Ignoring things that ignore the ignoring of...

[deaddmwalking]

Would it work to have levels of fire damage and resistance that subtracts from that? For instance, if being hit by a flaming stick is level 1 fire damage, and you have resistance 1, you take no damage, but if you are attacked by Martian heat rays that are level 5, you take level 4 instead? Or would that be too fiddly?

No. That’s just resistance. If Fire 1 is 10 damage and Fire 2 is 20 damage, Fire Resitance 10 does exactly what you describe.

Instead of fixed protection you could use dice...

But in order to make you subject to 1 level of damage less, you need damage to progress in a predictable way. Ie, if Fireball is level 3 Fire, what is a level 2 fireball, what is a level 1 fireball?

[deaddmwalking]

@PL
I think you lost the point of the thread. If you have an attack, and you have an immunity to that attack, and you have a super-attack that bypasses that immunity, and you have a super-immunity that isn't bypassed, but you have a super-super-attack that bypasses super-immunity....

That's an endless cycle and it's a bad cycle.

If you're going to avoid it, the best place is to make immunity perfect, but only give it when appropriate. Resistance is fine in most cases.

And don't hyper-specialize classes so they only have one solution to challenges [burn it with fire] if that isn't going to work against many challenges. That definitely would be a failure from design principles.

[Thaluikhain]

Would it work to have levels of fire damage and resistance that subtracts from that? For instance, if being hit by a flaming stick is level 1 fire damage, and you have resistance 1, you take no damage, but if you are attacked by Martian heat rays that are level 5, you take level 4 instead? Or would that be too fiddly?

No. That’s just resistance. If Fire 1 is 10 damage and Fire 2 is 20 damage, Fire Resitance 10 does exactly what you describe.

Instead of fixed protection you could use dice...

But in order to make you subject to 1 level of damage less, you need damage to progress in a predictable way. Ie, if Fireball is level 3 Fire, what is a level 2 fireball, what is a level 1 fireball?

Ah, yeah, would be better to simply reduce damage because you could skip all that, true.

[Grek]

Point out what you have issue with and describe whats wrong with it.

Precisely this:

If you're going to avoid it, the best place is to make immunity perfect, but only give it when appropriate. Resistance is fine in most cases.

The rules should be written such that the difference between the understanding you get from a localized reading of the rules and the understanding you get from a comprehensive reading of the rules is as small as practical.

If a reader looks up the entry for a Fire Devil in the Monster Manual, sees that it is "Immune to Fire" and reasonably concludes that Fire Devils cannot be readily harmed by Fire Magic, it is a failure of rules writing if that reader is later surprised to discover that Fire Mages have zero difficulty burning a Fire Devil to death. If Fire Devils are not actually intended to be immune to Fire Magic as cast by a Fire Mage, their entry should be more specific about when their immunity applies and when it does not. If you were writing your own edition from scratch, you could solve this problem by simply giving Fire Devils a narrower and more specific set of protections in the first place. But absent the ability to do so, you should simply not write in an ability that says "Ignores Immunity to Fire" in the first place. It was intended to make the class simpler, but all it's an obvious kludge that produces stupid results (like letting fire elementals burn to death) and makes the literal rules text that much less reliable for everyone at the table. It's bad design. Not unforgivably bad, but still worse than many of the alternatives already presented in this thread.

Giving Fire Mages a broader theme, as Koumei suggested in the OP, would have been an excellent choice. Puppeteer (the Lightning version of Fire Mage in Tome - you seem to have failed to picked that one up from context clues) does precisely that by giving the Puppeteer a side hobby of using Lightning to animate Frankenstein style lightning zombies with which to fight enemies who are immune to Lightning Bolts. If you don't like either of the options Koumei suggested (volcanic eruptions or metal working as side-themes), angelfromanotherpin offers the suggestion of giving Fire Mages the option to mind control enemies who are immune to fire. Using Fire Magic to command Fire Elementals and Fire Devils is both simple to grasp tactically, mechanically simpler than a fire mage's fire immunity bypass class feature and completely on theme for a pyromancer. It would have also incidentally solved the original Fire Mage's problem that the class had to cut off at level 13 because there was no good way to balance it with full casters beyond that point.

But you have chosen not to engage with any of those ideas, PL, except to dismiss them as 'obscure flavor choices' while you instead yell in ALL CAPS about how ignoring immunity to fire damage is only ONE SINGLE LAYER OF BYPASS, which you seem to be arguing can't possibly be too much because one is such a small number and there's no way that just one of something could be excessive. That's obviously bullshit. It's not even one layer in the first place! We have:

1. The normal rules, which tells you that fire inflicts hit point damage like swords and lightning bolts do, as opposed to inflicting ability damage like poison does or applying a status effect like grappling does.
2. Some exceptions to the normal rules, where fire elementals are immune to fire damage and Fire Resistance reduces the damage you take from fire.
3. The exception to the exceptions to the normal rules, where the Piercing Flames class feature has you subtract 5 from an opponent's Fire Resistance and then check to see if more than half of the Fire Mage's damage was blocked by some combination of hardness fire immunity and/or the remaining fire resistance (if any) in which case it still does half damage regardless.
4. The exception to the exception to the exceptions to the normal rules, where some feat which makes you Immune to Fire and also to Piercing Flames.
5. A strictly hypothetical exception to the exception to the exception to the exceptions to the normal rules, where some other feat or class ability or whatever gives you the ability to ignore whatever feat gives you immunity to Piercing Flames.

