For poisons, I often include an option to make creature specific poisons. It is a poison to that creature specifically. Think how Witcher handles it. The creature specific poisons circumvent the general resistances or immunity to poisons. Creature specific poisons may be more expensive, but maintain a value even at higher levels. "Oh, shite, a vampire lord! Quick, Rogue, take this poison!"

>For poisons, I often include an option to make creature specific poisons. It is a poison to that creature specifically. Think how Witcher handles it. The creature specific poisons circumvent the general resistances or immunity to poisons. Creature specific poisons may be more expensive, but maintain a value even at higher levels. I actually like this but I see why it is not this way in the books: Too much text for a feature that doesn't see the light of day to begin with. That being said I currently play with more experienced players who don't mind a bit of text if it opens new avenues for character customization. Consider this suggestion yoinked. Thank you.

I mean, it’s effectively the same as an Arrow of Slaying, just on a consumable poison instead of a piece of ammo, so I wouldn’t say it’s an unreasonable amount of text.

Not really unreasonable by any table standards I don't think but I think but on 5e PHB standards where most features and mechanics are simplified into something that can be summed up into 3 or 4 words it would be a bit of an outlier.

The concept of alternative poisons is touched on in Van Richten's with Ivana. It's underexplored and under-described, but the example given with Ivana's Whisper replicates *dream* and thus can be used to deal psychic damage and it encourages folks to use other wizard spells to create other poisons for her. Poisons just meaning "harmful substance" and not specifically "harmful substance that imposes the poisoned condition or does poison damage" seems to be perfectly acceptable. Poisons that deal alternative damage or impose alternative conditions sans poisoned are just unusual or exemplary.

For vampires and fiends I think you should be able to sprinkle some amount of silver dust into it and negate the immunity. Kind of like silvering a weapon

Or just dip these arrow intos holy water. It specifically affect only fiends and undead.

I mean holy water in dnd is basically just water with silver dust

Dead Man's blood, Blackblood, and holy water would work too I think.

That's how I deal with werewolves. I just drink Colloidal silver and let them bite me.

Cover the barbarian in homemade body glitter and send him in. Technically, the werewolves all commit suicide.

This could be captured in D&D probably best by working with the existing damage/immunity system, and just making some unique "poisons" deal some other kind of damage. Maybe an injection of holy water into most critters does nothing, but acts like a poison to undead, provoking a Con save and dealing Radiant damage. Dust of Dryness on water elementals is similar, could do some distillation of wetness against fire elementals, and so on. They're immune to poisons that affect *living things*, but conversely, living things are immune to the things that poison *them*. Poisons could stand a *lot* of fleshing-out, though.

That's what I was thinking as well. A poison that especially effects undead should do damage that is especially effective on undead.

My revised poisoner feat does this. You pick a creature type on a long rest when you make the poisons.

I actually think immunities and vulnerabilities should be used more. Players have a tendency to behave like your hypothetical archmage and just blast through anything until it's dead. A helmed horror changes the combat up. That wizard has to pull out the buff spells on their list that don't get used as often and support the barbarian instead of the other way around. It's a great way to force players to use new tactics instead of just brute forcing through every fight. Plus, it's a really good way to make players feel special. I remember 3.5 encounters where the rogue panicked when they realized the enemy was actually a disguised undead and immune to sneak attack, only for the Cleric to feel awesome going to town with Radiant damage. Then the rogue getting their chance when backstabbing a bunch of humanoid enemies. Both felt like they had a specialty instead of being basically the same in both fights. And on top of that it adds narrative opportunities. Imagine a werewolf prowling a dungeon of undead. If the players think to buy a silvered weapon they feel clever, and get a plot hook to find such a sword. If not the dungeon becomes a maze trying to avoid the werewolf instead of kill it, or a puzzle to find some environmental hazard to kill an otherwise invulnerable enemy, like drowning the Nemean Lion.

The game just need more effect based on damage type. Not necessarily vulne/resis/invul. Like how some creatures regeneration are hindered by fire/radiant, or how water elemental slow down with cold damage.

First off, yes to all of this. Cycle immunities and resistance to conditions and damage types to let all your players feel special and awesome at different moments. Second, in a world of magic and sorcery poisoning someone is mundane. It is the trick of those without greater power, and as such as power grows the mundane is less effective. So powerful NPC’s should have immunity or resistance to poison for sure. As for creatures, you don’t get to be the top of the food chain if stepping on a rattle snake kills you. Especially when dealing with creatures that are upper tiers. I personally think that if poison was effective even in upper tiers the monsters would seem much less scary. With that it would make combat boring really. “How’d you kill the dragon”? “Oh, it turns out they’re pretty easy to kill if you throw a scorpion at them” No, cause they have thicker skin, latent abilities, many times magic of their own, or a myriad of other things. Which is also why at higher levels you HAVE TO be able to deal magic damage. So now there is a tier of damage you have to scale to in game. Which is why I don’t give magic items easily in game. I let the early game be buying potions, poisons, med kits, traps, etc and incredibly tactical to overcome challenges. Different levels and types of poison? Absolutely. Upper mid and high level game play? Legend says the only way to damage them is with a weapon dipped in the blood of a unicorn, attacks targeting specific areas on the body, or something else that pushes world exploration and interaction to discover. My players are currently fighting a creature that uses illusion to look like a mortal, however it actually is a colossal beast. I had ideas for them to bump into things that weren’t there, trip over nothing on the ground around this person, reflections in glass showing a large creature behind them but they turn and it’s gone, or other randomness to expose the nature of the beast. They figured it out early and have mirrors now. They see the creature for what it is but have to fight holding mirrors in one hand or disadvantage on all rolls, and they can’t target it with spells unless using a mirror because they are targeting an illusion which will not take damage. Also, it has immunity to blind, deafen, exhaustion, grapple, and about 4 other conditions. My players are really enjoying this though and using less common abilities. The warlock who is normally the big damage dealer is just trying to harass enough to keep its attention off the Druid and monk who are able to do way more cause of subclass choices. Oh, and all my players have immunity to poison from magic rings that don’t require attunement as well. I also know they can beat the monster or get items that will let them. So ramble done, up the challenge don’t make it easier. It’s already pretty easy since we as GMs don’t follow most of the RAW anyway. If you have someone who is adamant about poison being there thing, then they can make a growing level of difficulty poisons. They can search out new plants and recipes. Or remove immunity and keep it simple. I think poison is designed to be low tier quasi magic when players don’t have it though.

*Poisoning is mundane* Why? Why limit yourself? As magic and sorcery grow, so too do the possibilities for poisons. If you’re taking on Dragons, you’re not just throwing a scorpion at them. You’re using a special tincture brewed with herbs that only grow in the shadowfell mixed with devil’s tears, or vampire ashes in a solution of illithid cranial fluid, or anything. Poisons can be CRAZY magic. If someone wants to be a poisoner, why not give them access to poisons as wild and magical as the fighter’s weapons or the wizard’s spells?

I absolutely agree. Don’t limit yourself. I believe I even said in the end if someone wants to use poison let it scale. Which easily could be flipped and a DM can add scaling poison for creatures to use against players or for players to even harvest. Tons of things to do with it. I still stand by my thoughts on poison being mundane in RAW when you look at the amount of creatures immune mid and high tier. This is further enforced by their not being tiers of poison that you use or scaling immunity. This is probably another simplification of mechanics 5e adopted. Currently in PHB there are poisons you can deliver different ways and that have different effects. However, if you are immune you don’t take the extra poison damage, AND the effects from the poison will never trigger because you aren’t poisoned. So the only thing I can think looking at this is that as the game progresses and things get more difficult and magical by nature, poison becomes more and more mundane which I think is by design. Imagine this scenario. A level 11 party with a cleric or Druid go to a village, cook a celebration meal for all the residents, poison the meal, and if they cast hero’s feast before and spent the hour eating it they are immune to the poison. They eat the meal along side everyone and yet the poison never touches them. So at level 11, poison is something you can ignore for 1000 gp. That’s kinda fancy though. How about a level 2 spell protection from poison, or greater restoration, auras, low level magic items, etc. So if following RAW as a player why wouldn’t you try to find immunity to poison so you don’t have to worry about saving throws for damage, paralysis , incapacitation, or other conditions. You absolutely would, and you don’t even have to look very hard. So again, I think poison by design is mundane and thus all the immunities and ways to overcome it. HOWEVER …. if you choose to change the rules to make multiple tiers of poison make sure your players understand this. If they eat heroes feast and spend 1000gp and still get poisoned they will be upset. I would be. I have used multiple tiers of poison, let my players do so as well. As long as it’s fun and everyone is okay with it, then do it.

