Dwarf and poison.

[FinalSonicX]

A fine example of what I wrote before

"D&D must fit my adventures" ,instead of "my adventures must fit D&D".

This adventure has always fit into every edition of D&D before now. Why am I all of a sudden "not conforming to D&D"? If D&D decided it was better off having long-range teleportation available at level 1, do you think it would be unreasonable that people would be upset? It effectively ruins the entire set of wilderness adventures we've enjoyed for a while, and you can't have LOTR-esque quests (without once again the deus-ex-machina DM fiat business).

if D&D wants to say my adventures cannot be done without DM fiat "just because" (since no one has yet provided be a good reason why advantage or a bonus won't work. I've asked generally like 5 times now), then it starts to look much less competitive in the marketplace.

 

[Derren]

This adventure has always fit into every edition of D&D before now. Why am I all of a sudden "not conforming to D&D"? If D&D decided it was better off having long-range teleportation available at level 1, do you think it would be unreasonable that people would be upset? It effectively ruins the entire set of wilderness adventures we've enjoyed for a while, and you can't have LOTR-esque quests (without once again the deus-ex-machina DM fiat business).

if D&D wants to say my adventures cannot be done without DM fiat "just because" (since no one has yet provided be a good reason why advantage or a bonus won't work. I've asked generally like 5 times now), then it starts to look much less competitive in the marketplace.

You can always find hooks which do not work in any given system because of lore reasons. What makes your hook more important than any other of them?
And if it is really that important to you, why not simply houserule dwarven immunity in your game?

 

[Campbell]

I actually really like what this implies about the Dwarves' relationship to Drow. Perhaps its a significant element of why Dwarves are able to hold them at bay and deny them access to the surface world. Without the advantage poison they are forced to fight the Dwarves on relatively equal footing where Dwarven force of arms prevails. See: new story possibilities.

 

[FinalSonicX]

You can always find hooks which do not work in any given system because of lore reasons. What makes your hook more important than any other of them?

It isn't inherently more important than any other hook - but if D&D can be more inclusive, don't you think it should be?

My hook is as easy to accommodate as changing "dwarves have poison immunity" to "dwarves have advantage on all poison saves".

Does that ruin anyone else's hook? This is a unification edition. Dwarves have always been resistant - not immune - to poison. My existing worlds and lore would be nonsensical in this new edition, particularly if they take this sort of design approach to the races in general.

 

[Stalker0]

Dwarves automatically save against any poison with a DC equal to or less than their Constitution.

This one isn't a bad idea. Its complete immunity to a class of poisons, but allowing for stronger poisons to work. And since DCs don't seem to scale too much from what we've seen, a DC 11 or lower poison is likely to still see use throughout the game.

 

[ForeverSlayer]

I say they should start out with a resistance to poison and eventually graduate to immunity later in levels.

 

[Derren]

Does that ruin anyone else's hook?

The adventurers must seek the aid of the dwarfs in their war with <insert naturally poisonous race> because they are immune to poison.

 

[FinalSonicX]

I feel for you @FinalSonicX . But can't you just make Dwarfslayer poison common in dwarflands.

The idea that a commoner poisoned the king with simple poison robs the belief that dwarves are resistant to poison. It screams "Shenanigans!". Like sleep spells working on the elf queen. Or burning a balor with mundane torches.

I could make Dwarfslayer poison - but then I need a "dwarfslayer" variant for any given poison with a specific effect I want to duplicate - and then at that point it becomes troublesome from a worldbuilding perspective. How much does dwarfslayer cost? Is it an alchemical reagent or is it a specific type of poison? Is there an antidote? How have laws adapted to this poison's existence? Do dwarves poison their water supply using non-dwarflsayer poison so as to prevent non-dwarves from invading their homeland? Would dwarfslayer affect the dwarven god? It starts to get into DM fiat and immunity-bypassing territory.

