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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9041108" data-attributes="member: 6790260">It's the result of the haphazard, lopsided, not-actually-designed design of "traditional" D&D creatures.Creatures are given their strengths and weaknesses, not based on what would induce players to make interesting choices, but based on vague notions of what they "should" have. As a result, tons of things are immune or at least resistant to poison, because it makes sense that any of the following "should" ignore or at least shrug off poison: outsiders due to being powerful semi-spiritual beings (fiends, elementals, celestials, etc.), undead due to poison being conceived as only damaging living tissue, many aberrations due to their bizarre anatomy, constructs because they aren't organic, some abominations/monstrosities due to their preternatural existence, and perhaps a few others besides. Poison damage sucks because poison damage is conceived as being very narrow, compared to the panoply of entities a D&D character might face. Even though, IRL, poison is actually an extremely dangerous thing and in fact often much more damaging than fire (and certainly more damaging than cold in most cases!)More or less, it seems your problem is that faux-naturalism--naturalistic reasoning applied to fictional things--often produces results that are (in some sense) "ecologically" satisfying, but rather boring to actually interact with.Because pigeonholing non-spellcasters has been a thing since at least the days of 2e, and probably a lot earlier (I just don't know earlier games well enough to speak authoritatively.) Letting the ranger have fire arrows means there's much less special about being able to shoot fire balls. Letting the Barbarian throw holy water flasks makes it not so special anymore to have Turn Undead. Giving the Rogue a grapnel-crossbow makes misty step no longer a slam-dunk "simply the best" choice. Etc. Preserving the superiority of magic-wielding characters over those who primarily do not wield magic is deeply woven into the design culture of D&D, and as a result, deeply woven into the player culture as well, at least for the old hands. I dare to hope that the massive influx of new players will weaken this hegemony enough that the designers for 6e will consider doing literally anything else, but it's a pretty faint hope.It should. But it's one of the sacred cows of D&D. Magic > mundane. Making mundane tools that even partially supplant magic? Anathema.</blockquote>

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