Vulnerability

On Mon, 15 Oct 2007 08:39:26 -0700, Justisaur <justisaur.DeleteThis@gmail.com> scribed
into the ether:

>On Oct 14, 8:37 pm, SeaHen <seahen....DeleteThis@gmail.com> wrote:
>> It seems that the goal of the current resistance system (as compared
>> to percentage reduction) is to allow creatures to ignore small amounts
>> of damage, without modifying large amounts to the point that they
>> shift the game balance. So why not do the same with vulnerability?
>> Then, the extra effect of a flaming sword on a cold-based creature
>> would be clearly noticeable, but that of a fireball wouldn't be
>> unbalancing.
>>
>> If a creature has fire vulnerability N, let it mean that the first N
>> points of fire damage per hit are doubled.
>
>I like the idea. Reverse resistance.

I've also been toying around with staggered invulnerability.

Have Least, Moderate, Strong invulnerability to various effects. In order
to affect something with a power they are invulnerable to, you need to
supercede its rank.

Current skeletons have immunity to cold because of their lack of fleshy
bits. But if things get really cold, it will make the bones brittle enough
to shatter under their own weight. They would get Least cold immunity. An
adult white dragon has a fair bit of magic on his side, plus the aspects of
his breath weapon, and he gets Moderate. An ice elemental scoffs at the
very idea of cold, and has Strong invulnerability.

Spells for level 1-5 inflict Least <element> 6-7 do Moderate <Element> and
8-9 do Strong <Element>.

So a skeleton would not be affected by the ice portion of an ice storm
(would still get flailed to redeath by the force of the chunks of course),
being a level 4 spell. An energy substituted Delayed Blast Iceball at level
7 would be effective on the skeleton, but the dragon would ignore it. Ice
Comet Swarm, the energy substituted level 9 spell, would hurt the dragon,
but no level of cold would ever impede the Elemental.

Possibly throw in a half damage factor for using a level 9 spell against a
creature with moderate immunity.
 >> Stay informed about: Vulnerability 

On Oct 15, 3:57 pm, Matt Frisch <matus....DeleteThis@yahoo.spam.me.not.com>
wrote:
> On Mon, 15 Oct 2007 08:39:26 -0700, Justisaur <justis....DeleteThis@gmail.com> scribed
> into the ether:
>
> >On Oct 14, 8:37 pm, SeaHen <seahen....DeleteThis@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> It seems that the goal of the current resistance system (as compared
> >> to percentage reduction) is to allow creatures to ignore small amounts
> >> of damage, without modifying large amounts to the point that they
> >> shift the game balance. So why not do the same with vulnerability?
> >> Then, the extra effect of a flaming sword on a cold-based creature
> >> would be clearly noticeable, but that of a fireball wouldn't be
> >> unbalancing.
>
> >> If a creature has fire vulnerability N, let it mean that the first N
> >> points of fire damage per hit are doubled.
>
> >I like the idea. Reverse resistance.
>
> I've also been toying around with staggered invulnerability.
>
> Have Least, Moderate, Strong invulnerability to various effects. In order
> to affect something with a power they are invulnerable to, you need to
> supercede its rank.
>
> Current skeletons have immunity to cold because of their lack of fleshy
> bits. But if things get really cold, it will make the bones brittle enough
> to shatter under their own weight. They would get Least cold immunity. An
> adult white dragon has a fair bit of magic on his side, plus the aspects of
> his breath weapon, and he gets Moderate. An ice elemental scoffs at the
> very idea of cold, and has Strong invulnerability.
>
> Spells for level 1-5 inflict Least <element> 6-7 do Moderate <Element> and
> 8-9 do Strong <Element>.
>
> So a skeleton would not be affected by the ice portion of an ice storm
> (would still get flailed to redeath by the force of the chunks of course),
> being a level 4 spell. An energy substituted Delayed Blast Iceball at level
> 7 would be effective on the skeleton, but the dragon would ignore it. Ice
> Comet Swarm, the energy substituted level 9 spell, would hurt the dragon,
> but no level of cold would ever impede the Elemental.
>
> Possibly throw in a half damage factor for using a level 9 spell against a
> creature with moderate immunity.

