i can take an perfectly normal wooden chair and use it to murder an incoporeal ghost without resorting to magic or special class features, but whenever i try to do so against a dude who is secretly a werewolf or some stupid clay golem, suddenly it is completely impossible and i will deal no damage? how is this even remotely consistent?
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i am soup, with too many ideas (all of them very spicy) who has made sufficient homebrew material and character to last an thousand human lifetimes
However, if you go with fantasy tropes - werewolves often heal almost instantly from damage caused by non silver weapons. You make a hole or cause a dent and it immediately fills back in. You can come up with whatever in game explanation you like but D&D is just implementing commonly perceived (or just made up) characteristics of these fantasy creatures.
Ghosts are resistant to bludgeoning damage but regular weapons can do something to their incorporal forms if you hit them often enough. However, cold or poison damage does nothing to a ghost. A lycanthrope heals so quickly that normal weapon damage effectively does nothing, on the other hand, cold and poison fully affect them even if they don't affect a ghost.
A clay golem is animated entirely by magic. You can either imagine its body repairing any non-magical damage automatically, being so malleable that the form just bounces back after being hit by anything that doesn't disrupt the magic of the golem, or whatever explanation you like. The resistances and immunities are tied to the nature of the creature as defined in a fantasy game and as a DM a person can apply whatever explanation makes sense to them to explain the immunities listed.
In other words, unless you have created (homebrewed) a set of rules around how each and every creature works, the listed immunities and resistances are always consistent with the nature of the creature as defined in game terms.
Because Ghosts are at least partially corporeal when in the material plane...they can go to the ethereal plane at will, which fits with the classic description, but in the material they have to be at least somewhat corporeal (and therefore attackable) so they can attack and interact with stuff
In other words, D&D ghosts (and other specter-like undead) work differently than traditional ones.
i can take an perfectly normal wooden chair and use it to murder an incoporeal ghost without resorting to magic or special class features, but whenever i try to do so against a dude who is secretly a werewolf or some stupid clay golem, suddenly it is completely impossible and i will deal no damage? how is this even remotely consistent?
Golems are un-intelligent, but the concept is not stupid at all if you know the mythological history of them. They're basically indestructible (can only be deactivated, not really destroyed) and immensely strong creations made to protect the Jewish people from those who hate them, like an anti-racist Gort (from The Day the Earth Stood Still). I think that's awesome and 100% not stupid, and explains why they have so many resistances and immunities in the game.
For me the real stupidity is the creature that is immune to it's own attack. What, they never fight among themselves?
The Fire elemental from the elemental plane of fire, where everything is basically immune to fire, only has a touch attack that does fire damage. Why does he have it? Why does he ONLY have it?
I could possibly see that they never fight among themselves - they live together in a hippy community and play tiddlywinks to settle disputes. But does the fire elemental never get angry at a Fire Snake? Or a Magmin?
That is kind of like if a human being, immune to holy water, only used holy water as an attack. Really really stupid.
I mean, a being literally made of nothing but fire is kind of limited when it tries to attack something...it’s not like flame has weight or force behind it, unlike wind, water, or earth. I guess you could let it explode things for some force or bludgeoning damage as a fix
For me the real stupidity is the creature that is immune to it's own attack. What, they never fight among themselves?
The Fire elemental from the elemental plane of fire, where everything is basically immune to fire, only has a touch attack that does fire damage. Why does he have it? Why does he ONLY have it?
Elementals are pure manifestations of planar elements. Without a natural evolution, there is no competition to drive a biological arms race. Without a need to eat or reproduce, there is no point in conflict other than to preserve their own existence, and no pressure to learn from past mistakes.
He has a touch attack that does fire damage because he is fire. He doesn't have anything else because he is fire. It's an alien existence, with alien values.
i can take an perfectly normal wooden chair and use it to murder an incoporeal ghost without resorting to magic or special class features, but whenever i try to do so against a dude who is secretly a werewolf or some stupid clay golem, suddenly it is completely impossible and i will deal no damage? how is this even remotely consistent?
Magic is as magic does.
Stat blocks of mythical creatures are a simplification and can be rationalized in an infinite number of ways. "Immune" and "effectively immune" are close enough that it's generally irrelevant during play. A clay golem is... clay... if you cut a block of clay in half, you just end up with two chunks of clay. The clay itself isn't hurt by being split or smashed. In order to kill it, you need to target its ability to animate.
