Core Principles: Your Turn Undead and resistances mean jack.

[K]

OK, I thought that since we keep having new people wandering in, we need primers on certain core game design principles for the uninitiated. People should start their own versions.

First, installment: creature-specific abilities and resistances in a world of many creatures and many types of attacks mean nothing, or Your Turn Undead and resistances mean jack.

Take Turn Undead in DnD. Various game designers have made big noise about this ability, and it really makes it seem like they have never played DnD. I mean, how many adventures in your whole campaign are you going to have where you are fighting undead? Half? A fourth? Even less?

Not just that, but how many encounters are you going to have where using Turn Undead isn't as good as say.... casting any of your spells or doing a physical attack with your most-likely very magical weapon? I mean, this is above and beyond the fact that Turn Undead sucks for various reasons.

Sure, you might have feats or class features like Divine Metamagic that might allow you trade uses of Turn Undead for something good in every adventure, but at that point you just traded two abilities to get one that works.

The same goes for resistances. Fire resistance or resistance to sleep mean exactly nothing in encounters and adventures where they don't come up, so trying to convince people that they should be paying LA or class features for resistance is somewhere between idiotic and insulting.

At best, you can have a jack-of-all-trades resistance spell that let's you pick a resistance you can actually use this adventure. Sure, you may not face elemental damage this adventure, but at least the chance of some elemental damage is better than hoping an acid monster is somewhere in the current adventure.

Personally, my last character with innate acid resistance went from level 3 to level 9 and never used it.

[Cynic]

The mechanic is a cool mechanic but you are right. It doesn't work in the face of better tools.

I've been considering turning Turn Undead into a swift action ability. But I really don't want to make the Cleric even more awesome.

Maybe even changing what exactly Turn Undead does. Only problem is, I can't think of a proper way to thematically flavor both Turn & Rebuke.

[virgil]

I eventually took the message that building a character around such abilities shouldn't happen, but are fine to hand out as a free frogurt. Randomly having 10 fire resistance is fine as a freebie, as long as it isn't used to take away from meaningful options, and it's not done an excessive number of times; a fire resist here, a turn plants there, that's fine. It's when there's enough to either bog down your character with a laundry list of easily forgotten stuff, or it actually combines into a real ability for no cost, that it becomes a problem.

[Maxus]

OK, I thought that since we keep having new people wandering in, we need primers on certain core game design principles for the uninitiated. People should start their own versions.

I have an idea for one about why you can't take WotC's version as the absolute truth (aka, Skip Smokes Crack), if no one else wants it.

[Crissa]

Although, in 2e, undead did come up in every adventure.

-Crissa

[RandomCasualty2]

Take Turn Undead in DnD. Various game designers have made big noise about this ability, and it really makes it seem like they have never played DnD. I mean, how many adventures in your whole campaign are you going to have where you are fighting undead? Half? A fourth? Even less?

Honestly depends on the DM. I mean, a lot of DMs that run remote abandoned ruins typically fill them with stuff that doesn't need food or maybe even air to survive. That is undead, constructs, outsiders, elementals and oozes.

Of those, there are like more undead than pretty much most of the other categories, and undead can basically be put in almost anywhere rather easily. If there's a random fire elemental people often ask questions about where it came from, but it's a run of the mill thing to encounter ghouls, wights or even vampires in remote ruins.

That alone makes them popular. In fact as a DM I find myself reaching for undead as a pretty common fallback monster.

[Alansmithee]

I agree in practice (especially w/r/t turn undead), but I'm not sure I agree in theory. Saying fire resist is worthless isn't much different than saying bonuses to will saves are worthless (neither might come up in an adventure/campaign). Or in extreme cases, saying bonuses to AC are worthless (because you might not be targeted with an attack). I do think in general they're probably given too much weight in comparison to other abilities that are more generally useful, but to say they're worthless doesn't strike me as entirely true.

[K]

Take Turn Undead in DnD. Various game designers have made big noise about this ability, and it really makes it seem like they have never played DnD. I mean, how many adventures in your whole campaign are you going to have where you are fighting undead? Half? A fourth? Even less?

Honestly depends on the DM. I mean, a lot of DMs that run remote abandoned ruins typically fill them with stuff that doesn't need food or maybe even air to survive. That is undead, constructs, outsiders, elementals and oozes.

Of those, there are like more undead than pretty much most of the other categories, and undead can basically be put in almost anywhere rather easily. If there's a random fire elemental people often ask questions about where it came from, but it's a run of the mill thing to encounter ghouls, wights or even vampires in remote ruins.

