat or not, I'm not going to have sympathy for the player if he finds that all of his spells aren't of much help against a red dragon, salamander noble, or barbed devil. And if the monster is appropriately placed, I'm not going to change the monster just so he can feel useful. He's going to have to creatively dig his way out of the hole he dug for himself.



There is a HUGE DIFFERENCE between how you, as a DM, should react to a player who intentionally takes poorly chosen spells knowing full well that his decisions could screw him over, and how WOTC, as game designers, should react to people's desires to take suites of spells which, in the present system, could screw them over.


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## I'm A Banana (Feb 25, 2009)

> then you need to stop and smell the roses
> 
> there is a lot more to the simple things in life if you take the time to enjoy them




Sure, and if you'd like to talk about philosophies for enjoying life, I'm game for that conversation.

But I believe the point was in regards to game design, yes? Not such an applicable philosophy there.


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## CapnZapp (Feb 25, 2009)

billd91 said:


> 1) Elemental damage is only half a spell's damage. Think of 3e's flame strike. Half is fire damage, half is holy. In the case of wizard spells, half would be just plain magical power. That would make even ice spells have some function against cold resistant creatures.



Doh, that doesn't work.

Instead of doing 40 points of ice damage being reduced by Resistance 15 to 25 points, you'd do 20 points of ice damage and 20 points of regular untyped damage which would be reduced to 5 points of ice damage and 20 points of regular damage. For a total of 25 damage, _which is exactly as before_.


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## rounser (Feb 25, 2009)

> The actual problem is that this thread is striving to find a mechanical solution to a flavor problem.



I'd argue it's the familiar 4E solution of stomping flavour when it does something inconvenient mechanically.  It's the main reason I saved to disbelieve in the 4E illusion, something I've never had a problem with in any version of the game before.


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## DaveyJones (Feb 25, 2009)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> Sure, and if you'd like to talk about philosophies for enjoying life, I'm game for that conversation.
> 
> But I believe the point was in regards to game design, yes? Not such an applicable philosophy there.




why can't you apply a life lesson to game design? isn't that part of the verisimilitude some are seeking?

in practical ways it just means not rushing the process. testing the parts before forming them into an amalgam.


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## Dausuul (Feb 25, 2009)

IMO, the solution to the "ice mages in the arctic" issue is simple: Make ice magic stronger in arctic regions.

Here's how I'd work it. Regions on the world map can have keywords. Thus, an arctic region would have the Cold keyword, a desert region would have Fire, and so forth. The same principle can also apply on a smaller scale; an undead-haunted crypt might have the Necrotic keyword.

Within such a region, powers with the appropriate keyword get some kind of bonus, something like +3 damage per tier. This compensates for the fact that you'll encounter a disproportionate number of critters with resistance to that keyword. It also adds to the flavor; when you go into the desert, the pyromancer gets stronger.


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## billd91 (Feb 25, 2009)

CapnZapp said:


> Doh, that doesn't work.
> 
> Instead of doing 40 points of ice damage being reduced by Resistance 15 to 25 points, you'd do 20 points of ice damage and 20 points of regular untyped damage which would be reduced to 5 points of ice damage and 20 points of regular damage. For a total of 25 damage, _which is exactly as before_.




It works against things that are immune like red dragons, salamanders, and devils are to fire. That's damage you otherwise couldn't have done. Same for damage amounts lower than the creature's level of resistance.


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## UngeheuerLich (Feb 25, 2009)

A solution for ice mages in the high north could be following:

- because the air is already very cold, all damage from powers with the ice keyword do an extra 5 points of damage

- fire damage is less effective and does 5 points damage less

problem nearly solved...

actually a +2 defense bonus vs cold spells would work better than resistance, because of the same reason why armor doesn´t reduce damage (imparity between staus effecting vs damaging spells and dagger vs greataxe)

all cold spells would get an enviromental bonus to hit, which effectively negates the defense bonus...


