Mearls talks about how he hates resistances

[ravenheart]

I hope I'm not being repetitive, but I'm a bit eager and excited about my own genius, so I just have to get these ideas out there!

1) Change resistances to situational bonuses to defenses and saving throws

ie. resist fire 5 would translate into a +2 bonus to defense against attacks with the fire keyword AND a +2 bonus to saving throws against ongoing fire damage. This in addition to "terrain walk" abilities and such would be a sufficient fix, don't you think? Vulnerabilites would get a similar treatment - with penalties, of course.

OR

2) Resistance piercing (chains of) feats

These would not necessarily be limited to specific keywords (or in that case, preferably keyword groups such as charm/fear/psychic etc.) but in general I think they should give options for the players that can counter resistances. For example:

Pierce Resistance
Prerequisite: Int 13
Benefit: When making an attack with a specific keyword against a creature with resistance against the keyword, you can take a –2 penalty to the attack roll. If the attack hits, you ignore up to 5 points of resistance. You can ignore a greater amount of resistance as you increase in level, as shown below:

Level 6: Ignore up to 10 points of resistance.
Level 11: Ignore up to 15 points of resistance.
Level 16: Ignore up to 20 points of resistance.
Level 21: Ignore up to 25 points of resistance
Level 26: Ignore up to 30 points of resistance

Granted, this method requires a bit more work and balancing. But I still think it could be fun this way!

On the whole, I really like the idea of bestowing conditions to resistance and vulnerabilities!

But I'm still not sure how exactly to handle immunities. That is, if anything should be done in the first place.

 

[Starfox]

You could mix up how resistances work a bit by making it so enemies ignore under X amount of damage from appropriate source, but take full damage if it's over X. That way, a wizard or whatever can try to overpower the resist, which comes up somewhat often with elemental magic in stories.

I like this idea.

Another idea I have is where the environment plays a larger role. Say tou are in the arctic. Because everyone's cold resistance is working full-tilt on negating the cold, it is reduced by 5 or 10 points. In an elemental region of flame, fire resistance is reduced by 20. This might even translate to a vulnerability if the modifier exceeds the resistance, but I'd only let it do so to a very limited degree - say 1/5 normal. That way, the environment aids creatures that use the environment-specific element.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I think the problem of resistance and the elemental energy keywords is that it's all about damage, but not about what it would also imply.

If you cast a fire spell, it's not just you creating some flames. You are taking control over the element of fire, and manipulate it to your bidding.

So a Fire Elemental is immune to fire? Great for it. But the Elemental is also entirely composed of the element _you_ control.

So if you cast your Ice Spell on a Frost Giant, you don't deal much damage because you "cool" it. You deal damage because you take chunks of its the material it is composed of and have them do whatever you want.
In this simple variant, this just means there is less or no resistance to the damage.

But you could go a different route. Instead of dealing damage with your Fireball spell to a Fire Elemental, you instead manipulate it - maybe you slide it to anypoint within the burst, or you daze it, or even further, you dominate it entirely for a round!

In 4E, I would probably try to implement this with
1) A few powers that have such mentions explicitely.
2) Feats that modiify elemental spells in such a way.
3) Paragon Paths that add such special abilities.

Feat Example:
Elemenetal Power Enhancement Feats:
You can apply only one of these feats benefit to any power.

- Master of Flames: [Elemental Power Enhancement]
Prerequisites: Cha13+
If you deal fire damage to a creature that is resistant or immune to fire damage, you gain an effect dependent on the amount of damage resisted or ignored. (Unless noted otherwise, the effects are cumulative).
5: Slide target 1 square (Burst only) or push it 3 squares.
10: Target is weakened until the end of its next turn.
15: Target is dazed and weakened instead of weakened.
20: Target is stunned instead of dazed and weakened.
30: Target is dominated instead of stunned.

- Master of Ice [Elemental Power Enhancement
Prerequisite: Con13+
If you deal cold damage to a creature that is resistant or immune to cold damage, you gain an effect dependent on the amount of damage resisted or ignored. (Unless noted otherwise, the effects are cumulative.)
5: The target is slowed and cannot shift until the end of its next turn.
10: The target is immobilized until the end of its next turn.
15: The target is dazed and immobilized instead of immobilized.
20: Target is stunned instead of dazed and immobilized.
30: Target is dominated instead of stunned.

