Monster Undead and Vulnerabilities

[ravenheart]

I have a confession: I'm not too keen on resistances and vulnerabilities. Especially not vulnerabilities and the way it unbalances damage types - in particular radiant and necrotic.

I did a quick check on the compendium to see how many creatures I could find containing the words "vulnerable" and "vulnerable radiant", with and without specifying the "undead" keyword. Here's what I found:


All creatures = 2995 entries

"Vulnerable" = 545 entries (18.2% of all)

"Vulnerable radiant" = 394 entries (13.2% of all, 72.2% of vulnerable)

"Vulnerable" with "undead" keyword = 360 (12% of all, 66.1% of vulnerable)

"Vulnerable radiant" with "undead" keyword = 346 (11.6% of all, 96.1% of vulnerable with undead keyword, 87.8% of vulnerable radiant)


Ok, this is hardly news to anyone. Neither is the fact that most undead that are vulnerable to radiant are equally resistant to radiant. What I wonder is what the designers intent was when creating the radiant and necrotic damage types. Because as it is it's just plain boring.

Radiant was probably conceived to correlate with divine energy, which makes sense as long as it's radiant damage coming from divine PC's. But what about the classic Color Spray or Prismatic Orb, for instance? Nothing about that screams divine, yet radiant sound proper - and for some reason they are more deadly against most undead?

Dire Radiance is also a good example; a non-divine at-will power that does radiant damage, flavored with a hint of starry madness, and apparently it's exceptionally deadly against undead, most of which could be described as insane or no-brain anyway? WTF?

I do concede the point that undead are generally, vampires in particular, shy to light. But why should they, except for perhaps said vampires, take more damage (although it's an abstraction) from radiant attacks? Why would bright, piercing light suddenly make zombies decompose faster or pulverize skeletons? If anything, I'd say it should leave them temporarily vulnerable (in another way) to attacks in general.

Therefore, to get to the purpose of this post and the reason it's placed in the house rules forums, I propose a minor adjustment to the way that radiant vulnerability works on (most) undead creatures:

The radiant vulnerability is reduced by 5 points. In exchange they gain a rider vulnerability.

Likewise, to improve the potency of necrotic attacks against undead, follow this recipe (which generates more damage, but simultaneously empowers the undead):

The necrotic resistance is reduced by 10 points (not below 0). In exchange they gain a resistance rider.

Well, I hope I haven't beaten too much on this dead-ish horse. But I'd like some commentary. Too fiddly? Not a good enough reason to go through all this trouble? Unbalanced in some way?

EDIT: Don't trust the numbers too much, I think the compendium might be lying. Just so you know...

[sfedi]

I kind of share your feelings.

What I don't get is how a monster that has Vulnerability Radiant 5 and Resist Necrotic 5 is balanced against a monster with no Vulnerabilities and Resistances.

It's not.

Maybe been Immune to Necrotic and been accompained with monsters that do Necrotic area damage would be balanced, but that's an extremely specific scenario.

Going more to the point of the OP, the only problem I see with the Necrotic Absorption is the temptation to put a minionthat does necrotic damage hitting an undead ally to give him +2 hit +2 damage, which doesn't feel right (although it's balanced).

[eamon]

Maybe the vulnerability to radiant was intended to balance otherwise more powerful creatures? Certainly two powerful creatures that spring to my mind (wraiths, chillborn) are undead.

Several divine classes not only have radiant damage but also extra special nasty powers vs. undead specifically.

So, I'd say undead have a bit of a special spot in terms of resistances, vulnerabilites and balance. I mean, clearly a monster group that has class features specifically targeting them can't be considered fully normal, balance-wise.

[keterys]

Wraiths and chillborns are broken in their own unique ways, and many groups can't take advantage of a vulnerability while others can completely capitalize on it, so it's a dangerous form of balancing.

Reducing group makeup swing factor is good, so switching things up is probably fine. I kinda wish there were more vulnerabilities, though, rather than inherently less - I'll agree on undead being a horrible example thereof. I do like your CA solution though.

[StAlda]

The only big issue I see is that you REALLY nerf Turn Undead.