That alone makes them popular. In fact as a DM I find myself reaching for undead as a pretty common fallback monster.

Sure, undead are crazy popular, but I doubt even DMs who love them put them in more than 1/4th of their encounters. Most will probably use them a lot less.

And an ability you have in even 1/4th of encounters is not a real ability.

[Maxus]

I agree in practice (especially w/r/t turn undead), but I'm not sure I agree in theory. Saying fire resist is worthless isn't much different than saying bonuses to will saves are worthless (neither might come up in an adventure/campaign). Or in extreme cases, saying bonuses to AC are worthless (because you might not be targeted with an attack). I do think in general they're probably given too much weight in comparison to other abilities that are more generally useful, but to say they're worthless doesn't strike me as entirely true.

It's a lot more different.

Because there's many things which require a willsave. And many many things which attack AC (i.e., every creature in the game). Comparatively, fire and undead aren't so ubiquitous. Being able to resist them is only sometimes handy, and they're so low-powered that they're not MUCH use.

It's like...Well, it's like giving a character an LA if they don't need to breathe, because they can't be gotten with smoke inhalation or drowning or that psionic power which shuts down their lungs. Whoop-de-doo, you are immune to a narrow set of situations that do not occur very often.

Granted, undead show up. But Turn Undead and Fire Resistance aren't that amazing, thanks to Turn Undead having a high fail rate and Fire Resistance being a static number....

[Alansmithee]

I agree in practice (especially w/r/t turn undead), but I'm not sure I agree in theory. Saying fire resist is worthless isn't much different than saying bonuses to will saves are worthless (neither might come up in an adventure/campaign). Or in extreme cases, saying bonuses to AC are worthless (because you might not be targeted with an attack). I do think in general they're probably given too much weight in comparison to other abilities that are more generally useful, but to say they're worthless doesn't strike me as entirely true.

It's a lot more different.

Because there's many things which require a willsave. And many many things which attack AC (i.e., every creature in the game). Comparatively, fire and undead aren't so ubiquitous. Being able to resist them is only sometimes handy, and they're so low-powered that they're not MUCH use.

It's like...Well, it's like giving a character an LA if they don't need to breathe, because they can't be gotten with smoke inhalation or drowning or that psionic power which shuts down their lungs. Whoop-de-doo, you are immune to a narrow set of situations that do not occur very often.

Granted, undead show up. But Turn Undead and Fire Resistance aren't that amazing, thanks to Turn Undead having a high fail rate and Fire Resistance being a static number....

I said I agreed in practice, but I don't see it as an absolute. I'd argue that fire resist could come up as much or more than fort/will/reflex saves in many games (although it'd be rare for AC to not come up that much), but that wasn't even my point.

I think the issue isn't with the abilities themselves per se, but more with how often any said ability can be applied. What is the breaking point where X static defense/specific ability is worthwhile? Sneak attack is worthless against a mess of stuff in base 3.5, is it worthless? There are monsters that attack targeting touch AC, or saves, does that make armor bonuses from natural armor/worn armor useless?

Or to look at it another way, if resist fire is useless (we'll leave out the value for now, since one wasn't specifically mentioned), it stands to reason that resist acid/cold/psychic/lightning/poison/etc would be equally useless. If they're useless, it shouldn't be problematic to give them out for free to everyone, but when you've stacked them you now end up with essentially DR X/-, which I don't think anyone would say is "useless" (although depending on X it could be of limited/irrelevant use).

Again, in practice these types of abilities are handed out way too often, and are given way too much weight (in that they often take the place of something that does something more universally). Or the numbers are too small to be of much use even in the situations where they're able to be used (fire resist 5 I can't see being worth anything after level 5 or so, even if you're running your campaign on the elemental plane of fire). But I could easily see abilities balanced with those considerations in mind that are useful.

[Danchild]

The concept of turning is cool. Unfortunately I have rarely seen the standard version used effectively in mid/high level play. Too many spawn or minions get in the way and soak up the pool. It is a much more efficient use of an action to cast a spell, or in the case of Paladins/Blackguards to attack.

The only memorable use of turning that I can recall in one of my games was by a CN fire themed cleric. A granted domain ability allowed him to control critters with the Fire subtype. This allowed him to have a couple of Salamanders and an Efreet under his control for a while (normally impossible to the conflict of alignment and calling spells). It was not exactly a great ability, but was cool from a thematic perspective.