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## Jhaelen (Feb 25, 2009)

CapnZapp said:


> Doh, that doesn't work.
> 
> Instead of doing 40 points of ice damage being reduced by Resistance 15 to 25 points, you'd do 20 points of ice damage and 20 points of regular untyped damage which would be reduced to 5 points of ice damage and 20 points of regular damage. For a total of 25 damage, _which is exactly as before_.



But that's not what the 'fix' was trying to achieve. It was supposed to help in the situation that you do 15 points of ice damage being reduced by Resistance 15 to 0 points. With the fix you're now doing 7 points of damage.

Anyway, I don't think this 'fix' is fixing anything 'fix-worthy', either.

Did I mention that I LIKE resistances? Imho, the best and most memorable fights have always been those where the pcs had to think outside of the box, because their 'standard' approach didn't work. Often, this was due to a monster's immunities or resistances.

Obviously, it isn't a good idea to hose the pcs continously by having them encounter monsters that are immune to everything they are good at doing. But using such encounters sparingly has a positive effect. It keeps them on their toes and rewards their creativity.

Should creating a one-trick pony be rewarded by the DM?
Should the DM adjust every encounter to ensure the pcs can make optimal use of their chosen powers?

For me the answers to these two questions are crystal-clear: No and no.


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## I'm A Banana (Feb 25, 2009)

> why can't you apply a life lesson to game design? isn't that part of the verisimilitude some are seeking?




Not really.  Verisimilitude would be a goal of game design; applying life lessons to game design would be more of a method. And, anyway, that's not really what I, or, I think, mearls, was referring to.



> in practical ways it just means not rushing the process. testing the parts before forming them into an amalgam.




Taking your time is a good idea, but that's different from the rules simplicity that mearls expressed affection for, and that I am skeptical of.


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## Sir Brennen (Feb 25, 2009)

CapnZapp said:


> Doh, that doesn't work.
> 
> Instead of doing 40 points of ice damage being reduced by Resistance 15 to 25 points, you'd do 20 points of ice damage and 20 points of regular untyped damage which would be reduced to 5 points of ice damage and 20 points of regular damage. For a total of 25 damage, _which is exactly as before_.



Not exactly. It took you more math to get there. 

I think some people are using the wrong starting point for the hypothetical Ice Mage. It's not so much about an Ice Mage _in_ the North, because that's a very specific type of campaign. It's about handling an Ice Mage _from_ the North in a regular campaign. Tweaking how resistances work at the North Pole aren't going to do diddly-squat for him 90% of the time in a standard game. Of course, he'll also run into Cold resistant creatures less often, until the upper tiers when creatures with multiple resistances are the norm.

It's about the problem of themed wizards in general, not campaign locations.

I think Fire Mages are a trope less latitude specific, so perhaps the discussion should focus on them.

Personally, I also like resistances. People talk about simple... resistances _are_ simple already.  Changing them to a Defense Bonus also seems simple, but it doesn't solve the problem of themed casters, and potentially pushes encounters with such creatures further into grindspace than the original resistance would.

Irda Ranger's idea of Elemental Mastery as a feature of Arcane classes is interesting, but I'm not crazy about having this built-in sameness for all arcane classes.  Plus, it encourages such classes to specialize rather than it just be an option. And what if I wanted to have a themed cleric of a Fire god, which uses the Divine power source?

For the themed caster problem, I think feats are the answer, complimented with Paragon Paths, and they're components already built into the game. RangerWickett's proposal way back on page 1 is a bit overpowered, compared to an existing heroic tier feat like Astral Fire (+1 damage for fire/radiant powers). But what about a [keyword] mastery feat which lowers a target's resistance to your powers by 1 for every power you have with that keyword? Another feat which give Resist [keyword] equal to 1 + 1/2 the number of powers you have with that keyword? Lots of other possibilities as well.


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## WhatGravitas (Feb 25, 2009)

Sir Brennen;4683339But what about a [keyword said:
			
		

> mastery feat which lowers a target's resistance to your powers by 1 for every power you have with that keyword? Another feat which give Resist [keyword] equal to 1 + 1/2 the number of powers you have with that keyword? Lots of other possibilities as well.



