4e Fan Creations and House RulesWorking on variant powers? Statting up a PC race or your version of a monster? Creating or converting an adventure? Put it here!
The problem is discussed elsewhere. Here is the thread for solutions!
Suggestions...
1) Ban potions outright
2) Make them exotic (players can't buy or create them)
3) Increase their price
Myself I'm inclined to view the idea that a high level potion should grant a higher resistance as fundamentally flawed.
Resistance 5 might not stop as much of the incoming damage at Epic level as it does at Heroic. But at Epic level you have a truckload of hit points and several mind-boggling tricks up your sleeve.
I am postulating that resistance 5 is about as (very) valuable at Epic level as it is at Heroic level. This makes the Adventurer's Vault potions egregious errors in my book.
4) Instead, a Potion of Resistance should always grant resistance 5. The (much) higher price at Epic level should instead be motivated by it granting Epic Resistance, while the heroic potion only granting Heroic Resistance.
In other words, the level 4 potion grants resistance 5 that is effective only against monsters of levels 1-10. The level 14 potion grants resistance 5 that is effective only against monsters of levels 1-20. And the level 24 potion grants resistance 5 that is effective against all monsters (or possibly only the ones below level 31, if you feel nasty as a DM).
I recently discussed the subject of resistances from a more generic point of view, but the solutions I proposed could also apply here. My house rule consists on limiting resistances (of any kind) so that they can never prevent more than half the damage dealt by the original attack.
This way, ongoing damage remains relevant, and you will never be able to completely ignore an enemy based on a single energy type. Resistance should still be a very strong mechanic, but it would no longer trivialize encounters.
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I use the same solution Psikus proposes, except that I cap it only for ongoing damage, aura damage, terrain damage, and anything else that I assess as a "source of multiple small hurts". Up-front attacks can be soaked outright. [This lets our fire genasi still feel heroic striding toward fire beetles etc.] Works because an actual attack roll will seldom do direct damage that is so low that it risks being neutralized by resistance. It's all the other little ablatives that are a problem.
Honestly, I'd suggest something like resistance 2 per tier for the potions as the simplest solution. Well, after just banning them, which also totally works.
Course, I'd suggest the same thing for all the other items too. Black Iron at resist 2. Deathcut at resist 2. Etc.
Honestly, I'd suggest something like resistance 2 per tier for the potions as the simplest solution. Well, after just banning them, which also totally works.
Course, I'd suggest the same thing for all the other items too. Black Iron at resist 2. Deathcut at resist 2. Etc.
How much of a problem really are non-consumable resistance granting items? Wearing armor that grants resistance is occupying a spot you could and should use for a better item. Obviously if the resistance granting item is the best thing going, then OK its an overpowered item, but that's true of ANY item of any description.
The horrible part about resistance potions is threefold. They are cheap, they don't occupy a slot, and you can easily tailor the effect to a specific situation by having different ones available. Other items are just MUCH less of a problem, though an item that takes no slot and grants resistance would be more of an issue than armor etc.
The main thing that bothers me about resistance potions though is really the fact that you aren't locked into one energy type. Unless the DM basically throws monsters at you that can constantly switch in the middle of a battle or have alternative types of equally good attacks (or just do all untyped damage all the time) SOME potion is going to nerf part of any given encounter. Reducing the resistance value to 2/4/6 or whatever reduces the problem but doesn't really make it go away.
I kind of like the idea of just saying you can make a resistance potion of ANY level equal or less than your own, but they never work on stuff above that level. The breaks in amount of resistance are still there (or not, perhaps 5 is all you get) but it means epic characters can't walk around gulping heroic level (IE free) potions and getting anything meaningful out of it. Now you want to have an edge against that Ancient Red Dragon? Sorry, you'll need a level 30 fire resist potion for that, a non-trivial cost. Maybe not even worth it if its still 5 points of resistance.
Luckily my players have managed to overlook resistance potions so far, so I haven't actually had any problems (shhhhhh, don't tell them).
How much of a problem really are non-consumable resistance granting items?
When they completely remove the threat of ongoing damage, aura damage, minion damage, and halve or third normal damage?
Pretty big.
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Wearing armor that grants resistance is occupying a spot you could and should use for a better item. Obviously if the resistance granting item is the best thing going, then OK its an overpowered item, but that's true of ANY item of any description.
Yep. And yet, Deathcut armor and Cloaks of Survival, nonetheless.
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Reducing the resistance value to 2/4/6 or whatever reduces the problem but doesn't really make it go away.
Since they cost a surge, it's much easier to make the damage absorbed become equivalent to a surge. And 2 per tier is less than the damage done by almost all auras, ongoing damage, and minions. Sure, there's still some aura 5 and ongoing 5 at epic, but I think I'm okay with the epic potion that costs a real amount of gold and a surge blocking 20-40 damage that way.
I don't think that it's a big deal as everyone seems to think it is. Potions of Resistence are specified by energy type upon creation and you can't have more than one at a time active - and they don't stack with other resistences.