One could houserule that massive damage decapitates an "Immune" creature, thus allowing you to essentially stun it without actually "damaging" it, but there is no way that a player is going to be able to do enough damage with a single non-magical attack with anything less than dropping a castle on it.
For me the real stupidity is the creature that is immune to it's own attack. What, they never fight among themselves?
I “solve” this by house ruling that magical creatures attacks overcome some damage immunities and resistance. It’s kind of ridiculous to say that when two werewolves fight each other they can’t hurt each other unless they have silvered or magical weapons or they have paid to get their claws silvered in their animal forms.
I understand why the game designers did it, but I disagree about it being logical or realistic.
Fire in particular, is easy to fix, all you need to do is realize that fire gives off light and light is called radiant. So add this to their optional attacks.
Ranged Weapon Attack::+6 to hit, range 20/60, one target. Hit: 7 (1d6 + 3) radiant damage.
Just give that to any creature that is both immune to fire and has immunity to fire. A weak radiant attack works fine.
I understand why the game designers did it, but I disagree about it being logical or realistic.
Fire in particular, is easy to fix, all you need to do is realize that fire gives off light and light is called radiant. So add this to their optional attacks.
Of course it's not logical or realistic, it's living primordial fire. There is no "fixing" it without fundamentally changing its nature.
Light can blind, but "radiant" damage is something entirely different from Fire, and is typically reserved for Divine sources, celestial bodies, or synthetic sources of high energy radiation such as that of Laser Rifles.
If you really, really need to make fire Elementals capable of hurting one another, then consider giving Elementals a special ability as a creature type. For example:
"Coalesce"
When an Elemental encounters another Elemental of the same type, it may attempt to consume its kin, adding its planar essence to its own.
The two Elementals roll contested constitution checks. If one elemental has less than half of the hit points of the other, it makes this check at disadvantage. Whichever Elemental wins the opposed check heals a number of hitpoints equal to the remaining health of the defeated Elemental. If three or more elementals of the same size merge in this way within a short period of time, they instead become an elemental of the next larger size.
This allows elementals to harm one another, as well as provides pros and cons for doing so.
It's a being made of pure fire. Because it's made of fire, it hurts you by setting you on fire when it touches you. You can't hurt it by setting it on fire, because it's already made of fire.
It's pretty simple and pretty obvious.
Yeah, one of the conclusions of that is that fire elementals can't really hurt each other... and that seems fine to me? They're living animated fire. What are they gonna do, set each other on fire? It's like asking how a campfire, if animated, would fight another campfire. It wouldn't. Because it's a campfire.
i can take an perfectly normal wooden chair and use it to murder an incoporeal ghost without resorting to magic or special class features, but whenever i try to do so against a dude who is secretly a werewolf or some stupid clay golem, suddenly it is completely impossible and i will deal no damage? how is this even remotely consistent?
i am soup, with too many ideas (all of them very spicy) who has made sufficient homebrew material and character to last an thousand human lifetimes
Because you are disrupting the ionization particles of the ghost. Whereas lycanthropes just don't care.
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-Ilyara Thundertale
It is magical fantasy :)
The creatures operate under their own rules.
However, if you go with fantasy tropes - werewolves often heal almost instantly from damage caused by non silver weapons. You make a hole or cause a dent and it immediately fills back in. You can come up with whatever in game explanation you like but D&D is just implementing commonly perceived (or just made up) characteristics of these fantasy creatures.
Ghosts are resistant to bludgeoning damage but regular weapons can do something to their incorporal forms if you hit them often enough. However, cold or poison damage does nothing to a ghost. A lycanthrope heals so quickly that normal weapon damage effectively does nothing, on the other hand, cold and poison fully affect them even if they don't affect a ghost.
A clay golem is animated entirely by magic. You can either imagine its body repairing any non-magical damage automatically, being so malleable that the form just bounces back after being hit by anything that doesn't disrupt the magic of the golem, or whatever explanation you like. The resistances and immunities are tied to the nature of the creature as defined in a fantasy game and as a DM a person can apply whatever explanation makes sense to them to explain the immunities listed.
In other words, unless you have created (homebrewed) a set of rules around how each and every creature works, the listed immunities and resistances are always consistent with the nature of the creature as defined in game terms.