I am willing to entertain arguments for why exceptions to exceptions to the rules might sometimes a necessary element in game design. I am even reluctantly willing to listen to arguments for why it is OK that a class feature ostensibly intended to make a class simpler to play asks you to perform basic linear algebra. But you can't just blithely assert that Step 3 was a self-evident place to stop the chain of NUH UH vs YES HUH and that anyone who can't see that for themselves is a moron. Using the base level rules to balance the class by ie. giving Fire Mages options other than raw fire damage was a perfectly valid option that got rejected for stupid reasons.

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

That's an endless cycle and it's a bad cycle.

You seem to be going with an attempt at taking it back to a simplified point. So, I'll do the same.

It is totally incorrect in the context you describe to call it an endless cycle. Even with a gratuitous use of the word super to try and pretend you can't handle 2 layers of bypass mechanic. It wasn't endless. It wasn't close to endless. You described something finite and small.

The rules should be written such that the difference between the understanding you get from a localized reading of the rules and the understanding you get from a comprehensive reading of the rules is as small as practical.

You see now I feel compelled to respond but then you put up a post made out of really boring waffle.

So for a start this "point".

You insist that if you put "Fire Immunity" on a monster it is a shocking betrayal to ever discover fire they are not immune to, especially from a specialist fire wizard. To which I say first of all "You poor baby" and second of all it said "Fire Immunity" not "Fire Wizard Immunity" and third of all, most important of all, the ability that bypasses fire immunity should say "Ignores Fire Immunity" and ITSELF has localized meaning.

In fact. Localized meaning is pretty much one of the values I had just used to point out that "X Immunity" and "Ignore X Immunity" is a better game mechanic than the recently proposed "solution" of the mechanically identical interaction described with "X Immunity" and "Radiance, Scintillating, Cryogenic...etc...".

So you WILL come out at least in support of my claim that Ignore X Immunity is the superior version of those two competing ways to tag something that bypasses X Immunity right?

No?

Not actually committed to that at all were you?

Giving Fire Mages a broader theme, as Koumei suggested in the OP, would have been an excellent choice. Puppeteer (the Lightning version of Fire Mage in Tome - you seem to have failed to picked that one up from context clues)

Pretty sure it wasn't there the last time I used the Tome. It has been a long while. Am I supposed to keep up to date with that? I'm annoyed enough that half the references used were all most certainly to something Koumei or Kaelik have wedged somewhere in their endless pile of 3.x class threads in its my own invention, which no, I don't keep up on, why should I? A well put together opening post would have had less broadly scattered assumed reading, that was largely my point on the puppeteer as a poor reference. Even then I suspected it might at least have appeared in a lets play or something. Still the thread is ultimately about a broader demand being made of game design in general, so I don't really need to sweat the full details of these kinda insular references.

But if you honestly read my words on the fire mage/forge mage comparison you might have noted that I mentioned more generalist classes and those same more obscure themes were fine. The problems of specialty was just NOT that they forced the existence of Ignore Fire Immunity. Because my point was they do NOT force the existence of Ignore Fire Immunity. That while you certainly can decide you like Forge mages better, generalists are not at a design level "better" for the game and if they were THIS reason was definitely not it because the fire immunity/ignore fire immunity interaction has next to nothing to do with the existence of fire wizards or not.

It's not even one layer in the first place! We have:

Yeah isn't it funny that right there you just completely abandoned your commitment to localized reading.

"Fire Immunity" is a very simple mechanic with a direct localized reading. You need not go any further. The meaning is there. It's a one and done thing.

"Ignore Fire Immunity" is a also very simple mechanic with a direct localized reading. And the interaction between it and immunity, also very simple the meaning is right there, one interaction, in the title of the ability. You don't get much better than that, this is absolutely GOLD STANDARD stuff for rules clarity and direct simplicity. Dare I say you will have a damn hard time finding an example of two rules interacting more clearly and "locally" than that.

I have called that one layer of Immunity Bypass interaction, but I would accept you could inflate that to two layers... by not calling it a Immunity Bypass interaction anymore since only one of those happened and just calling it "two rules" instead.

Your attempt to count extra layers starting by pretending that damage types existing at all is a deeply complex independent layer in this simple and localized mechanic? Fuck off, stop trying to over inflate this, it's transparent and frankly embarrassing to watch. Why can't we all just admit it. X Immunity and Ignore X Immunity is very very fucking simple and understandable. I should not even have to keep saying that. I should not have had to say that in the first place.