If you have the red dragon mincing about a room filled with lava pits and knocking characters into pens filled with fire beetles, then yeah, you're going to be a bit thwarted as a DM if the party stocked up on Potions of Resistence (Fire).
So get creative and build the encounter with multiple energy types. It's just a change of the descriptor - it'll end up being more challenging and fun that way.
__________________ Life is the game that must be played. ~Edwin Arlington Robinson
Isn't a red dragon in a room filled with lava pits pretty iconic and worth working? Or green dragons and black dragons wherever you put them.
It's quite easy to have multiple resistances covered. The two items I mentioned earlier cover four of the most common: necrotic, poison, fire, and cold, leaving the occasional potion to shore up a gap otherwise (like psychic), but potions are most powerful when doing things like going up against a dragon, devil, undead, etc.
The real question is... what do the potions actually add to the game? I'm not really seeing fun on the Pro list, and I am seeing screwing up encounters on the Con list.
Isn't a red dragon in a room filled with lava pits pretty iconic and worth working? Or green dragons and black dragons wherever you put them.
Absolutely iconic - but with respect, it also means its cliche.
So keep the lava pits and add fumeroles that do a Burst 2 Poison Gas at various points around the room between the pits. Add trembling sections of the room that are not only Difficult Terrain for any non-large creature to traverse, but have falling rocks that pelt the Characters in that area with physical damage. Volcanic geysers may do not only throw scalding water (fire) but may be filled with sulphurous fumes (poison) and be corrosive (acid).
We're DMs - we make the world, we know the Characters resources, so we should have no problem playing to their occasional weaknesses to create a challenge.
__________________ Life is the game that must be played. ~Edwin Arlington Robinson
Indeed, there are all kinds of things you can do to counteract this item.
Or not allow it, or nerf it. That works too.
It is not uncommon for damages to drop by 80% (ie, 5 guys turn into 1 guy) with level appropriate resistance, on many monsters. On others they just drop by half or so. On some minions it just completely neuters them. Either way, it actively makes monsters more boring.
I found the potions of resistance annoying until I started running numbers on damage for monsters. Then I was actually horrified by the impact.
If you wish to make occasional fights where a single element is a key point to the whole thing (like fire in the red dragon lair), anticipate it and create a countereffect and/or assume that any sensible adventurer *will have* a resist potion by boosting the general difficulty of it.
This would mean that in my game the volcano is a special location is likely to give +5 damage to attacks with the fire keyword or reduce fire resistances by 50%, or something similar. In this case I think it is ok, since it is a rare occasion (a dragon fight) and it would be ruined with everyone having fire resist.
On those random situations where a few undead enemies get trashed by the party when they have necrotic resist, who cares? Occasionally letting the characters gear make encounters easy is a good thing. At least they feel like they are getting something out of it.
I found it completely unacceptable that a 50 gp potion can shut down a level 12 Dragon's ongoing damage completely.
For my last campaign, I simply doubled the damage to ongoing 10 (well aware the party would have resistance 5 potions).
I would like to not have to do such a thing in my next campaign; hence this thread.
Adding a few more solutions:
4) reducing resistance 5/10/15 to 2/4/6
5) reducing the capacity of a single potion to absorb damage. In 4E keeping track of point tallys is out, so we do this by limiting the duration of the potion. Each round the potions protects you (at least once); make a save. Failure means the potion's out of resistance, and you need to drink another.
This should make potions less superior, not only because of the action economy (it's at least a minor action to drink another one) but because the cost in healing surges might prove prohibitive.
You could restrict these saves to when you're exposed to several small sources of the damage type (i.e. the situation where a potion is at its most overpoweredness) - save only when you're subject to ongoing damage or when you take more than one typed damage hit in a round.
5) reducing the capacity of a single potion to absorb damage. In 4E keeping track of point tallys is out
Is it really? HPs are still a tally, Temporary HPs are an additional tally, resistance would work quite nicely as another one.
The more I think about it the more I think this could be a good solution.
Potions as they are give resistance 5/10/15.
What if instead they absorbed 20/40/60 damage before the resistance they offered had been used up, just like temporary HPs.
This, to me, seems logical, quantifiable and reliable. No need to up the damage or hold back from using the element in question, the PC gets a tangible benefit that lasts a proportional duration dependant on the source. If anything it will actually add to the excitement of the encounter because it will add an additional expendable resource.
As a DM I would favour this approach because it gives the PCs the edge they are looking for, but it doesn't last for the entire encounter, adding an element of tension.
If you wanted to add further restrictions you could add that only one resistance potion can be consumed between short rests, or state that each additional drinking of a potion in an encounter only grants a cumulative half benefit (i.e. at epic 60, next one 30, next one 15, next one 7)
Additional thought:
With this method you might want to allow for the potion of resistance to stack with any inherant resistance, which could be interesting, or you might rule that the potion removes normal resistance while active.