There's already resistance for that.

- Justisaur
 >> Stay informed about: Vulnerability 

Justisaur wrote:
> On Oct 15, 3:57 pm, Matt Frisch <matus... RemoveThis @yahoo.spam.me.not.com>
> wrote:
>> I've also been toying around with staggered invulnerability.
>>
>> Have Least, Moderate, Strong invulnerability to various effects. In
>> order to affect something with a power they are invulnerable to, you
>> need to supercede its rank.
>>
>> Current skeletons have immunity to cold because of their lack of
>> fleshy bits. But if things get really cold, it will make the bones
>> brittle enough to shatter under their own weight. They would get
>> Least cold immunity. An adult white dragon has a fair bit of magic
>> on his side, plus the aspects of his breath weapon, and he gets
>> Moderate. An ice elemental scoffs at the very idea of cold, and has
>> Strong invulnerability.
>>
>> Spells for level 1-5 inflict Least <element> 6-7 do Moderate
>> <Element> and 8-9 do Strong <Element>.
>>
>> So a skeleton would not be affected by the ice portion of an ice
>> storm (would still get flailed to redeath by the force of the chunks
>> of course), being a level 4 spell. An energy substituted Delayed
>> Blast Iceball at level 7 would be effective on the skeleton, but the
>> dragon would ignore it. Ice Comet Swarm, the energy substituted
>> level 9 spell, would hurt the dragon, but no level of cold would
>> ever impede the Elemental.
>>
>> Possibly throw in a half damage factor for using a level 9 spell
>> against a creature with moderate immunity.
>
> There's already resistance for that.

Perhaps he means to say that they hand out immunities a little too freely.

In my own experience, I've often wondered why a 1st level elf should be
invulnerable to a God of Dream's "sleep effects". Seems odd to me. (Yes, I
know, they don't need to sleep, but if it's a God of Dreams, modifying the
creature to need to sleep seems trivial.)

To the OP's point, I think reassigning skeletons to have resistance 30 to
cold would be reasonable.

--
Reginald Blue
"I have always wished that my computer would be as easy to use as my
telephone. My wish has come true. I no longer know how to use my
telephone."
- Bjarne Stroustrup (originator of C++) [quoted at the 2003
International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces]
 >> Stay informed about: Vulnerability 

On Tue, 16 Oct 2007 10:26:02 -0700, Justisaur <justisaur.TakeThisOut@gmail.com> scribed
into the ether:

>On Oct 15, 3:57 pm, Matt Frisch <matus....TakeThisOut@yahoo.spam.me.not.com>
>wrote:
>> On Mon, 15 Oct 2007 08:39:26 -0700, Justisaur <justis....TakeThisOut@gmail.com> scribed
>> into the ether:
>>
>> >On Oct 14, 8:37 pm, SeaHen <seahen....TakeThisOut@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >> It seems that the goal of the current resistance system (as compared
>> >> to percentage reduction) is to allow creatures to ignore small amounts
>> >> of damage, without modifying large amounts to the point that they
>> >> shift the game balance. So why not do the same with vulnerability?
>> >> Then, the extra effect of a flaming sword on a cold-based creature
>> >> would be clearly noticeable, but that of a fireball wouldn't be
>> >> unbalancing.
>>
>> >> If a creature has fire vulnerability N, let it mean that the first N
>> >> points of fire damage per hit are doubled.
>>
>> >I like the idea. Reverse resistance.
>>
>> I've also been toying around with staggered invulnerability.
>>
>> Have Least, Moderate, Strong invulnerability to various effects. In order
>> to affect something with a power they are invulnerable to, you need to
>> supercede its rank.
>>
>> Current skeletons have immunity to cold because of their lack of fleshy
>> bits. But if things get really cold, it will make the bones brittle enough
>> to shatter under their own weight. They would get Least cold immunity. An
>> adult white dragon has a fair bit of magic on his side, plus the aspects of
>> his breath weapon, and he gets Moderate. An ice elemental scoffs at the
>> very idea of cold, and has Strong invulnerability.
>>
>> Spells for level 1-5 inflict Least <element> 6-7 do Moderate <Element> and
>> 8-9 do Strong <Element>.
>>
>> So a skeleton would not be affected by the ice portion of an ice storm
>> (would still get flailed to redeath by the force of the chunks of course),
>> being a level 4 spell. An energy substituted Delayed Blast Iceball at level
>> 7 would be effective on the skeleton, but the dragon would ignore it. Ice
>> Comet Swarm, the energy substituted level 9 spell, would hurt the dragon,
>> but no level of cold would ever impede the Elemental.
>>
>> Possibly throw in a half damage factor for using a level 9 spell against a
>> creature with moderate immunity.
>
>There's already resistance for that.