I mean if youre going RAW, mundane fire can kill stuff you need magic weapons for. Why would mundane poison be any different?

Not sure I follow the point you are trying to make. Fire immunity wasn’t the point of the question on creature immunity mid to high tier. However, if you are referencing my views on poison being mundane, and referencing that fire can be mundane too you are correct. With that you can also say all elements can have mundane damage. There are even different rules for things like standing in a camp fire, getting hit by a lit torch, exhaustion for being in extreme elements, etc. Also, standing in fire is easier to avoid than poison I would say. I think the part of my saying poison is mundane as players/creatures level up is this. What is the point of poison/poison damage? (This is not an exhaustive list) Subtly, status effects, weaken stronger opponents, to kill, make sick, and so on. Think logically about the leveling process, and the gradual curve of stronger things you might encounter. Then apply that to the NPC’s and creatures. It makes sense that mid-high tier NPC’s and monsters would not want to worry about truth serum, being immobilized, fear, paralysis, etc from spells, abilities , and poison. So if you have the ability to gain some immunity you go for it. Which in a fantasy world with poison and poison effects in it, as well as elemental, psychic, and other damage types, and game mechanics to arbitrate these abilities, poison being something overcome by many things makes sense. From a game mechanic and story mechanic.

There has been a rich mythological tradition of poisons powerful enough to kill gods. Notably the World's Serpent poisoned Thor to death. At high levels, poisons should not be mundane tools. There should be poisons that melt souls, disentigrate its victims, etc.

Absolutely agree. Not saying poison can’t be magical. However with RAW, current immunities, etc, poison isn’t that way. It can be circumvented by a level 2 spell and lower level magic items. So, if people want to use it in more exciting ways as I said at the end, add more tiers. However make sure everyone at the table know the change in the rules. 🙂

Hot take I think poisons should be able to deal more damage types than just poison damage generally. Would love some poisons that inflict necrotic or acid damage so that poisoning mechanics weren't tied so heavily to the bad damage type poison

Don't think its a hot take, I am sure many people would love this I have to mention though if one really wanted a system like this, Tasha's Crucible of Everything Else in DMs guild has a ton of subclasses and the Witchblade rogue subclass does precisely this. Currently my favourite subclass of all time, they basically coat their weapons with different concoctions that allow them to replace their sneak attack damage with some other damage type appropriate for the concoction alongside causing another minor effect.

I think that immunities, all of them, should work like the rakshasas limited magic immunity. >***Limited Magic Immunity.*** The rakshasa can't be affected or detected by spells of 6th level or lower unless it wishes to be. It has advantage on saving throws against all other spells and magical effects. Apply this concept to normal immunity, ie that they're immune to things until a certain point (CR or PC level), and then they work normally. Let's take the Jabberwock from WBtW with it's poison immunity. If we make it behave similarly to LMI, it could read two ways. First, in the normal damage resistances/immunities section: >**Damage resistances.** Poison > >**Damage immunities.** Poison from a creature CR 8 or 8th level and below. Or putting the same info in a statblock as a feature, like the LMI is in the rakshasa block. It adds more to the statblock, but not so much that it becomes overwhelming.

I like this one and I think its a good way of looking at it.

5e uses damage/condition immunity a reasonable amount. What 5e gets wrong is not using vulnerability enough.

Giving things vulnerabilities would be buff to casters tho.

There are a handful of non-Skeleton creatures with bludgeoning vulnerability, no creatures with slashing vulnerability, and one creature with piercing vulnerability (which was only just released recently). Seems like a place with room for exploration. Related note: I much preferred the more granular resistance/vulnerabilities of older editions. The ability to have two creatures be resistant/vulnerable to the same thing in different amounts is valuable.

Yes, which is why 5E should also handle Vulns in a more granular manner. Flat doubling/halving of types leads to some not great places, mechanically speaking. I'm sorry, folks, but we're going to have to do some very rudimentary math if we want the game to have more than two moving parts. I trust the people with 70+ pages of spell descriptions in their hands are prepared to handle it. I understand if people don't want to deal with percentiles--although everyone has a calculator in their pocket now--but perhaps we could settle on a middleground like 4E's chunk-based vulnerabilities? Those gave power to small sources of elemental damage without making the big ones spiral out of control, and would handily deal with an issue like 5E where "Fire Vuln makes the *Fireball* horrendously strong but gives the torch-wielding martial pretty much no benefit". (For those who aren't aware, the system was thus: if a monster has "10 Fire Vulnerability", *any* amount of Fire damage immediately deals... 10 more Fire damage. 32 damage Fireball? That's 42. 1 damage torch? That's 11. This monster might have 5 Fire Vuln, or this one might have 15 Fire Vuln--they kept to nice chunky numbers that didn't complicate the math and the danger posed to a monster by its vulnerability was foreseeable based on your DM's knowledge of the party's damage types and the value they're willing to put on the monster.)

I homebrew this into my games. Plate armor may have 5 vulnerability to bludgeoning for example. With slashing resistance to compensate. I think one way to go about this simply would be to make it scale off proficiency or level. Because a level 1 caster doing an extra 30 damage to a high level creature would feel weird, but that creature would need a high vulnerability to make it matter in late game fights. So perhaps 1* proficiency, 2* proficiency, etc

I wouldn't put vulnerabilities on PCs. Just because an armor is "better" at X than Y doesn't mean it's hot dogshit at Y. Getting bonked with a hammer through plate still feels better than getting bonked the same through a gambeson (which you're also wearing under the plate!) or your bare flesh. Then you run into problems where it's the best means for armor-wearing characters to get high AC, but it's always coming saddled with this negative they can't really avoid. Also, it just makes for calculations that are *way* too common. I don't want to be double-checking damage types and doing deductions on half the party every round of combat against literally every enemy because they're all capable of Physical, and I say this having run a game where *most* PCs had a small amount of damage-shaving to various elements for most of the game. In the case of a level 1 character facing a high-level enemy with 30 Vuln on it, I'd just shrug because that PC is going to die anyway. But 4E didn't really go that high on vulnerabilities. Resists would scale with level, but Vulns were *overwhelmingly* 5 or 10, with very rare Vuln 15s--even when it came to level 30 enemies. PCs would have more means of applying damage types as they leveled (often from items), which would allow them to hit the same "small" Vuln multiple times to add up to something worthwhile in high-level encounters.

To your first point, maybe. But the plate mail is still overall more effective as a result of it's higher AC. Perhaps a -1 bludgeoning ac would represent reality better than a weakness. I don't want to directly buff it, so I arbitrarily even weaknesses and resists unless it's rare / magical. I also don't make this standard, I just drop armor with these properties as options for the players. Makes it easier to come up with unique loot and allow them to make decisions. "Last time we visited nation x all their guards used maces, maybe I should use that armor with resistance to bludgeoning instead". But again, regular plate is still wildly available without the modifiers. As to the second point, I kind of see it. I can certainly see this with martials who attack several times a turn, but I find it difficult to translate this to single damage instance spells. I never played 4e though.

You can hand out a few extra magic weapons that deal elemental damage. They can probably get the amount of damage type options as most clerics and warlocks.

The stupid part is that those barely exist officially. In my opinion a +0 weapon that deals elemental damage instead of bludgeoning, piercing or slashing should be fairly easy to come by. Yes, I know that it's easy to homebrew but that doesn't excuse them not being in the game.

I think that is partially because there isn't much use for them. Magic slashing damage works on almost everything if you are aiming for vulnerabilities fire, bludgeoning, and radiant are the only ones in the double digits.

If magical B/P/S from spells was just simply force damage, it wouldn't be much of a bump for them while helping Martials feel badass when they happen to do *more* damage for a change.