(Maybe it would be a good idea to split this feats up in Heroic/Paragon/Epic variants? Maybe "Master of Flame", "Paragon of Ice" "Control over Thunder"?)

 

[Belphanior]

Mustrum, there's an interesting idea but it needs IMO a lot of work. A special pyromancer technique that lets you "hijack" fire elementals is cool. Hijacking tieflings is not. It would need to be limited to, perhaps, elemental origin creatures only.

I'm also unsure if it's alright to make your attacks even more powerful depending on how resistant the creature should've been to your attack. It assumes a level of correlation between resist-fire and made-of-fire that isn't necesarily true.

Also, a paragon path feature seems more suitable than a feat. It makes ice mages more special than just a guy who happened to have feats to spare.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Mustrum, there's an interesting idea but it needs IMO a lot of work. A special pyromancer technique that lets you "hijack" fire elementals is cool. Hijacking tieflings is not. It would need to be limited to, perhaps, elemental origin creatures only.

I'm also unsure if it's alright to make your attacks even more powerful depending on how resistant the creature should've been to your attack. It assumes a level of correlation between resist-fire and made-of-fire that isn't necesarily true.

Also, a paragon path feature seems more suitable than a feat. It makes ice mages more special than just a guy who happened to have feats to spare.

Good points, especially the note on the difference between something like "Elemental" creatures and creatures that just happen to have fire resistance.

I am not so sure about the Paragon Path, though. I think Feats could work, too. Do you want every Ice Wizard be a "Master of Ice Paragon Path" member? Isn't that a little to repetitive?

 

[Belphanior]

I am not so sure about the Paragon Path, though. I think Feats could work, too. Do you want every Ice Wizard be a "Master of Ice Paragon Path" member? Isn't that a little to repetitive?

I'm going to reserve judgment on feats until I see Acrane Power, to be honest. I have a suspicion we might see a lot more done with energy types there. Maybe they'll deliver us what we're looking for, or maybe at least a first stepping stone.

At the moment though I feel feats is not a perfect solution because there's not a lot of those to take for many wizards. It would make most of them specialists in one or more types as a matter of course.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I'm going to reserve judgment on feats until I see Acrane Power, to be honest. I have a suspicion we might see a lot more done with energy types there. Maybe they'll deliver us what we're looking for, or maybe at least a first stepping stone.

At the moment though I feel feats is not a perfect solution because there's not a lot of those to take for many wizards. It would make most of them specialists in one or more types as a matter of course.

I was wondering if Meals is working on classes with the Elemental Power Source for PHB III, but Arcane Power is also a possibility.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

One of my pet peeves is the "Desert = Hot" assumption. Deserts are not inherently hot. Deserts lack water, which is the earth's primary moderator of temperature. Arid climates allow the sun's energy to heat an area during the day, but also allow an area to get very cold during the night. If a desert is near the equator, it'll be consistently hot but if it's near a pole, it'll be consistently freezing. If a desert is anywhere else, it'll be hot during the day and cold during the night. Seriously, just once I'd like someone to use rain forests in their example of heat-based monsters, spells or whatever.

Other than that, I don't particularly care about Mike's feelings on resistances. I don't like the "let's give this monster a random resistance just to make it tougher" kind of resistances, but sometimes resistances just make sense. If a creature breaths fire or comes from a tropical/supernaturally hot environment, you shouldn't even have to roll a knowledge check to think "Gee, maybe I shouldn't use fire attacks against this thing." Yeah resistances have the potential to screw over a PC, but that's the price for focussing on a particular energy type. All attack methods have things to screw them over--and not just in D&D. Why? Because sometimes it just makes sense, and I don't see it changing any time soon.

TS

 

[Daniel D. Fox]

I don't use resistances whatsoever.

I add the resistance to Defense values whenever an enemy attempts to use a Power with that specific keyword against the foe.

 

[Garnfellow]

I had a nasty experience in Red Hand of Doom when one PC's hard core fire mage (fire genasi evoker with all the fire feats possible) was helpless against red dragons. So here's my solution for the themed wizard problem.

I had the exact same idea when I read Mike's entry. To me, this approach is a far more elegant solution to what's really a pretty simple problem.