Well, that's a bit like the problem with wholesale immunities - it's sort of an arms race of counter effects. First you have resistance. Then you have resistance-trumping feats, then resistance-trumping resistance... and so on.

Furthermore, with the introduction methods to circumvent resistances, it's basically "there are no resistances", because they are ignored anyway. Unless you account for that and make them much higher. But then, you're back to the start.

To avoid that arms race, one probably has to do away with the idea of absolute resistances (i.e. a single number). The resistance bonus to defence would work along that like, so would changing resistance to percentages in general (but that's cumbersome in play).

Furthermore, I think the drive behind the elimination of resistances is less to make themed casters more viable, but rather that the absolute effect of resistances is bad - in a way, they're a bit like wholesale immunities on a smaller scale.

The idea behind resistances - a resilience to certain energy types is certainly a flavourful one. But the idea of "resist 5" isn't really catching it.

EDIT: One could also compare that to the discussion of armour gives DR vs. AC - similar underlying ideas - the difference is just that it's less widespread, as only themed casters have a certain damage type as their "weapon".

Cheers, LT.


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## NMcCoy (Feb 25, 2009)

billd91 said:


> It works against things that are immune like red dragons, salamanders, and devils are to fire. That's damage you otherwise couldn't have done. Same for damage amounts lower than the creature's level of resistance.



Not my my understanding of the rules. Immune works differently than resistance - immunity means the monster is entirely unaffected by a power with that keyword. Something that is immune to poison ignores a wizard's _Lightning Serpent_, for example.


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## Sir Brennen (Feb 25, 2009)

Lord Tirian said:


> Well, that's a bit like the problem with wholesale immunities - it's sort of an arms race of counter effects. First you have resistance. Then you have resistance-trumping feats, then resistance-trumping resistance... and so on.



I don't see that. We're talking about giving players the ability to reduce (not even necessarily trump) one type of resistance, based on a theme. And I don't see how this leads to an "arms-race", as a "resistance-trumping resistance" does not exist.



> Furthermore, with the introduction methods to circumvent resistances, it's basically "there are no resistances", because they are ignored anyway. Unless you account for that and make them much higher. But then, you're back to the start.



Again, this is not intended to circumvent _all_ resistances, just to give a character the ability to reduce _one_ which they have a special focus in.


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## Mercule (Feb 25, 2009)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> It's not dodging it. The resistance works like armor. His resilience "deflect" the effects of acid. The acid might hit him, it might smolder a little, but nothing bad happens, because he is pretty resistant to it.
> Just like a blow with a sword hits the character, but the armor deflects the attack, lessening its damage to a negligible amount.



While I recognize that D&D is, and always has been, a fairly abstract game -- and I think that's a good thing -- there is a limit to how many times and how far you can abstract things before it becomes meaningless.  IMO, converting resistances to defense bonuses crosses that line.


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## Scribble (Feb 25, 2009)

Mercule said:


> While I recognize that D&D is, and always has been, a fairly abstract game -- and I think that's a good thing -- there is a limit to how many times and how far you can abstract things before it becomes meaningless.  IMO, converting resistances to defense bonuses crosses that line.




Just shows what they say about opinions is true... Because it seems more like it steps back from that line to me.

Really I think it should be all of one or all of the other.

IE is resistances = damage reduction Armor should also = damage reduction.

I've been fine all this time with armor = a bonus to defense, so I'm equally fine with resistances = a bonus to defense. In fact I think it does seem a lot smoother.


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## JRRNeiklot (Feb 26, 2009)

I can't believe anyone would suggest actually fireballing a fire elemental.


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## Kid Charlemagne (Feb 26, 2009)

JRRNeiklot said:


> I can't believe anyone would suggest actually fireballing a fire elemental.




I think some things do need to be immune to certain kinds of energy - fire elementals being a great example.  I don't see the need for a Red Dragon to be immune, or even have more than small amount of resistance.