There WAS more than just the one layer which I argue at various points in favor of. I argue that if you wanted to do that immunity bypass interaction again as another layer on top. You probably could. And if you wanted that specific demon protection/anti-demon interaction that is flavorful and appropriate for it's setting, you probably should.

And I stopped there because the OP basically did too. The OP argued that the one layer was bad in it's own right, but worse became the thin end of a wedge argument... that ended at a solid example of the two layers of bypasses and some vague hand waving about where will it end if it went this far! What next THREE layers? I didn't think there was enough meat to directly address that bit, because I don't care for arguing this as if it were a genuine endless cycle, because it isn't. And while you could go further systems that had any productive use for 3 or even 5 layers of this interaction might reasonably exist but it's edge case enough to just ignore. Meanwhile right there in the OP are attacks on systems that use 2 or even 1 immunity bypass layer, and THAT is something kinda unacceptable to walk past without comment.

Because. And I want to be very clear. X Immunity and Ignore X Immunity are fine and upstanding game mechanics, absolute paragons of the ideals of simple readable and functional game rules that can directly support your thematic goals. And this thread is an attack on them starting with one layer ,or if you prefer, one layer of each.

If you think I am dishonest by picking out the one and two layers of immunity bypass to firmly defend as entirely workable game mechanics because you think this is REALLY about infinitely deep cycles of this interaction... then just give me the the one and two layers as being totally acceptable and good game mechanics. Hell just give me the one. Just say "X Immunity" and "Ignore X Immunity" are good and functional rules and a good and functional interaction (and since you claim to care highly localized) mechanics.

But you won't will you? You want to fight a different battle to the one I want to fight here. Because you know in the end, you can't actually win the battle against a fairly simple and pretty damn good rule interaction, you can only win the battle against a strawmaned and highly hyperbolic fat end of a poorly composed panic based wedge argument. So you keep trying to insist on having that argument instead.

[Grek]

This is exactly what I mean by bad faith arguments. Jesus Christ, dude.

[merxa]

We could rewrite immunity and ignore immunity by stating, 'fire damage is typically fire damage tier 1' and then we would hand out tier 1 fire immunity, and eventually we would give access to tier 2 fire damage, and tier 2 fire immunity, then tier 3 fire damage and so on.

Is that a better system (than what?). Personally I think it's better to just use resistances, and if you hand out immunity, then make it immunity and tell people who do one damage type exclusively to go pound sand.

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

We could rewrite immunity and ignore immunity by stating, 'fire damage is typically fire damage tier 1' and then we would hand out tier 1 fire immunity, and eventually we would give access to tier 2 fire damage, and tier 2 fire immunity, then tier 3 fire damage and so on.

We could. And if for some reason you felt you needed a system with, I think maybe at least 3 such layers, you absolutely should use pretty much exactly that sort of notation to do so.

It's just at that point I hope a major (basically thematic) goal of that system was to have these distinct tier based breaks in damage effectiveness. Which is not an unreasonable goal to have. Just a fairly specific one. And effectively one ruled by the OP as being unacceptable.

As for just using resistances instead. Personally I prefer imunities, but I think that's really just personal taste and a history of exposure to (and experimentation with) really bad implementations of resistances. But I want to point out that doesn't really matter, because the OP made an argument that used immunity and resistances interchangeable. It was really all about the layering of bypasses of either.

So not only would the argument presented by the OP rule out your simplified numeric notation as unacceptable because you exceeded the number of acceptable layers before you even start counting, but changing to resistances would STILL be ruled out because it was about the layering not about whether the layers were immunity or resistance.

[Kaelik]

Pretty sure it wasn't there the last time I used the Tome. It has been a long while. Am I supposed to keep up to date with that? I'm annoyed enough that half the references used were all most certainly to something Koumei or Kaelik have wedged somewhere in their endless pile of 3.x class threads in its my own invention, which no, I don't keep up on, why should I?

The Fire Mage also isn't in the Tomes. It is an it's my own invention thread half way down the page of a thread called "making warlocks from scratch" in 2005 by Frank Trollman.

The Puppeteer on the other hand is the second post in a thread called "Energy Mages" from 2007 also by Frank Trollman.

I find it difficult to imagine a good faith distinction why we would pretend one of these is in the tomes and expected reading and the other isn't. Sometimes it's okay to just admit you don't know something (a weird class frank wrote in 2007) without having to find someone else to blame.

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

I find it difficult to imagine a good faith distinction why we would pretend one of these is in the tomes and expected reading and the other isn't. Sometimes it's okay to just admit you don't know something (a weird class frank wrote in 2007) without having to find someone else to blame.

Wording is a little vague but I can only assume that's loosely directed at Grek in support of the direct quote of me saying almost exactly that.

But, you know, with the way the more active posters are around here these days, thought I might check.