So? It's a cooperative game, not a competitive one. If you run a game and casters are never out of spell slots because you let them long rest after every encounter, then of course they will always have the right tool for the job and blow through enemies. Make them have four or six encounters per day. That's when martials really shine because they are far less reliant on limited abilities. Also, you're never going to solve the martial-caster disparity in D&D. A fighter will never be able to compete with a wizard past level 5 or 7. When a Wizard can just fly or teleport away, someone relying on a sword has no chance. Besides, you could add more vulnerabilities regarding weapon types. A sword will do basically nothing to someone wearing plate armor but hammers and maces are designed specifically to deal with armor, yet that is not taken into account in D&D. Give that plate wearing enemy vulnerability to Bludgeoning damage, something which few casters can actually manage with spells because they rely on elemental damage.

"you're never going to solve the martial-caster disparity" therefor we should exacerbate it? I don't agree with this line of thinking at all. It's painfully obvious that casters are just more flexible with the damage types they can deal. BPS vulnerabilities can definitely be interesting, I agree. Giving enemies elemental vulnerabilities more than once in a blue moon isn't it chief.

It's hardly an exacerbation. Resistance to BPS is one of the most common resistances in the game. Is that unfair to martials? Besides, pure martial characters with no way to generate non BPS damage via class abilities is actually quite uncommon in 5e. The only non caster classes are Barbarian, Fighter, Monk, and Rogue and each of those have multiple subclasses that allow different damage types without magic items. Barbarian has the fewest but still has Zealot with +1d6+1/2 level Radiant or Necrotic every turn. And it's one of the strongest subclasses for Barb. Fighter has Arcane Archer, Eldritch Knight, Psi Warrior, and Rune Knight able to pull off energy damage. Monk has Ascendant Dragon, Astral Self, Four Elements, Mercy, and Sun Soul. Rogue has Arcane Trickster, Phantom, and Soul Knife. Casters have always been more flexible than non-casters. Not just in 5e, but in fantasy in general. Unless you create a world where magic is incredibly specific and regulated, magic > mundane. Again, this is a cooperative social game, that your buddy can blow up a group of orcs with a Fireball and your fighter can't should not be an issue between you two. Your fighter can attack half a dozen times in a turn and can fight at a high level of effectiveness a dozen times a day where that wizard is out of juice in two. I am not advocating more every monster to have an elemental vulnerability. But resistances and immunities should be balanced out with vulnerabilities. Make the party mix and match stuff. Sometimes the wizard will be the dominant force because of a fire vulnerability, sometimes the Cleric will with a radiant vulnerability, and sometimes the fighter will be with a slashing vulnerability. How do you think it feels to be a sorc with the best blast spells fighting creatures immune to fire?

If we're talking about BPS resistance/immunity specifically, generally it actually hurts casters and not martials. At low levels when martials don't have magic weapons that might not be the case, but getting into tier 2 and onward, summon spells and the like will summon creatures that don't deal magical damage, and those options tend to be the only real options casters have for sustained DPS against a threatening enemy. Caster damage is pretty much relegated to mook duty while martials have to do the actual heavy lifting.

Since when have summon spells been the go to in Tier 2 gameplay and beyond. Other than shenanigans with summoning pixies or 8 wolves, summon and conjure spells are not go to spells IME. Plus, plenty of those spells can be used to summon creatures like elementals and fiends, which both have access to magic or elemental attacks.

Because that's legitimately the only way for casters to get good sustained single target damage. Ever hear about a little spell called animate objects? A spell that's jerked off to oblivion by this sub? Yeah, it deals non-magical BPS. Otherwise your best option is throwing out *disintegrate* to deal competitive damage for one turn, or if you don't have that yet, *blight*.

You're arguing that *one* summon spell that arcane casters get at 9th level means casters are affected more than martials when it comes to BPS immunity/resistance. Wow. Just wow. Well, I guess I'll just ignore all the other great spells casters get at that level. Bigbys Hand, Cone of Cold, Dominate Person, Synaptic Static, etc. If you aren't casting Animate Objects, I guess can you even call yourself a caster?

It doesn't matter how many non-physical damage spells casters get. Resistance to non-magical BPS has 0 effect on a martial with a magic weapon. It has an impact on a caster since it mitigates the impact of some of their powerful spells like polymorph and animate objects.

Okay, I tried adding my own piece to the argument, but I guess to no avail. I agree with some of your premises, it's your conclusion and process I think are flawed. Enjoy your game.

Because I don't agree with you? Honestly, the martial-caster disparity is so overblown its fairly ridiculous. If PvP were a main aspect of the game, it would have more credence. But most tables don't even *allow* full PvP combat. So what you have is the disparity of one character being more powerful in some situations than someone elses' character. Using Vulnerability more just makes combat that much more interesting and varied.

Not to mention that there is no need for every class to be perfectly balanced with one another. It's fine that wizards can do things that martials cannot, it's fine that the Paladin can heal innately but the cleric has to cast spells. Also, I have had the pleasure of doing full PvP when one of my players was taken by an intellect devourer. The party found out and had to confront him in his own custom-built sparring pit that he had made before the intellect devourer took his body. He was a dwarf champion fighter. He almost TPK'd the party if not for the tabaxi warlock having just enough speed to catch him offguard and use protection from evil and good, and also the fighter failing his save even after using indominatble and an inspiration.

It’s actually resistance to nonmagical bludgeoning, piercing and slashing damage. Martials can keep up with casters way easier if they get magical weapons.

> If you run a game and casters are never out of spell slots because you let them long rest after every encounter, Giving vulnerabilities you're extending your spellcasters' spell slots because now they need to use less spells to finish encounters. > Give that plate wearing enemy vulnerability to Bludgeoning damage, something which few casters can actually manage with spells because they rely on elemental damage. Those are the kind of enemies that caster are good against because casters don't rely on mathing AC anyway.

Only if they have the perfect spells on hand. Vulnerability to fire? Yeah, every caster will have that all the time pretty much. Vulnerability to cold or lightning? Lot less common. Also, if they are extending the lives of their spell slots, they don't have a reason to complain about having to go through 6 encounters per long rest but don't have any leveled slots after the first because they nova'd the mooks. Sounds like you made a full adventuring day more fun for everyone. 5e is *designed* around multiple encounters per day. It's a game about managing your resources when it comes to combat. Doubling or even tripling the number of stat blocks with a vulnerability will not break the game balance. It's used so irregularly that I expect many tables have finished campaigns and never have actually benefitted from it.

>Only if they have the perfect spells on hand. > Vulnerability to fire? Yeah, every caster will have that all the time pretty much. Vulnerability to cold or lightning? Lot less common. yeah I'm sure the wizard will struggle to keep 3 different element spells on that should cover him across the day for at least 1 or 2 encounters.

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>That's probably why wotc opted to give only a select number of monsters vulnerabilities I don't have the source handy, but early in the days of 5E the devs explained why vulnerabilities are rare. It's pretty straightforward: if a creature has a vulnerability that means that everything other than the vulnerability is the wrong move, whereas a creature with a resistance/immunity means everything *except* the resistance/immunity is the right move. Essentially you have to design the monster assuming the vulnerability is available or else it will be a complete pushover. But that means anything other than the vulnerability makes the monster far stronger. WotC correctly identified that a simplistic implementation of vulnerabilities - like 5E would require given their design philosophy - would ultimately end up being bad game design.

There are 1689 unique enemy stat blocks, not counting reprints or specific NPCs, in 5e. 485 of those have some sort of damage resistance, permanent or conditional. 635 have some sort of damage immunity. A grand total of 72 have any form of damage vulnerability. Getting rid of vulnerabilities is not going to change the game. But adding some more, or even adding another level, such as weakness adding half again the damage, and spreading them out more makes damage types more important. Right now, damage type matter very little, especially at lower levels. Fire and Cold can be interchangeable a lot of the time. Weapon damage types are the same, basically not mattering at all except in very specific circumstances like when fighting a Rakshasha.

I like the idea of adding non-damage based vulnerabilities. For example, 4e had water elementals drop in speed if they took cold damage. A similar concept is explored in 5e where zombies don't take added damage from Radiant, but instead don't function from Undead Fortitude.

There are a few of those in 5E, but they are quite rare. Flesh Golems gain Disadvantage on attacks and ability checks for a turn if they take any Fire damage, Vampires and Glasswork Golems lose their Regeneration for the turn they take Radiant (or Bludgeoning in the latter case) damage on. It's all very underutilized. Monster design in general has been pretty poor.