[Ltheb Silverfrond]

I think the bigger problem is that Radiant damage is flat out the best damage type, and is super-common.
Every divine character can utilize it at-will, as can pretty much any non-martial class. (Not sure on primal, but Arcane has a couple radiant attacks; Not at-will, but available nontheless)
How many monsters resist Radiant? I think 2 in the first MM (the angels).
And how many are vulnerable to it? Most undead. Granted undead are immune to poison usually, but still.

I think they really aught to balance their damage types better. Fire/Cold are fine. Monsters weak to one are resistant to the other, and both are about in equal number.
Acid/Poison are OK. Poison is cruddy because many things are outright immune. And weaknesses? I wish. Acid is ok, as it is rarely resisted.
Thunder/Lightning? These are commonly found together, making resistance hard.
Psychic damage? Usually deals less damage, but who cares as psychic damage attacks frequently come with alot of 'bad stuff' on a hit. (Daze, Dominate, Stun, Forced Movement)
Necrotic is the worst damage type in the game. Every undead resists it, and they also use it, so the armor that protects against undead protects against this damage type.

Personally, my solution is just to make radiant damage less useful. I have been throwing Radiant-resisting enemies at my party, and it means they must think about their attacks a bit. (Not frequently, but every once in a while)

WotC needs to tone down radiant attack frequency, and make creatures vulnerable to radiant damage less common or have an alternate vulnerability, such as an undead who is pushed 2 squares when hit by radiant attacks, or who is dazed/weakened by radiant. Heck, how about undead who resist radiant damage because thats how evil/powerful they are? (Alternate vulnerabilities, like to fire, would be a good idea here).

[eamon]

Originally Posted by Ltheb Silverfrond

I think the bigger problem is that Radiant damage is flat out the best damage type, and is super-common.
Every divine character can utilize it at-will, as can pretty much any non-martial class. (Not sure on primal, but Arcane has a couple radiant attacks; Not at-will, but available nontheless)
How many monsters resist Radiant? I think 2 in the first MM (the angels).
And how many are vulnerable to it? Most undead. Granted undead are immune to poison usually, but still.

Why do the damage types need to be balanced in the first place? Is there something wrong with having damage types that are inherently more situational than others?

[Mesh Hong]

I've been trying to steer clear of this discussion because it is one of those things that gets more complicated the more you think about it. Sometimes it's easier to just accept something as is and move on.

But where's the fun in that? (I suppose)

To me Resistance to necrotic and vulnerability to radiant is just part of what happens when you stop being true living and become part of the undead. I can justify this as being necrotic energy infusing and empowering you (granting you resistance) and radiant energy (as the opposite force) disrupting and scalding you.

Now there is nothing new in that, it is just how it works.

Ok now we have got that out of the way lets consider the undead in general. The undead are an iconic element of the D&D experience, they are also something that an adventuring group can encounter anywhere from levels 1-30, "Undead" is perhaps the broadest and most common creature archetype in the game. For something that broad you need a common reliable theme that binds vastly different individual creatures together. Resistance and Vulnerability is a broad brush way of doing that, it is short hand for:

"Its a (level 25) zombie! It's probably roughly similar to that (level 3) zombie we fought when we went down the old abandoned well back in Little Hampton. Do you remember him, he was a nasty bugger. Didn't he try to eat our brains? I remember that he didn't like [Radiant keyword attack], hit him with [New uber level 25 Radiant keyword attack]."

So consistant resistance and vulnerability builds a coherent theme, and a coherant theme is the glue that binds a coherent world.

So (and I realise I am rambling like a fool), I think that the resistance and vulnerability concept is completely justified and a good approach for general creature design.

Getting back to your main original point. You propose changing the way that resistance and vulnerability work for most undead, changing it to Light Aversion and Necrotic Absorption.

The radiant vulnerability is reduced by 5 points. In exchange they gain a rider vulnerability.
Light Aversion; whenever hit by a radiant attack, the creature grants combat advantage until the end of its next turn.