[Grek]

My friend, you replied to this:

And then, to deal with that, when making a class that only does one thing and that thing is HP damage via fire, we have "You ignore Immunity to Fire". I'm not complaining about the character in the game I run who is a Puppeteer, because he legit does other things (the bit that makes it a Puppeteer). And this was a complaint that was brewing since before that anyway. Puppeteer is closer to what "I'm an Elemental Caster" should be. Fire Mage should be "Volcano Mage" who has shockwaves and toxic smoke and shit, or "Forge Mage" who makes items and encases people in molten steel and so on. (Also they're immune to the thing against which they ignore immunity.)

with this:

You know other than your example of "that one Puppeteer guy from my personal game" that for all the fuck most readers may know might be a Larry Niven alien OR Matthew Corbett from Sooty. Because let me take the time to point out how very NOT illustrative as an example that choice was.

Even lacking any memory of the specific class, the fact that it was contrasted with Fire Mage as a class, mentioned as a thing that someone is playing in someone's D&D game and referred to as "closer to what "I'm an Elemental Caster" should be" than the Fire Mage should have been ample evidence for you to have puzzled out that it's some sort of D&D Elemental Caster class that features the same "You ignore Immunity to X" mechanic as the Fire Mage, but (as Koumei puts it) "legit does other things (the bit that makes it a Puppeteer)" which make the class (at least in Koumei's view) less odious. This is the basic reading comprehension skills to which I refer. I'm not expecting you to know all of the fine details of the Puppeteer class (that's why I provided you with the relevant details once it became clear you didn't know), but I am expecting you to either A] ask about things that you don't know before venturing an opinion on those topics, or B] not be a scurrilous little bitch who denounces as 'obscure' anything outside of your own narrow scope of experiences. It's clear that you were just doing it to get a cheap dig and that the point of the cheap dig was just to distract from the fact that the rest of your argument was dogshit that relied more on bluster than consideration.

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

but I am expecting you to either A] ask about things that you don't know before venturing an opinion on those topics

Except I also later directly addressed the point Koumei attempted to get across about more generalized classes. Which you now dishonestly ignore, and my mention of "Puppeteer" was explicitly an aside mentioning that Koumei picking needlessly obscure and needlessly specific examples, and in this the worst case, with a misleading off topic name, is not helpful for getting the point across.

You are instead, in bad faith, pretending that I used the puppeteer class as an excuse to evade the point being made. Just so that YOU can dismiss the points that I made!

or B] not be a scurrilous little bitch who denounces as 'obscure' anything outside of your own narrow scope of experiences.

I pointed out that there was a very high chance that readers wouldn't be familiar with the Puppeteer. I stand behind that. Since at least according to Kaelik, YOU aren't especially familiar with it's origins.

You could almost just excise "Puppeteer" from the text it appears in in the OP with only minor rewording and the result would get the message across more clearly and concisely to a wider audience. It would ALSO prevent people like you from making bad faith obfuscating arguments demanding direct knowledge of exactly the ability text of any given class from any given fan material on any given game system at any given time.

You making a bad faith argument about how I should be required keep up to date on "Tome" materials is EXACTLY why Puppeteer should not have been named dropped to better keep things on topic.

And, as another aside, as another extra because this is thoroughly addressed already. Perhaps just maybe have you tried just doing a google search for "Puppeteer D&D"? Just sayin...

[deaddmwalking]

Wow, PL, that's probably the worst post you've ever made, and that's saying something.

Puppeteer was given as an example of something contrasted with Fire Mage that does something differently/better. The post would not have been more clear without an example. You may consider the specific example obscure (and sure, it is), but Search is pretty robust these days, so if the minutia of the class was relevant to the point (it wasn't), anyone could read up on it.

For those who care, Puppeteer is in this thread. I found it by searching: :tgdmb.com, puppeteer. It was the third search result; the first was this thread, and the second was a list of 'Frank Trollman Facts' in the style of Chuck Norris.

As for your 'directly addressing' Koumei's point, it was to say 'Fuck off' for saying one level of immunity bypass was too much. And Grek is right - your post was all bluster. It might charitably be described as saying 'one layer of immunity bypass is an aesthetically pleasing choice for me, and while I agree that there is some amount of immunity bypass that I would object to it would be only based on multiple layers of interacting rules that became too complicated, but one is DEFINITELY NOT IT', but I think you'll object to that charitable description.

Theoretically, there is no limit to adding 'true immunity' in case an immunity shouldn't be bypassed. Koumei gave examples (apparently outside of your experience because you ignored everything about GW except to imply that it shouldn't count???

So while I haven't seen anything that I think could be called a counterargument, there have been several arguments as to why bypass doesn't make sense. Clearly you have no problem with Elemental Fire beings who are literal living fire be damaged by fire, but only in special cases, which is weird... If Fire Mage fire is normal fire, then you would expect it to work like normal fire. And if it's not normal fire, why pretend it is? Setting fire to things that cannot burn (like fire itself, or the god of fire) obviously create cognitive dissonance for some people. Setting up your game to create cognitive dissonance is bad from a design standpoint. Those are often easy things to foresee and address.

