D&D 5E Do You Hint at Damage Resistance?

[KarinsDad]

You're rich for espousing to that point of view, when your view so far has been 'don't tell players anything because game mechanic abstraction means there is no possible way the characters can perceive any difference in anything they do'.

Can you put the goalposts back where they belong after you're done moving them, please?

How exactly is "don't play the mechanics" any different than what I have been saying the entire time?

Where exactly did I post 'don't tell players anything because game mechanic abstraction means there is no possible way the characters can perceive any difference in anything they do'?

Yes, my very first post didn't go into all of the details of other ways of knowing that information, but I never stated that it was impossible for PCs to know. You are the one who posted that it is "Well, with the Dex save bonus, it'll be bloody obvious because they dodged out of the way incredibly quickly.". Why must that be the case? Why must it be obvious? Why can't it be that they turtled up? Or hid behind a shield? Or said a quick prayer to their deity that was answered? Or just plain got lucky (less fire than normal hit them by pure happenstance)? Yes, we need a game mechanic (Dex save) to determine the results (you saved, so you take half damage), but why does the mechanic have to 100% reflect the narrative description of what happened every single time?

Why can the game mechanic just be the rule that determines the result and something else sometimes be the description? And why is it a sin to have situations where the players do not know what game mechanic resulted in a given result, or that the players are in the dark about what a give result even is?

In your game world view of "With resistance, an experienced player will see the creature get engulfed in the flames and not look as damaged as it otherwise should.", why does the PC (I assume you meant PC, not player) always 100% notice how much damage a foe takes, why does the PC always know how much damage the foe should have taken, why does the PC know anything about the protective capabilities of the foe AT ALL? The foe might not seemed very damaged because he has a ton of hit points. The foe might not seemed very damaged because it is an illusion. The foe might not seem very damaged because it is a creature whose outwards appearance does not indicate its inward damage. Or, the caster might not be observant enough to notice anything special at all? Or alternatively, there could be situations where it is totally obvious like you seem to espouse.

Why is your game restricted to not include other possibilities?

My position is the same. Don't just use the numbers and mechanics to determine what you let players know. Change it up a bit. Add some mystery. If you do it a given way, don't just always do it that way. Don't let the numbers drive your game. The numbers drive the results, but they shouldn't always drive what the PCs and players know about a situation.

 

[Miladoon]

Not sure how that would work if the foe was only resistant (or vulnerable) to one of the several forms of attack a party of adventurers use.

Cutting the HPs in half is common when you add at least one form of resistance for a 1-4 CR monster. The multiplier goes down when the expected challenge rating goes up. It might work better for DM created content.

I completely agree that the characters do not understand the mechanics. But they should be able to observe the effects. If an axe blow wounds, a equally powerful cold blast really hurts it (vulnerability), and a powerful blast of acid barely hurts it (resistance), wouldn't the characters see the results of that, especially in comparison to the other attacks?

I think it is easier to observe precisely what is going on in a combat through a cinematic lens. I could be wrong. I tend to describe battles from a satellite, though. In fact, I prefer the players getting into it. I will often tell the players to 'finish it' and let them take over the narration.

If I played a resist monster, and if the player wanted to take an action to ability check the significance of their attacks, I would allow that too. The contract of RAW being enforced, while not feeling compelled to offer up the information as a freebee.

 

[Shiroiken]

Question: Say a creature has resistance to piercing weapons. A group of adventurers who have been fighting together for a while attack a group of creatures. The barbarian hit with one with her axe twice and kills it. The warlock hits one with his eldritch blast and does what they expect, dropping to to less than half. The ranger shoots another with an arrow and does half damage because of the resistance. At that point the group has seen how hard it is it damage and kill these, would you describe that they felt their arrows weren't have a large effect?

Pretty much yea, based on why the creature has the resistance. For example, against a skeleton, the axe broke it apart, and the blast probably knocked a few bits off, but the arrow just kinda stuck in the bones a bit. In case of a thick skin or magical protection, the weapon just didn't go very deep or the wound started to close after the weapon passed.

Of course, players are pretty smart, and if the barbarian kills one with 12 damage, but the archer doesn't with the same, it's pretty obvious the creature has resistance.

 

[Blue]

You are making an assumption. That the characters should observe a given effect every single time and that is the DM's responsibility to always tell them about it.

Are you claiming that the DM should always tell the players about resistance, regardless of perception, knowledge, etc.?
...
The point I am making is that there is nothing wrong with describing resistance and letting the players know. There is also nothing wrong with requiring a perception roll to notice the difference, or a knowledge check to know that it is a possibility, or even to not in a given encounter let the players know at all, or to give a clue that the creature is actually vulnerable when it is resistant once in a while ("You Fireball the foe, he screams in agony and tries to back away from the flames" an old tactic by this monster). I am not advocating to never give information out about resistance, but I am advocating that it should not always be obvious or even accurate.