But they don't duplicate the effect, and immunities can be too
encompassing. I think it's too good that a freshly hatched red dragon could
be thrown into the sun with no ill effects from the heat. An ancient
wyrm...yes, but not a newborn. I can punch an adult human on the forehead
and do little more than buise my knuckles, where the same blow on an infant
with their very soft skull would easily be fatal.
 >> Stay informed about: Vulnerability 

Matt Frisch wrote:
> I've also been toying around with staggered invulnerability.
>
> Have Least, Moderate, Strong invulnerability to various effects. In order
> to affect something with a power they are invulnerable to, you need to
> supercede its rank.
>
> Current skeletons have immunity to cold because of their lack of fleshy
> bits. But if things get really cold, it will make the bones brittle enough
> to shatter under their own weight. They would get Least cold immunity. An
> adult white dragon has a fair bit of magic on his side, plus the aspects of
> his breath weapon, and he gets Moderate. An ice elemental scoffs at the
> very idea of cold, and has Strong invulnerability.
>
> Spells for level 1-5 inflict Least <element> 6-7 do Moderate <Element> and
> 8-9 do Strong <Element>.
[...]

It should also depend on the number of targets. A Xth level spell that
affects a large area may very well be "Least", whereas a spell of the
same level that affects only 2 or 3 targets should be Moderate, and a
spell that affects only one target should be Strong.

At least for some spell levels. Obviously a 1st level one-target spell
should not be "Strong", but a good place to separate things out would be
the spell levels when multi-target spells appear. Fireball is, AFAIK,
the first real area-of-effect massive-damage spell. And that's 3rd
level. Thus Fireball damage is by definition Least, but also at 3rd
level a spell that damages only one target should then be Moderate grade
damage.


Another thing you could do is introduce another set of Feats, called
Intense Damage Feats. Thus a fire-loving Wizard could take Intense Fire,
which would upgrade the damage classification of all those of his Fire
spells that are within 2 levels of the next higher step.

Thus if normally 6th level few-target spells are Moderate grade damage,
and few-target spells of 1st to 5th level are Least grade damage, then
with this Feat the Wizard's 4th and 5th level fire spells would be
upgraded to Moderate damage.

--
Peter Knutsen
sagatafl.org
 >> Stay informed about: Vulnerability 

On Wed, 17 Oct 2007 11:52:29 +0200, Peter Knutsen <peter.RemoveThis@sagatafl.invalid>
scribed into the ether:

>Matt Frisch wrote:
>> I've also been toying around with staggered invulnerability.
>>
>> Have Least, Moderate, Strong invulnerability to various effects. In order
>> to affect something with a power they are invulnerable to, you need to
>> supercede its rank.
>>
>> Current skeletons have immunity to cold because of their lack of fleshy
>> bits. But if things get really cold, it will make the bones brittle enough
>> to shatter under their own weight. They would get Least cold immunity. An
>> adult white dragon has a fair bit of magic on his side, plus the aspects of
>> his breath weapon, and he gets Moderate. An ice elemental scoffs at the
>> very idea of cold, and has Strong invulnerability.
>>
>> Spells for level 1-5 inflict Least <element> 6-7 do Moderate <Element> and
>> 8-9 do Strong <Element>.
>[...]
>
>It should also depend on the number of targets. A Xth level spell that
>affects a large area may very well be "Least", whereas a spell of the
>same level that affects only 2 or 3 targets should be Moderate, and a
>spell that affects only one target should be Strong.
>
>At least for some spell levels. Obviously a 1st level one-target spell
>should not be "Strong", but a good place to separate things out would be
>the spell levels when multi-target spells appear. Fireball is, AFAIK,
>the first real area-of-effect massive-damage spell. And that's 3rd
>level. Thus Fireball damage is by definition Least, but also at 3rd
>level a spell that damages only one target should then be Moderate grade
>damage.
>
>
>Another thing you could do is introduce another set of Feats, called
>Intense Damage Feats. Thus a fire-loving Wizard could take Intense Fire,
>which would upgrade the damage classification of all those of his Fire
>spells that are within 2 levels of the next higher step.
>
>Thus if normally 6th level few-target spells are Moderate grade damage,
>and few-target spells of 1st to 5th level are Least grade damage, then
>with this Feat the Wizard's 4th and 5th level fire spells would be
>upgraded to Moderate damage.