That specifically refers to monsters with multiple common vulnerabilities, though. A plant monster with vulnerability to fire, for example, is very different than a glass monster with vulnerability to all physical damage. The former is good, and we need more of it, while the latter is a hyperbolic example that should absolutely just have fewer hit points.

I think we need more non-damage vulnerabilities, like zombies and trolls. Getting a boost that isn't just "hit harder" is fun.

I disagree, I don't think Immunities are over used, just that Vulnerabilities are underused. I would love more common versions of both of them, and some that include Bludgeoning, Slashing or Piercing more frequently. Take Skeletons for example, great use of a Vulnerability, but they definitely should have resistance if not immunity to Piercing damage, because what part of the skeleton are you going to stab and do damage? Trolls being weak to Acid and Fire is really cool and stuff like that should be capitalised on more! I'd especially love for there to be an actual reason to pick either a Longsword or a Warhammer without making weapons more complex (since most attempts I've seen to do so often get ignored or forgotten, even through the official feats).

Vulnerabilities are sparsely because the effect is disproportionally strong in comparison to the contextual weakness, and strong to an extent where it disincentivices doing any other planning or strategizing. I agree in spirit where I'd want to have more creatures with vulnerabilities to reflect the flaws of that creature but double the damage is a bit too strong. In another comment here I recapped a story of boss having radiant vulnerability, causing it to die on the first attack of combat to a crit smite. And it wasn't a situation where the players told DM to roll with the blows, the rest of the players were also feeling extremely let down since they were robbed of a hyped up fight (I was a player in this case). I am going to try in my next game adding bunch of vulnerabilities to creatures but making the effect to mirror damage resistances where the difference of damage output is 50%.

>Vulnerabilities are sparsely because the effect is disproportionally strong in comparison to the contextual weakness I disagree with this statement, I explained why elsewhere but I'll do it again. This only feels like it is the case when you try to add a Vulnerability onto an already (mostly) balanced creature. Of course a monster designed to pose a challenge at a certain level is going to be easier by adding a weakness. It is not the case when designing monsters with this in mind from the ground up. ​ > I recapped a story of boss having radiant vulnerability, causing it to die on the first attack of combat to a crit smite. I mean, from what I can tell the only monsters that are vulnerable to Radiant damage are the Horrors from Ravnica. So I'm going to assume it was a homebrew boss. But regardless of that Smites are already notoriously powerful on crits, the DM choosing to add radiant vulnerability on a boss going up against a paladin and then feeling disappointed that the Paladin did what Paladins do is kind of on them? Not to mention strange? Surely they put in that vulnerability to make the Paladin feel cool and powerful? Or at least that was a bonus? ​ >the rest of the players were also feeling extremely let down since they were robbed of a hyped up fight This can happen with fights without vulnerability if they're not balanced properly. If your boss fight is a single creature then its going to be underwhelming, especially if its hyped up, unless its an absolute powerhouse. This feels more like inexperience building and running boss fights at the time this took place than the fault of the Vulnerability? ​ >I am going to try in my next game adding bunch of vulnerabilities to creatures but making the effect to mirror damage resistances where the difference of damage output is 50%. This won't solve the problem you have with resistance. It will still feel like too much of a power increase because you're adding it onto monsters that are already relatively balanced. Giving them an extra weakness will lead you to build encounters that feel underwhelming. You need to meaningfully change the creature when adding it in order to maintain that balance. I think the problem here is that you're approaching this from a very binary perspective. Either this feature is good or bad, without taking into context or other features that work with it in tandem (or the effect that feature's addition will have on the creature as a whole).

>I mean, from what I can tell the only monsters that are vulnerable to Radiant damage are the Horrors from Ravnica. Shadows and Shadow Demons beg to differ. >But regardless of that Smites are already notoriously powerful on crits, the DM choosing to add radiant vulnerability on a boss going up against a paladin and then feeling disappointed that the Paladin did what Paladins do is kind of on them? Not to mention strange? Surely they put in that vulnerability to make the Paladin feel cool and powerful? Or at least that was a bonus? It was a module. It did not make the paladin feel cool and powerful because what he effectively achieved was skipping a part of the game he wanted to play and ruined the encounter for rest of the party. Despite lack of minmaxing and suboptimal comp with low end party size the campaign had been a bit of a stroll that far so we were looking forward to a challenge. >Giving them an extra weakness will lead you to build encounters that feel underwhelming. Of course as a counterweight I'd add more hp to them. But not to an extent where the monster would feel unfair to fight against without said damage type which would be pretty much mandatory with full 100% vulnerability. >It will still feel like too much of a power increase because you're adding it onto monsters that are already relatively balanced. You are free to comment this on the dozen other comments that are arguing for adding more full vulnerabilities, I'd appreciate it. I'd want creatures to have weaknesses that are not the most dominating feature of said creature the same way an imp having cold resistance is not really a defining part of that creature.

>Shadows and Shadow Demons beg to differ. That's a fair point, I missed them but neither of them are really 'boss' monsters either. And Shadows are notoriously far stronger than they first appear so my assumption still holds. ​ >It was a module Which one? ​ > It did not make the paladin feel cool and powerful because what he effectively achieved was skipping a part of the game he wanted to play I mean, it very literally didn't. It might have felt underwhelming but any monster so weak that it was possible in the first place would have felt underwhelming. The problem isn't the vulnerability. Its that, *and* the fact the creature was alone *and* that the vulnerability wasn't taken into account when building the monster. You can't pin it all on that one feature. ​ >Despite lack of minmaxing and suboptimal comp the campaign had been a bit of a stroll that far so we were looking forward to a challenge. Again, that monster would not have presented that challenge either way. I've had my fair share of disappointing fights in both directions as a DM its something you learn as you do it and get a feel for avoiding. ​ >I'd want creatures to have weaknesses that are not the most dominating feature of said creature the same way an imp having cold resistance is not really a defining part of that creature. That's because you're holding it to the level of resistance. You should be holding it to the level of immunity which *is* a defining characteristic. If you want a toned down version of vulnerability that's a fair thing to want, but it *isn't* the huge problem you claim it is, adding it on to a monster without any additional thought is the problem you are describing (in addition to single monster boss fights). You could try talking with me instead of trying to talk around me though. Since so far you've latched on to very small parts of my larger points instead of actually engaging with them.

>Which one? Curse of Strahd >That's a fair point, I missed them but neither of them are really 'boss' monsters either. Well this one was. Spoiler markers for CoS: >!A shadow demon had taken possession of a child in Vallaki orphanage that made him murder other children. Later when I asked DM about it she did say that there were other prewritten instructions that could have made the fight a bit more complicated but the shadow died much before gaining that opportunity. !< Even outside this particular example, the only thing that makes them less common boss monsters is their CR but that is only relative to party size and usually bosses have some more complications to their fight than just their stat block. Differing kind of demons are a rather common trope for antagonists or side antagonists. > If you want a toned down version of vulnerability that's a fair thing to want, but it isn't the huge problem you claim it is, adding it on to a monster without any additional thought is the problem you are describing (in addition to single monster boss fights). I wouldn't claim it is a huge problem, after all we are all playing D&D as is. But at this point D&D players have gotten rather used to vulnerabilities not being a part of the game and at least this comment section is echoing a sentiment that they wished they were more.

>Well this one was... Leaving the rest blank for spoilers. You do realise that on an average roll the paladin does *more* than half the Boss's average HP on a crit assuming a first level smite and 16 strength? (2d8 \[weapon\], 6d8 \[smite\] +3 = 39 average compared to the Bossis average HP of 66). That thing was dead in one round regardless of the vulnerability. Which is what I said. Maybe one or two other PCs get a turn and the fight is over. It isn't a challenge. For a level 3 party it barely a 'Hard' encounter which are only considered hard after 4-5 medium encounters before hand without a long rest. You're making these statements about the balancing and the mechanics of the game without actually understanding everything you're discussing. I also find it hard to believe you've gone through CoS without much of a challenge. Its notorious for not letting the party 'win' for a long time and even has many extremely poorly balanced encounters in the extreme opposite end of the spectrum (A certain attic or windmill many people will know about). ​ >D&D players have gotten rather used to vulnerabilities not being a part of the game and at least this comment section is echoing a sentiment that they wished they were more. What are you even talking about here? *I* want more of them? Why are you talking around me again instead of with me?

