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Dwarf and poison.

Minigiant

Legend
Supporter
+10 instead of immunity.
Otherwise even the god of poison can not harm a level 1 dwarf.
Thats ridiculous

Well it depends.

The Poison deity might have a special ability that bypasses poison immunity.

Or

The poison immunity might be because the Dwarf deity hates the Poison deity and blessed his people against it.

Depends of the setting.
 

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Leatherhead

Possibly a Idiot.
+10 instead of immunity.
Otherwise even the god of poison can not harm a level 1 dwarf.
Thats ridiculous

Why would a level 1 dwarf be fighting a god? It's like chucking a fire elemental into the sun, not really part of the purview of the core experience. I don't think there was even a proper god to fight in 4e.

Furthermore, why would a god have one portfolio and only one damage type? Must be a homebrew setting, which means it would have to be adjudicated by the DM anyway.


Why is it ok for elves to be immune to something, but not dwarves? The god of sleep cannot harm a level one elf! Heck, that immunity has been around quite some time too.

And besides, how do you let dwarves drink booze like humans drink water if they aren't immune to it's adverse effects?
 

Dragoslav

First Post
Dwarves' beards soak all the poison out of their bloodstreams.

After the battle, they just have to wring out their beards (also an effective way for rogues to procure poison for later use)
 

ferratus

Adventurer
Poison comes up rarely enough (once every other play session at most) that poison immunity isn't very likely to be game-breaking.

As for dwarf kings being poisoned in the past, I concur that if one shows up dead by poison that it is an intriguing mystery, not an irreconcilable problem. A king being poisoned in a fantasy setting is mundane, but a dwarf being poisoned is news.

I especially like that if dwarves are immune to poison, they won't take any precautions to protect their king from a poison plot. So if a king does wind up poisoned, it takes extraordinary means to track down the killer.

Actually, this reminds me of the novel Cormyr, where King Azoun was poisoned. How do you poison a king who has wizards and clerics at his beck and call that can undo any assassination attempt? There, they had magic dead zones around the toxin (or virus I forget) forcing the mages to leech him, teleport the blood to another container, and give him blood transfusions of his own blood.
 
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Stalker0

Legend
+10 instead of immunity.
Otherwise even the god of poison can not harm a level 1 dwarf.
Thats ridiculous

This is when I think a sprinkle of the old 4e exception based design does wonders here.

Of course the god of poison can poison a dwarf....because he is a god, which tends to override things like pesky little racial traits.

I too find the immunities solid and refreshing, because these aren't widescale immunities. Poison comes up, but certainly not all the time.
 

DEFCON 1

Legend
Supporter
+10 instead of immunity.
Otherwise even the god of poison can not harm a level 1 dwarf.
Thats ridiculous

Or the DM just decides that the God of Poison doesn't use regular old poison, and that dwarves aren't actually immune to Deity-Made-Super-Poison.

If your players actually balk at that... tell them to get over themselves, the little whiners-- it's a fricking GOD.
 

keterys

First Post
If you're going to just sidestep immunities, from the get go, then make the immunity just to lesser poisons or whatever.

There was a very serious issue with immunity-counterimmunity-countercounter in previous editions, and it all starts with handing out immunity too easily. If dwarves are resistant to poison and have advantage to saves against it, they're already in very good shape -AND- it means you can add something more proactive or interesting to them.

I'll admit, I'd love to see less pure defensive stuff in the races. At least the halfling's stealth - while defensive - is more active defense.
 

FinalSonicX

First Post
Dwarven poison immunity will be the first thing I houserule and I'm amazed that it made it into the game. People say it's equivalent to Elven immunity to sleep and charms but I don't think that's true because IME poison is more common than sleep/charm effects, and I STILL believe that elven immunity is a bad idea.

Immunity should not be presented to players at level 1 for just about anything, unless they're playing some oddball race that logically should be immune to something.

I thought we learned this game design lesson a while ago towards the end of 3.5 - immunity is a bad idea. We end up having to justify the corner cases or find hand-waiving workarounds ("well the god of poison can poison a dwarf because - because they're a god! I guess?"), and it ends up limiting the stories we can tell. Where in the lore have dwarves been prototypically presented as altogether immune to poison? I can't find that anywhere I look in fantasy fiction. Why are we throwing this in instead of just a hefty +10 or advantage on poison saves? That would be quite useful but still make poison dangerous.

Furthermore, there's the issue of the dwarven poison immunity leading to darves abusing their immunity by utilizing poisons to a great extent - that surely clashes with the view of a lot of people and how dwarves "work".

My games and worlds often employ poison - rendering a core race simply immune to it may negatively impact my games and my playstyle. For a game that's supposedly all about unification - WotC seems to be intent on including a lot of pointlessly divisive stuff.
 

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