Hmm, consider most of this stolen!
 >> Stay informed about: Vulnerability 

On Oct 17, 12:27 am, Matt Frisch <matus... RemoveThis @yahoo.spam.me.not.com>
wrote:
>
> But they don't duplicate the effect, and immunities can be too
> encompassing. I think it's too good that a freshly hatched red dragon could
> be thrown into the sun with no ill effects from the heat. An ancient
> wyrm...yes, but not a newborn. I can punch an adult human on the forehead
> and do little more than buise my knuckles, where the same blow on an infant
> with their very soft skull would easily be fatal.

I still think a series of trump immunities makes the cut-offs too
sharp, and resistances (possibly combined with resistance reduction)
could accomplish the same thing. 10 or 20 resistance for Least, 30 for
Moderate, 40 or 50 for Strong.
 >> Stay informed about: Vulnerability 

Matt Frisch wrote:
> On Wed, 17 Oct 2007 11:52:29 +0200, Peter Knutsen <peter.DeleteThis@sagatafl.invalid>
> scribed into the ether:
>>It should also depend on the number of targets. A Xth level spell that
>>affects a large area may very well be "Least", whereas a spell of the
>>same level that affects only 2 or 3 targets should be Moderate, and a
>>spell that affects only one target should be Strong.
[...]

> Hmm, consider most of this stolen!

Please report about it in here, about how it went, then.

--
Peter Knutsen
sagatafl.org
 >> Stay informed about: Vulnerability 

Matt Frisch <matuse73 RemoveThis @yahoo.spam.me.not.com> wrote:
> On Mon, 15 Oct 2007 08:39:26 -0700, Justisaur <justisaur RemoveThis @gmail.com> scribed
> into the ether:
>
>>On Oct 14, 8:37 pm, SeaHen <seahen... RemoveThis @gmail.com> wrote:
>>> It seems that the goal of the current resistance system (as compared
>>> to percentage reduction) is to allow creatures to ignore small amounts
>>> of damage, without modifying large amounts to the point that they
>>> shift the game balance. So why not do the same with vulnerability?
>>> Then, the extra effect of a flaming sword on a cold-based creature
>>> would be clearly noticeable, but that of a fireball wouldn't be
>>> unbalancing.
>>>
>>> If a creature has fire vulnerability N, let it mean that the first N
>>> points of fire damage per hit are doubled.
>>
>>I like the idea. Reverse resistance.
>
> I've also been toying around with staggered invulnerability.
>
> Have Least, Moderate, Strong invulnerability to various effects. In order
> to affect something with a power they are invulnerable to, you need to
> supercede its rank.
>
> Current skeletons have immunity to cold because of their lack of fleshy
> bits. But if things get really cold, it will make the bones brittle enough
> to shatter under their own weight. They would get Least cold immunity. An
> adult white dragon has a fair bit of magic on his side, plus the aspects of
> his breath weapon, and he gets Moderate. An ice elemental scoffs at the
> very idea of cold, and has Strong invulnerability.

(Cold) subtype would indicate at least Moderate immunity, I would think.
Some (Cold) subtype creatures would have more than that if there is an
even stronger connection to cold (such as an elemental, though powerful
dragons and outsiders should probably qualify too).

> Spells for level 1-5 inflict Least <element> 6-7 do Moderate <Element> and
> 8-9 do Strong <Element>.