I like consistency. Immunity is immunity, there is no overcoming it, but you can bypass it by using something else. Classes should have more than one thing they can do. Usually, you can think of thematically appropriate things (like controlling fire elementals as suggested previously) or giving fire mages the ability to extinguish flames in addition to creating them (which could deal damage to fire-creatures the same way that spells that dehydrate hurt water elementals). If your only thought is 'this class is irredeemably broken if immunity exists in any creature anywhere', well, that's a clear failure of imagination.

I would say 'perhaps it would be helpful to use another example', but you're a disingenuous sack of shit so I know it won't, but here goes anyway...

Let's say I designed a class that had the ability to invade people's minds and take control of them that was inspired by Professor X. Some creatures are Mindless, and they're immune to mind powers. I could say my class ignores immunity to mind powers. Now my class can mentally control creatures that don't have minds. However, that creates a mismatch between what I say my class does (control minds) and what it actually does (control creatures with or without minds). While this is an expression of personal preference, there's good reason for it: not permitting the bypassing of immunity avoids having to answer the question of whether something should be REALLY immune and potentially adding in a 'this immunity isn't bypassed by effects that say they bypass immunity'.

And if you really believe that a creature that has immunity that says 'this immunity applies even to effects that bypass immunity' and an ability that says 'this bypasses immunity' isn't at all confusing, I think you're crazy. At the very least it begs an answer to why some immunity can be bypassed and some cannot. And while there is theoretically no end to how many layers and counter-layers you can have, there are good reasons to minimize them; the easiest place to draw the line is 'nothing overcomes immunity'. That's easy to grok and easy to explain. And then fire mage has to figure out something besides 'burn it with fire' and the mentalist has to figure out something besides 'control its mind' and as long as there are some other tools in the toolbox, that's fine.

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

It might charitably be described as saying 'one layer of immunity bypass is an aesthetically pleasing choice for me, and while I agree that there is some amount of immunity bypass that I would object to it would be only based on multiple layers of interacting rules that became too complicated, but one is DEFINITELY NOT IT'

I can't believe it.

You actually got it right for once.

The only proviso I'd add is that in addition to one definitely being fine. I also said that two was probably fine. Also that two was probably fine (minus the inevitable GW extra messes) in the context two bypass layers describing the ideal implementation of the GW example which is maybe notable to point out since you flat out lied and said I ignored the GW example.

So. Having somehow gotten the message for once on a single very basic claim I have presented. Do you agree or disagree?

Is one immunity bypass too many? Or is one immunity bypass entirely OK? Maybe even good.

edit: To be fair, you've already answered that question. You think one single immunity bypass is bad. Unless you create a new damage tag and call it "Radiance" Then do that again with other new tags that mean but do not say bypass for each damage type you want to bypass immunity on.

Which was stupid on its face. Why do I even need to point that out? Your plan is laughable and obviously bad. I shouldn't even have to point at it.

[deaddmwalking]

Yes, I have already answered the question. Consistency is good, so overcoming fire immunity by having super-fire is bad, because sometimes immunity works and sometimes it doesn't to what APPEARS to be the same thing (Fire). If Super-Fire isn't Fire (and it isn't if it affects things that fire doesn't affect) giving it a tag to represent what it actually is is good. Now should all fire mages have Radiance Damage? I don't think so. And should Fire Elementals be vulnerable to Radiance damage? That's a question that I think you could answer either way. If Radiance Damage ISN'T fire damage (and it isn't - notice the different name) it can interact with creatures differently than Fire. A vampire might be suffer damage from fire but be extra vulnerable to radiance damage.

I don't believe in making an infinite array of damage types, but I do believe that having damage types to represent your physics engine is worthwhile. If some creatures are vulnerable to radiance damage (like vampires) then having it as a damage type is easy and good; if some creatures are immune to fire but shouldn't also be immune to radiance damage then a fire mage having access to radiance damage is similarly an easy way to overcome some basic and commonly existing immunity in the game.

Either way, it's still not a good idea to be to generous with immunity. Walking through a burning building to rescue a kitten is different from bathing in lava in terms of how much 'fire damage' you expect to see. I think there's a lot of utility in making someone basically immune to damage from walking through a burning building without making drowning the only thing they need to fear from lava.

If the only creatures that have immunity to fire should really have immunity to fire (and super-fire, and super-super-fire, and super-super-super-fire, etc) then you don't have to worry about super-fire - it doesn't actually have any utility because it doesn't engage differently with the rules than normal fire.

The corollary to that is if a class is hyper-specialized and only has one type of attack that is easily negated by commonly encountered spells/items/creatures that is a bad-class.

I can't understand why you think it is better to say 'this class can't contribute so I'm going to change the rules for every other creature and character' rather than 'this class can't contribute so I'm going to change the class until it can'. In the case of a fire mage it's not even hard - even if you don't go with Forge Mage or Volcano mage. There's no reason that a fire mage can't rocket weapons by vaporizing the material it is composed of for instance - other than the designer hasn't thought to add that in - so there are ways to still use 'fire magic' without doing 'fire damage'. Making the Fire Mage deal 'super fire' damage that's exactly like fire in all ways except damage resistance/immunity doesn't apply is lazy and disempowering for anyone that invested in fire resistance/immunity, especially if the creation of super-fire generates a round of updates giving super-fire immunity (and therefore putting us back in square 1).