The problem to me, in 3E at least (not terribly familiar with 4E) is that there are too many things that have resistance/immunity.  It's lazy design - "somethings from a cold area?  OK, it gets immunity to cold damage."  In Frostburn there are creatures that are described as being afraid of other creatures, but are in fact immune to everything that creature does. Fights between them must be like being gnawed to death by toothless kittens. 

I'd like to see immunities and resistances handed out extremely sparingly.


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## xechnao (Feb 26, 2009)

I am not sure if this has anything to do with the discussion but I want to say that I personally find lame having to calculate things like elemental defenses and offenses and stuff like that. Same about tracking hit-locations for example (it does not matter to me how exactly I am anatomically impaired - what matters is that I am impaired- adding further micro-managing ends up adding nothing but time draining calculations. So having to micro-manage these things just does not do it for me. I prefer thinking about problems such as choice of allegiances to make in some kind of conflict, having to choose if we kill the mad sorcerer or try to control him and stuff like that.

So the simpler they are and the less effects these things have on the game the better for me. If mike mearls is in favor of simplifying calculations on these kind of stuff then I am with him.


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## catsclaw227 (Feb 26, 2009)

rounser said:


> I'd argue it's the familiar 4E solution of stomping flavour when it does something inconvenient mechanically.  It's the main reason I saved to disbelieve in the 4E illusion, something I've never had a problem with in any version of the game before.



What does this mean?  You believe that 4e is not a real game, so therefore an illusion that you can "disbelieve"?

Dude, I thought we were trying to get past making statements intended to incite edition wars.

"familiar 4E solution of stomping flavour"?  Ha!  That is really funny. Not funny in a haha way, but funny in a "here we go again..." way.


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## Oni (Feb 26, 2009)

JRRNeiklot said:


> I can't believe anyone would suggest actually fireballing a fire elemental.




What you never heard the old adage, fight fire with fire?


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## Sir Brennen (Feb 26, 2009)

JRRNeiklot said:


> I can't believe anyone would suggest actually fireballing a fire elemental.



Though it's not written for 4E, Sean K Reynolds has an article addressing the problems with "total immunities" in D&D. You can read it here. (It also delves into other "absolute" concepts in the game)

Basically it discusses the fact that, in a fantasy world, one could conceive of something powerful enough to overcome even the immunities of a creature, but immunities in the rules don't allow for that. His example is a 3E Fire Giant dropped into the heart of a star takes... no damage. That doesn't quite make sense. Instead, giving them a high fire resistance allows them to live in the environs one would expect for a fire giant, but pure lava or an ancient red dragon's breath weapon could still possibly do some damage to them.

4E seems to have removed several such immunities and replaced them with resistances. Red dragons  have fire resistance which scales with level. Total immunities do still exist, though. Efreets, for instance, are still immune to fire.


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## billd91 (Feb 26, 2009)

Sir Brennen said:


> Basically it discusses the fact that, in a fantasy world, one could conceive of something powerful enough to overcome even the immunities of a creature, but immunities in the rules don't allow for that. His example is a 3E Fire Giant dropped into the heart of a star takes... no damage. That doesn't quite make sense. Instead, giving them a high fire resistance allows them to live in the environs one would expect for a fire giant, but pure lava or an ancient red dragon's breath weapon could still possibly do some damage to them.




SKR's analysis is weakened by that example, actually. The fire giant takes no _fire_ damage, though the heart of a star would certainly inflict more than that were it modeled realistically in game terms.
A more appropriate view of fire immunity is that the fire giant is immune to all practical applications of fire the game is likely to produce.


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## PoeticJustice (Feb 26, 2009)

I can't help but think Mearls is making his arguments using assumptions predicated by Arcane Power material. As it is, it's only just possible to create a pyro-cryo-elctro-mancer in 4E. Currently, there's just not enough diversity of powers to make a thematically appropriate choice at every level. 

Once Arcane Power comes out, they'll likely be enough, but currently arguments against resistance are sort of moot point, as eventually a wizard will almost certainly diversify.


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## Varianor Abroad (Feb 26, 2009)

billd91 said:


> ...were it modeled realistically in game terms....