If I were to do this, I'd probably go with 1-3, 4-6, 7-9, rather than
1-5, 6-7, 8-9. But that's just me; otherwise, I kind of like the idea.

I think it might be more trouble than it's worth to implement, though.
You could instead change 'immunity' to 'really high resistance' and
leave it at that (with the opposing vulnerability at 'half power').
Something with 'Cold Resistance 20' would have 'Fire Vulnerability 10'
(the first 10 points of fire damage are doubled).

True 'immunity' could then be something rather special -- 'infinite
resistance', but comes with nastybad 'double damage from fire'.

> So a skeleton would not be affected by the ice portion of an ice storm
> (would still get flailed to redeath by the force of the chunks of
> course), being a level 4 spell. An energy substituted Delayed Blast
> Iceball at level 7 would be effective on the skeleton, but the dragon
> would ignore it. Ice Comet Swarm, the energy substituted level 9
> spell, would hurt the dragon, but no level of cold would ever impede
> the Elemental.

In my case, the skeleton could ignore /ray of frost/ and /iceball/
but /ice storm/ would work. The dragon would ignore (the cold of) /ice
storm/ but would be affected by /delayed blast iceball/... assuming he
blew the save, of course[1].

[1] for dragons and the like I'd be inclined to bump the invulnerability
as it gets bigger/older -- a great wyrm white dragon is damn near an
ice elemental in nature *anyway*, IMO. or it should be.

Hmm. Another note for when I revise dragons IMC.

> Possibly throw in a half damage factor for using a level 9 spell
> against a creature with moderate immunity.

So... overcoming the resistance means you still do only half damage?


Keith
--
Keith Davies "History is made by stupid people
keith.davies RemoveThis @kjdavies.org "Clever people wouldn't even try
keith.davies RemoveThis @gmail.com "If you want a place in the history books
http://www.kjdavies.org/ "Then do something dumb before you die."
-- The Arrogant Worms
 >> Stay informed about: Vulnerability 

Peter Knutsen <peter.RemoveThis@sagatafl.invalid> wrote:
> Matt Frisch wrote:
>> I've also been toying around with staggered invulnerability.
>>
>> Have Least, Moderate, Strong invulnerability to various effects. In order
>> to affect something with a power they are invulnerable to, you need to
>> supercede its rank.
>>
>> Current skeletons have immunity to cold because of their lack of fleshy
>> bits. But if things get really cold, it will make the bones brittle enough
>> to shatter under their own weight. They would get Least cold immunity. An
>> adult white dragon has a fair bit of magic on his side, plus the aspects of
>> his breath weapon, and he gets Moderate. An ice elemental scoffs at the
>> very idea of cold, and has Strong invulnerability.
>>
>> Spells for level 1-5 inflict Least <element> 6-7 do Moderate <Element> and
>> 8-9 do Strong <Element>.
> [...]
>
> It should also depend on the number of targets. A Xth level spell that
> affects a large area may very well be "Least", whereas a spell of the
> same level that affects only 2 or 3 targets should be Moderate, and a
> spell that affects only one target should be Strong.

I'd overlooked this. You have a point.

Making 'immunity' varying degrees (of possibly high) resistance takes
care of this. Single-target spells tend to have higher damage than area
effect spells, which leads to focusing on a single creature probably
doing more damage and therefore getting past the resistance.

It also gets rid of another set of classifications and comparisons.
Straight up 'fire damage' is easy, determining the 'degree' of the fire
damage is trickier.

The other thing I'm not happy about with the 'immunity degrees' thing is
that it seems to be binary. You go from "can't affect the target" to
"full effect". The resistance idea means that you have to cross a
threshold, and then you *still* don't get full effect. That (fire)
creature doesn't suddenly find that you can toast him, but he *isn't*
quite as immune as he thought.

> Another thing you could do is introduce another set of Feats, called
> Intense Damage Feats. Thus a fire-loving Wizard could take Intense Fire,
> which would upgrade the damage classification of all those of his Fire
> spells that are within 2 levels of the next higher step.

I'm trying to remember if my specialization feats can do this. I know I
wrote feats for energy-based spells that can give such spells lingering
effects (such as leaving things on fire, leaving patches of slippery ice
or /slowing/ the targets, etc.), but I don't remember anything above
overcoming resistance.

