D&D 5E Rethinking immunities & resistance

[robus]

Even using the traditional damage types associated with those elements would result in the death of those animals. (Water maps to cold and air to lightning.)

Let me put it another way. If a fish finds itself in water with insufficient oxygen (which happened in a nearby town this summer due to an algea bloom) it will suffocate. Our atmosphere (the air) is made up largely of nitrogen, but put a bird in a room filled with nitrogen and it will suffocate. They have no special immunity or resistance to their "favored element".

Birds are adapted to fly through the air under reasonable conditions. Fish have fins and gills that enable them to live in water under reasonable conditions. That's the extent of it.

I admit it wasn't the best analogy

 

[Sunseeker]

I like resistance and immunity so much I added another tier to certain creatures that are very in tune with a given element: Absorption. Whenever a creature is struck by *this type* of damage it gains that much damage in health up to it's HP maximum. If it is already at it's HP maximum, it gains non-stacking temporary HP instead.

The compromise is that the feat now downgrades by 1 step and can be taken multiple times. Absorption becomes Immunity. Immunity becomes Resistance. Resistance is negated.

So a fire mage who takes the feat 3 times could kill a fire elemental with fire. I think it's fair to a character who decides X element is their only thing that they could become skilled and powerful enough to out-fire fire.

But I also on the whole feel that monsters in 5E are generally weak, especially the ones that should be big and scary.

 

[Uchawi]

I guess the core question is do you treat magic damage as different from mundane. I prefer damage be all the same regardless of the source. What magic does is help with emulating multiple types or intensity, i.e. does more damage. At that point all you have to deal with is resistance. So a mage with a very intense fireball, may be hot enough to surpass the fire elemental damage resistance, which allows it to ignore most damage done by less intense fire.

I never liked immunities that treated magic as different, like the infamous can not be harmed except by magic.

 

[Harzel]

I really like the advantage & disadvantage rolls for attacks in D&D5E. It got me thinking about using this for damage rolls also. I think immunities and resistance are lame. If you want to be a fire mage why shouldn't your spells work on devils or fire elementals? They may be subpar but magic is magic after all. Instead of resistance and immunity as described in the DMZG why not just make damage rolls with disadvantage? You cast fireball at a devil or swing a sword at a skeleton. You roll damage twice and take the lesser of the two rolls. Clean, simple & elegant. That way weapon damage types will count again and spells may be suboptimal for classes like fire dragon sorcerers but not useless.

It's an interesting idea, but as others have pointed out you would essentially be eliminating immunity. As for resistance, if the damage roll is a single die (1dn), then the average value for rolling twice and taking the lower is (n/3)+(1/2)+(1/6n), whereas half (for resistance) of the average single roll is (n/4)+(1/4). So a) the average damage is actually greater using 1dn drop lower; and b) how is rolling two dice and taking the lower cleaner, simpler, or more elegant than rolling 1 die and dividing by 2? Also, if the damage roll involves multiple dice, you need to figure out exactly what you mean by advantage since there are multiple possibilities that will produce very different distributions. For instance, others have mentioned the 8d6 roll for fireball. You could roll 8d6 twice and take the lower, or you could roll 16d6 and take the lowest 8, or you could roll 2d6 and take the lower eight times. And those are just the more obvious variations.

So, it's an interesting idea, but I'm not sure I see a clear advantage.

 

[Hawk Diesel]

I really like the advantage & disadvantage rolls for attacks in D&D5E. It got me thinking about using this for damage rolls also. I think immunities and resistance are lame. If you want to be a fire mage why shouldn't your spells work on devils or fire elementals? They may be subpar but magic is magic after all. Instead of resistance and immunity as described in the DMZG why not just make damage rolls with disadvantage? You cast fireball at a devil or swing a sword at a skeleton. You roll damage twice and take the lesser of the two rolls. Clean, simple & elegant. That way weapon damage types will count again and spells may be suboptimal for classes like fire dragon sorcerers but not useless.

As others have said, it is an interesting idea and I think there's merit to it. As for the concern with resistance versus immunity, you could stated that creatures that normally get resistance instead have this disadvantage effect for damage dice, and those with immunity just take the straight half damage.

However, the one thing I would be concerned about is the number of dice that must be rolled, and how that could slow down the game. It's bad enough to be rolling 8 or so dice with fireball and having to add that up. Now suddenly you are rolling 16 dice and having to track between the two values.

