Leatherhead
Possibly a Idiot.
While reading up on all the changes to monsters for the 5.5 edition, or whatever they are going to call it, it occurred to me that the default way that 5e handles monsters who have a weakness to special material weapons, like devils and their aversion to silver, isn't handled to the best of the systems ability.
Currently a Bone Devil has resistances to Bludgeoning, Piercing, and Slashing from Nonmagical Attacks that aren't Silvered. Meaning they take normal damage from either silver or magical weapons. Which is less of a weakness, and more of a "You must be this tall to ride" sign that allows the PCs to use platform shoes. It also has the unfortunate side effect of a magical weapon being a one stop shop for all your resistance and often times immunity needs. While this is nice from a balance perspective due to simplicity, it is also boring as heck because there is no reward for using a silvered weapon on top of or instead of a magical weapon, totally wasting the design space.
In another famous example, the Werewolf, they tried to give immunity to nonmangical and nonsilvered weapon damage. But that proved to be less than desirable as it only served to lock mundane characters out of being effective for the fight, and let casters destroy them with cantrips without any considerable changes at all. The designer response to this was the monster called the Loup Garou, which cannot be killed without silvered weapons (or at least some way to prevent healing) due to their regeneration ability. Needless to say, this is not a practical solution outside of heavily horror games, and even then it can be cheesed by using a simple cantrip (Chill Touch) or a single silvered weapon strike after the party unloads their normal routine.
My solution to this problem is admittedly a bit more complex in terms of wording that WotC may be initially comfortable with, but it is simple enough in play: Give these enemies Resistance and Vulnerability to Silvered weapons. Vulnerability and Resistance cancel each other out, which gives normal damage. Interestingly enough WotC future proofed themselves this time, as multiple resistances don't stack, so adding another resistance isn't going to make monsters harder. Furthermore Vulnerability is a near vestigial mechanic in this edition, with only 100 out of the 2000+ stat blocks for monsters using the mechanic, and honestly players love when they hit a Vulnerability, so it should be used more.
My proposed changes look like this:
A Bone Devil would now have resistances to Bludgeoning, Piercing, and Slashing from Nonmagical Attacks (deleting the part about Silvered weapons). But also Vulnerability to attacks from Silvered weapons. Because a resistance and a Vulnerability cancel each other out, the new damage results would be: x1/2 for normal weapons, x1 for silver or magic weapons, and x2 for silver and magic weapons. This allows for more tiers of readiness.
Currently a Bone Devil has resistances to Bludgeoning, Piercing, and Slashing from Nonmagical Attacks that aren't Silvered. Meaning they take normal damage from either silver or magical weapons. Which is less of a weakness, and more of a "You must be this tall to ride" sign that allows the PCs to use platform shoes. It also has the unfortunate side effect of a magical weapon being a one stop shop for all your resistance and often times immunity needs. While this is nice from a balance perspective due to simplicity, it is also boring as heck because there is no reward for using a silvered weapon on top of or instead of a magical weapon, totally wasting the design space.
In another famous example, the Werewolf, they tried to give immunity to nonmangical and nonsilvered weapon damage. But that proved to be less than desirable as it only served to lock mundane characters out of being effective for the fight, and let casters destroy them with cantrips without any considerable changes at all. The designer response to this was the monster called the Loup Garou, which cannot be killed without silvered weapons (or at least some way to prevent healing) due to their regeneration ability. Needless to say, this is not a practical solution outside of heavily horror games, and even then it can be cheesed by using a simple cantrip (Chill Touch) or a single silvered weapon strike after the party unloads their normal routine.
My solution to this problem is admittedly a bit more complex in terms of wording that WotC may be initially comfortable with, but it is simple enough in play: Give these enemies Resistance and Vulnerability to Silvered weapons. Vulnerability and Resistance cancel each other out, which gives normal damage. Interestingly enough WotC future proofed themselves this time, as multiple resistances don't stack, so adding another resistance isn't going to make monsters harder. Furthermore Vulnerability is a near vestigial mechanic in this edition, with only 100 out of the 2000+ stat blocks for monsters using the mechanic, and honestly players love when they hit a Vulnerability, so it should be used more.
My proposed changes look like this:
A Bone Devil would now have resistances to Bludgeoning, Piercing, and Slashing from Nonmagical Attacks (deleting the part about Silvered weapons). But also Vulnerability to attacks from Silvered weapons. Because a resistance and a Vulnerability cancel each other out, the new damage results would be: x1/2 for normal weapons, x1 for silver or magic weapons, and x2 for silver and magic weapons. This allows for more tiers of readiness.
- The PCs have to duke it out with their resisted weapons.
- The PC's use consumables or other resources (like the Magic Weapon spell) to normalize their damage.
- The PC's use a bit of prep work to get silvered weapons (or just luckily have a magic weapon on hand) for normal damage without using consumables.
- The PC's use consumables in conjunction with their prep work to actually exploit the vulnerability.
- The PC's get special magic and silvered weapons designed for the purposes of slaying such creatures.