It is a classic arms race, and there's no logical place to end. Giving up because at some point it's too much work/complexity with the understanding that there could reasonably be near infinite gradations of 'immunity' where a Fire Giant is immune to fire, but not super-fire; an Ifreet is immune to super-fire but not super-super-fire; a fire-elemental is immune to super-super-fire, but not super-super-super-fire; and the god of fire is immune to super-super-super-fire (and 5 more pre-emptively in case someone keeps escalating) isn't ELEGANT. Knowing that you're going to put the kibosh on this cycle at some point deserves a reason that is simple and consistent; treating immunity as immunity does that.

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

Yes, I have already answered the question. Consistency is good, so overcoming fire immunity by having super-fire is bad,

But to be clear you do exactly that.

Lets have a look at our two hypothetical games here.

We both have an ability that has a tag that reads something like [Immunity: Fire].

We both have fire attacks that can bypass that tag.

In my game those attacks have the tags [Fire] [Ignores Fire Immunity]

In your game those attacks have the tags [Fire] {Radiance]

But they do the same thing. And yours basically just obfuscates that behind a renamed tag.

And on that basis. And that basis ALONE. You argue that my methodology is a slippery slope towards unlimited Immunity X types, unlimited bypasses for them AND unlimited layers of extra super immunity.

Your methodology however is... magically NOT a slippery slope towards unlimited Immunity types, unlimited damage types (despite requiring more even for the most basic function), unlimited bypasses of immunity (despite setting the precedent of bypassing immunity), and can ALSO result in unlimited layers of bypassing events.

You have a clear double standard in your slippery slope application. It's blatant.

[Kaelik]

In your game those attacks have the tags [Fire] {Radiance]

But they do the same thing. And yours basically just obfuscates that behind a renamed tag.

This is a lot like saying that Cold damage is Fire Damage that bypasses FIre Immunity, in that it is totally wrong.

Deaddm is saying that if you want some attacks to do Radiance damage, they can do Radiance Damage. This is a different kind of damage from Fire Damage. It is not "Fire Damage that bypasses Fire Immunity." Pretending you can't comprehend the concept of the Uttercold Assault Necromancer or the spell Flame Strike where an attack might do two kinds of damage doesn't make your case look better.

Why not just try making an argument for why you think Fire damage that bypasses Fire Immunity is better then giving people admixtured damage types. Lord knows half the arguments have already been made! They were made back when Flame Strike was printed in 2000.

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

Deaddm is saying that if you want some attacks to do Radiance damage, they can do Radiance Damage.

Except DeadDM introduced this argument with...

... It's literally just as easy to add a new descriptor rather than adding another layer of immunity bypass and then immunity that isn't bypassed.

Ie, if you have a creature that is immune to fire damage, but you want to make your fire attacks deal damage to that immune creature, you say your fire attacks count as both 'fire' and 'radiance' damage. ...

In which he directly describes this strategy as adding a tag to an attack allows it to damage targets with fire immunity. The tag exists explicitly just to tell you it bypasses fire immunity.

Though I am happy to also point out that cold attacks DO also bypass fire immunity, which is part of the point of the whole RPS doesn't work argument that deaddm cannot even seem to interact with. You know the argument pointing out you cannot just be careful how often you give these things, of all competing forms, out at a design level.

A thing he ALSO thinks you can be careful with when inflating damage type tags but NOT when using an ignore immunity type tag.

[deaddmwalking]

In before NPL's knee-jerk defensive reaction causes him to double-down on everything he's said.

NPL, do you realize that you're seriously advocating that the BEST WAY to implement a Fire Mage automatically makes a Fire Mage better than anyone else at fighting a god with the Fire Domain and/or Fire Immunity? Pelor, Hephaestus, etc? While they have a bunch of divine immunities, they just have regular fire immunity. Doesn't that seem strange that what ought to be one of their strongest defenses is instead the easiest to overcome?

The first reason to create a damage type is because some creature is spectacularly VULNERABLE to it. The next reason to create a damage type is because some creature is extraordinarily RESISTANT to it. If there were no creatures that had vulnerabilities or resistance, you could just treat all damage as 'damage'. The reason to create a type in the first place is to ensure that it interacts with the existing rules in an easy to adjudicate manner.

Where the rules lead you to 'the best course of action for anything immune to fire is burn it anyway', that's not a game I want to play. It makes a joke of immunity and outside of a specific type of parody game (a la Bastard!), is corrosive to the sense of cause and effect which is a critical underpinning of a shared fantasy narrative.

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

NPL, do you realize that you're seriously advocating that the BEST WAY to implement a Fire Mage

Lets stop you right there.

I may have made an argument that the "best" way to tag an ability intended to ignore fire immunity was with text that says "ignores fire immunity".

