D&D 5E Rethinking immunities & resistance

[Lost Soul]

I'd much rather see resistance revert to prior editions' "subtract a flat number from the damage" (which lets fire resistant creatures do things like sleep in hot coals, or cook food without utensils etc), and then remove immunity, replacing it instead with "really, really high resistance".

So sure: you CAN hurt that fire elemental with fire. But he's got enough fire resistance to comfortably have a bath in lava, so you're going to have to have a heck of a hot fire to do anything to him.

I totally agree with your point. Fire should be a weak choice against fire elementals and devils but it should be a choice.

 

[Lost Soul]

Your arguing for a lore change with a narrow mechanical benefit to a narrowly focused caster. It's not persuasive.

No, I am arguing that all damage types have an option for all characters. Until I see a broad spectrum of monsters that have immunity to one type of martial damage such as slashing, piercing or blunt that your counter arguments are not convincing to me whatsoever.

 

[Lost Soul]

I can only tell you what I've seen. In most cases, when encountering a monster made of living fire, the heroes need to think outside the box. Most resort to fighting fire with water. In video games, swords tend to work as well as anything else. Shadowrun says that you can't shoot a fire elemental, but any melee weapon (or unarmed combat) works well because it channels your living willpower, and that's the closest I've seen to an explanation for it. Fighting fire with fire has never been a thing in fantasy, though, as far as I can tell. That's just the accepted physics of magical fire monsters.

This isn't Pokemon GO where you can only know two attacks, and immunities are demoted to resistances since you would otherwise have no options. If a pyromancer encounters a fire elemental, then all you need is one spell or cantrip that isn't fire-based, and you're back to participating in the fight. If you aren't even willing to prepare a single option to deal with the inevitability of fighting a fire elemental, then you're being silly, just as much as a barbarian is silly for not owning a single ranged weapon.

Not true as devils and demons are often punished with fire. That is very much a part of lore across the spectrum and evil creatures are often punished in fiery abodes such as Hell or Tartarus I should not be reduced to spamming a cantrip because most of my other spells are utility or fire spells based upon spec. Using video games as an analogy why sword work is very poor. You can't argue reality for one set of damage and then completely ignore it for another set because that's your preference. I have no problem with resistance. I have a big problem with immunity. Until I see immunity for martial attacks your arguments really don't hold up because martial characters should be able to think outside the box just like spellcasters have had to.

 

[Ovinomancer]

No, I am arguing that all damage types have an option for all characters. Until I see a broad spectrum of monsters that have immunity to one type of martial damage such as slashing, piercing or blunt that your counter arguments are not convincing to me whatsoever.

Well, I have the high ground of the status quo, so I'm not the one that needs to be convincing.

There's a glimmer of an argument in what you say but you're so busy demanding that it's not getting out well.

 

[Eubani]

One problem I see with your method is that the more dice you roll the more likely you are to get similar results and average scores. The roll twice pick worse works on the d20 roll as it is only 1 dice thus the difference is often more extreme than say 8d6. The outcome is as problematic if not more so than the reasoning.

Also I would like to point out it is not that most on this board favour martial it is that they largely realize that over the editions that martial design has been subpar and that all the goodies that martials get tend to be handed out to everyone. This leads to people on the board discussing and bending their minds to potential fixes. If the devs didn't lose half their IQ and started drooling whenever it came to martial class design then a lot of the discussions would not happen.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Not true as devils and demons are often punished with fire. That is very much a part of lore across the spectrum and evil creatures are often punished in fiery abodes such as Hell or Tartarus I should not be reduced to spamming a cantrip because most of my other spells are utility or fire spells based upon spec.

Actual religion and mythology is only tangentially related to the modern fantasy genre, unless you're specifically doing a deconstruction. Standard fantasy logic says that demons live in fire and inflict fire on their enemies, though. You wouldn't attempt to burn a balrog.

Now I'm curious, but when exactly did you start playing? You know that 5E spellcasters are massively benefited by their ability to spam cantrips, right? Most games limit spellcasters on how many spells they can cast, and they have to rely on weapon attacks the rest of the time. If you aren't happy with your ability to cast cantrips whenever you need them, even in just this one encounter out of six in the day, then it doesn't sound like you're being very appreciative of this gift which the designers have generously granted you. Maybe the next edition should remove cantrips entirely.

I have a big problem with immunity. Until I see immunity for martial attacks your arguments really don't hold up because martial characters should be able to think outside the box just like spellcasters have had to.

There are monsters which are immune to physical attacks, which require a special magical item to overcome. If you want a magic super wand of super fire that lets your fire attacks hurt creatures which are otherwise immune to fire, then I could see the parallel there.

 

[Imaculata]

If you feel that it is not a stretch for a magic sword to damage a creature composed completely of fire when metal swords would do absolutely NO damage to a fire in real life it should not be a stretch to consider that MAGICAL fire could damage a fire based creature and that devils who would suffer horrible burns from MAGICAL fire.

Playing devils advocate here, but since Fire Elementals tend to do fire damage and bludgeoning damage in some editions of DnD, doesn't that mean they are not entirely made of fire?

 

[Imaculata]

What the bleep... That is the oddest advertisement ever, and some how also the most appropriate for this forum.

 

[Coroc]

[MENTION=81242]Lost Soul[/MENTION]

So as a DM you would never throw a mob at your players which is e.g. resistant to slashing weapons if your group had none of these with them?

Because that is the same fairness issue as with your firemage.


Imagine a tempest cleric: No fair game for you should the DM ever use a blue dragon against the group?

 

[Fleetwood C. DeVille]

Well, I have the high ground of the status quo...

Totally stealing that line.