Hi so I’m a new DM and I have a player who wants to play a fire Newt and wants the fire immunity that they have. He suggested having a side effect be that he takes damage from water but I know how common fire is so I told him I’m hesitant about full immunity. Any advice on a way to maybe balence this? Maybe 2/3 resistance?
If you’re new, don’t homebrew is my first piece of advice. Second, if you’re going to allow this species — and let’s be clear, you are very much allowed to say no, especially when it’s a player’s OP homebrew idea — if you are going to allow it, use the custom lineage rules in Tasha’s to make it.
And don’t allow immunity to anything. Resistance, maybe, but even then, it needs to be balanced with other species traits.
Give them fire Resistance. As written in the books. The 'monster' stat block for the Newt has immunity because it's a monster. This character will gain levels, powers, etc., that a fire Newt never normally gets.
Give them cold Vulnerability. That's going to balance better than water.
Any time at all, you can change the damage type of some enemy attack to be cold-based.
It's a bit of a "Yes, you can have fire resistance, and it's not going to be immunity, and the character will be vulnerable to all forms of cold damage."
That empowers the player and their idea while giving you tools to ensure they don't coast through the game.
So the first-draft Yuan-Ti race had full immunity to Poison damage, which is about as common as Fire damage. This was reduced to Resistance to Poison damage in the Monsters of the Multiverse version, which indicates to me that the designers found full immunity to a common damage type to be too powerful in the original version. I generally advise homebrewers to avoid reintroducing mechanics that the official designers tried and rolled back; ergo, I would not advise allowing a player to have immunity to a common damage type. Resistance is plenty; you don't need to go invent super-resistance as a new DM just for this one character. In fact, you probably don't need to homebrew anything at all: just have your player use the Fire Genasi rules to make your life easier.
Players are always looking for extra advantages, my advice echos Xalthu's don't homebrew as you first start out.
As players progress they'll naturally gain immunities or resistances as they collect magic items, feats, and levels. Giving out extras at the very beginning can cause headaches further down the line. I've lost track for example of the number of DMs I know who have asked how to destroy a magic item they gave a player because it's become overpowered to otherwise troublesome.
Flat out, I'd avoid out and out immunities. Resistance as Agile DM suggests is a good idea, and adding a vulnerability is a great way to create balance. However it is worth considering how the rest of the party think of this. Do they feel it's fair? (They might not, and that might open you out to receiving more questions).
Also, there's no harm in simply denying a player's request. There are just from the Basic Rules over 210 possible character combinations (Race & Class). If you add in Player's Handbook, that instantly increases up to 920 combinations from just race, class and subclass. Denying requests like this aren't about limiting player choice...there's already far more choice than any player could ever need if you combine PHB, Xanathar's Guide to Everything, Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, and Mordenkeinen's Monsters of the Multiverse.
So, you could theoretically deny the request by saying that they can use the Red Dragonborn stat block, but 'skin' the race as a newt instead if they are absolutely dead set on it.
I think it's reasonable to have some sort of threshold immunity -- if damage is less than, say, 10, take no damage, otherwise treat as resistant. It lets you do tricks like ignoring mundane fire but doesn't significantly affect combat balance.
"Yeah, so giving characters immunity to damage types is generally frowned on the way this game is designed. I'd be happy to work with you on reskinning a Fire Genasi, but I don't want to introduce homebrew that many say would break the game while I'm still learning how to DM" is a perfectly fine response that a reasonable player should respect.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Give them fire Resistance. As written in the books. The 'monster' stat block for the Newt has immunity because it's a monster. This character will gain levels, powers, etc., that a fire Newt never normally gets.
Give them cold Vulnerability. That's going to balance better than water.
Any time at all, you can change the damage type of some enemy attack to be cold-based.
It's a bit of a "Yes, you can have fire resistance, and it's not going to be immunity, and the character will be vulnerable to all forms of cold damage."
That empowers the player and their idea while giving you tools to ensure they don't coast through the game.
I don't think cold vulnerability is necessary here for balance. Lots of player races get resistance at level 1; dragonborn, tiefling, genasi, just to name a few.
But other than that, I do think that using Tasha's rules to make it a player race is your best option.
First thing you should be asking in anything like this is "Can I reflavour something?".
Is there a pre-existing race which has resistance to fire and works well enough to represent the fire newt? Two options which immediately spring to mind are Red Dragonborn and Fire Genasi. Would they prefer thematically to have access to some fire based spells innately, or to be able to breathe fire? Red Dragonborns get short-lived immunity at level 5, so that is worth considering.
Failing that, the next question is "how little can I change this to fit the required theme?". Dragonborn are regarded as one of the most powerful races in the game, so you definitely don't want to make something more powerful than a dragonborn. So what about:
Fire Genasi.
Replace Dark Vision with Amphibious (can breathe water) and a Swim Speed
or
Red Chromatic Dragonborn
Change Breath Weapon to targeting a single foe as Fire Spit, as a 30ft. ranged attack
Add Amphibious and a Swim Speed
I would err against any advice to give a player vulnerability - because the DM has that decision. If you make them immune to fire then change all fire spells to not be fire, you're punishing them for getting what they asked for, when you could have just said no.
As a new DM, try to avoid homebrew since there are already enough rules to understand and balance. This is especially true when a player comes up with a request and you don't have the experience yet to know whether it should work that way or not.