I never made an argument on the "best" Fire Wizard. If you go back you will find I have been fairly stubborn in stating that the competing proposals for fire wizards from the fire mage to the forge mage and so on. Were all fine. You can have your popular vanilla "fire" flavor, you can have your arty edgy "Forge" flavor, you can have your more generalist and more specialist variants under either name. It doesn't matter.

Because none of those variants necessitate having "Ignore Fire Immunity", or not. That text could as easily appear on a Forge Mage as it could NOT appear on a Fire Mage. There is no mechanically necessitated link anywhere there. And whether they do have it or not, since RPS doesn't matter, it doesn't especially matter at a game design level. You cannot "careful" your way into making Fire Immunity or Ignore Fire Immunity, OR "lets just keep slapping on extra damage types" suddenly change from "watch out" to "OK" at a design level.

My argument firmly from the beginning has been simply that "Ignore X Immunity" is a functional and useful piece of rules text you absolutely should use IF your subjective and flavor related goals are to represent that specific, and certainly in many cases desirable, interaction. That sure, you don't NEED to, but you definitely shouldn't stupidly rule it out through some delusion that you HAVE to in order to save the game from some sort of design level mind trap.

That is far from ever presenting an argument of the "Best" fire wizard. The closest I ever got to that was suggesting that "Fire Wizard" might just be more popular as a broad theme than "Forge Guy". Which seems to me... not unreasonable. And even then I said the forge guy option was fine if you wanted that for thematic reasons.

fighting a god

Your hyperbole has been pretty bad already. And you've seen before the sort of people and the sort of arguments that resort to "but but what about fighting GOD!" but you want to go there? Remember when I mocked you for bringing in sitting on the surface of the Sun. Did you not get the hint there?

The first reason to create a damage type is because some creature is spectacularly VULNERABLE to it. The next reason to create a damage type is because some creature is extraordinarily RESISTANT to it.

The, first, reason you say. Interesting totally irrelevant ranking tangent there (and typically obsessively compulsive needlessly list making). Especially when you keep adding "spectacularly" to all the reasons.

You are. Again. Poorly. Just describing advantageous and disadvantageous match ups. Which again, because RPS doesn't matter are tools that will turn up at a completely arbitrary and unknown rate at the whim of the group of players at the table NOT at the whim of your "careful" game design.

Where the rules lead you to 'the best course of action for anything immune to fire is burn it anyway', that's not a game I want to play.

Again you just go to the extreme hyperbole. Attributing things to my arguments, and the mechanics I am discussing that just are not there.

What precisely about "Ignores Fire Immunity" as a piece of rules text makes you think an attack with that tag is the BEST course of action against targets with fire immunity?

Even if it allowed a specialist to use the thing they specialize in, that at best makes it the best course of action for that individual specialist. There is no reason to believe that it would not be better to bring a different specialist or even a generalist. Nor is there even any reason to believe it will only appear attached to a specialist in the matching damage type.

And that's even just when the 'Ignores Fire Immunity" text even shows up at all. There will still be fire attacks in the game, perhaps even by specialists, that do not have that tag attached to them. I won't make any claims about how often that happens because no one can, just that it can happen, and that's when Fire Immunity gets to do its thing without being bypassed.

You even in the premise for that very claim insisted that damage types exist first and foremost to create vulnerability match ups. You even needlessly made them "Spectacular". What about bypassing an immunity makes it ALSO apply the effects of the target being spectacularly vulnerable? What about Fire Immunity itself makes the target automatically NOT spectacularly vulnerable to something else?

In order for "Ignore Fire Immunity" to be the very best option against a target with "Fire Immunity" that target would ALSO have to not have ANY vulnerabilities AND would need to be at the very least resistant to EVERYTHING ELSE. And such a poorly designed edge case target is in fact if anything an open invitation of a puzzle monster begging "Ignore Fire Immunity" to be present.

Why do all your arguments against having any ignore immunity text at all somehow always require you to make OTHER completely independent bad design decisions.

It makes a joke of immunity and outside of a specific type of parody game (a la Bastard!),

I find it amusing that you think you are somehow above Bastard!. Your fantasy fiction you generate in your game play or game design is somehow better?

It's fine to like your own stuff more than other stuff, if your don't then FFS, change your stuff. But lets not be too arrogant here, the stories we generate playing our little TTRPGs with friends are... rarely if ever high quality fiction.

Case in point. Bastard! a piece of fiction loosely inspired by some guy's TTRPG experiences.

I'd have a hard time saying anything other than pointing out that it's just irrelevant arrogance on your part, but you first tried wedging this in here trying to dismiss my support of an immunity bypass as "unique"... by giving an example from famous popular fiction, which was just another great moment in you immediately contradicting your own point.

is corrosive to the sense of cause and effect which is a critical underpinning of a shared fantasy narrative.

Lets be clear. This bit, is you saying "Because I don't personally like it" but trying to pretend it's objective.

[deaddmwalking]

NPL,

If you're reasonably certain that something is immune to fire (like a Fire Elemental) but you're not sure what else it is immune to (like electricity, stunning, trip, charm, etc), but you know that you ignore Immunity to Fire, you can be certain that Fire is a good form of attack because you can be certain that you ignore Immunity to Fire.

