How exactly does variable resistance work?

[spinmd]

I treat it as an immediate interrupt as well, or else minions like the Mane from the Demonomicon would get zero benefit from it.

 

[Jack99]

i have always treated it as an Immediate Interrupt, since it otherwise could prove fairly useless, if the players have very varied powers. This way, at least it gets the reduction once.

 

[keterys]

Prior to the new variable resistance, I always treated it like an interrupt - activating it as the power comes in but before damage occurred.

With the new stance on free actions only interrupting if such is necessary for their function, it's less clear. In particular, with the new writeup it's RAW that it occurs afterwards unless you make an argument that it absolutely has to occur beforehand to function - which it clearly doesn't, but RAI might very well have been intended.

So, yeah, do whatever you want... but I still vote to replace it with something else. Especially on minions.

 

[S'mon]

You can house rule, make it an Interrupt to make it more powerful.

You can go RAW and have demons do it after taking damage.

You can go RAW and have minions start with a pre-chosen Resistance, probably based on the environment - eg Fire in hot area, Necrotic in Shadowfell, Cold in cold area.

 

[DracoSuave]

Well with minions... they'd probably pay some attention, and the second theres a massive (for example) fire blast, they'll go into fire resist just so they aren't next.

 

[Infiniti2000]

Be careful not to treat it too much like an Immediate action, else (a) it takes the place of other, actual Immediate actions, and (b) the monster can't do it while dazed. As a free action he can do it while dazed and it doesn't nullify other Immediate actions (if any are available).