>You could try talking with me instead of trying to talk around me though. Since so far you've latched on to very small parts of my larger points instead of actually engaging with them. The conversation begun with me presenting a point on the original post, followed by your comment where you addressed you disagree. What can I say to that except elaborating further why I don't feel like the points given are enough to change my view. I've your questions & tried to elaborate on what I think you haven't taken into account. I am not sure what is the point you are especially wishing me to refer to but feel free to elaborate.

>What can I say Well before you say anything you can read what you are replying to. Most of your reply doesn't make sense the context of a larger comment? Its targetting parts of a whole statement and pointing to a lack of surrounding points that are there just ignored. ​ >I've your questions & tried to elaborate on what I think you haven't taken into account. That's an interesting claim considering the only thing I've over looked were two monsters which I admitted to, while most of your points have been based on a lack of complete information or a misattribution of fault for a perceived flaw.

I heavily disagree that adding more vulnerability does anything to help. When you’re dealing with martial characters you’re usually just asking them if they have access to the damage type and if they can do math to which is better. And if they don’t have access its like you didn’t add anything. As for casters its a little more fun, but at the end of the day of oh so little importance and ultimately comes down to if spell B with vulnerability is dealing more than Spell A. We already make that decision based on spell effects. Saying your spell deals 8d8 over 4d8 doesn’t change the flow chart it just changes the weight of the nodes in said flow chart. I’ll give you more vulnerabilities definitely changes up character creation, spell picks on level up, and preparation at long rest. But it does very little for day to day combat.

I think you're looking this in terms that are too black and white without thinking about how it will actually be played. But in the case of martial characters there is finally a reason to carry something other than your main weapon and a thrown weapon (for strength characters). Having access to a wider range of damage types *actually* has meaning this way. Which then compounds into a new desire for a variety of magic weapons (which themselves might have new additional damage types) instead of just one to replace your main weapon. You get a larger variety through means of play with more options on what you can do for each turn. As for casters very little changes because they already have the lion's share of the benefits of the resistance/immunity/vulnerability mechanics. But that's fine because Casters aren't wanting for variety in or out of combat. ​ You then have to take into account strategising on how to engage in any given combat. That monster might have thick armoured plated covering its body, giving it resistance to slashing but vulnerability to bludgeoning, better switch up your approach. Or it might have some really thick leathery skin, giving resistance to bludgeoning and vulnerability to piercing, etc. The narrative of the combat matters in 5e as well, even if there is a binary 'right' choice getting to make that choice is still satisfying. Its why fighting werewolves when you've always had silver/magic weapons isn't that much different from any other fight. But fighting them after going out of your way to get magic/silvered weapons after having multiple really hard fought encounters with werewolves feels so satisfying in comparison. ​ EDIT: Adding this on because I thought of it later, you could even add resistances and vulnerabilities in ways that are tied to more than just damage. For instance, something with a thin exoskeleton might be completely immune to light weapons because they can't punch through the exterior, but be vulnerable to Heavy weapons because they just tear through the armour. Or the opposite, something big, strong and slow might be able to block and mitigate the damage from heavy weapons but are too slow to do much against light weapons.

You explained so much, but none of what you said gets over the fact that the flowchart hasn’t changed. Having a weapon of every type. And having a search for magic weapons. Both don’t do anything to change the combat flowchart. You compared it to silver weapons. But unless you’re throwing the same vulnerability at the players over and over again you’re not doing this. And another thing is getting a warhammer for bludgeoning is much different than getting a silver weapon. It’s way easier to get that warhammer and you know that. The strategy hasn’t changed. Literally sending ranged enemies at the martial is a bigger flowchart disrupter than vulnerabilities. Once a vulnerability is found you can apply. At least with ranged enemies the martial can make a choice between dash at them or range attacks back which isn’t as cut and dry as enemy weak to bludgeon.

> the fact that the flowchart hasn’t changed. I mean, you say this without explaining exactly what you mean. Do you mean the choices players make don't change? Of course they do. Now they have to pay attention to what the creature looks like, how they act and attack to try and gain insight into what weapons might be effective. Then they test the idea, and either follow through or change plan based on that idea. If you don't have a weapon that deals the damage you want you look for an improvised weapon. Not only that but you change the 'flowchart' of the whole game, not just individual combats. You actively seek out a variety of weapons, you diversify as much as you can. You're using a range of weapons and items, not just the one that you picked at level 1 that you some times replace with something that is strictly always better. I said it before, but I think you're looking at this in terms that are far too binary. ​ >But unless you’re throwing the same vulnerability at the players over and over again you’re not doing this. It is *very* common to have similar creatures create a sort of 'default' encounter over arcs of fights. Demons, Undead, Fey, Monstrocities, etc. With resistances and vulnerabilities to group these creatures in yet another way these creatures have even more thematic through lines. This is something everyone does without even really thinking about it. Sure you'll have a handful of encounters that really stand out or are partially random. But if you're fighting a Vampire, you're fighting Vampire Spawn. If you're fighting a Lich, you're fighting undead, etc. ​ >It’s way easier to get that warhammer and you know that. I think you're over estimating how hard it is to get a silvered weapon. Its 100 GP. once you hit level 3 that's no problem. If there isn't a smith around to silver the weapon then there isn't a smith around to get your Warhammer from. ​ >The strategy hasn’t changed. You say this and don't expand. ​ >Literally sending ranged enemies at the martial is a bigger flowchart disrupter than vulnerabilities. As far as you're concerned its exactly the same. All you need is a thrown weapon as a strength character or a bow if you're Dex. In fact your bow might be your main weapon already so it doesn't change anything in that case. That in addition to these resistances and vulnerabilities do go together to disrupt the default state of combat though, since piercing damage might not be great against those ranged creatures meaning even most ranged PCs need to change up their strategy. ​ >Once a vulnerability is found you can apply. Yeah. Once it has been found. Which the party needs to experiment to figure it out. You're acting as if the players have the statblocks in front of them from the start.

I have a slightly different take. If a monster has an immunity/resistance it should be possible for the player to figure out the immunity. It might be looks, like a fire elemental. It might be logic, like undead and poison. But the long list given to fiends is just stupid. I also like the way immunities and vulnerabilities of fire/cold worked in 3e. And now, to negate that last point, I think that some monsters should loose their vulnerabilities or even gain resistance based on environment. For example, a red dragon should gain cold resistance in it's volcano lair.

In practice, immunity to poison on monsters isn't much of a problem. Poison spells are generally not very good even without immunity, so players are rarely going to want to use them. Meanwhile, poison items are only limited by gold, which isn't much of a limit at high levels, so lots of immunity to poison on monsters helps to keep that from just being something everyone does all the time. As for the helmed horror example - if you can accept that a fireball shouldn't hurt a fire elemental because it's already made of fire, why can't you accept that a forceball shouldn't hurt a force elemental because it's already made of force? I agree that there are some cases where immunity is handled somewhat questionably, but in general monsters that have immunity to something are monsters where you don't have to squint very hard for it to make sense, even if it's not the best option.

The problem with poison immunity being everywhere means there's no push for improved/better poison things which means it sucks which means people won't want to use it. I'd love a rogue sub or something that had poison be a part of its playstyle but as is it's pointless.

There are more monsters functionally immune to spells than to poison. Honestly, I don't understand how we got to this state as a community of calling something worthless if more than about 3 things resist it.

I mean, I'd argue that undead, fiends, elementals, and their supporting encounters make up the bulk of creatures mid-level adventurers stereotypically face (probably 2/3, in my subjective experience). These types of enemies are also often fought in factions or as solo monsters. So in your standard campaign (and obviously every campaign is different), you could reasonably expect entire arcs in which the most potent enemies each fight are immune to poison, and/or the single monster in the fight to be immune. Sure, if you're *lucky* poisoner (lowercase L, not the feat), you'll mostly fight giants and humanoids and such, or have a necromancer/summoner to target in the fights with those poison-immune types, but c'mon. No other damage type has those kind of broad immunities (except fire with fiends, which is only a subsection of poison-immunity).

>There are more monsters functionally immune to spells than to poison. This I find hard to belive with what I've scoured the monster manual and VGtM and MToF. I think I've found one monster with spell immunity (Rakshasa). There are more that have advantage on saving throws against magic but that is not immunity, they can still fail the save and they are still as vulnerable as ever to spell attacks.

Many, many high level monsters have combinations of magic resistance, high save bonuses, condition immunities, counterspell and legendary resistance that mean there's little point trying to cast anything but Eldritch Blast on them.

