D&D 5E Rethinking immunities & resistance

[Lost Soul]

I really like the advantage & disadvantage rolls for attacks in D&D5E. It got me thinking about using this for damage rolls also. I think immunities and resistance are lame. If you want to be a fire mage why shouldn't your spells work on devils or fire elementals? They may be subpar but magic is magic after all. Instead of resistance and immunity as described in the DMZG why not just make damage rolls with disadvantage? You cast fireball at a devil or swing a sword at a skeleton. You roll damage twice and take the lesser of the two rolls. Clean, simple & elegant. That way weapon damage types will count again and spells may be suboptimal for classes like fire dragon sorcerers but not useless.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Well, resistance and immunity are two different things. If you just apply disadvantage to both, you are effectively eliminating immunity altogether.

A fire mage can already take a feat that allows them to ignore resistance (but not immunity). If you want a fire mage to be able to harm immune creatures as well, you can always say that the feat downgrades immunity to resistance. Ultimately, harming a creature of living fire (fire elemental) using fire ought to be a seriously sub par option.

My last thought on this is that while it might work for a typical weapon attack, it's a poor choice for something like a fireball. Fireballs use 8d6 or more. Due to all the dice being rolled, the damage will be heavily weighted towards the average. Not only is it a bit of a pain to roll 8d6 twice, but the variance generated is likely to often be quite small. It strikes me as a lot of work for a very minimal penalty.

 

[Bitbrain]

You might be forgetting about the Evocation Wizard's 14th level feature.
Max damage on 1st-5th level spells once per short rest.

Kinda defeats what you're trying to do, if you ask me.

 

[Imaculata]

I would argue that the downside of specializing in one school of magic is just that: You may encounter monsters that are immune or resistant to that type of magic. If you remove that downside, then you make the whole choice of magic school kind of mute. You're basically just another spellcaster at that point.

Besides, a creature that is completely made of fire, spits fire, or lives in frickin' hell, should at least be less vulnerable to fire spells, don't you think? I mean, for crying out loud, a fire elemental has no trouble swimming around in lava... and yet you feel they should still take damage from fire? Why? Because it is unfair to the fire mage that they can't harm this type of creature? Then don't play a fire mage, play a normal mage.

Being limited in what creatures you can harm, is what makes a fire mage interesting to play.

 

[FrogReaver]

I would argue that the downside of specializing in one school of magic is just that: You may encounter monsters that are immune or resistant to that type of magic. If you remove that downside, then you make the whole choice of magic school kind of mute. You're basically just another spellcaster at that point.

Besides, a creature that is completely made of fire, spits fire, or lives in frickin' hell, should at least be less vulnerable to fire spells, don't you think? I mean, for crying out loud, a fire elemental has no trouble swimming around in lava... and yet you feel they should still take damage from fire? Why? Because it is unfair to the fire mage that they can't harm this type of creature? Then don't play a fire mage, play a normal mage.

Being limited in what creatures you can harm, is what makes a fire mage interesting to play.

I don't mind resistance. Immunity is dumb especially as often as it appears in the monster manual for fire. That said it's not the manuals fault. The DM just needs to take ownership and use such creatures sparingly. If we encounter a creature swimming around in lava or something that is engulfed in flames it's a good bet it's fire immune. A few of those creatures in a campaign is fine. But if every creature is immune or resistant to fire and we are not on the fire plane then what the heck was the DM thinking?

 

[robus]

I would argue that the downside of specializing in one school of magic is just that: You may encounter monsters that are immune or resistant to that type of magic. If you remove that downside, then you make the whole choice of magic school kind of mute. You're basically just another spellcaster at that point.

Besides, a creature that is completely made of fire, spits fire, or lives in frickin' hell, should at least be less vulnerable to fire spells, don't you think? I mean, for crying out loud, a fire elemental has no trouble swimming around in lava... and yet you feel they should still take damage from fire? Why? Because it is unfair to the fire mage that they can't harm this type of creature? Then don't play a fire mage, play a normal mage.

Being limited in what creatures you can harm, is what makes a fire mage interesting to play.

Right it's like sending a stream of water at a fish or a blast of air at a bird. You're trying to use their favored element against them - it's just not going to work

 

[Imaculata]

I don't mind resistance. Immunity is dumb especially as often as it appears in the monster manual for fire. That said it's not the manuals fault. The DM just needs to take ownership and use such creatures sparingly. If we encounter a creature swimming around in lava or something that is engulfed in flames it's a good bet it's fire immune. A few of those creatures in a campaign is fine. But if every creature is immune or resistant to fire and we are not on the fire plane then what the heck was the DM thinking?

Now you're arguing against a whole different thing: A DM using nothing but monsters that have the same immunity.

I wouldn't throw only undead in my campaign either, or only oozes. But that doesn't mean immunities don't have their purpose and place. Some monsters should be immune to certain things. A skeleton should be immune to bleeding effects, an ice elemental should be immune to cold and a creature that has no eyes should probably be immune to blindness. It is up to the DM to use these creatures sparingly, and not disadvantage any specific player.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Right it's like sending a stream of water at a fish or a blast of air at a bird. You're trying to use their favored element against them - it's just not going to work

Actually those would work. It's just physical force. A powerful enough jet of water or air would harm a bird or a fish, the same as any other animal.

It's more akin to trying to extinguish a fire with a flamethrower. Or burn something specifically designed to be fire proof.

I'm aware that there are ways to fight fire with fire, but those generally involve using a controlled fire to deprive the uncontrolled fire of fuel. A fire elemental requires no fuel, so that does not apply.

 

[robus]

Actually those would work. It's just physical force. A powerful enough jet of water or air would harm a bird or a fish, the same as any other animal.

Sure, but then we're talking bludgeoning damage rather than elemental damage?

 

[Fanaelialae]

Sure, but then we're talking bludgeoning damage rather than elemental damage?

Even using the traditional damage types associated with those elements would result in the death of those animals. (Water maps to cold and air to lightning.)

Let me put it another way. If a fish finds itself in water with insufficient oxygen (which happened in a nearby town this summer due to an algea bloom) it will suffocate. Our atmosphere (the air) is made up largely of nitrogen, but put a bird in a room filled with nitrogen and it will suffocate. They have no special immunity or resistance to their "favored element".

Birds are adapted to fly through the air under reasonable conditions. Fish have fins and gills that enable them to live in water under reasonable conditions. That's the extent of it.