Pyromancer Mage: Balanced?
- Thread starter TerraDave
- Start date
fuzzlewump
Explorer
Yeah, it would be simpler. If I recall correctly Mearls was toying with the idea of taking out resistances and instead adding reactive abilities that monsters do upon being hit by something they would be resistant against.
But I think the balance in pyromancer vs. other wizards, or the resistance ignoring party vs. others is that sometimes you go against varied types of vulnerabilities. Having the fire mage will not do anything against the monster vuln. to psychic, ice, thunder, lightning, radiant, or what have you. A typical wizard might have that toolbox.
UngeheuerLich
Legend
Not only did he only think about it, MM3 and monster vault make use of mearl´s ideas.
Fire damage from other monsters (perhaps using area attacks). Fire damage from NPCs. PCs using non-specialized abilities (a regular wizard with a couple of fire spells). PCs using tactics that go beyond the scope of the written rules (start a brushfire). The D&D rules are not a closed system, and you cannot predict all possible sources of fire damage.
Basically, what we have here are two concerns:
- Some creatures ought, by any sensible logic, to be resistant or immune to certain damage types (fire giants to fire; undead to poison; et cetera).
- If a character is specialized in dealing a single damage type, that character will be utterly screwed when facing monsters that resist that damage type.
I find it hard to imagine a cleaner and more intuitive system that can adequately address both concerns. The game world does not consist purely of battles between monsters and single-element specialist PCs.
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DragoonLance
First Post
Yes, in the Monster Vault there is (IIRC) nothing with resistance but plenty of "you hit me with this and I react this way." From the Flesh Golem being empowered with lightning attacks and fleeing from fire (FIRE BAD!!!) to the fire elemental being slowed by cold attacks.
The whole killing fire with more fire always makes me think of Dark Schneider who when facing Efreet the Fire Elemental knows that he should use cold magic, but he doesn't know any cold spells. So instead he just uses the "Ultimate" fire spell to defeat it.
DS: "I don't know any cold spells..."
E: "What's wrong boy, are you that helpless?"
DS: "Let the fires of Gehenna turn you to ash!"
E: "IMPOSSIBLE!!!! How can you summon a fire as strong as the sun?"
DS: "And you kept on calling me boy. Guess what, I'm older than you!"
The whole killing fire with more fire always makes me think of Dark Schneider who when facing Efreet the Fire Elemental knows that he should use cold magic, but he doesn't know any cold spells. So instead he just uses the "Ultimate" fire spell to defeat it.
DS: "I don't know any cold spells..."
E: "What's wrong boy, are you that helpless?"
DS: "Let the fires of Gehenna turn you to ash!"
E: "IMPOSSIBLE!!!! How can you summon a fire as strong as the sun?"
DS: "And you kept on calling me boy. Guess what, I'm older than you!"
You recall incorrectly. The Monster Vault has a pretty typical array of monsters with resistance, from giants to dragons to undead. (I think the fire elemental is an oversight. As for the flesh golem, golems being affected in odd ways by specific spells/attack types is a longstanding tradition in D&D.)
Ignore Fire Resist is nothing new: it's present in a variety of PPs and EDs. Fire-Maker characters have always been quite potent: I had a Reventant(Tiefling) Con-Inefernalock|Battlemind McWizard that tossed Burning Mark of Hell and Consuming the Weak on top of all the normal shenanigans. Was pretty brutal. Could be done with a Cha-Infernalock|Paladin too, but I liked Con for Blood Pact of Cania.
I'm A Banana
Potassium-Rich
Things other than characters deal types of damage.
There are multiple types of damage to be resisted/not resisted.
"Typical parties" are frequently not actually relevant to a particular table, and you want to design monsters to cover a breadth of play experience. I'd debate that a "typical party" includes a pryomancer, forex. It's a magazine released build for Essentials. Plenty of tables will be skipping it.
Because if the priest busts out a fire spell or the warrior hits with a fire weapon, you want to be able to resist it, but if all of a character's attacks are fire powers, then you don't want to bilk that character. Since character types are not frequently monolithic about their damage type (plenty of prayers involve things other than radiant damage).
Charwoman Gene
Adventurer
I imagine attacking a fire elemental with fire is like punching a human. It hurts, and you can kill them if you try hard.
Xris Robin
First Post
This is actually the exact same thing I was thinking of.The whole killing fire with more fire always makes me think of Dark Schneider who when facing Efreet the Fire Elemental knows that he should use cold magic, but he doesn't know any cold spells. So instead he just uses the "Ultimate" fire spell to defeat it.
DS: "I don't know any cold spells..."
E: "What's wrong boy, are you that helpless?"
DS: "Let the fires of Gehenna turn you to ash!"
E: "IMPOSSIBLE!!!! How can you summon a fire as strong as the sun?"
DS: "And you kept on calling me boy. Guess what, I'm older than you!"
Personally, while I don't think it's overpowered, I do think it makes the Dragon Sorcerer look a little less good.