If you don't want the 'degrees' thing as originally posted (I wouldn't)
you could instead have it reduce the target's resistance. It has no
effect on creatures *not* resistant to the energy type, though... but
that's probably okay. A 'Fire Wizard' might take 'Intense Fire Spells'
or the like as a feat (not [Metamagic], but [Spell]) that causes his
fire spells to reduce fire resistance by 10. Or perhaps "will always
overcome at five points of fire resistance" -- against a creature with
Fire Resistance 200, he can still do five points of damage with his
[Fire] spells; this lets it work against high-resistance creatures.
This latter bit means, though, that he might stick with the *low*-level
spells, since the additional effect of higher-level spells is lost.

I suppose it could instead by "overcomes $energy resistance equal to
five points per spell level". This might be too powerful; a Wiz5
/fireball/ does 17.5 points of damage on average, which would about fill
the 15 points of fire resistance overcome. OTOH, since a creature with
fire resistance > 15 likely has lots of HD, there's a good chance it
would make the save anyway... and a Wiz10 /fireball/ does 35 points of
damage on average; on a successful save it would still fill it.

Yeah, this might be about right. If we have a 'reduce energy
resistance' option it should reduce things by more because it might not
always have effect. When it does have effect it should probably do more
than the equivalent Overcome Energy Resistance ability.


Keith
--
Keith Davies "History is made by stupid people
keith.davies.RemoveThis@kjdavies.org "Clever people wouldn't even try
keith.davies.RemoveThis@gmail.com "If you want a place in the history books
http://www.kjdavies.org/ "Then do something dumb before you die."
-- The Arrogant Worms
 >> Stay informed about: Vulnerability 

On Sun, 11 Nov 2007 05:25:49 GMT, Keith Davies <keith.davies.TakeThisOut@kjdavies.org>
scribed into the ether:

>Matt Frisch <matuse73.TakeThisOut@yahoo.spam.me.not.com> wrote:
>> On Mon, 15 Oct 2007 08:39:26 -0700, Justisaur <justisaur.TakeThisOut@gmail.com> scribed
>> into the ether:
>
>> Spells for level 1-5 inflict Least <element> 6-7 do Moderate <Element> and
>> 8-9 do Strong <Element>.
>
>If I were to do this, I'd probably go with 1-3, 4-6, 7-9, rather than
>1-5, 6-7, 8-9. But that's just me; otherwise, I kind of like the idea.

I was looking at my progression because I wanted the moderate immunity to
be pretty meaningful. L8+ spells not typically being hurled around with
reckless abandon would make their use more meaningful.

>I think it might be more trouble than it's worth to implement, though.
>You could instead change 'immunity' to 'really high resistance' and
>leave it at that (with the opposing vulnerability at 'half power').
>Something with 'Cold Resistance 20' would have 'Fire Vulnerability 10'
>(the first 10 points of fire damage are doubled).

The bookkeeping is the thing that kind of gets to me. There's also the
metamagic factor, does a maximized fireball inflict least or moderate fire
damage? And what degree of element strength do the monsters themselves
possess? An ice elemental may well be immune to all cold, but does he
inflict Strong cold damage?

>In my case, the skeleton could ignore /ray of frost/ and /iceball/
>but /ice storm/ would work. The dragon would ignore (the cold of) /ice
>storm/ but would be affected by /delayed blast iceball/... assuming he
>blew the save, of course[1].
>
>[1] for dragons and the like I'd be inclined to bump the invulnerability
> as it gets bigger/older -- a great wyrm white dragon is damn near an
> ice elemental in nature *anyway*, IMO. or it should be.

