D&D 4E 4e Keyword fixes - please discuss

[Arlough]

I have been looking at the keywords in 4e lately after it was pointed out to me how poison, due to it being both a damage and effect delivery method keyword, is disproportionately weak due to many immunities. I made a list of the keywords for damage and the keywords for effects, and only two cross over between the groups.
So I propose the following changes
[list = 1]
[*]Poison is now an effect delivery.
[*]Toxic is a new damage keyword to replace poison as a damage type
[*]Psychic is now an effect delivery
[*]Mental is a new damage type to replace Psychic
[/list]
And here is the part that I image will get me in the most trouble:

• Immunity is for effect delivery only
• Resistance is for damage types only

This would leave the damage types as:

• Acid
• Cold
• Fire
• Force
• Lightning
• Mental
• Necroitc
• Radiant
• Thunder
• Toxic
• Water

And the effect types as thus:

• Charm
• Disease
• Fear
• Gaze
• Healing
• Illusion
• Poison
• Polymorph
• Psychic
• Sleep
• Teleportation
• Zone

The way that I look at it, not being able to take part in a battle is un-fun. I don't want an un-fun experience, so everything will be able to take damage. Now, for certain situations, the amount of damage that would have to be dealt would be prohibitive, so if you really want your creature to be immune to fire, give him resistance equal to his bloodied value. And while zombies may be immune to poison effects, they should have only a high resistance to Toxic so the guy who takes the druid paragon path of the snake whatever can still participate in the fight.

What do you think?

 

[aurance]

It's actually not a bad idea to separate out Effects and Damage. On a theoretical level I think this is good.

However has this actually been a problem in your game? If you don't see it in-game often I wouldn't bother with it.

 

[Siberys]

I agree with most of the post, except two things;

1) Why the psychic/mental break? Psychic doesn't have the same issues poison does.

2) I don't like the immunities only affecting effect types. There should be, for example, 'immune fire'. Unless there was formatting for resists as 'resist all fire' or something.

 

[Arlough]

It's actually not a bad idea to separate out Effects and Damage. On a theoretical level I think this is good.

However has this actually been a problem in your game? If you don't see it in-game often I wouldn't bother with it.

I haven't seen it often, but I have seen it. Mostly, I want to have a codified ruling down, so my players can make informed decisions rather than having to guess on the outcome of events. So really, this is just a preemptive permanent ruling.

I agree with most of the post, except two things;

1) Why the psychic/mental break? Psychic doesn't have the same issues poison does.

2) I don't like the immunities only affecting effect types. There should be, for example, 'immune fire'. Unless there was formatting for resists as 'resist all fire' or something.

1) Psychic/mental - I have not encountered the same issue with psychic/mental as I have with poison, but the way the keyword entry reads is very similar. So I made that break under the assumption that it is out there somewhere and I just have not yet come across it. I figured that so long as I was doing the work of sorting them, I may as well try to address all the issues at once. Perhaps this is not necessary.

2) There are two parts to my argument here, the mechanics and function side, and the cinematic feel side.
Mechanics and Function

Shortly after the release of 4th, they changed the rules for resistance to favor the attacker. I think this was, in large part, to avoid the golf-bag-of-weapons issue we had in 3.x from repeating itself. But immunity, unlike resistance, was never updated for this new paradigm. Immunity only requires you be immune to one keyword to be immune to the whole attack. So if something is immune to cold damage, and I hit it with an attack that has the keywords Acid, Cold, Fire, Lightning, Radiant it will still take no damage because of the Cold immunity. But if the immunity is changed to a very large resistance, then that amazing level 20 daily attack still works because it has all those extra keywords dealing damage as well. I really think this was an oversight, and that if you have a multi-element attack (very rare) you should be able to still use it.​

Cinematic Feel

I am not a big fan of hard caps on things. I want my player to, if they have the resources, burn away the life force of Efreet Fireblade, they can. It would just be so difficult that if they were it would be for story reasons. So I would give that Efreet Fireblade a resist to fire of twice its level, so Resist 44 fire, any they would have to out fire the fire elemental to kill it. (Which would be awesomely cinematic if they managed to do so.)​

Do you think these reasons are, well, reasonable?

