How do I protect myself from self-inflicted damage?

[smilingbandit2]

I am about to play a Fighter/Invoker in my friend's D&D game. Advice offered here and on other boards was very helpful, and the character is a lot stronger on offense than I initially designed her.

Unfortunately, this increased offense has created a problem. When I am AOE tanking, I use Vanguard's Lightning, and in order to mark the maximum number of targets I suspect I will often center its burst on myself.

This wasn't too much of a problem when the spell did 1d6+5 damage, because I had a storm shield to soak up a lot of the lightning damage. Now I'm using a Rod of Ruin, increasing the damage to 1d6+11 and removing my lightning resist.

Consequently, I need to find a way to mitigate this damage. There's nothing appropriate for a level 12 character that can absorb that kind of damage, but my GM is willing to allow custom built magic items if we can justify them using existing precedent.

So the question is, are there any examples of items that only protect from self inflicted damage? If no such item exists, is there a baseline of +resist item levels from which such an item could be developed?

 

[isd]

first targeting yourself auto-hits (I think)
however targeting your square dose not
A house rule -5 to hit an ally might help as much or more then special items. You are your own ally.

 

[Blackbrrd]

first targeting yourself auto-hits (I think)
however targeting your square dose not
A house rule -5 to hit an ally might help as much or more then special items. You are your own ally.

Actually, you are not your own ally. All the powers that targets you and allies says so explicitly.

 

[Nytmare]

"Hey, Doc! It hurts when I do this."

"Then don't do it."

 

[Doctor Proctor]

I guess the better question would be, why do you feel it's so necessary to drop Vanguard's Lightning on your own head that frequently? It's an Area Burst 1, which means that if you use while adjacent to an enemy, you should be provoking OA's. So, if you're dropping it right on yourself, I would assume it's because you're surrounded by enemies...which means you're provoking probably 3 or 4 OA's. And you're worried about the Lightning damage?

 

[On Puget Sound]

Stop using the rod of ruin. If your intent is to mark all adjacent enemies, pumping the damage will not make them any more marked.

If, on the other hand, your intent is to do a lot of damage to all adjacent enemies, there are fighter powers that do that without frying yourself.

And if your intent is to do a lot of lightning damage to a lot of enemies, and mark them, you might want to not be in the middle of them when you do it.

I don't think a rules change or a custom magic item is required to make a dangerous (maybe even unwise) tactic workable.

 

[fba827]

It is a tactic that comes at the expense of self-inflicted pain. As they say, if you can't stand the heat, then stay out of the kitchen.... (so if you can't take what you're going to give yourself, then perhaps you shouldn't) ...

Having said that, if there is a consistant energy type that you expect yourself to inflict upon yourself, then get an item that has resistance to that energy type, or an item with resist all - if it's an item power (rather than a property) then activate it just before you nuke yourself, and you've got yourself a little protection right there. Or load yourself up on temporary hit points... or just have a lot of healing items ready for after the fact.

 

[CapnZapp]

Using a power that gives some benefit when you hurt yourself and then planning to use another power to stop that hurt from happening simply does not work in my game.

It's cheesy, so I'm invoking the bag'o'rats clause:

If you reduce or negate self-inflicted harm in any way, the benefit you were looking for simply does not happen.

The justification is easy:

From a fluff angle: you get the benefit from actually doing the listed amount of damage to yourself. Not merely from trying.
From a crunch angle: the benefit is balanced on the assumption you take the listed damage. Take away the damage and the power becomes unbalanced.

 

[Lauberfen]

What, like if you use athletics of a safewing amulet to take less damage when you jump from a height?

Self harming really does not need any further punishement outside of the existing rules.

However there's also need to encourage or aid a tactic which, TBH, is silly as Zapp implied.

Why not just multiclass wizard and use thundewrwave, which works better in almost every way?

The opportunity attacks alone should make this a non-viable tactic- I wonder if you've been playing these right?

 

[frankthedm]

What, like if you use athletics of a safewing amulet to take less damage when you jump from a height?

Self harming really does not need any further punishement outside of the existing rules.

My guess is Zapp was referring to "Do X Effect, but you take N Damage yourself" abilities.

Indeed, properly designed, those abilities can't be worked around. A fine example was the 3.5E Hellfire Warlock, who took Con Camage to power abilties; if you did not or could not take the Con Damage, then the abiility did not work.