As for the point of the OP, I agree that there is a tendancy to impose an unfair cost on certain racial/class abilities. Basic resistances are not likely to come up that often and they are usually outclassed by spells and items. Even worse, the racial resistances do not stack with spells which is ridiculous. A tiefling with a ring of fire resistance should be able to soak up much for fire damage than a dwarf with the same gear IMHO.

[hogarth]

And an ability you have in even 1/4th of encounters is not a real ability.

Not true in general (although I agree about Turn Undead). Some abilities are like insurance, and that's O.K. For instance, the ability to reroll a failed save 1/day is a "real ability", even though you can't use it every fight.

Sometimes a niche is just a niche.

[angelfromanotherpin]

Surely this sort of thing is just part of SGT fine-tuning? When creating classes and comparing them to their established expected monstrous and environmental opposition, giving out limited-breadth abilities can tweak their performance very selectively.

Now, 'turning undead' being of dubious mechanical effectiveness due to how undead HD turn up in complete disproportion to creature CR is a separate matter.

[Roy]

Well at high levels you probably will encounter undead more than a quarter of the time, but that's simply because nearly every high level enemy is an undead, a dragon, an evil outsider, or a magical beast. And you can just pimp slap the last one with a Will spell and auto win.

But no one cares then because you've long since PRCed out. And even if you didn't you still won't be able to actually turn the undead with your turn undead ability.

[MGuy]

I don't like turn undead myself. Not for the same reason as the OP. Turn Undead IMO is just a side ability. Sort of like saying your got this stuff and Turn Undead. I've never really considered it a class ability I even care about most of the time I'm running. It scales on its own and there is really no reason to invest in it unless you want to make another ability better within some limits.

As for energy resistances I figure any source of it should just have it scale. You get fire resistance once in your career and the number grows with you. You get fire resistance from anywhere else, let it stack with that, congrats you're practically invulnerable to fire. At least that's what I've done with my own rules.

[souran]

Sure, undead are crazy popular, but I doubt even DMs who love them put them in more than 1/4th of their encounters. Most will probably use them a lot less.

And an ability you have in even 1/4th of encounters is not a real ability.

Undead are my favorite foes. I often run adventures where 80+% of the encounters are undead. Turn undead is useful once you start getting to where you get some destroyed results on the chart. Turning is actually pretty pathetic. Turn resistance is a pain in the ass because all it does is force you to be even higher level to get the same result.

When I use demons it tends to be sort of the same way: All or nothing. A few humanoid cultists but mostly demons.

Also, looking at a lot of published adentures things like elemental resistance and bane weapons are really useful on an adventure by adventure basis.

There are tons of adventures between levels 1-7 where a "goblinoid bane" weapon would almost certianly outperform any other level appropriate weapon you could have. Although once you cross about level 5 you can find adventures where drow+mindflayers are the only unavoidable encounters.

That said: appropriate bane weapons NEVER appear in adventures where they would be useful. Its as though the authors can figure out that if you have a themed adventure then handing out "kill/be immune" to this theme is a bad idea. The exception is when those sorts of weapons are in the last treasure pile of the adventure. Congradulations you defeated the orc horde. In the cheftains warchest is a sword of orc slaying!

However, paying full price for resitstnaces and specilized killing abilities is pretty crappy. T

[virgil]

Very niche and limited effect abilities aren't useless in general? Rerolling a failed save 1/day has a benefit that can apply wherever it is needed most, and can apply to wide variety of attacks since saving throws are about as vital as AC, so it's certainly not niche. That specific effect is limited, and shouldn't be a major facet, but that thing has way more value than acid resistance. Having an energy resistance applies to one type of attack (damage), largely from one subset of monster (not even a whole type), since spellcasters have SoDs. I'm sure you can make it worth something by modifying the encounter paradigm, but you've got a very different campaign from most if the entire thing is in an arctic wasteland filled with ice elementals and white dragons in order to make cold resistance worth something.

There's certainly a sorites paradox for the point where an ability stops being a real ability, but stuff like fire resist 5 is obviously in 'single grain' territory.

[hogarth]

Very niche and limited effect abilities aren't useless in general? Rerolling a failed save 1/day has a benefit that can apply wherever it is needed most, and can apply to wide variety of attacks since saving throws are about as vital as AC, so it's certainly not niche.

I was using K's guideline of "only useful in 1/4 of encounters".