I think the thing that screams of more shenanigans is telling the players "Long ago, the Dwarven king Balchek was poisoned to death by a trusted servant". The natural reaction is "wait, aren't dwarves immune to poison?". To which I respond "well this was special poison! a wizard did it!". I want to avoid that as much as possible - it breaks immersion for everyone and it reveals "the man behind the curtain". Whenever there's a possibility to break immunity, then there is potential for someone to ask if there's a circumstance where the immunity-breaking effect would be countered. It's turtles all the way down, as they say. On the other hand, advantage is a simple mechanic and it can't really be stripped from you wholly - you'd need two disadvantages on a roll to match a non-dwarf's level of resistance and I'd say that's a highly unlikely scenario to find yourself in (at that point it's probably the DM trying to kill you anyway). At higher levels, dwarfs could be immune to disadvantage on poison saves, if we really want. There's a large design space to explore.

 

[eamon]

[MENTION=63787]FinalSonicX[/MENTION]: I think you're making too much of an issue of this. DM fiat isn't anything new; and a bit of creativity in mapping a story into plausible rules has always been required.

You've got lots of options. You've a specific need; so there's no problem simply saying that in your world dwarves aren't immune - they just get advantage. Why not? Or...

• You could use a disease
• You could use a magical poison bypassing immunity
• You could use a delay-acting acid everyone thinks is a poison
• You could use splinters of glass in his jug of dwarven ale
• You could use a lucky stab
• You could let him choke
• You could go crazy and say it's radiation; or heavy metals, or magic or anything "not-really-poison-but-kind-of-similar"
• You could leave it a mystery...
• ...e.g. on autopsy no trace of poison is found; he died of a stroke
• You could change the rules surrounding dwarves
• Maybe they only get advantage
• Maybe they only get a bonus to saves and perhaps damage reduction
• Maybe they get something entirely different
• Maybe they're only immune to mundane poisons
• Maybe they're only immune to creature based poisons, not plain rotten food.

Not every story is going to map exactly onto the rules as written. It's nothing new, and it's hardly a showstopper for you is it? I mean, I get that it's not ideal, but you must realize it's a fairly obscure requirement you've got there - a specific occurrence in a specific campaign which you want to map onto the current rules.


I mean there's no way you could map all the in-world experiences in a 2e campaign onto a 3e campaign or a 3e campaign onto a 4e campaign. Some abilities, monsters, rules or magic will have changed and some events just wouldn't have worked out the same way. That's the nature of the beast: dwarven poison immunity is going to be only one of many worries in such an endeavor.

 

[Minigiant]

I say they should start out with a resistance to poison and eventually graduate to immunity later in levels.

Leveling racial aspects without a special feat or theme seems weird.

How many people I have to beat up to get poison immunity? Or immunity to pollen?

I could make Dwarfslayer poison - but then I need a "dwarfslayer" variant for any given poison with a specific effect I want to duplicate - and then at that point it becomes troublesome from a worldbuilding perspective. How much does dwarfslayer cost? Is it an alchemical reagent or is it a specific type of poison? Is there an antidote? How have laws adapted to this poison's existence? Do dwarves poison their water supply using non-dwarflsayer poison so as to prevent non-dwarves from invading their homeland? Would dwarfslayer affect the dwarven god? It starts to get into DM fiat and immunity-bypassing territory.

I think the thing that screams of more shenanigans is telling the players "Long ago, the Dwarven king Balchek was poisoned to death by a trusted servant". The natural reaction is "wait, aren't dwarves immune to poison?". To which I respond "well this was special poison! a wizard did it!". I want to avoid that as much as possible - it breaks immersion for everyone and it reveals "the man behind the curtain". Whenever there's a possibility to break immunity, then there is potential for someone to ask if there's a circumstance where the immunity-breaking effect would be countered. It's turtles all the way down, as they say. On the other hand, advantage is a simple mechanic and it can't really be stripped from you wholly - you'd need two disadvantages on a roll to match a non-dwarf's level of resistance and I'd say that's a highly unlikely scenario to find yourself in (at that point it's probably the DM trying to kill you anyway). At higher levels, dwarfs could be immune to disadvantage on poison saves, if we really want. There's a large design space to explore.

"wait, aren't dwarves immune to poison?" is the same as "wait, aren't dwarves resistant to poison? Who is dumb enough to try to poison a dwarf."

My thing is the racial features of a fantasy race should be major. Extremely significant. Otherwise it should not be there wasting my memory. Making a defense to an already uncommon offense only slightly more powerful is waste.

Having ~75% success on 5% of traps and attacks is useless. Might as well make it 100% and call it a day.