I do think it would be quite viable to have an absorption pool. If you totally disagree with the concept, you can also combine a couple ideas... like the potion gives resist 2/4/6 for the encounter and you can use (once) an interrupt to reduce the damage of one attack by 20/40/60 damage of the type.
I do think it would be quite viable to have an absorption pool. If you totally disagree with the concept, you can also combine a couple ideas... like the potion gives resist 2/4/6 for the encounter and you can use (once) an interrupt to reduce the damage of one attack by 20/40/60 damage of the type.
Those all seem to be pretty viable ideas. I agree having a pool of points, while its a bit of a pain to track, is interesting as it will add tension. The interrupt idea gives the player some additional options, so that's interesting too. I guess reducing the resistance value WOULD solve the problem though as well (in the vast majority of cases) given the HS cost.
I hate house ruling stuff and I suspect its not a BIG issue to carefully design encounters around the problem, but at the same time it shouldn't really be necessary to un-nerf encounters by design, at least not based on something so readily available as a potion. Eh, well, I guess the other alternative is to just not have resistance potions or make the ingredients really hard to come by. Or up their level so they are always pricey. Not sure if those are good solutions though either and if you're going to house rule seems like you might as well get right at the nut of the problem.
Is it really? HPs are still a tally, Temporary HPs are an additional tally, resistance would work quite nicely as another one.
Yeah, well, having more tallys than hit points and temporary hp doesn't feel very 4E to me.
Besides, you would have not only one additional tally, but one per damage type.
As for the the temp hp comparison; well, on the face of it, the mechanic would seem identical, but only if you forget that different helpings of temp hp doesn't stack.
So you can seldom get significant amounts of temp hp - instead you need to "top up" continuously.
In this regard, the resistance as a tally would work nothing like temp hp.
In summary, no, I don't think 3E-style resistances would mesh well with 4E. Which is why I did not suggest them!
Eh, well, I guess the other alternative is to just not have resistance potions
That would not even be a house rule by the way. Just don't include Adventurer's Vault into your campaign, and you automatically get rid of resistance potions too!
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Originally Posted by AbdulAlhazred
I hate house ruling stuff and I suspect its not a BIG issue to carefully design encounters around the problem, but at the same time it shouldn't really be necessary to un-nerf encounters by design, at least not based on something so readily available as a potion.
I agree - the one thing I dislike more than house rules is having to have house rules...
Another option:
Decrease the resistance by 1 each time it's triggered. The player can choose not to apply the resistance (so that ongoing 1 doesn't eat it all up, for instance)
That makes it much easier to predict the amount of damage, too... cause resist 5 would block up to 15 damage. resist 10 up to 55 damage. So you might end up rejiggering the resists to 6/9/12 or whatever the right target is for your game. (Double an average surge at that level or double a healing potion, frex)
Yeah, well, having more tallys than hit points and temporary hp doesn't feel very 4E to me.
Fair enough.
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Originally Posted by CapnZapp
Besides, you would have not only one additional tally, but one per damage type.
As for the the temp hp comparison; well, on the face of it, the mechanic would seem identical, but only if you forget that different helpings of temp hp doesn't stack.
So you can seldom get significant amounts of temp hp - instead you need to "top up" continuously.
In this regard, the resistance as a tally would work nothing like temp hp.
I think I would probably rule that you could only gain benefit from one potion of resistance between short rests. You could say that the magical energies interfere with each other until the body has fully metabolised them (or some such). This would mean that you would only ever have one resistance tally in any encounter.
This would make the tally simpler than the temporary HP one because it is a value that only goes down and isn't replenished.
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Originally Posted by CapnZapp
In summary, no, I don't think 3E-style resistances would mesh well with 4E. Which is why I did not suggest them!
Again, fair enough.
Having said that though I do think the idea has some merit. (which is why I suggested it! ).
The major benefits I can see over some of the other suggestions are:-
1: Simplicity - Resistance pool that buffers damage (like temporary HPs)
2: EncounterBalance - Does not give blanket resistance for the entire encounter which means that even small amounts of damage are not ineffectual, they all help wear down the resistance to the point where the element damage will be effective. This makes minions and minor ongoing damage useful again and does not trivialise them.
The drawbacks I can see:-
1: SingleEnergyProtection - Does not help with multiple energy damage as they are a different mechanic.
2: DifferentMechanic - This mechanic is slightly different to other mechanics used for PCs, (Though in my opinion it is certainly easier to track than some suggested systems that incorporate making saving throws or reducing the amount of static resistance every time you take damage).
Another option:
Decrease the resistance by 1 each time it's triggered. The player can choose not to apply the resistance (so that ongoing 1 doesn't eat it all up, for instance)
Interesting! Thanks for that option!
I'll probably tweak this to a decrease of -1 per tier per use if I'll use it.
(That is, against paragon monsters the lvl 14 potion goes 10-8-6-4-2. Against epic monsters the same potion would go 10-7-4-1)
Last edited by CapnZapp; 30th October 2009 at 11:43 AM..
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