The necrotic resistance is reduced by 10 points (not below 0). In exchange they gain a resistance rider.
Necrotic Absorption; whenever the creature takes necrotic damage, it gains a +2 bonus to attack rolls and defenses until the end of its next turn.

Light Aversion - This is OK, but slightly harder to keep track of (CA) and not removing all the vulnerability. So for creatures with more than 5 vulnerability this is a lot worse than just taking a little extra damage. It is taking extra damage and taking a -2 penalty to defences, and openning up more damage from attacks that key off combat advantage.

Necrotic Absorption - This is a can of worms open to abuse. Admittedly abuse by the you as the DM by proxy through evil necromancers that have burst powers that deal small amounts of necrotic damage, or have necrotic auras. Giving a +2 bonus to attacks and defences is the equivalent of increasing the creature by 2 levels, its a pretty big deal.

Please don't get me wrong, I think both of these alternate vulnerability and resistance effects are great. But really only for special case creatures, a lot of the time I think you might be better served with the system as it stands. Using the above sparingly would make for a nice twist to keep your PCs on their toes.

To further elaborate, any monster is at base a big bag of HPs. The extra damage from radiant vulnerability is your friend, players love dealing extra damage (clerics expect to power through undead) so it keeps them happy and makes them feel powerful. Characters with necrotic powers are usually accepting that those powers are weaker against the undead.

If you are using a lot of undead in an undead themed game then you just have to create special case creatures that challenge "the norm", but I would argue that you still need "the norm" in order to add excitement and interest to "the special".

I regularly have standard creatures that are resistant to radiant or vulnerable to necrotic. In fact intelligent enemies that are aware of my PCs are more likely to have radiant resistance if they can get it, because the group includes a powerful paladin and cleric. I also use a lot of "standard spec" undead, and the cleric powers through them with his massive radiant burst attacks and turn undead (which he can sometimes use up to 3 times an encounter!).

Who am I to steal my players thunder? Let them toast most of the undead, it keeps them chugging towards the powerful undead who are far more interesting.

Additional:
Things I have done recently while the party were in teh shadowfell.

1: I had turn resistant ghosts that gained a +3 bonus to defences against channel divinity powers
2: I had shadowfell empowered minions that had resistance 5 against all attacks (pre rod of corruption errata - to stop the warlock from auto killing them with curse damage)

I would say that it is these additional occasional tweeks that make encounters interesting in a way that a blanket change wouldn't.

[Ltheb Silverfrond]

Originally Posted by eamon

Why do the damage types need to be balanced in the first place? Is there something wrong with having damage types that are inherently more situational than others?

The problem I find is that radiant damage is the best kind of damage. Next to nothing resists it, and tons of things are vulnerable to it. Compare to Force: Nothing really resists it, but nothing is vulnerable to it, either. Or untyped damage. Same deal. And since damage types 'stack', adding radiant to any string of damage types makes the attack instantly 100% better.

So, yes, I totally agree; Some damage types should be good in certain situations, while others should be good more often. I just feel radiant damage is not just good 'often', but rather 'All the time without fail to the point that other damage types are meaningless if radiant is an option'.

[DreamChaser]

Originally Posted by Ltheb Silverfrond

The problem I find is that radiant damage is the best kind of damage. Next to nothing resists it, and tons of things are vulnerable to it. Compare to Force: Nothing really resists it, but nothing is vulnerable to it, either. Or untyped damage. Same deal. And since damage types 'stack', adding radiant to any string of damage types makes the attack instantly 100% better.

So, yes, I totally agree; Some damage types should be good in certain situations, while others should be good more often. I just feel radiant damage is not just good 'often', but rather 'All the time without fail to the point that other damage types are meaningless if radiant is an option'.

It also only very rarely has any conditions or riders. Fire commonly does ongoing damage. Cold slows or immobilizes, psychic dominates, dazes, etc, thunder slides or pushes, but radiant generally just does it's thing.

While I admit that a radiant heavy group will mow through an undead heavy campaign, they will find that they are less effective against other monsters and less able to take advantage of other weaknesses.