If the player really wants the concept and is not interested in significant mechanical advantages then they will be fine with taking an existing race and changing the description. Fire genasi, tiefling and several others come with fire resistance. If they want a bit more, you could allow the character to be immune to mundane fires - not spells, magic or breath weapons. This way they can put their hand in the fire when cooking dinner but the fireball will still hurt. It won't change the balance significantly.
That said, I've never found immunity to ONE damage type to be game breaking. Immunity to fire, cold or poison are very powerful abilities in certain circumstances but they don't break anything particularly - it just means that the character does better than others against specific opponents.
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Hi so I’m a new DM and I have a player who wants to play a fire Newt and wants the fire immunity that they have. He suggested having a side effect be that he takes damage from water but I know how common fire is so I told him I’m hesitant about full immunity. Any advice on a way to maybe balence this? Maybe 2/3 resistance?
edit: thank you all so much for the great advice!
If you’re new, don’t homebrew is my first piece of advice.
Second, if you’re going to allow this species — and let’s be clear, you are very much allowed to say no, especially when it’s a player’s OP homebrew idea — if you are going to allow it, use the custom lineage rules in Tasha’s to make it.
And don’t allow immunity to anything. Resistance, maybe, but even then, it needs to be balanced with other species traits.
Here are a few thoughts that may help:
It's a bit of a "Yes, you can have fire resistance, and it's not going to be immunity, and the character will be vulnerable to all forms of cold damage."
That empowers the player and their idea while giving you tools to ensure they don't coast through the game.
So the first-draft Yuan-Ti race had full immunity to Poison damage, which is about as common as Fire damage. This was reduced to Resistance to Poison damage in the Monsters of the Multiverse version, which indicates to me that the designers found full immunity to a common damage type to be too powerful in the original version. I generally advise homebrewers to avoid reintroducing mechanics that the official designers tried and rolled back; ergo, I would not advise allowing a player to have immunity to a common damage type. Resistance is plenty; you don't need to go invent super-resistance as a new DM just for this one character. In fact, you probably don't need to homebrew anything at all: just have your player use the Fire Genasi rules to make your life easier.
Players are always looking for extra advantages, my advice echos Xalthu's don't homebrew as you first start out.
As players progress they'll naturally gain immunities or resistances as they collect magic items, feats, and levels. Giving out extras at the very beginning can cause headaches further down the line. I've lost track for example of the number of DMs I know who have asked how to destroy a magic item they gave a player because it's become overpowered to otherwise troublesome.
Flat out, I'd avoid out and out immunities. Resistance as Agile DM suggests is a good idea, and adding a vulnerability is a great way to create balance. However it is worth considering how the rest of the party think of this. Do they feel it's fair? (They might not, and that might open you out to receiving more questions).
Also, there's no harm in simply denying a player's request. There are just from the Basic Rules over 210 possible character combinations (Race & Class). If you add in Player's Handbook, that instantly increases up to 920 combinations from just race, class and subclass. Denying requests like this aren't about limiting player choice...there's already far more choice than any player could ever need if you combine PHB, Xanathar's Guide to Everything, Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, and Mordenkeinen's Monsters of the Multiverse.
So, you could theoretically deny the request by saying that they can use the Red Dragonborn stat block, but 'skin' the race as a newt instead if they are absolutely dead set on it.
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I think it's reasonable to have some sort of threshold immunity -- if damage is less than, say, 10, take no damage, otherwise treat as resistant. It lets you do tricks like ignoring mundane fire but doesn't significantly affect combat balance.
"Yeah, so giving characters immunity to damage types is generally frowned on the way this game is designed. I'd be happy to work with you on reskinning a Fire Genasi, but I don't want to introduce homebrew that many say would break the game while I'm still learning how to DM" is a perfectly fine response that a reasonable player should respect.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I don't think cold vulnerability is necessary here for balance. Lots of player races get resistance at level 1; dragonborn, tiefling, genasi, just to name a few.
But other than that, I do think that using Tasha's rules to make it a player race is your best option.
First thing you should be asking in anything like this is "Can I reflavour something?".
Is there a pre-existing race which has resistance to fire and works well enough to represent the fire newt? Two options which immediately spring to mind are Red Dragonborn and Fire Genasi. Would they prefer thematically to have access to some fire based spells innately, or to be able to breathe fire? Red Dragonborns get short-lived immunity at level 5, so that is worth considering.
Failing that, the next question is "how little can I change this to fit the required theme?". Dragonborn are regarded as one of the most powerful races in the game, so you definitely don't want to make something more powerful than a dragonborn. So what about:
or
I would err against any advice to give a player vulnerability - because the DM has that decision. If you make them immune to fire then change all fire spells to not be fire, you're punishing them for getting what they asked for, when you could have just said no.
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A few additional comments ..
As a new DM, try to avoid homebrew since there are already enough rules to understand and balance. This is especially true when a player comes up with a request and you don't have the experience yet to know whether it should work that way or not.
If the player really wants the concept and is not interested in significant mechanical advantages then they will be fine with taking an existing race and changing the description. Fire genasi, tiefling and several others come with fire resistance. If they want a bit more, you could allow the character to be immune to mundane fires - not spells, magic or breath weapons. This way they can put their hand in the fire when cooking dinner but the fireball will still hurt. It won't change the balance significantly.
That said, I've never found immunity to ONE damage type to be game breaking. Immunity to fire, cold or poison are very powerful abilities in certain circumstances but they don't break anything particularly - it just means that the character does better than others against specific opponents.