Dwarf and poison.

[Minigiant]

Probably because poison is a much more common threat to PCs than sleep and charm. I bet that the small bonus traditionally given to elves against those threats rarely comes in games (how many things have charm and sleep? Ogre Mage used to have sleep, several fey had charm... probably an order of magnitude less than poison based threats!)

Cheers

Pretty much.

Many DMs use a lot of vermin, snakes, poison traps, and assassins.
Few use wizards, fey, or ogre magi/oni with sleep or charm person.

Sleep and Charm spells are mostly a PC weapon for most groups. Poison has been traditional a monster/enemy tool.

Frankly if i can go 5 levels with seeing a giant bug or reptile with poison, I would not be upset at all.

 

[keterys]

I dislike immunity on both races - equal opportunity disliker of mechanics I think will do bad things to the system

Sean's article is a good one. Folks should read it before they declare pro-immunity.

I'm okay with fire elementals being immune to fire - but don't feel a need for red dragons, fire giants, or hell hounds to be. Flesh golems and Iron golems _really_ shouldn't be immune to flesh or iron respectively. And, at the end of the day, whether fire elementals are immune to fire is largely a function of how you conceptually construct them and some limitations of the magic system - like fireball is an explosion of fire. It should impact on other fires in the area, with its concussive explosion, removal of oxygen, burning of available materials, etc. But D&D's a little simpler than that.

And all that said, dwarves aren't poison elementals. There's no justification for being immune, when advantage (double rolling) saves and resistance (half damage) are already defined and quite effective.

Elves shouldn't be immune to charm. That's silly. I don't understand why people love elves who don't sleep, so I'd be happy for them to also not be immune to sleep - and also to just go ahead and sleep regularly, but I'll admit I care a lot less.

 

[ferratus]

I'm not convinced that dwarf immunity is the big problem everyone is making it out to be, possibly because I think it would lead to fun. I like the idea of dwarves never falling down drunk or hungover, of being able to eat poisonous things for flavouring, and not really minding if they spring a poison needle trap. A bonus is just a bonus, but an immunity is a defining feature.

I'm not convinced that the fan resistance to making a dwarf immune to poison is based on what would make the game more fun, but simply adherence to the tradition of dwarves being resistant.

I mean, if you take problematic immunities in the game, a paladin's at-will detect evil essentially making him immune to the deceptions of evil, is a far bigger problem than a dwarf being immune to poison. But I have a feeling that most of the people arguing about dwarf immunities would support at-will paladin detect evil.

So I guess it all depends where your tolerances are.

 

[Paraxis]

I don't like any immunity abilities either.

I do love the advantage system and want it used more, I would give dwarves advantage against poison. Elves the same thing vs charms and sleep.

 

[Derren]

Sean K. Reynolds wrote a nice piece a while back as to why absolute mechanics, particularly immunities, are stupid. It's still true. Just give them a save bonus and be done with it.

Read it and found it lacking.

"Oh no, A fire giant can fall through a star and survive!!! Thats so silly!!!!" (except that he would be crushed by the gravity, die from radiation or suffocate)

"Oh no, our real world security measures do not work in a fictional, magical world!!! Thats so silly!!!!"

"Oh no, a spell which only function is to defeat invisibility defeats invisibility!!! Thats so silly!!!!"

I do not see complains about us humans, beings of flesh and blood, being totally immune to water. Ok, we can still drown or being crushed by water pressure but the same thing can happen to a Fire Giant with fire.
And when wizards could defeat locks easily they would simply not (only) use locks for security. Its as simple as that.
And lastly, some things simply do work in absolutes. A Geiger counter detects radiation, see invisibility detects invisibility.

 

[Gorgoroth]

this is

awesome. I love Dwarves, this just made me play them all that much more!

And don't complain so much, in PF my dwarf had spell resistance! that was very powerful.

Q) Can Dwarves still be trained to "taste" poison? Even though they are immune?

If so, all of a sudden, there's a dwarf in every king's hall, eating with the king and accumulating and sharing lore of treasure-filled caves and long-forgotten mines. That is cool. Often used as taster slaves in drow cities, old and crotchety and abused, waiting to be saved. But dwarf slaves are very expensive, because their kin will hunt down anyone who uses them as such.

I hate piddly save mechanics. Give 'em immunity or give a race with a useful ability. This is full of win IMO.

More awesome, less tedious math and slow-down, let-down dice rolling. Immunity : bam, done. It's hard to get excited over a flat bonus, or even "advantage". Wooo, you get advantage to one roll out of every thousand that you do. Big whoop. Let's say there's a pool of poisonous liquid with a lever at the bottom, but a normal character would need a few saves to go in. If dwarves only had advantage, they'd probably bite the bullet anyway.

This allows cool stories not otherwise possible without wizards or taking center stage again:

"Hey, Ragnar, you rush out of the protection area from this spell into the poisoned gas room, find a way to disarm it, flip the lever, then we'll come around from this other way to lend assistance to whatever else is in there. But hurry!! our magic air bubble is running out. The rogue will try to give you some tips on how to disactivate the trap mechanics if you can't figure it out, come back to us. But hurry!! You're our only hope."

dwarf. fighter. awesome
dwarf. rogue. awesome and viable
dwarves in general : you now want one in every group.

I played many campaigns in various editions that didn't have a single dwarf in it.

 

[Derren]

If so, all of a sudden, there's a dwarf in every king's hall, eating with the king and accumulating and sharing lore of treasure-filled caves and long-forgotten mines. That is cool. Often used as taster slaves in drow cities, old and crotchety and abused, waiting to be saved. But dwarf slaves are very expensive, because their kin will hunt down anyone who uses them as such.

Why? Whats more effective, a taster who has to taste poison out of whatever drink or meal he eats/drinks or a taster who drops dead when there is poison in it?

 

[Stalker0]

One thing I noticed is that the medusa doesn't have a save on her poison damage, at least not directly. You have a dex save to avoid the attack, and then take regular damage + poison.

So dwarven poison resistance to saves would not work in this instance....unless you want to rule that I get advantage to DEXTERITY saves against poison as well.

 

[Stalker0]

And don't complain so much, in PF my dwarf had spell resistance! that was very powerful.

That is a point, 3.5 dwarves got bonuses to all magic saves, that is way stronger than poison immunity.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Read it and found it lacking.

"Oh no, A fire giant can fall through a star and survive!!! Thats so silly!!!!" (except that he would be crushed by the gravity, die from radiation or suffocate)

"Oh no, our real world security measures do not work in a fictional, magical world!!! Thats so silly!!!!"

"Oh no, a spell which only function is to defeat invisibility defeats invisibility!!! Thats so silly!!!!"

I do not see complains about us humans, beings of flesh and blood, being totally immune to water. Ok, we can still drown or being crushed by water pressure but the same thing can happen to a Fire Giant with fire.
And when wizards could defeat locks easily they would simply not (only) use locks for security. Its as simple as that.
And lastly, some things simply do work in absolutes. A Geiger counter detects radiation, see invisibility detects invisibility.

Again, you're going for the extreme example and missing the point. Is it reasonable that only rogues can find and disable traps? No. Is it reasonable that Knock automatically opens all locks? No. Is it reasonable to have a dwarf, a living creature, be completely immune to all poisons? No.