I think this is a compromise we agree on. There are times things aren't obvious, but under normal circumstances the players should have a chance to infer based on what their characters observed. And the characters are relative experts in combat, both the effects of their own attacks and the general effectiveness of their entire party's abilities.

 

[Satyrn]

Do you tell your players when a foe has a good save modifier when the foe saves on a spell?

I do that.

Let me answer a couple more questions you might ask:

I regularly tell my players a monster's AC.

I pretty much always track the monsters' hit points in the open, in big numbers, counting down to 0.

 

[Li Shenron]

As a DM, do you hint that an attack doesn't do full damage against a creature with damage resistance?

Totally!

 

[schnee]

In your game world view of "With resistance, an experienced player will see the creature get engulfed in the flames and not look as damaged as it otherwise should.", why does the PC (I assume you meant PC, not player) always 100% notice how much damage a foe takes, why does the PC always know how much damage the foe should have taken, why does the PC know anything about the protective capabilities of the foe AT ALL?

Why are you characterizing my position as all or nothing? I never said *always*. I think you're conflating me with other people in this thread who do the 'beer and pretzels' thing and say mechanics outright. (Not my style, but I'd be happy to play in that game if the people in the group were fun.)

My position is that someone who is extremely experienced, who has refined senses, and has (for the sake of this example) hit many, many things with a sword, should notice when things are not working as they expected. How soon they do may be up for debate, especially at lower levels, but characters who fight things with immunity will eventually recognize that their tactics are not working.

What you have been saying in this thread so far (if I understand you correctly) is to the other side of the 'beer and pretzels' crowd, where the abstraction of the game means you reserve the right to tell the players nothing about it, or give them information that goes agains the 'type' of the monster they face. And that's where I disagree.

Your argument examples posit things like 'the reason the Treant isn't being hurt by a spear is it's lucky, or it dodged' - that is completely out of character or theme for a lumbering gigantic tree. It doesn't dodge.

Now, if the character did 1hp of damage with that non-magical spear, sure - it was a glancing blow that didn't seem to do a thing. With you there. If they Crit, however, and roll high damage, and nothing happens? They KNOW how hard they hit. The results should get a damn clear indication that what they did is not working.

If you want to mix it up and theme it differently, sure, but that theme should be consistent, believable, and internally logical. And evidence of a team's efficacy (or lack thereof) should pile up.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Yes, we need a game mechanic (Dex save) to determine the results (you saved, so you take half damage), but why does the mechanic have to 100% reflect the narrative description of what happened every single time?

Because that is the point of mechanics: they reflect the narrative, and the do so in an un-biased manner. We want to know what happens next within the narrative, so we run a statistical model of the scenario that includes the relevant factors, and the mechanics tell us what happens next within the narrative.

If the PC saved against the fireball by offering a quick prayer to their deity, then the relevant factors would have included Wisdom rather than Dexterity. It didn't, though, so we can rule out the possibility of that being their course of action.

 

[wedgeski]

Yes.

What's more fun, the PC's scrambling to change their tactics, or a long fight with the PC's thinking, "Wow, this opponent sure has a lot of Hit Points"..?

 

[KarinsDad]

Because that is the point of mechanics: they reflect the narrative, and the do so in an un-biased manner. We want to know what happens next within the narrative, so we run a statistical model of the scenario that includes the relevant factors, and the mechanics tell us what happens next within the narrative.

If the PC saved against the fireball by offering a quick prayer to their deity, then the relevant factors would have included Wisdom rather than Dexterity. It didn't, though, so we can rule out the possibility of that being their course of action.

What does high AC mean? Does it only mean hard to hit? Does it mean lacking weak spots? What do hit points reflect? If they reflect wounds, how come a Cure Light Wounds almost fully heals a PC at level one and isn't even a drop in the bucket at level 15?

I just don't see where the mechanics explicitly imply anything narrative at all. They are mechanics. The numbers behind the curtain. There are often some narratives that closely match the mechanics, but do those always have to be used?

With your interpretation, the PC never survives the Fireball cause he said a quick prayer to his deity because the mechanics never use Wisdom. Hence, that narrative doesn't exist in your campaign.

So the question becomes: why not? Why couldn't a PC narratively survive a Fireball because he did a quick prayer to his deity, or because of sheer luck, or some other reason not related to dodging out the way?