Because Ghosts are at least partially corporeal when in the material plane...they can go to the ethereal plane at will, which fits with the classic description, but in the material they have to be at least somewhat corporeal (and therefore attackable) so they can attack and interact with stuff
In other words, D&D ghosts (and other specter-like undead) work differently than traditional ones.
Also:
Golems are un-intelligent, but the concept is not stupid at all if you know the mythological history of them. They're basically indestructible (can only be deactivated, not really destroyed) and immensely strong creations made to protect the Jewish people from those who hate them, like an anti-racist Gort (from The Day the Earth Stood Still). I think that's awesome and 100% not stupid, and explains why they have so many resistances and immunities in the game.
For me the real stupidity is the creature that is immune to it's own attack. What, they never fight among themselves?
The Fire elemental from the elemental plane of fire, where everything is basically immune to fire, only has a touch attack that does fire damage. Why does he have it? Why does he ONLY have it?
I could possibly see that they never fight among themselves - they live together in a hippy community and play tiddlywinks to settle disputes. But does the fire elemental never get angry at a Fire Snake? Or a Magmin?
That is kind of like if a human being, immune to holy water, only used holy water as an attack. Really really stupid.
I mean, a being literally made of nothing but fire is kind of limited when it tries to attack something...it’s not like flame has weight or force behind it, unlike wind, water, or earth. I guess you could let it explode things for some force or bludgeoning damage as a fix
Elementals are pure manifestations of planar elements. Without a natural evolution, there is no competition to drive a biological arms race. Without a need to eat or reproduce, there is no point in conflict other than to preserve their own existence, and no pressure to learn from past mistakes.
He has a touch attack that does fire damage because he is fire. He doesn't have anything else because he is fire. It's an alien existence, with alien values.
Magic is as magic does.
Stat blocks of mythical creatures are a simplification and can be rationalized in an infinite number of ways. "Immune" and "effectively immune" are close enough that it's generally irrelevant during play. A clay golem is... clay... if you cut a block of clay in half, you just end up with two chunks of clay. The clay itself isn't hurt by being split or smashed. In order to kill it, you need to target its ability to animate.
One could houserule that massive damage decapitates an "Immune" creature, thus allowing you to essentially stun it without actually "damaging" it, but there is no way that a player is going to be able to do enough damage with a single non-magical attack with anything less than dropping a castle on it.
I “solve” this by house ruling that magical creatures attacks overcome some damage immunities and resistance. It’s kind of ridiculous to say that when two werewolves fight each other they can’t hurt each other unless they have silvered or magical weapons or they have paid to get their claws silvered in their animal forms.
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I understand why the game designers did it, but I disagree about it being logical or realistic.
Fire in particular, is easy to fix, all you need to do is realize that fire gives off light and light is called radiant. So add this to their optional attacks.
Ranged Weapon Attack:: +6 to hit, range 20/60, one target. Hit: 7 (1d6 + 3) radiant damage.
Just give that to any creature that is both immune to fire and has immunity to fire. A weak radiant attack works fine.
Of course it's not logical or realistic, it's living primordial fire. There is no "fixing" it without fundamentally changing its nature.
Light can blind, but "radiant" damage is something entirely different from Fire, and is typically reserved for Divine sources, celestial bodies, or synthetic sources of high energy radiation such as that of Laser Rifles.
If you really, really need to make fire Elementals capable of hurting one another, then consider giving Elementals a special ability as a creature type. For example:
"Coalesce"
When an Elemental encounters another Elemental of the same type, it may attempt to consume its kin, adding its planar essence to its own.
The two Elementals roll contested constitution checks. If one elemental has less than half of the hit points of the other, it makes this check at disadvantage. Whichever Elemental wins the opposed check heals a number of hitpoints equal to the remaining health of the defeated Elemental. If three or more elementals of the same size merge in this way within a short period of time, they instead become an elemental of the next larger size.
This allows elementals to harm one another, as well as provides pros and cons for doing so.
Yeah, that bit makes perfect logical sense to me.
It's a being made of pure fire. Because it's made of fire, it hurts you by setting you on fire when it touches you. You can't hurt it by setting it on fire, because it's already made of fire.
It's pretty simple and pretty obvious.
Yeah, one of the conclusions of that is that fire elementals can't really hurt each other... and that seems fine to me? They're living animated fire. What are they gonna do, set each other on fire? It's like asking how a campfire, if animated, would fight another campfire. It wouldn't. Because it's a campfire.