 

[Sorenson]

So if something is immune to cold damage, and I hit it with an attack that has the keywords Acid, Cold, Fire, Lightning, Radiant it will still take no damage because of the Cold immunity.

I don't think this is the case though. The definition of immunity in the Rules Compendium (pg.225) says:

If a creature is immune to a damage type (such as cold or fire), it doesn't take that type of damage.

It doesn't say anything about negating the entire attack. Granted dual damage source attacks are indeed rare so it may have been an over site. However I would interpret that to mean if hit with a combination cold/shadow power and the target is immune to cold it would still take the damage as shadow damage.

 

[ceiling90]

So how would you rule that?

If a creature has Immunity Cold, it's hit with a Necrotic/Cold attack, the damage is inherently cold and necrotic. Is it half damage? Does it take full damage? No damage? It's actually a question I never wondered about until now. But how does it work?

I guess his reasoning pretty much answers this question, so that if the creature had cold resist x it would resist part of the damage, versus just not being effected or being completely effected...

Also anyone want to refresh me on how resistances work again?

 

[Sorenson]

I would rule full damage. That's how resistance works as well. If you have resist 5 fire and are hit with a 10 damage fire/necrotic attack you take 10 points of damage since you have no resistance to the necrotic damage.

 

[aurance]

1) Psychic/mental - I have not encountered the same issue with psychic/mental as I have with poison, but the way the keyword entry reads is very similar. So I made that break under the assumption that it is out there somewhere and I just have not yet come across it. I figured that so long as I was doing the work of sorting them, I may as well try to address all the issues at once. Perhaps this is not necessary.

Mm, as far as I can tell psychic is the damage keyword attached to effects like charm / fear / dominate.

 

[Arlough]

Mm, as far as I can tell psychic is the damage keyword attached to effects like charm / fear / dominate.

Then that one I will drop. I was merely working under the pretext that it was similar enough to poison (in the glossary) that it may have similar issues.
Thanks for checking for me.

Finally got someone with a current subscription to look up Immune for me Here goes...

Immune

A creature that is immune to a damage type (such as cold or fire), a condition (such as dazed or petrified), or another specific effect (such as disease or forced movement) is not affected by it. A creature that is immune to charm, fear, illusion, poison, or sleep is not affected by the nondamaging effects of a power that has that keyword. A creature that is immune to gaze is not affected by powers that have that keyword.​

Not implying that Sorenson was wrong, I just hoped that there was more text that could clarify this issue. Unfortunately, this fails to do so.

I don't think this is the case though. The definition of immunity in the Rules Compendium (pg.225) says:

If a creature is immune to a damage type (such as cold or fire), it doesn't take that type of damage.

It doesn't say anything about negating the entire attack. Granted dual damage source attacks are indeed rare so it may have been an over site. However I would interpret that to mean if hit with a combination cold/shadow power and the target is immune to cold it would still take the damage as shadow damage.

So how would you rule that?

If a creature has Immunity Cold, it's hit with a Necrotic/Cold attack, the damage is inherently cold and necrotic. Is it half damage? Does it take full damage? No damage? It's actually a question I never wondered about until now. But how does it work?

I guess his reasoning pretty much answers this question, so that if the creature had cold resist x it would resist part of the damage, versus just not being effected or being completely effected...

Also anyone want to refresh me on how resistances work again?

I would rule full damage. That's how resistance works as well. If you have resist 5 fire and are hit with a 10 damage fire/necrotic attack you take 10 points of damage since you have no resistance to the necrotic damage.

So, basically, immunity to damage types becomes, effectively, Resist all? I find that totally acceptable. I would still use it rarely, but I am okay with it conceptually.

In fact, what about that solution. Immunity is to effects, resistance is to damage, and resistance can even go all the way up to Resist All?
Poison would still be an effect, but toxic would be a damage type.
Psychic goes back to being just a damage type. Mental goes away again.
Does that sound acceptable?

 

[aurance]

I think this sounds pretty good.