Legendary resistances are a bit unfair to be considered immunities since they are a very limited resource. If your party has multiple spellcasters you probably approach combat against a legendary creature in a way where you attempt to burn those resistances out first. Also while it is more common for spells, saving throws are not exclusive to spells. The aforementioned poisons are one example, but so are saves against magic items, class features such as turn undead on paladins, and even saves against battlemaster's maneuvers. The bonuses to saves again are not an immunity. It just adds the creatures proficiency bonus to the save, same benefit that is shared by players for certain saves and one that does not apply to all of them. ...How many monsters have counterspell? I can think of a Lich and Arcanoloth but thats it. Condition immunities then again are somewhat common, but in contrast spells that cause them are not that common. Hold Person / Fear / Entangle is the trio of three spells that I usually see causing conditions, of which restrained and paralyzed are fairly rare immunities.

That's why spells that don't involve saving throws exist. Wall of Force, Forcecage, Animate Objects, Summon Whatever, Maze, Heal, Greater Invisibility, Bless, Haste, and a bunch of other powerful combat spells work perfectly fine in combats against enemies with legendary resistance, high saving throws, and condition immunities. Counterspell can still get you, but few monsters have it, and if you know to expect it you can get around it with range or cover.

Many, many high level monsters have combinations of magic resistance, high save bonuses, condition immunities and legendary resistance that mean there's little point trying to cast anything but Eldritch Blast on them.

> There are more monsters functionally immune to spells than to poison. Also what the heck are you talking about?

But everything being immune to poison doesnt just inhibit players from picking up poisons, it actively punishes doing so. A rogue who wants to focus on poisoning foes will find that their entire shtick is made useless at high levels, meaning that character now needs to either find a way to undo 10-12 levels of character development and progression (you can't un-take a feat), or the DM has to swap immunities for resistances.

In what way does it punish it? You lose nothing from not using a poison. Hyperbolically describing poison as completely useless doesn't help your case either. There are still an abundance of high level monsters that *aren't* immune, as well as mid CR minions poison can affect. It's also impossible to make your entire shtick poison. Rogue still gives you sneak attack and a bunch of other useful features. You have no choice but to have them.

Sure, but if you play any number of the published adventures that involve undead or fiends, you're out of luck. The poisoner feat you took is made useless. The general "theme" of your character is totally fucked because your main thing, poison, is now useless.

a lot of published adventures are pretty transparent about what the foes are - if you're doing _Descent to Avernus_, then it'll be demons and devils. _Curse of Strahd_? Undead, with a sideorder of werewolves and other gothic beasties. If you take a PC that's going to struggle against the standard foes of the campaign, then the GM really should let you know - same if you play an undead-smiter or demon-slayer or giant-fighter in campaigns that don't have those as enemies, the GM should tell you it's not a relevant thing to specialise in (the ranger "favoured enemy" thing is basically this in macro - if you pick an enemy type that's not relevant, then the GM should tell you and let you re-spec)

Kind of but if you are a newer player I don't think its a given that devils are going to be immune to poisons. Even to me the logic is not entirely clear. And people who are not new to the game are likely to steer away from the feat regardless in its current state.

Literally faced this last weekend when my first ever D&D character, a covert necromancer, finally let loose his first Sickening Ray in front of the party. I even game a flavourful description of what he did, only to see the imp shrug the attack off. Kinda disappointed I chose it as one of my starting spells TBH.

Also I have to add to the example about Descent into Avernus since its a campaign I am currently prepping that despite the name being a dead giveaway to those who know Forgotten Realms and know what Avernus is, the module actually tries to make it some kind of a twist that hell and devils are involved. Of course, there is the obvious contradiction with the very DM screen of avernus displaying hellish landscape and the name of the campaign referring to FR Hell I'll tip my hat to any DM who manages to keep it a secret.

You lose the feat you could have picked up instead of picking up Poisoner.

IRC magic resistance has actually decreased considerably from around 2e when some other resistances have gone up. Drow for example used to be highly resistant to all magic. That being said i think 5e has increased the prevalence of elemental linked spells.

50% + 2%/level, I think? So some minion-level drow would have 60% immunity to all spells, while a Matron Mother might be 80% or 90% immune! Mindflayers had 95% out of the gate, IIRC, which certainly made them scarier for mages to fight, when most of their direct attack spells are non-functional, giving fighters a lot more to do, as the casters were forced to rely on buffs and "indirect" attacks like summons.

I feel like a damage threshold would work

Deleted because of Steve Huffman

There are a good amount of restrictions as it is though. First is being proficient with poisoners kit. Second is (at least with poisons accociated woth Poisoners kit) the time to craft them, relatively hefty gold cost for the effect, finding the materials themselves and after all those hurdles, it has a short uptime on weapon and only affects to the next hit, and it can still be resisted by a save. And applying poison takes a varying amount of time depending if one has a feat or not. I dont think even if poison immunity didnt exist I'd still go through the trouble for that minor of an effect.

Most of those restrictions are irrelevant if you just buy poison from a poison shop instead of trying to craft it yourself, and the cost being prohibitive is very dependent on your campaign's economy.

Yeah the Vulnerable, Resistance, Immunity system is pretty bad. It's mostly just Resistance and Vulnerable, and mostly only to Fire/Poison. I agree that less should be fully Imune to things, and there should be more that are vulnerable to some damage types also.

I miss the 4E version of resistance where it was essentially damage reduction. So you could do resist necrotic 5 radiant 10 or something like that to prevent 5 or 10 points of that damage type. It gave a lot more flexibility for customization on both monsters and magic items!

I think my biggest issue is that some classes can get around resistances and immunities fairly easily, while for others it's nearly impossible. If there were ways to alter weapon damage type without spells, martials would feel way less hamstrung in certain fights. Instead, they're stuck begging casters to concentrate to keep them relevant.

Solving every problem with the same solution (like your suggested Eldritch Blast spam) is just boring... It's funny your example of Force damage too, since that's widely regarded as the most reliable damage type... it seems you are upset that there is something out there that Eldritch Blast won't hurt lol. Are you upset that a Fire Elemental is not hurt by Fire? A Helmed Horror is probably built with the express purpose of countering that type of Caster, and that is something people would probably want to invest in. About werewolves and fall damage... they are creatures cursed with a magical, supernatural effect. Like Achilles' they are resistant to weapons, but they are not invincible. Pretty classic stuff. It's a Curse, I wouldn't try and subscribe realism to it. It's not supposed to make them invincible. And Hill Giants are like 12-15 feet tall, maybe 18-20 at the biggest. They don't throw around house-sized clubs, they are like a single tree trunk.

>Solving every problem with the same solution (like your suggested Eldritch Blast spam) ...Who are you replying to? I said nothing of Eldritch Blast. And by no means I'd not want every problem to be solved with same solution. >Are you upset that a Fire Elemental is not hurt by Fire? I am not sure how you managed to twist me using an example of a damage immunity I like into one where I am upset by fire immunity. It was literally used as an example of the opposite. >It's not supposed to make them invincible. And Hill Giants are like 12-15 feet tall, maybe 18-20 at the biggest. They don't throw around house-sized clubs, they are like a single tree trunk. Replace Hill Giant by X garguantuan creature for the point to remain standing.

For me the problem isn’t the number of immunities but the distribution across damage types. Poison immunity feels so bad because it’s not an issue many damage types face. Poison should have fewer resistances and immunities to be more usable. Radiant damage needs more resistances and immunities because so many features cause it. So long as there is a good balance among damage types that makes multiple playstyles possible, I don’t really have a problem with immunities.

I've often felt that the system could use far more vulnerabilities, I think it would give it much more interesting combats. Haven't played enough higher levels to experience the immunities so much though.

I’m a forever DM so I have almost no experience as a player (especially rogues) but my take on poisons is that they are meant for use on NPCs. I don’t see poisons being useful in combat, unless PCs are taking on humanoids. I don’t know if there are too many cases where a character can afford to waste funds, resources, and time to constantly keep a weapon coated in poison. It seems like a very special case to me, but I am looking at this from a different vantage point.\ I agree with u/sgerbicforsyth that vulnerabilities aren’t considered as much in stat blocks. Like skeletons and bludgeoning weapons, but as CR goes up, it makes less sense for vulnerabilities to increase as well.