I don't think that "modeled realistically" and "in game terms" are mutually inclusive or exclusive. Game design seems to go better when reality influences some flavor as opposed to the mechanics. (In SKR's example, there's no "stellar" damage to equate to what's in the heart of a star. It's just fire. One could invent it, but then along would come creatures immune to stellar damage....)


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## billd91 (Feb 26, 2009)

Varianor Abroad said:


> (In SKR's example, there's no "stellar" damage to equate to what's in the heart of a star. It's just fire. One could invent it, but then along would come creatures immune to stellar damage....)




And in a fantasy environment that actually found it necessary to determine what kind or amount of damage was inflicted at the core of a star, I could imagine there would be some pretty boss creatures immune to it.

Until we reach that point, arguing that there is something wrong with immunity to fire because it implies the giant could survive the core of a star is pretty absurd and doesn't help a rational argument very much.


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## Dausuul (Feb 26, 2009)

Sir Brennen said:


> 4E seems to have removed several such immunities and replaced them with resistances. Red dragons  have fire resistance which scales with level. Total immunities do still exist, though. Efreets, for instance, are still immune to fire.




Which is as it should be, IMO. I think 4E hit the right balance here. A few monsters _should_ be completely immune to certain damage types. For instance, zombies are immune to poison damage, because there is simply no way that poison could affect a zombie - it doesn't care what you do to its biological processes because it hasn't got any. Likewise, immoliths are immune to fire damage because they are literally made of fire. Trying to burn them is like trying to drown a fish.

However, these are fairly extreme cases. Fire giants are not made of fire, they're made of flesh and blood like everybody else. So there's no intrinsic reason why they ought to be immune to fire. Instead, they just get resistance; they can shrug off ordinary fire, but they still die if you drop them in lava.


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## Vegepygmy (Feb 27, 2009)

Kid Charlemagne said:


> The problem to me, in 3E at least (not terribly familiar with 4E) is that there are too many things that have resistance/immunity. It's lazy design - "somethings from a cold area? OK, it gets immunity to cold damage." In Frostburn there are creatures that are described as being afraid of other creatures, but are in fact immune to everything that creature does. Fights between them must be like being gnawed to death by toothless kittens.



Excellent point.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Feb 27, 2009)

Dausuul said:


> Which is as it should be, IMO. I think 4E hit the right balance here. A few monsters _should_ be completely immune to certain damage types. For instance, zombies are immune to poison damage, because there is simply no way that poison could affect a zombie - it doesn't care what you do to its biological processes because it hasn't got any. Likewise, immoliths are immune to fire damage because they are literally made of fire. Trying to burn them is like trying to drown a fish.



I don't necessarily agree. There could be magical poison. And fire from magical effects tends to imply a control over the element of fire - why shoudn't something made of fire be susceptible to this kind of effects?  If you are just wielding a torch, a immolith probably should not care, but if you are manipulating the elements themselves to create fire, maybe the immolith is bothered by it.

Whether this has to translate into damage or something else is another matter.


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## Varianor Abroad (Feb 27, 2009)

billd91 said:


> ...arguing that there is something wrong with immunity to fire because it implies the giant could survive the core of a star is pretty absurd and doesn't help a rational argument very much.




Heyyyyy, thanks for the ad hominem attack!  Been a while. I was feeling left out. 

Let's go back to the core of this particular subtopic. D&D has five basic damage types as of 3E. There are a few more in 4E. But that's it. Those are the damage types. So the discussion as it takes place is valid because under the example (fire giant in the heart of the star) you have to pick what type of damage it is*. Assuming you pick "fire", the fire giant has immunity, and it takes no damage.

*Unless it does untyped damage. One of the interesting points brought out in this whole discussion is the notion that everything in D&D could just do untyped damage.


