Creating Monsters with Vulnerabilities and Resistances

[Camelot]

I am trying to create multiple monsters with multiple resistances and vulnerabilities. The DMGs don't have any guidelines in the monster creation sections about how much resist/vulnerable to give a monster, or how much is too much. Does it balance out if you provide an equal number of both? How do you think I should go about creating monsters with resistances/vulnerabilities?

PS: Don't tell me not to do it. My players have asked me to give them more of that, to make their typed attacks more meaningful in their eyes. I need to figure out how to do it.

 

[Nifft]

Unlike the monster manuals, you have the advantage of knowing who is going to be stabbing these particular critters. So, it's not like you can say "Resist 5 Radiant is balanced by Vulnerable 5 Fire", if your party has three people who use Radiant and nobody who uses Fire powers.

So, when you make a custom critter, you are making it with a full view of its opposition. Make sure any vulnerability you grant can actually be exploited by someone. With that in mind, you may also wish to grant different PCs the opportunity to shine: Paladins do brilliantly against undead Elites, for example, since their Mark is especially effective vs. a foe with vulnerability to Radiant damage.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

I would recommend starting with 5 points per tier... its easier to keep track of that way.
If you want a bit more granularity, letting low tier creatures feel different than higher tier, you could do 2 points every 3 levels.

And no.. it doesn't balance out. I would recommend applying vulnerabilities in order to let your PC's shine.. and keep away from the resistances most of the time. You may need to bump the levels to keep the same challenge, but thats okay.

 

[Voadam]

How do you think I should go about creating monsters with resistances/vulnerabilities?

Go with obvious themes and look to the MM for examples around the target level you are making monsters for.

Undead immune to disease, poison, and necrotic (or is that resistant?), vulnerable to radiant.

Azers are planar fire dwarves who live in elemental fire areas and have fire hair and lava blood. In 3e they were immune to fire and vulnerable to cold. I believe in 4e they are resist 20 or 30 with minions resisting at 10. I don't think they have vulnerability to cold the way elemental fire creatures did in 3e.

Resistances and vulnerabilities can go either way. A fire creature may be more vulnerable to cold or its fire may provide it with protection against cold effects. Would a troll wear a cold magic breastplate to keep it from catching on fire?

I would go with giving big things resistance to poison damage to represent the reduced effects on bigger bodies. Vulnerability then for little natural things.

Shadowfell things might be given necrotic resistance as local innoculation from their native terrain.

Constructs could plausibly have vulnerability lightning.

Plants and wood constructs could have vulnerability fire.

 

[Amaroq]

Unlike the monster manuals, you have the advantage of knowing who is going to be stabbing these particular critters. So, it's not like you can say "Resist 5 Radiant is balanced by Vulnerable 5 Fire", if your party has three people who use Radiant and nobody who uses Fire powers.

So, when you make a custom critter, you are making it with a full view of its opposition. Make sure any vulnerability you grant can actually be exploited by someone. With that in mind, you may also wish to grant different PCs the opportunity to shine: Paladins do brilliantly against undead Elites, for example, since their Mark is especially effective vs. a foe with vulnerability to Radiant damage.

Yeah, this is my thinking, too. If I have three PCs who deal plenty of Radiant damage, then throwing a bunch of "Resist 5 Radiant" creatures at them is going to really up the difficulty of those encounters.

On the other hand, I can use some individual vulnerabilities and resistances to add some tactical differentiation to combat.

For example, the party I'm DM'ing has really relied on the sorcerer's Chaos Bolt at-will for dealing with ranged needs and Artillery .. so if I whip up some Artillery with Resist 5 Psychic, that's going to create an interesting situation where they need to use tactical movement to get the melee strikers in touch with the Artillery, and have the sorcerer concentrate on pounding the melee monsters to support the defenders.

As noted, undead and their vulnerability to radiant are almost necessary to give a paladin their moment to shine - the same as you'd make sure to include cover, concealment, or darkness to give a rogue a moment to shine.

 

[Mesh Hong]

Vulnerabilities and Resistances will never balance each other out, so my advice is to not really worry about that.

Your overall use of vulnerabilities and resistances can balance each other out, so my advice would be to keep one eye on how often they positively or negatively affect your party.

In my opinion values should usually be somewhere in the following ranges:

Resistance
Heroic: between 1 and 10
Paragon: between 5 and 15
Epic: between 10 and 20

Vulnerability
Heroic: between 1 and 5
Paragon: between 5 and 10
Epic: between 5 and 15

The trick is (as always) to try and balance it against the group and the challange level of the encounter.

One thing I like to remind myself is that the PCs invest a lot of thought and time in acquiring resistances, so every once in a while they should be put in a situation where that investment pays off. (eg. if the party have invested heavily in fire resistance they are probably going to really enjoy an encounter where that fire resistance gives them a real advantage).

Conversley I also like to show them the other side of the situation every once in a while by including creatures that are resistant to their main elemental attacks or sometimes troublesome status effects. This encourages them not to concentrate too heavily on any one type of damage and also promotes teamwork in difficult encounters.

With my group these main areas are:
Fire resistance
Radiant resistance
Blind creatures, or creatures that cannot be blinded
Creatures resistant to push, pull or slide effects

Of course it should also be stated that you should occasionally include creatures that are vulnerable to the parties powers. Again the players really love to see their attacks doing even more damage or being a particular problem.

At the end of the day resistances and vulnerabilities can be used to add more value (or fun) into an encounter by shifting the balance of power and promoting different tactics. Sometimes you will want this to be subtle and sometimes you will want it to be massive.

 

[Infiniti2000]

Go with obvious themes and look to the MM for examples around the target level you are making monsters for.

Also, look into the DMG2 for the big section on "themed monsters." I'm not sure I recall any specific guidelines about resistances and vulnerabilities, but that section should help you retain a consistent flavor to your approach.