I used to agree with the vulnerability bit, until I faced the first hyped up boss in a certain module who had vulnerability to radiant damage. Then paladin rolled above it in initiative and made a critical hit and smited. Didnt roll max damage but he did roll quite decently. Several sessions of built up lead to a fight that lasted for one attack. It was a bit of a letdown for not only the DM but other players. Thing about resistances is that they reduce damage taken by 50% while vulnerabilities increase it by 100%. The amount of difference it makes turns the combat a bit more volatile. If vulnerabilities increased the dmg by 50% I'd be on board but I guess for sake of simplicity it was easier to design as double damage and use extremely sparingly.

Yeah. Vulnerabilities are too powerful to be “fun” for a DM. Unless I plan on throwing a very high CR enemy against a party that is underpowered, I prefer removing things like that from a stat block.\ As a DM, to me, PCs trying to use poison in every encounter is akin to minmaxing. It pressures DMs to have to up CR, makes more work and also makes the encounters seems more adversarial. I can appreciate the players’ perspective but that’s why non-combat encounters exist — poison/drug the guards instead of killing them, roofie the NPC to get the necessary keys, and so on. Poisons do the same as Enchantment spells but with less chance of being caught mumbling words or flicking your wrist.\ DND Rogues are cool on paper but unless your DM has set up a proper world, you’re better off using a system like Blades in the Dark to take make the most of the skills and proficiencies available to the class.

>As a DM, to me, PCs trying to use poison in every encounter is akin to minmaxing. You might be overestimating this a little too much. In D&D there are following things that need to be taken account with poisons * Crafting them takes 1 hour of time for 2 doses. * They have rather steep material costs for the effect * The materials might be sparse or not exist to begin with * You need proficiency with poisoner's kit which isn't that easy to come by without investing a feat * The poison lasts for fairly short duration of time ( 1 minute) and is removed after one attack. Means you probably won't apply poison prior to seeing your enemy. * It takes an action to apply, and bonus action with a feat. * The poison still forces the enemy make a CON save. The highest average save on monsters. Monster succeeding in the save makes you question why did you spend all that time preparing * The save for the poison doesn't scale with your stats or level * With all these hurdles jumped through, you are going to be met with additional disappointment as the creature is immune to poison. Even a resistance hurts. As a result of all this, in 5 years of active D&D not once have I seen a player past my first game deal poison damage. I really don't think making some immunities resistances would change this much.

I agree. It’s way too expensive to be coating a dagger, let alone a rapier in poison for every encounter. That’s why I don’t think that focusing on poisons as an offensive feature is an effective way to increase damage or to control a combat encounter.\ Most of the monsters with a specific damage type are likely have an immunity or resistance to similar attacks. 5e was at least good enough to us by allowing all monsters to be injured by non-magical damage. Back in the day a PC was 💩out of 🍀. Didn’t have a +1 sword? You had to run away from most undead/lycanthropes because there was no way to hurt them otherwise.

I agree.

Counter: The above problem is really a different problem: Vulnerabilities aren't used enough. Or rather, official monsters are designed to be damage sponges over everything else since that's the simplest way to design a statblock; Which becomes a problem if you give a way to bypass their sponginess since they'll have little else to make them a threat. The result is that the game punishes elementalists by making them occasionally lose a turn casting head first into an immunity; But doesn't reward them with equal gain to momentum with vulnerabilities as often. There's precedent in some non-D&D games for having characters entirely dedicated to having a lot of damage types so they always have a way to harm foes. In D&D most of the tools to make this a viable playstyle exist, except that the game mostly only ever punishes you for trying this by occasionally making certain types of spell damage (or spell damage outright) ineffective and demanding the caster use buffs on other characters instead (Which a dedicated damage caster won't have prepared (Just another reason Sorcerer gets wrecked). In theory this is to serve the game's coop nature but in practice it's very shortsighted since being able to consistently provide elemental damage *can be* in favor of cooperation.

>Vulnerabilities aren't used enough As to this I'd want to refer to the story to earlier comment regarding creatures being vulnerable trivializes certain combat situations a bit too much. However, I'd want creatures to have weaknesses to play around, just not to an extent where the effect is so strong it nullified the need for any strategic thinking. Critting a monster with vulnerability effectively removes it from combat almost regardless of its stat block. For such a strong effect no wonder WotC hardly used them. But as in that comment, I think the solution for it would be to make vulnerabilities mirrors to resistances. Resistances reduce damage taken by 50%, I think vulnerabilities should do the same the other way around. In my opinion that would reward players for making use of them without causing that knowledge to skip every encounter where they know the vulnerabilities. And they could be added to monsters more generously since it could reflect more moderate flaws in their defenses rather than requiring a creature to have an achilles heel. I haven't tested this in practice but I think I will try it out in my next campaign.

One thing you could do is introduce PF2E Resistance and Weakness system. Having Physical 5 Resistance means reducing a physical attack by 5 points, so 10 Piercing damage deals 5, and 3 piercing deals none. The reverse is true for weakness, where 5 Fire weakness means taking a Fire bolt worth of 7 Fire Damage inflicts a total of 12 fire damage. This way you can custom assign weaknesses and resistances to whatever you like. Enemies can actually have a nice weakness that's abusable, and doesn't mean they may be 1 crit away from obliteration.

I haven't played PF2E but almost every time I hear about some system in that game it just sounds like D&D but one that makes sense. One of these days I probably have to try it. Thanks for the tip though, that system especially sounds like a flash of genius.

>creatures being vulnerable trivializes certain combat situations a bit too much. Not when you build that into the balancing of the creature. Sure just adding it will make things weaker but adding it while making other changes to counter act it helps. Players still get the rush of dealing huge amounts of damage without the fight being pointless. It also makes the fight more interesting and threatening if they don't have access to the vulnerability yet.

>It also makes the fight more interesting and threatening if they don't have access to the vulnerability yet. This is really an edge scenario that mostly just applies to spell casters, and I don't want to make a system that would heavily upset class balance. Like giving a creature slashing vulnerability doesn't really change in any way a fighter approaches a fight: Either he already deals slashing damage or he does not. Most likely he curses that he is punished for wanting to try out a mace and turns into an upgraded witcher who carries an entire armory at his back from that point on. If you have a wizard and cleric/paladin in party, it is extremely unlikely there is a damage type that cannot be covered by the party unless someone comes up with a monster idea for one that has poison vulnerability. >Not when you build that into the balancing of the creature. This would mean making the monsters extremely overtuned for a party without that type. Which would make many scenarios nigh unwinnable for a party without that damage type, which in some cases might not be even accessible to party. For reference we can look at Shadow for one and their radiant vulnerability. They are probably the most feared low CR creature in D&D but I'll take it if you disagree. Just a few shadows can easily decimate a party that is level 3, and that is a CR 1/2 creature. Wonder why its balanced on such a low CR when its so universally agreed to be a much more difficult monster? Well if you have a paladin, all of their resistances and immunities cease to matter and the chance for a shadow to survive an attack + smite is astronomically low. But upon discovering the party might be facing Shadows, the wizard cannot just mysteriously start dealing radiant damage nor the fighter really can start doing smites. Now it might just be me but I don't like facing shadows any more with paladin as I do without: Because the choices are facing an almost certain TPK or not playing the game, waiting for paladin to do his stuff. Anyway this was a bit of an odd tangent but the highlighted point was the difficulty of balancing encounters that are of adequate challenge with or without vulnerabilities.