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## Derren (Feb 27, 2009)

Varianor Abroad said:


> Heyyyyy, thanks for the ad hominem attack!  Been a while. I was feeling left out.
> 
> Let's go back to the core of this particular subtopic. D&D has five basic damage types as of 3E. There are a few more in 4E. But that's it. Those are the damage types. So the discussion as it takes place is valid because under the example (fire giant in the heart of the star) you have to pick what type of damage it is*. Assuming you pick "fire", the fire giant has immunity, and it takes no damage.
> 
> *Unless it does untyped damage. One of the interesting points brought out in this whole discussion is the notion that everything in D&D could just do untyped damage.




The problem with that example is that is is simply wrong and skewed. A star is not only fire so fire immunity would not make the fire giant survive on a star. It would make it die in a different way. Arguing that in D&Ds limited damage framework a star could only do fire damage doesn't matter. People likely don't think in D&D terms when thinking about this example and thus assume the giant could survive in a real star with fire immunity.
This example tries to link fire immunity to a overdrawn situation to make it look worse than it is.

Here is a more fair example:
When a fire giant is pushed into an active volcano does the giant burn to death or drown (unless it can swim very well).


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## Mercule (Feb 27, 2009)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> I don't necessarily agree. There could be magical poison. And fire from magical effects tends to imply a control over the element of fire - why shoudn't something made of fire be susceptible to this kind of effects?



I think these are where you get into design decisions and no game will be able to satisfy everyone.  For example, I have a really hard time imagining even magic poison being a threat to a zombie.  Now, if you want to say someone created magic poison specifically designed to deal with undead, I could buy that, but I'd probably expect the damage type to be Radiant, not Poison.

As far as fire damage coming from control of fire, I think that's a meta-setting issue.  The core assumptions are that fireball summons fire, not that it manipulates existing fire.  There isn't anything wrong with the inverse assumption, but a determination had to be made and it was.  A smaller-grained system (say, Hero) could easily handle spells with either/both mechanics, but D&D has always been a pretty large-grained system and I can't think of a way any edition would have adequately handled that without adding more complexity.

D&D is what it is.  It's large-grained, abstract, and archetypal.  The new edition reminded me of that.  I've walked away from D&D twice before and both times it was because I was trying to do something with the system that it wasn't intended to do.  There is a limit to how far I am will to abstract the system, but some abstraction is necessary for the game to function, and always has been.


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## Leatherhead (Feb 27, 2009)

I was going to suggest something along the lines of differing magnitudes of elemental power but then I had an epiphany:

It dosn't matter if a fire giant can fall through a star, PC's aren't giants, or stars for that matter. It dosn't matter if the god of fire can snuff out a fire elemental with its fire breath, PC's aren't the gods of fire or fire elementals. 

We have creatures called minions, these minions have cinematic combat stats exclusively for the purpose of fighting PC's. From this we can extrapolate all monster combat statistics are for the purpose of battle with PC's. A PC isn't a fire elemental, or a red dragon, or a giant ball of gas floating about in space. The fire resistance any monsters have details how well protected they are from the fire attack of a PC, who would have weaker ties to fire than a being entirely made out of it.

So this leads us back to the topical problem here: Are resistances too high for elemental specialist themed mages? For a typical wizard who has access to multiple types of damage, resistances are fine. You just have to pick a different spell to use. For everyone else, I think the easiest and best solution is to simply create an elemental specialization feat that allows them to ignore part of the resistance (but not all of it) and perhaps a bit of extra damage or extra accuracy so that the feat isn't useless against other monsters. 

Unless you were talking about 3rd edition, then we can totally go for setting up an order of magnitude.


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## tomBitonti (Feb 27, 2009)

Mixing real world physics with D&D elemental questions seems problematic at best.  Do stars even exist in the same form in D&D?  And if they did, there are problems of radiation, pressure, and exposure to plasma, that would doom the fire giant rather quickly.  Of course, you would run into these problems with any confinement of matter at million degree temperatures and anything close to every day densities (let alone the densities that you see at the heart of a star).

The simple answer is to declare that immunities are approximations of very high resistance values, and say that they should used cautiously in super extreme environments.


