Potions of Resistance - bad for the game?

[Rothe_]

If you wish to make occasional fights where a single element is a key point to the whole thing (like fire in the red dragon lair), anticipate it and create a countereffect and/or assume that any sensible adventurer *will have* a resist potion by boosting the general difficulty of it.

This would mean that in my game the volcano is a special location is likely to give +5 damage to attacks with the fire keyword or reduce fire resistances by 50%, or something similar. In this case I think it is ok, since it is a rare occasion (a dragon fight) and it would be ruined with everyone having fire resist.

On those random situations where a few undead enemies get trashed by the party when they have necrotic resist, who cares? Occasionally letting the characters gear make encounters easy is a good thing. At least they feel like they are getting something out of it.

 

[CapnZapp]

I found it completely unacceptable that a 50 gp potion can shut down a level 12 Dragon's ongoing damage completely.

For my last campaign, I simply doubled the damage to ongoing 10 (well aware the party would have resistance 5 potions).

I would like to not have to do such a thing in my next campaign; hence this thread.

Adding a few more solutions:
4) reducing resistance 5/10/15 to 2/4/6
5) reducing the capacity of a single potion to absorb damage. In 4E keeping track of point tallys is out, so we do this by limiting the duration of the potion. Each round the potions protects you (at least once); make a save. Failure means the potion's out of resistance, and you need to drink another.
This should make potions less superior, not only because of the action economy (it's at least a minor action to drink another one) but because the cost in healing surges might prove prohibitive.
You could restrict these saves to when you're exposed to several small sources of the damage type (i.e. the situation where a potion is at its most overpoweredness) - save only when you're subject to ongoing damage or when you take more than one typed damage hit in a round.

 

[Mesh Hong]

5) reducing the capacity of a single potion to absorb damage. In 4E keeping track of point tallys is out

Is it really? HPs are still a tally, Temporary HPs are an additional tally, resistance would work quite nicely as another one.

The more I think about it the more I think this could be a good solution.

Potions as they are give resistance 5/10/15.

What if instead they absorbed 20/40/60 damage before the resistance they offered had been used up, just like temporary HPs.

This, to me, seems logical, quantifiable and reliable. No need to up the damage or hold back from using the element in question, the PC gets a tangible benefit that lasts a proportional duration dependant on the source. If anything it will actually add to the excitement of the encounter because it will add an additional expendable resource.

As a DM I would favour this approach because it gives the PCs the edge they are looking for, but it doesn't last for the entire encounter, adding an element of tension.

If you wanted to add further restrictions you could add that only one resistance potion can be consumed between short rests, or state that each additional drinking of a potion in an encounter only grants a cumulative half benefit (i.e. at epic 60, next one 30, next one 15, next one 7)

Additional thought:
With this method you might want to allow for the potion of resistance to stack with any inherant resistance, which could be interesting, or you might rule that the potion removes normal resistance while active.

 

[keterys]

I do think it would be quite viable to have an absorption pool. If you totally disagree with the concept, you can also combine a couple ideas... like the potion gives resist 2/4/6 for the encounter and you can use (once) an interrupt to reduce the damage of one attack by 20/40/60 damage of the type.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I do think it would be quite viable to have an absorption pool. If you totally disagree with the concept, you can also combine a couple ideas... like the potion gives resist 2/4/6 for the encounter and you can use (once) an interrupt to reduce the damage of one attack by 20/40/60 damage of the type.

Those all seem to be pretty viable ideas. I agree having a pool of points, while its a bit of a pain to track, is interesting as it will add tension. The interrupt idea gives the player some additional options, so that's interesting too. I guess reducing the resistance value WOULD solve the problem though as well (in the vast majority of cases) given the HS cost.

I hate house ruling stuff and I suspect its not a BIG issue to carefully design encounters around the problem, but at the same time it shouldn't really be necessary to un-nerf encounters by design, at least not based on something so readily available as a potion. Eh, well, I guess the other alternative is to just not have resistance potions or make the ingredients really hard to come by. Or up their level so they are always pricey. Not sure if those are good solutions though either and if you're going to house rule seems like you might as well get right at the nut of the problem.