[Cynic]

hogarth: with the 5-minute work day, that isn't a 1/4 of encounters. that's usable in every encounter.

[hogarth]

hogarth: with the 5-minute work day, that isn't a 1/4 of encounters. that's usable in every encounter.

Whatever. I use 3 or 4 encounters a day as a guideline. Your campaign obvious differs.

[violence in the media]

I've always thought that energy resistances should be a simple scale. As they exist currently, they just seem pointless. Maybe I've always overthought the issue, but it's always seems to me that creatures living in some sort of elemental hellhole would have ways to bypass the common resistance of the land. Efreeti, for example, live in the City of Brass, are immune to fire, and cast Scorching Ray at will. Give me a break. You're telling me that enough of them aren't going to trade the Dodge or Combat Casting feat for Energy Substitution [cold] that it should be in the monster write up in the first place? They're smart enough to know that any asshole that's on their turf is going to be one that's already immune to the current situation of everything being on fire.

Anyway, the way I'd envision redoing it would be this:

Your basic level, [energy] endurance, renders you immune to low-level mundane bullshit associated with that element, but doesn't reduce actual damage. So fire endurance makes you immune to desert heat, but doesn't help if someone hits you with a torch.

Your next level, [energy] resistance, carries all the benefits of [energy] endurance as well as dividing all incoming damage from that element by half.

Your last level, [energy] immunity, would be just that. Very few creatures would actually have this, maybe just actual elementals.

This way, energy resistances would actually come into play, because they only make things more difficult rather than impossible. You don't want to have to use fire spells against the Fire Giants, but they'll do in a pinch if you have enough of them, or if they're all you have. Having a fire katana wouldn't be quite the waste it currently is.

I know that we would lose things like the Red Dragon chilling out in his lava hot tub, but I'm cool with the idea that even creatures that are resistant to an element don't necessarily want to roll around in it. In return, we'd get simpler energy resistances that come into play more often, as well as some reasons for creatures to avoid battling in wading pools of their respecive element.

[souran]

There's certainly a sorites paradox for the point where an ability stops being a real ability, but stuff like fire resist 5 is obviously in 'single grain' territory.

This is the issue. A specilized resistance needs to be large enough that it basically lets you ignore danger from its protective focus in order to compete with a less effective general use ability.

If you had the choice between DR 1/- and DR 5/Fire you would probably still end up taking the one point of damage reduction that applies all the time. However, if it was DR 1/- vs. say DR 20 or 25/Fire then its at least worth considering.

The other issue is how often various types of attacks are happening. If most of the damage is physical and the spells are mostly Save or suck then elemental damage resist needs to be at "I don't care about elder dragon breath weapons" to be worth considering. On the other hand in 4e you see enough wierd ass types of damage that 10 or 15 points of resist is not a terrible idea.

[Lokathor]

Point of Order: DR only applies against "physical" damage, it never reduces elemental damage or damage from spells. "DR 20/fire" is nonsensical because fire always bypasses DR, but so does cold and electric.

[Kaelik]

Except Violence, that means that literally everyone dies on the Plane of Fire, including any visiting PC, and all the Efferti. That's... Unlikely to be your design intent.

[violence in the media]

Except Violence, that means that literally everyone dies on the Plane of Fire, including any visiting PC, and all the Efferti. That's... Unlikely to be your design intent.

Well, actually it kind of was. The City of Brass is normally not burning, though apparently the Sultan can engulf the entire thing in the fires of the plane whenever he wants to and that somehow is supposed to partially keep the Efreeti in line? Maybe by burning up all their fine silks and prized slaves? I don't know. The point is, the Efreeti can still function in the City of Brass without being wholly immune to the effects of the plane around them. If the Sultan decides to set the oven to "napalm," the Efreeti still put up with that punishment around twice as long as anyone else. Besides, has anyone ever slogged about in the wilderness of the Fire plane? What do we lose by not going out there? Or at least, not going out there as easily as we do now.

You are correct that such a modification would require other cascading changes that I didn't mention. Exposure to the Plane of Fire inflicts 3d10 damage per round. Why is it 3d10? Why does lava inflict 20d6 for full immersion compared to that? Submersion in boiling water does 10d6, but being on fire only does 1d6? How much fire damage does a cottage fire inflict? Being shoved into a furnace? Sitting on a bed of coals? You'd probably want to revist these sorts of environmental hazards and assign new damage values in light of a system where damage is either full, half, or none for a given victim.