D&D (2024) The problem with weapon damage resistances.

[jmartkdr2]

I think maybe this discussion needs a refocus.

What do you think of "Carrot" VS "Stick" design when it comes to dealing with monster weakness?

"Stick" design means everything else is made worse, and the abusing weakness lets you perform as normal.

"Carrot" design means that you can function normally, but there is also a way to perform better.

I think it's a tough nut to crack for a game like DnD because we want it to be optional.

Some players are going to want to encounter a puzzle with most monsters where they need to figure out what weapon to use before they attack to do so with maximum effectiveness. Other players won't want to deal with that - or will simply always want to use their mother's sword and be effective that way. And these two types want to play together at the same table, and be about equally effective. So you really can't use the carrot or the weapon-switcher will outperform. And the stick just sometimes punishes the weapon-switcher if the don't solve the puzzle. There's technically a balance point, but it's when the difference between the right weapon and another weapon is negligible.

Also it's a really tough puzzle to crack in a non-visual medium because you have a much harder time burying clues in the text, especially since the text will be re-written by the dm on the fly so it will often be left unsaid - unless the players metagame of course, which is how most games deal with these sorts of puzzles.

(What I mean is: either there are certain keywords that indicate what weapon to use - ie "bony" means use bludgeoning - in which case players will learn the keywords early and then the puzzle is gone, or there's no consistent way to know, in which case the 'puzzle' becomes 'guess randomly until you stumble upon the answer. And that assumes the players don't know any of the monsters, even if they dm themselves. Basically imagine if every monster was a troll.)

 

[Undrave]

I think maybe this discussion needs a refocus.

What do you think of "Carrot" VS "Stick" design when it comes to dealing with monster weakness?

"Stick" design means everything else is made worse, and the abusing weakness lets you perform as normal.

"Carrot" design means that you can function normally, but there is also a way to perform better.

Personally I prefer the carrot. And I also think weaknesses should be more interesting than Pokémon type matchups or the Fire Emblem triangle.

 

[James Gasik]

Well most people wouldn't like too much complexity- it's not like we can go back to 1e's "weapon vs. armor class" modifiers.

 

[Undrave]

Well most people wouldn't like too much complexity- it's not like we can go back to 1e's "weapon vs. armor class" modifiers.

Weaknesses should just be revealed through narration and visual design. Like a glowy bit on a NES boss. Characters should be able to observe a creature and deduce weak points and then come up with a way to exploit that weakness.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I'm pretty sure I've seen one developer mention a few years back (might have been Mearls, but I'm not sure) that the reason there are so few vulnerabilities is that they make things too easy. Doubling damage is much too strong to use other than in very special circumstances.

when I make monsters I often make "Immune to non magic, resistant to magic BUT special material over comes"

 

[Seramus]

I have a slight dislike of 'magic weapons' being a universal unlock. At the same time, I feel like it creates an expectation that most martials will need to have a magic weapon by X level, or it becomes a strange tax against martial characters compared to casters who can cantrip around it (if they selected the right cantrips).

So I would just throw out the granularity of tiers. Stick with thematic things. This monster has resistance to damage unless it has been hit by Silver within the last round. That monster has resistance to damage unless it has been hit by Fire within the last round. This third monster has resistance to damage unless it has been hit by sunlight or running water within the last round. This monster has resistance to damage unless it has been hit by Cold Iron within the last round.

Resistant to WHAT damage? All of it.

Also allows for nice moments like stabbing the werewolf with a silver dinner knife to break the resistance, allowing the party to pile on for a round, without requiring everyone to have/use silver.

 

[billd91]

The problem with damage resistance (half damage) is its often not that great for the second purpose. For example, as strong as the Tarrasque is, 1000 just absolute shlub archers (no bonuses or anything) will still do over 100 damage a round to it. 1000 archers might sound like a lot, but against a creature that a party of 20th level characters is supposed to have trouble against, its really not, any kingdom worth their salt should be able to supply that force easily against such a legendary monster.