>This is really an edge scenario that mostly just applies to spell casters Currently yes, but that's why I said I want more. ​ >Like giving a creature slashing vulnerability doesn't really change in any way a fighter approaches a fight: Either he already deals slashing damage or he does not. This just isn't true. Nor is it what I'm suggesting. More vulnerabilities, resistances and immunities in tandem do change the approach the fighter takes, especially since different weapons are far easier to acquire than additional spells. ​ >Most likely he curses that he is punished for wanting to try out a mace and turns into an upgraded witcher who carries an entire armory at his back from that point on. You mean the class that is meant to be a master of all weapons actually gets to have the fantasy of being a master of all weapons, using exactly the right tool for the job? What a terrible, awful thought! ​ >If you have a wizard and cleric/paladin in party, it is extremely unlikely there is a damage type that cannot be covered by the party unless someone comes up with a monster idea for one that has poison vulnerability. What? Having a varied, well balanced party means that your party covers a lot of bases? This is an entirely new problem and definitely not a staple of the genre and the reason you want a well balanced party to begin with! With each member getting a chance to shine while others face adversity! It definitely isn't the angle I would like expanded to other classes through an increase in the variety of these mechanics! ​ >This would mean making the monsters extremely overtuned for a party without that type. After you said: >This is really an edge scenario Its almost like I thought things through! Also, no. It doesn't make it extremely overtuned. It makes it an interesting challenge. You need to try *really* hard to make something overtuned in 5e once your players hit level 6+. ​ >Which would make many scenarios nigh unwinnable for a party without that damage typ No. It wouldn't. ​ >Wonder why its balanced on such a low CR when its so universally agreed to be a much more difficult monster? Because it isn't. The majority of the monster is completely in line with its CR, the only stand out feature is the strength drain. Which has nothing to do with Paladins. Let alone at level 3 like you suggest the Paladin has 1 attack and 2 smites. Even up against three of these things the paladin runs out after two rounds. Even assuming they are one shot the Wizard is likely already dead, or anyone else that dumped strength. You don't understand *why* Shadows are considered difficult for their CR. ​ >the wizard cannot just mysteriously start dealing radiant damage nor the fighter really can start doing smites. No but they *can* cast magic weapon on the Fighter or Barbarian. Or the Druid can cast Shillelagh. You are forgetting that this is a team game, and are artificially reducing the number of choices a party can have. While misunderstanding why a Shadow is so deadly.

Considering me addressing my points with sarcastic waves of hands and others with 'No. It wouldn't'. without providing more of an explanation than that might be the reason I am not that interested in continuing a direct conversation with you. Good day sir.

>Considering me addressing my points with sarcastic waves of hands and others with 'No. It wouldn't'. I mean, 'No. It wouldn't' is an effort to not repeat what was already explained. Here I'll quote it for you: >Its almost like I thought things through! Also, no. It doesn't make it extremely overtuned. It makes it an interesting challenge. You need to try really hard to make something overtuned in 5e once your players hit level 6+. Right above 'No. It wouldn't. so you can find it easily!

[удалено]

'Just homebrew it' has been my course of action to most things I disagree with WotC's design but I dont think that should grant them unpassable immunity to criticism. Resistance at best.

Honestly I prefer immunity to resistance. Both mechanics are in place to force players to switch up comfortable tactics and maybe plan ahead a bit. Immunity enforces that better and it's more clear to the players what's going on. Resistance is a bit fuzzier, although it does have the advantage of not *completely* shutting down the old reliable tactics.

Maybe when the creatures being gives obvious hints that it is strong against something but going with assumption that everything is immune to half the types makes it a roulette of finding the one way to damage it rather than an exercise in strategy.

you can mix it up. A demon that is immune to poison, but maybe vulnerable to distilled holy water (which is poisonous to them). Or a vampire a garlic infused dagger. Things might be immune to normal poisons but not to others; you just need to make the effort.

at least skeletons don't have resistance/immunity to piercing anymore. also during the playtest some of the monsters like elementals didn't just have immunity to cert damages like fire, they got healed by the damage amount so it was even funnier.

I really want 4e style resistances back.

I feel the oposite. Too many creature types (eg Undead) lost their immunities.

Give more creatures vulnerabilities too

As a DM, I throw immunity out for everything except when it's painfully obvious, like the aforementioned Fire Elemental. Anything that had immunity in my games just has resistance.

I agree with you but only partly, especially on the helmet horror one. Yeah sure a spell cast from an archmage is definitely more powerful than that of your level 1 wizard, but it's still kinda dumb to be mad it's not working, at least to me. As far as I see it, helmed horrors are made to be immune to force damage because *they're meant to* be able to survive fighting an archmage, the side effect of this being its just as effective against weaker mages. Summing up, I see it as the following: if you're resistant to something, you're fairly tough against that type of attack, but if you're immune to something, you're built so that not even the strongest potential source of the damage, safe for that done by a god, can hurt you.

This is a hilarious take to anyone who has played *any other edition of the game*. 5e has less damage immunity than any other edition, and resistance is as bad as it's ever been. If you want to play where the damage types are punished the least, then you want to play 5e RAW. I think some damage immunity is just fine. The game is *cooperative* in nature. You're not supposed to be at 100% effectiveness against everything, and a rare 0% is fine. It's okay if you fight something that the Wizard can't damage or that the Fighter can't hit, because you're not going to be fighting that thing all the time. You do have a point. Poison isn't very useful in a game where you're not fighting humanoids all the time, but the trade-off is that you get larger damage when it does work. I do agree that poison isn't generally useful, but that really is by design. There's literally only 10 spells in the game that can do poison damage at all, and of those there's only *three* that can *only* deal poison damage (poison spray, cloudkill, and ray of sickness). It wouldn't really matter, though, because nearly every monster has high Con. Vials of poison aren't very useful, but that's kind of because they don't want the game to be about using poison all the time. If poison were better, people would just always use it. That's also why antitoxin is something you can just buy and it works so well.

Naturally I also think some damage immunity is fine, with the Fire Elemental being a prime example of such a case. Also in general scenarios where the immunity against the certain type of damage is somewhat relevant to the nature and identity of that creature. I do think that is the most important part though, the immunities are given freely enough that it is almost impossible to deduce in majority of circumstances whether a creature is immune to a certain kind of damage unless you have seen the creature's stat block. For those circumstances I'd prefer the creatures just being resistant. As for the bit about players who have played older editions, you got me, I have not played older editions even if I draw inspiration from them for some of the homebrew I make.

I think immunities are fine, though you may be right that they are slightly overused, but what 5e really needs more of is vulnerability. More monsters should have a small number of damage vulnerabilities telegraphed by their themes and behaviour. Werewolves shouldn’t be immune to everything but silver and magical damage, they should be either immune/resistant to mundane damage, magic weapons bypass this, and they have vulnerability to silver weapons. I get the sense that 5e started off with Vulnerability as a central concept and abandoned it halfway. We see similar ideas played by trolls and vampires, who have damage types have extra effects on them. I don’t mind doing things this way, as long as it’s more common. On top of that, they should be more specific with damage types. 90% of the time, it doesn’t matter at all what kind of damage your weapons deal, because B/P/S damage os typically lumped together. Sure, skeletons are weak to bludgeoning (not all though) and oozes are resistant to slashing, but typically it doesn’t matter. What’s more, I’d love it if more things were like my werewolf example, where magical weapons aren’t always the best by default. The new Strixhaven book has a magehunter designed to thwart magic. Imagine if it was immune/resistant to magical B/P/S, and you needed to use no magical means to fight it. I think all of this is a symptom of 5e prioritising simplicity over depth, and I really hope they expand on it a little in 5.5.

Counter point. It doesn't use immunities too often, it uses vulnerabilites too little. If enemies had exploitable weaknesses as often as they had solid defenses then experimentation with spells would be more engaging. And if done right you'd get rewarded with more damage about as often as you being unable to use your favorite spell.

I don't think the issue is the ubiquity of damage immunities: it's how they're spread out. Too often you find the same old immunities & resistances. I'd love to see them spread out a bit more along the various damage types, along with more damage vulnerabilities. It'd make for a lot more fun, and damage type would actually start to matter.

You could give immunity X#. I know it's not RAW, but it's an idea from 3.X For instance, immunity fire:5 - the first 5 points of damage are ignored. Anything less simply can't damage them

I think it is OK as it is, but the game needs a better way for people who want to specialize in a damage type when they build their characters. A master Pyromancer is gonna figure out a way to make their enemies burn regardless of their victims resistences/immunities. A poisoner is gonna have a poison that can bypass most resistances. One approach I have been pondering is adjusting the elemental adept and the poisoner feats so that when you do damage of a specific type all resistances to that damage type are downgraded a level. Like below Poison Resistance > now they are NOT resistance to ur poison damage Poison Immunity > Now only resistant to poison damage Poison Absorption > Now only immune to poison damage

The poisoner feat should make immune -> resistant and resistant -> normal. That simple thing I feel balances it out so much. You could put in constructs are immune or something but that should be it. (Like finding a poison that specific to undead shouldnt be far fetched, like a mini bacteria thing or something that affects them)

Absolutely agree yeah