Anyone know why vulnerabilities are gone?

[Elder-Basilisk]

I think they really screwed the pooch on resistances on PCs. Got a resistance? Okay, don't worry about ongoing damage of that type, ever...

Tiefling bathing in the light of your Pit Fiends? Oh well.

Mind you, part of that is perhaps due to damage levels probably not being high enough.

But, yeah, way too easy to get on items, hedging out other options.

I think they mostly hedge out other options for items because a lot of the items they designed for 4th edition are useless junk. My armor gives me a daily power to zap someone with a small amount of damage when they hit me. Who cares? If I have decent daily powers on other items (like dwarven armor, a power jewel, keoghtom's ointment, an orb of inevitable continuance or a vanguard weapon), I wouldn't use that even if it came for free with basic magic armor. Likewise if my neck slot gives my character +2 to stealth, I probably don't care unless I am really focused on stealth. Resistances, on the other hand are sometimes useful (though the character I played through a short-lived home game with armor of necrotic resistance and a cloak of survival, never ran into a single foe who did fire, cold, or necrotic--a lot of poison, quite a bit of force and some psychic but never anything I had resistance to) and don't cost an item daily. That automatically makes them a contender for armor and neck slot items.

However, they are just a contender, not the unspoken champions by any stretch of the imagination. A daily that lets an ally reroll a failed saving throw with a +2 bonus is pretty good. For characters who use teleportation effects, +1 square to your teleport distance and not slowing you down or having an armor check penalty is pretty darn good. For dedicated healer characters, adding its enhancement value to your healing effects or having a daily that adds 1d6 to all healing effects you do that turn can both be quite valuable. Dwarven armor gives you essentially an extra healing surge and a free action power to use it. All very very useful and, when you consider that some of their item levels make them available before resistance items like black iron or deathcut armor, the cloak of survival or the stormwalker cloak, going for the resistance is far from the obvious choice.

 

[eriktheguy]

I guess I would try to incorporate these weaknesses into the monster's entries. I would still try to come up with creative vulerablities over a static damage bonus.

 

[Mesh Hong]

I don't know what the fuss is about really.

Personally I like vulnerabilities, it rewards a broad range of powers having the result of encouraging characters to spread out their different damage types so that they can cover as many bases as possible.

However the bonus recieved from having the right damage type to put extra hurt on a creature is relatively small. Usually 5 extra damage, the overall effect builds up over several hits but any single hit isn't really doing that much more damage.

Players also love being able to lever any extra tactical advantage over their enemies. Why would you want to deprive them of an expected and reasonably logical situational option?

 

[Saeviomagy]

Oh, you sooooooooo don't want to go there. Please, let's not bring (mistaken) chemical or physics notions into a gaming argument. Only bad things happen.

I was merely pointing out that "hot things are affected less by cold things" isn't necessarily a logical argument, which just leaves us with "what is good for the game".

Personally I don't think that adding a vulnerability to everything that has a resistance, or having vulnerabilities be strictly damage boosts are good for the game.

 

[Ahrimon]

I know it was just a movie, but I think the whole XMen 3, Ice man vs Pyro fight was a good example. Normal person would have been pretty toasted. But the guy covered in ice pretty much shrugged it off.

Same thing with a hell hound or any number of other fire/ice/etc themed creatures. Thier internal makups should help make them a bit more resistant to the opposite effects.

Other effects I'm cool with. Fire creature gets frosted, no flame special ability for a round or so. Cold creature gets toasted, slowed or something.

 

[Flipguarder]

Im just curious. Have any of us ever MET a creature that was partially made out of some elemental material?

I mean sure you put fire on ice and it melts. But we have no idea the physics or thermodynamics of creatures that are either partially or entirely composed of ice. Because this requires a level of magic not inherently observable in our world.

Im not saying either side of this nerd war is right, Im simply saying that the rules of our physics probably don't apply to frost dwarves.

 

[OchreJelly]

I think there's more vulnerable critters out there (excluding undead) than what seems to be perceived, but a lot of that has to do with them appearing only recently in MM2. Doing a quick search in DDI on the keyword "Vulnerable" returns a good number of results. There are some notables, either because of interesting effects or rare damage type:

All swarms: vulnerable close and area attacks
Bralani and other similar eladrin: vulnerable necrotic (slowed)
Treant: vulnerable fire (ongoing fire damage)
Trolls: vulnerable acide / fire. blocks regen
Lyncanthropes: vulnerable silver. blocks regen
Fell Taints: vulnerable psychic (interesting)
Firbolg: vulnerable necrotic (blocks regen)
Flux Slaad: vulnerable 10 variable
Green Slime: vulnerable to fire and radiant
myconoids: vulnerable radiant (blocks regen)
Phoera: vulnerable cold

So there's some, but if anything I think the overuse of radiant is the problem. It's nice to see some necrotic coming into play, particularly against fey creatures.

 

[renau1g]

Of course under this sort of logic a snowball would have more of an effect on a campfire than a candle...

Vulnerabilities should be rare, not just applied to anything with a resistance and the "apply an additional effect" version of vulnerabilities is far more desirable than "do more damage".

Well... if a campfire, snowball, and candle were living then maybe yes.?

 

[renau1g]

Im just curious. Have any of us ever MET a creature that was partially made out of some elemental material?

I mean sure you put fire on ice and it melts. But we have no idea the physics or thermodynamics of creatures that are either partially or entirely composed of ice. Because this requires a level of magic not inherently observable in our world.

Im not saying either side of this nerd war is right, Im simply saying that the rules of our physics probably don't apply to frost dwarves.

Yes I have, a flamer right here j/k

 

[Nail]

I was merely pointing out .....

Again, you probably don't want to bring (supposed) physics or physical chemistry into this.

Personally I don't think that adding a vulnerability to everything that has a resistance, or having vulnerabilities be strictly damage boosts are good for the game.

I'm not sure anyone has said "add vulnerability to everything that has resistance".

But to the real point: Why would more vulnerabilities be "bad for the game"? Let's posit that a few more monsters gain vulnerabilities, and only if thematicly appropriate. Would that be bad?

For example: Some newbies that I've DMed threw water at Hell Hounds, as the hounds were partially made of fire. They thought (being new to gaming, and having never read thru a Monstrous Manual) that water would hurt the 'Hounds. Wouldn't it be nifty if water did?