The "damage threshold" concept is a much better fit for that purpose, it makes a lot of monsters "invincible" against your armies, which then requires specialized heroes to do the job. The damage threshold is also nice because unless its quite high, it doesn't come into play for a lot of PCs, and so you don't have to add in extra math. So I'm a big fan of damage thresholds on those key legendary type monsters.

To a certain degree, and from a more simulationist approach, that makes sense. However, it does lead to problems with varying degrees of damage output and the “must be x tall to play“ problem. If damage is halved, everyone in the party can still participate effectively. If it’s a threshold, anyone usually under the threshold is ineffective. And that’s been a problem, historically.

 

[Stalker0]

To a certain degree, and from a more simulationist approach, that makes sense. However, it does lead to problems with varying degrees of damage output and the “must be x tall to play“ problem. If damage is halved, everyone in the party can still participate effectively. If it’s a threshold, anyone usually under the threshold is ineffective. And that’s been a problem, historically.

Honestly even a 5 threshold does a lot to solve the "mass archer" problem, and a threshold of 10 eliminates it. By the time PCs are fighting creatures that have a 10 threshold, I have rarely seen dealing 10 damage in a swing being a big problem.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I have a slight dislike of 'magic weapons' being a universal unlock. At the same time, I feel like it creates an expectation that most martials will need to have a magic weapon by X level, or it becomes a strange tax against martial characters compared to casters who can cantrip around it (if they selected the right cantrips).

So I would just throw out the granularity of tiers. Stick with thematic things. This monster has resistance to damage unless it has been hit by Silver within the last round. That monster has resistance to damage unless it has been hit by Fire within the last round. This third monster has resistance to damage unless it has been hit by sunlight or running water within the last round. This monster has resistance to damage unless it has been hit by Cold Iron within the last round.

Resistant to WHAT damage? All of it.

Also allows for nice moments like stabbing the werewolf with a silver dinner knife to break the resistance, allowing the party to pile on for a round, without requiring everyone to have/use silver.

The two main problems I can see with this route are:

1. People aren't going to want EVERY monster to be a perfect binary "no resistances AT ALL"/"resistant to EVERYTHING." If literally all monsters with resistance work that way, then fights devolve into "hunt for the weakness," because this is literally meme-tier "FIGHTER DOUBLES DAMAGE WITH ONE WEIRD TRICK (MONSTERS HATE HIM)" stuff. Every fight becomes either relief that these creatures don't have resistance, or a slog of scrambling to find the resistance, or a cakewalk because you remember the resistance.

2. There are plenty of monsters that this doesn't make sense for, with the humble skeleton being a great example. Why should a skeleton be stupidly durable against literally all forms of attack unless hit with a bashing weapon, at which point (for whatever reason) thunderbolts and lightning become fully effective again? Your examples of werewolves, or similar things like powerful fae (cold iron) or vampires (sunlight) etc. are solid, but they break down if you have to consider small, weak creatures that should still have some kind of benefit. (E.g., do pixies or will-o'-the-wisps still have the tankiness of a raging Bear Totem barbarian just because they're fae who haven't been hit by cold iron?)

You get a huge amount of simplicity from this method. But I think the price paid for such simplicity, in player frustration and in flattening things to a hard binary, is not worth the prize.

 

[Seramus]

Every fight becomes either relief that these creatures don't have resistance, or a slog of scrambling to find the resistance, or a cakewalk because you remember the resistance.

That's already how things are right now, with magic weapons being the weakness (or just magic in general).

2. There are plenty of monsters that this doesn't make sense for, with the humble skeleton being a great example. Why should a skeleton be stupidly durable against literally all forms of attack unless hit with a bashing weapon, at which point (for whatever reason) thunderbolts and lightning become fully effective again? Your examples of werewolves, or similar things like powerful fae (cold iron) or vampires (sunlight) etc. are solid, but they break down if you have to consider small, weak creatures that should still have some kind of benefit. (E.g., do pixies or will-o'-the-wisps still have the tankiness of a raging Bear Totem barbarian just because they're fae who haven't been hit by cold iron?)

I have no problem with Vulnerability still existing. It's a great option for things like Skeletons!!