It's an interesting idea, but it could pretty significantly slow down the game.

 

[Lost Soul]

It's an interesting idea, but as others have pointed out you would essentially be eliminating immunity. As for resistance, if the damage roll is a single die (1dn), then the average value for rolling twice and taking the lower is (n/3)+(1/2)+(1/6n), whereas half (for resistance) of the average single roll is (n/4)+(1/4). So a) the average damage is actually greater using 1dn drop lower; and b) how is rolling two dice and taking the lower cleaner, simpler, or more elegant than rolling 1 die and dividing by 2? Also, if the damage roll involves multiple dice, you need to figure out exactly what you mean by advantage since there are multiple possibilities that will produce very different distributions. For instance, others have mentioned the 8d6 roll for fireball. You could roll 8d6 twice and take the lower, or you could roll 16d6 and take the lowest 8, or you could roll 2d6 and take the lower eight times. And those are just the more obvious variations.

So, it's an interesting idea, but I'm not sure I see a clear advantage.

I do want to eliminate immunity. I think its an idea that well past its expiration date. If you feel it would be unfair to grant immunity to another attack form such as sneak attack damage then why should spells be treated any differently? What good is a sneak attack going to do to a ghost or a big walking rock like a stone golem? I think that half damage is fine but for resistance but I am flat out against spell immunity except in the most dire of circumstances. I feel that granting spell immunities and resistances along with legendary auto saves covers up for poor game design. Characters should be viable at any level of play and casters should not be overly penalized. Why should a red dragon sorcerer feel subpar against a large amount of creatures in the MM and have to take a feat tax to even compete? Would you feel the same way if the same number of monsters had resistance and/or immunity to slashing weapons or sneak attack?

Even the monsters that the MM lists as being immune to fire such as Devils are thematically flawed compared to lore. Devils in Christian lore are fallen angels consigned to torment in a fiery hell. They are not enjoying their time in the pits and curse their wretched state. They just don't die from it because Hell is the final dimension for the damned. So in D&D terms I suppose they slowly succumb to their environment only to be raised or reincarnated again. Since the 9 layers of Hell closely mirror Dante's Inferno from the Divine Comedy I don't see why they should enjoy any blanket immunity to fire. In fact they should probably be vulnerable to it as a sign of torment. But with my rule you can compromise with the dragon sorcerer or fire mage so their spells are if not optimal, at least not worthless.

 

[Lost Soul]

As others have said, it is an interesting idea and I think there's merit to it. As for the concern with resistance versus immunity, you could stated that creatures that normally get resistance instead have this disadvantage effect for damage dice, and those with immunity just take the straight half damage.

However, the one thing I would be concerned about is the number of dice that must be rolled, and how that could slow down the game. It's bad enough to be rolling 8 or so dice with fireball and having to add that up. Now suddenly you are rolling 16 dice and having to track between the two values.

It's an interesting idea, but it could pretty significantly slow down the game.

That might work. I just want options for characters such as casters since arcane casters do not get enough spell memorizations IMHO to full swap out and avoid the immunity trap plus WOTC has intentionally built narrow focus classes such as the dragon & storm sorcerer that focus on very narrow spell selection themes. I just don't want WOTC shoehorning class abilities like 4E did with the pyromancer and storm sorcerer overriding immunities while other caster classes suffer.

 

[Lost Soul]

I guess the core question is do you treat magic damage as different from mundane. I prefer damage be all the same regardless of the source. What magic does is help with emulating multiple types or intensity, i.e. does more damage. At that point all you have to deal with is resistance. So a mage with a very intense fireball, may be hot enough to surpass the fire elemental damage resistance, which allows it to ignore most damage done by less intense fire.

I never liked immunities that treated magic as different, like the infamous can not be harmed except by magic.

+1 - I could not agree more.

 

[Eubani]

This idea sounds like it would work for a player who is into participation trophies. Sorry but all tools are not fit for purpose and that is how it should be.

 

[Blue]

When rolling large numbers of dice you'll get less difference so resistance doesn't mean much. And it will significantly add time in combat which is a negative.

When rolling a die and adding modifiers, it makes the modifiers more important then the die. And since the modifiers are not changed by this, it also seems to have little effect.

All in all, the rule seems to add complexity and cost game time without actually having a large effect on the damage outcomes. Certainly not as drastic as halving them.

Forgive me but it seems like an inferior replacement due to minimal effect and extra complexity/time spent.