In past editions, clerics shone during undead fights and then were walking bandages with a mace. Now they can do super well in undead fights, and easily hold their own in all other fights. This is in part because radiant is so broadly effective.

DC

[keterys]

Radiant often dazes and blinds, does additional damage if the target attacks, slides, gives bonuses to allies, etc.

Radiant is the standard damage type for several divine classes. It's got _all_ the bases covered.

And it's not less effective against other monsters, unless you're talking about angels specifically. And I find those don't really come up that often.

[eamon]

I still don't see the issue with having some asymmetry in the damage types.

Poison damage is pretty terrible for instance, and necrotic isn't the best either. But so what? That's just yet another balancing factor to keep in mind.

Balance between players is important. PC-monster balance is important to keep the rewards sane and encounter building simple. Monster-monster balance is important to keep the DM sane. Damage type balance? That doesn't intrinsically matter.

You could argue that it's bad for player balance or PC-monster balance, say - but I'm not seeing those arguments being made here.

Disregarding the undead, I don't find radiant to be that brilliant. And most powers prescribe a particular damage type; so this isn't a choice in the first place; it's just one of the factors contributing to the choice. Having perfect symmetry in such choice factors merely makes the game uniform - and boring, as far as I can tell.

[keterys]

The main oddity at the moment is that you have a sharply different experience throwing most undead against a radiant-ish party vs a not. It's very easy to have a party that deals no radiant, for example, while there are other parties that _all_ deal radiant, and even have multiple Solar Enemy channels to spike it even further.

Throw a group of wraiths against both, and the balance guesses end up all over the place.

[Starfox]

I kind of like how good radiant damage is. it keeps the "evil is cool" faction in check. Yes, sure you can be the darikitty-dark of gothdom, but you'll be dealing crappy necrotic damage. And you will be just as weak against the powers of darkness as you thought you would be against these masters of the night. Besides, I like Lovecraftian mad starlocks a lot better than goth darklocks.

If you do want to balance these damage types, I'd do it the opposite way the OP proposes. I'd grant undead a bonus after being hit with radiant damage, but make necrotic damage give them a penalty and/or slow them. The rationale? Desperation when faced with the powers of divine vengeance and complacency in the face of the "peace and comfort" of death. Maybe even make necrotic blind undead - sure you cannot harm them, but you can pass them by.

[jstomel]

I think that radiant damage is definitely the most useful damage type. To my mind this is a balancing factor. Many divine classes (specifically the paladin and avenger) would be somewhat underpowered were it not for the fact that radiant damage is so dang useful. Ditto for the starlock. Cleric is another matter, but dealing with overpowered clerics is practically a tradition in D&D. I haven't worked enough with the invoker to know how it measures up. When I have a radiant heavy party I either don't put them against undead or I put them against lots of undead and up the level of encounters by 2 or 3.

[keterys]

I've got a 14th paladin in one game whose at-will deals 1d12+27 radiant and slowed (and nothing special for a +3 weapon) and his divine challenge is 14 radiant. I don't think he really needs the help I mean, my 14th barbarian hits for less damage (7 less at-will, 3.5 less on a charge).

[jstomel]

Originally Posted by keterys

I've got a 14th paladin in one game whose at-will deals 1d12+27 radiant and slowed (and nothing special for a +3 weapon) and his divine challenge is 14 radiant. I don't think he really needs the help I mean, my 14th barbarian hits for less damage (7 less at-will, 3.5 less on a charge).

How's the build on that one work? I admit that I'm not completely up to speed with the material in Divine Power.

[keterys]

Actually, I think he only has a couple feats from divine power for +3 damage on his at-will and +Str to his divine challenge. He's using Holy Strike (+Wis against marked) and a paragon path (Son of Mercy?) that adds Wis against a marked target and slows it.

So against a marked target, he adds his Wis twice and slows on hit. His base damage is 1d12+14, +3 for Holy Strike, +5 (Wis) * 2 = +27

[jstomel]

Hmmm... So you must have a +6 strength and two handed weapon. Am I correct in assuming that you went for a weak Cha in order to optimize for high Str and Wis?

[keterys]

That is the standard Str-based paladin build, yes.