Fighting Pelor is not a crazy example - he exists in the game as an entity that is an example of having Immunity to Fire. If you are correct that ignoring Immunity to Fire is a simple rules interaction than you have to accept that it means ignoring Immunity to Fire when it's listed in the stat block of a Fire Giant, a Fire Elemental, and a Fire God. Otherwise you would have to be arguing that you do not support a simple implementation, but good to know you think it's ridiculous if Fire attacks deal damage to creatures with Immunity to Fire in some situations. I do, too.

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

If you're reasonably certain that something is immune to fire (like a Fire Elemental) but you're not sure what else it is immune to (like electricity, stunning, trip, charm, etc), but you know that you ignore Immunity to Fire, you can be certain that Fire is a good form of attack

Good now is it. Just reasonably certain now is it. Wasn't it The Best a moment ago? What happened to that.

Go back and die on the hill you built for yourself instead of trying to gish gallop, or sort of just slowly gish back down to a new one.

But if it is merely a good form of attack... that's not a problem. Letting characters have good attack options is the fucking status quo and rightly so. IF your argument is that Ignore Fire Immunity should not exist, for fear of a character having access to a good attack. Then lets all just laugh in your dumb face.

Also I like the intellectual rigor of an argument that claims that if you are "reasonably certain" of one fact and ignorant of some others you can then therefore be "certain" of another one because of that. Fucking gold standard deaddm level genius right there.

And I also want to point out your double standards and desperate edge cases once again. You went from fire immunity attacks ALWAYS being the BEST option vs ANYTHING with fire immunity. To "Well if you have highly specific knowledge but also highly specific lack of knowledge in juuuuuust the exact right combination, then fire immunity ignoring attacks are just a pretty OK "Good" option..."

You don't even realize you do it do you?

Fighting Pelor is not a crazy example -

If you need to bring in the thoroughly broken deity rules to make your point about a broken mechanic you have already lost the point you were trying to argue. Because it IS a crazy example. Both conceptually AND mechanically, the gods, they are broken. No example of anything involving them can be anything other than broken. Pretending they are relevant to anything other than noting that they themselves are broken is you scraping the barrel of blatant intellectual dishonesty.

[Kaelik]

..... The Highly specific knowledge of your own class features is a thing everyone always has. The lack of knowledge of opponents immunities is always somewhat present since theoretically enemies could have Energy Immunity cast on them.

It's weird that you keep picking literally the most sensible things deadDM is saying to call absurd.

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

..... The Highly specific knowledge of your own class features is a thing everyone always has. The lack of knowledge of opponents immunities is always somewhat present since theoretically enemies could have Energy Immunity cast on them.

It's weird that you keep picking literally the most sensible things deadDM is saying to call absurd.

First of all it's not just a class feature its potentially a mechanic for any character in the game.

But secondly part of the point, aside from his confusion regarding what certainty even its, is that he presented a highly specific edge case relying on a double standard again.

A scenario where you needed to know about one immunity. But NOT know about others. The problematic divide isn't the one between knowing the targets abilities and the attackers abilities, it was the fact the example relied on knowing and not knowing one specific combination of traits of the target.

Games and GMS treat knowledge of things like immunity in different ways. But generally treat them uniformly.

You either know about all the immunities and defensive interactions on your target. OR you don't know about ANY.

The most reasonable scenario for mixed knowledge is one where GMs decide to allow you to learn individual defensive traits of your target. Typically something done by observing and remembering interactions.

If your argument is that a one specific order in which you could learn one specific set of these traits, one specific combination of learned knowledge leads to a bad outcome, it is a weak argument.

It's even weaker when the "bad outcome" of a specific order of specific learned knowledge is "a good but not definitely best attack".

You MIGHT even argue that oh I don't know, learning things about a target in order to make an... OK attack... is... oh I don't know. OK? Maybe even you know, the whole fucking point.

But again. Let me focus, since you are effectively trying to argue a tangent of a tangent. I want DeadDM to go back and die on the hill of "The Best Attack". This new hill, it's also stupid, but at least that one was more, flamboyant.

[Kaelik]

A scenario where you needed to know about one immunity. But NOT know about others. The problematic divide isn't the one between knowing the targets abilities and the attackers abilities, it was the fact the example relied on knowing and not knowing one specific combination of traits of the target.

You don't have to know if the enemy has Fire Immunity for your "bypasses Fire Immunity Fire" to be the best attack. It's the best attack all the time if you don't have some ability to bypass some completely other immunity.

Games and GMS treat knowledge of things like immunity in different ways. But generally treat them uniformly.

You either know about all the immunities and defensive interactions on your target. OR you don't know about ANY.

Some games might treat them that way, but noticeably, not D&D, which seems pretty relevant in this specific case of talking about design decisions for classes for 3.5 D&D. But again, knowing they have Fire Immunity is NOT ACTUALLY a necessary condition for making fire attacks the best attack for your character. It's always true, and then it's just VERY DUMB when you know they have immunity.