 

[CapnZapp]

Is it really? HPs are still a tally, Temporary HPs are an additional tally, resistance would work quite nicely as another one.

Yeah, well, having more tallys than hit points and temporary hp doesn't feel very 4E to me.

Besides, you would have not only one additional tally, but one per damage type.

As for the the temp hp comparison; well, on the face of it, the mechanic would seem identical, but only if you forget that different helpings of temp hp doesn't stack.

So you can seldom get significant amounts of temp hp - instead you need to "top up" continuously.

In this regard, the resistance as a tally would work nothing like temp hp.

In summary, no, I don't think 3E-style resistances would mesh well with 4E. Which is why I did not suggest them!

 

[CapnZapp]

Eh, well, I guess the other alternative is to just not have resistance potions

That would not even be a house rule by the way. Just don't include Adventurer's Vault into your campaign, and you automatically get rid of resistance potions too!

I hate house ruling stuff and I suspect its not a BIG issue to carefully design encounters around the problem, but at the same time it shouldn't really be necessary to un-nerf encounters by design, at least not based on something so readily available as a potion.

I agree - the one thing I dislike more than house rules is having to have house rules...

 

[keterys]

Another option:
Decrease the resistance by 1 each time it's triggered. The player can choose not to apply the resistance (so that ongoing 1 doesn't eat it all up, for instance)

That makes it much easier to predict the amount of damage, too... cause resist 5 would block up to 15 damage. resist 10 up to 55 damage. So you might end up rejiggering the resists to 6/9/12 or whatever the right target is for your game. (Double an average surge at that level or double a healing potion, frex)

 

[Mesh Hong]

Yeah, well, having more tallys than hit points and temporary hp doesn't feel very 4E to me.

Fair enough.

Besides, you would have not only one additional tally, but one per damage type.

As for the the temp hp comparison; well, on the face of it, the mechanic would seem identical, but only if you forget that different helpings of temp hp doesn't stack.

So you can seldom get significant amounts of temp hp - instead you need to "top up" continuously.

In this regard, the resistance as a tally would work nothing like temp hp.

I think I would probably rule that you could only gain benefit from one potion of resistance between short rests. You could say that the magical energies interfere with each other until the body has fully metabolised them (or some such). This would mean that you would only ever have one resistance tally in any encounter.

This would make the tally simpler than the temporary HP one because it is a value that only goes down and isn't replenished.

In summary, no, I don't think 3E-style resistances would mesh well with 4E. Which is why I did not suggest them!

Again, fair enough.

Having said that though I do think the idea has some merit. (which is why I suggested it! ).

The major benefits I can see over some of the other suggestions are:-

1: Simplicity - Resistance pool that buffers damage (like temporary HPs)
2: Encounter Balance - Does not give blanket resistance for the entire encounter which means that even small amounts of damage are not ineffectual, they all help wear down the resistance to the point where the element damage will be effective. This makes minions and minor ongoing damage useful again and does not trivialise them.

The drawbacks I can see:-

1: Single Energy Protection - Does not help with multiple energy damage as they are a different mechanic.
2: Different Mechanic - This mechanic is slightly different to other mechanics used for PCs, (Though in my opinion it is certainly easier to track than some suggested systems that incorporate making saving throws or reducing the amount of static resistance every time you take damage).

 

[CapnZapp]

Another option:
Decrease the resistance by 1 each time it's triggered. The player can choose not to apply the resistance (so that ongoing 1 doesn't eat it all up, for instance)

Interesting! Thanks for that option!

I'll probably tweak this to a decrease of -1 per tier per use if I'll use it.

(That is, against paragon monsters the lvl 14 potion goes 10-8-6-4-2. Against epic monsters the same potion would go 10-7-4-1)