Yea, I mentioned "adult" white dragon on purpose, to allow for great wyrms
to scoff at their own element.
 >> Stay informed about: Vulnerability 

Matt Frisch <matuse73.TakeThisOut@yahoo.spam.me.not.com> wrote:
> On Sun, 11 Nov 2007 05:25:49 GMT, Keith Davies <keith.davies.TakeThisOut@kjdavies.org>
> scribed into the ether:
>
>>Matt Frisch <matuse73.TakeThisOut@yahoo.spam.me.not.com> wrote:
>>> On Mon, 15 Oct 2007 08:39:26 -0700, Justisaur <justisaur.TakeThisOut@gmail.com> scribed
>>> into the ether:
>>
>>> Spells for level 1-5 inflict Least <element> 6-7 do Moderate
>>> <Element> and 8-9 do Strong <Element>.
>>
>>If I were to do this, I'd probably go with 1-3, 4-6, 7-9, rather than
>>1-5, 6-7, 8-9. But that's just me; otherwise, I kind of like the idea.
>
> I was looking at my progression because I wanted the moderate immunity
> to be pretty meaningful. L8+ spells not typically being hurled around
> with reckless abandon would make their use more meaningful.

I've never seen L7 spells thrown around with abandon either... but that
might be just IMCs, we never seem to make it to L13.

>>I think it might be more trouble than it's worth to implement, though.
>>You could instead change 'immunity' to 'really high resistance' and
>>leave it at that (with the opposing vulnerability at 'half power').
>>Something with 'Cold Resistance 20' would have 'Fire Vulnerability 10'
>>(the first 10 points of fire damage are doubled).
>
> The bookkeeping is the thing that kind of gets to me. There's also the
> metamagic factor, does a maximized fireball inflict least or moderate
> fire damage? And what degree of element strength do the monsters
> themselves possess? An ice elemental may well be immune to all cold,
> but does he inflict Strong cold damage?

At least; precedent (DR) is that the creature does the same degree of
damage that it needs SR for -- if a creature has DR/magic, its natural
attacks count as magic for DR purposes, etc. An ice elemental would do
at least Strong cold damage, and *possibly* 'more than strong' if they
are expected to be able to harm each other.

The immunity-is-really-high-resistance model is probably simpler all
around. The king of ice elementals *can* in fact freeze his minions if
he sees fit -- he does enough cold damage to get past their resistance,
where mortal spells usually can't.

Although, if you have ice-healing (cold damage *repairs* ice elementals,
which may be legitimate) this doesn't work so well.

>>In my case, the skeleton could ignore /ray of frost/ and /iceball/
>>but /ice storm/ would work. The dragon would ignore (the cold of) /ice
>>storm/ but would be affected by /delayed blast iceball/... assuming he
>>blew the save, of course[1].
>>
>>[1] for dragons and the like I'd be inclined to bump the invulnerability
>> as it gets bigger/older -- a great wyrm white dragon is damn near an
>> ice elemental in nature *anyway*, IMO. or it should be.
>
> Yea, I mentioned "adult" white dragon on purpose, to allow for great
> wyrms to scoff at their own element.

I thought that might be the case.


Keith
--
Keith Davies "History is made by stupid people
keith.davies.TakeThisOut@kjdavies.org "Clever people wouldn't even try
keith.davies.TakeThisOut@gmail.com "If you want a place in the history books
http://www.kjdavies.org/ "Then do something dumb before you die."
-- The Arrogant Worms
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Keith Davies wrote:
>
> I'd overlooked this. You have a point.
>
> Making 'immunity' varying degrees (of possibly high) resistance takes
> care of this. Single-target spells tend to have higher damage than area
> effect spells, which leads to focusing on a single creature probably
> doing more damage and therefore getting past the resistance.
> It also gets rid of another set of classifications and comparisons.
> Straight up 'fire damage' is easy, determining the 'degree' of the fire
> damage is trickier.
>
> The other thing I'm not happy about with the 'immunity degrees' thing is
> that it seems to be binary. You go from "can't affect the target" to
> "full effect". The resistance idea means that you have to cross a
> threshold, and then you *still* don't get full effect. That (fire)
> creature doesn't suddenly find that you can toast him, but he *isn't*
> quite as immune as he thought.

Yes, I like resistance better because it allows simple arithmetical
rules along the lines of "dragons get resistance 5 per age category." It
also means we don't need any more mechanics than we've got, and I think
we've got plenty.

--
"Inside, somewhere inside
A different light, a different mind
Inside, somewhere inside
I'd like to find a different kind of you."
--Machinae Supremacy
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