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## Sir Brennen (Feb 27, 2009)

Well, the SKR article is merely pointing out how immunities can break down logically at the extremes, and with 4E including Epic play built in, extremes can be part of the existing play experience. Now maybe using the heart of a star or bowels of a fire god are beyond the realm of practical play (but hey, this _is_ a fantasy game), but what about a 3E giant wading through a pool of lava (not an unlikely hazard when facing fire giants) or the breath weapon of a Red Great Wyrm (24d10 fire)? Just how "immune" should a creature of flesh and blood with "immunity to fire" be? It's going to be a matter of personal taste for a DM, but with resistances, at least they can set the threshold to something they feel makes sense.

I was also pointing out that 4E seems to have followed this path, and taken alot of these immunities out and replaced them with differing levels of resistance.

For instance, red dragons are no longer immune to fire in 4E. But an ancient red dragon could exist comfortably in his volcano-caverns lair with his Resist 40 fire. However, his fire aura alone would be enough to cook a red dragon wyrmling (Resist 5 fire) to death. 

Fire giants have only Resist 15 fire, while the related - but more elemental in nature - Fire Titans have Resist 30.

Total immunity to fire seems to be reserved for those creatures which could logically exist within a conflagration, such as efreets and pyroclastic dragons.

Looking at the resistances of creatures across various levels, I don't think a feat which allowed a specialist to ignore an amount of resistance equal to their level against their chosen element of specialty would be out of line. Or maybe a feat which gave 5 points of penetration of a select resistance, and then a paragon path which made it equal to the character's level.

I still don't see making resistances into defenses as a good solution - they would either have to be low enough that an attack could still reasonably overcome it, thus making the creature still fairly vulnerable to its own natural environment, or high enough to allow it to live where one would expect, which would then basically change it from "resistant" to "immune" when it comes to attacks by the players using that element, with the exception of the occasional critical.

I also don't see the "just make attacks untyped" approach. Not only does it really break down some of the few remaining simulationist aspects of the game ("I can do full damage to a fire elemental with my fireball, because all instances of the word 'fire' in this sentence are just fluff."), but it chops out huge chunks of potential design space for powers, items and creatures.


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## Primal (Feb 27, 2009)

Sir Brennen said:


> For instance, red dragons are no longer immune to fire in 4E. But an ancient red dragon could exist comfortably in his volcano-caverns lair with his Resist 40 fire. *However, his fire aura alone would be enough to cook a red dragon wyrmling (Resist 5 fire) to death.*




I wonder how those wyrmlings ever get to hatch and grow up, if their parents kill them by their mere presence?


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## Sir Brennen (Feb 27, 2009)

Primal said:


> I wonder how those wyrmlings ever get to hatch and grow up, if their parents kill them by their mere presence?



We're talkin' Ancient red here... probably well past his breeding years.


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## Ourph (Feb 27, 2009)

Leatherhead said:


> I was going to suggest something along the lines of differing magnitudes of elemental power but then I had an epiphany:
> 
> It dosn't matter if a fire giant can fall through a star, PC's aren't giants, or stars for that matter. It dosn't matter if the god of fire can snuff out a fire elemental with its fire breath, PC's aren't the gods of fire or fire elementals.



This!  One of the things I love about the "tone" of 4e is that it gets away from taking standard, workable, rules and redesigning them to prevent or "correct" ridiculous corner cases that nobody really cares about when they sit down to play.  Nobody's dog ever died because at one DM's table a fire giant falls into a star and dies, while at another DM's table, the fire giant survived due to fire immunity. It just doesn't matter enough to worry about.  Let the DM make the call and get on with the game.


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## Grazzt (Feb 28, 2009)

Oni said:


> Ugh, I really dislike his suggestions on replacing resistance.  You go from caster X being screwed over to caster X screwing over the whole party, sounds like it would make the situation even worse than before.




agreed


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## Shroomy (Feb 28, 2009)

Primal said:


> I wonder how those wyrmlings ever get to hatch and grow up, if their parents kill them by their mere presence?




Creatures with auras can drop or reactivate them as a minor action.


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