After reading the rules in the books, I still have 2 questions on very specific situations about Resistances and Immunities.
1- I have a player with the Elemental adept feat (Fire). The feat lets you ignore the resistance while dealing damage with the chosen element. Right now, we decided to "rewrite the first effect" the feat as follow : "Spells that deals damage of the chosen type ignore resistance to that element and downgrades immunity to resistance with the chosen elemental damage". We are still debating if immunity is not an upgrade type of resistance, meaning the feat was suppose to let players ignore both resistance and immunity to the chosen element. Which one of those would you apply ?
2- A character with resistance to cold damage received 6 temporary hit points from our healer. The enemy cast a spell that deals cold damage (rolling an 8). Which one of those options would you apply ?
A) Temporary hit points aren't affected by the character resistance because it represent a kind of magical shield around the target. Wich means the 8 cold damage reduce the 6 temporary hit points to zero (0). Then, since 2 cold damage remains, the target only recieve 1 point of cold damage because he's resistant to cold.
B) Temporary hit points represent a magical boost to the character stamina, upgrading temporarly its capacity to receive damage. Wich means the resistance applies to the temporary hit points. So 8 of cold damage divided by 2 because of resistance = 4. 6 temporary hit points minus 4 cold damage means 2 temporary hit points are still there.
for the first question, I'd say immunity and resistance are two separate things. A rule that affects one does not necessarily affect the other.
For the second question, yes, when you have both temporary hit points and resistance, the resistance first applies to the damage, then the temporary hit points. Here a reference.
I'm seconding filcat's answers to these questions.
D&D 5th edition is written in "casual language" as much as possible, but even if it weren't, the rules only affect what they explicitly say they affect; which means not mentioning any effect upon immunity is functionally identically to adding the phrase "Immunity is unaffected." but takes up less of the book's limited word count.
...thirding? Is that a thing? Well, I agree regardless.
Resistance and Immunity seem to rely around different magnitudes. Per the book, a character with Elemental Adaptation ignores Resistance, but not Immunity, to the chosen element. Perhaps his magic creates fire hot enough to bother creatures that live around volcanoes (ergo, resistant to fire), but no amount of heat would bother a creature that is made out of fire, for example (such as a Fire Elemental).
That said, I find nothing wrong with your houserule. It allows for elementally themed casters (Pyromancers, etc) that don't roll their eyes when they fight a Magmin.
And, for the record, while I like the Resistance/Immunity thing of 5th, I often find myself pondering monster placements. "This place deals 2 fire damage per minute. Something with Resistance still takes 1 fire damage per minute, so it couldn't live here." Sometimes I miss the difference between 5/fire, 20/fire and "immune to fire".
I will let temporary hit points being affected by resistance.
But I'll keep my house rules about elemental adept feat. Let just say I've decided that resistance and immunity are in the same category that we have called Damage Substraction (to make it different than damage reduction effects). Resistance represent a 50% damage substraction and immunity represent a 100% damage subtraction. So my house rules for elemental adept could be read as : You reduce the percentage of damage substraction with the chosen element by 50%. But I think my first wording was enough explicit that we didn't need to put numbers on the effect.
And yes, I think my houserule is better because my Wizard is a pyromancer (evocation school) and I don't want him to be frustrated against creatures that are immune to fire. This way, it lets players have great character design that doesn't impair their combat capacities too much. You can see it as if the feat where creating an upgrade version of fire (like magical infuse flames).
By the way, i've decided that dragon breath will, by default, have the effect of elemental adept. Why ? because dragons use their breath against each others in combat in the D&D lore even if they breath the same element (gold dragon VS red dragon).
Whenever the temperature is at or below 0 degrees Fahrenheit, a creature exposed to the cold must succeed on a DC 10 Constitution saving throw at the end of each hour or gain one level of exhaustion. Creatures with resistance or immunity to cold damage automatically succeed on the saving throw, as do creatures wearing cold weather gear (thick coats, gloves, and the like) and creatures naturally adapted to cold climates.
Using this as a base, one can reasonably assume for extreme environments that creatures with resistance or with the correct gear (super fluffy inuit parkas) are immune. The resistance trait is present due to its adaption to living in the extreme environment. Extreme hot and cold int he hells? Demons dont die off after 6 days due to their resistances.
I disagree here. Just because he's a pyromancer, doesnt mean he cant learn spells with different elements. Since he's no longer locked into pre-prepared spells like in 3.0 he can aways choose to do the normal spell damage of a ray of frost instead of burning hands with bonus damage for example. No matter how good you are at making super hot fire, it will NEVER be able to harm a fire elemental, a resident of the plane of fire, where everything you touch, breath and see is fire... The weapon master specialised in greatswords fights a skeleton: he pulls out his mace. Pyromancer fights a fire elemental? He uses magic missile or a ray of frost.
In this particular case he's a wizard and free to learn ALL spells, so even less reason for him not to. If he was a sorcerer with a more limited selection it would be less ideal for him, but even then you should always have a backup. Just a single cantrip of a differing element can be cast at higher spell slot for the same kinds of damage in the 'emergency' of that fire elemental, replacing his 15+fire spells with 15+cold ones that dont quite hit as hard, but hey... still hit for about the same as the party fighter does with his shortword due to 5e damage balancing. IF they deliberately choose to not take one, then same as a fighter who deliberately chooses to not take a bow, and cant hit the archer on the wall. he has to live with his pride and suffer for it.
Immunity and Resistance are two different things. It doesn't how hot the fire gets, it ain't gonna hurt a fire elemental. But a hot enough fire will kill a red dragon. Immunity isn't an upgraded form of Resistance, as those with Immunity simply aren't capable of being harmed by a specific damage.
I assume the game treats them as two different things because I can only see rules that describe resistance as meaning you take half damage. I can't find anywhere in the rules that says immunity means you take no damage. It is understood that you take no damage from things you are immune to, but it is interesting that it isn't actually written anywhere I can find.
To expand upon this a bit more, this is an old thread from October 2017. At the time this thread was written, Xanathar's guide had not come out yet, but the introduction of that book further specifies the order in which damage is applied as it pertains to temporary hit points and resistance:
Resistance and Vulnerability
Here’s the order that you apply modifiers to damage: (1) any relevant damage immunity, (2) any addition or subtraction to the damage, (3) one relevant damage resistance, and (4) one relevant damage vulnerability.
Even if multiple sources give you resistance to a type of damage you’re taking, you can apply resistance to it only once. The same is true of vulnerability.
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"Not all those who wander are lost"
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Hi,
After reading the rules in the books, I still have 2 questions on very specific situations about Resistances and Immunities.
1- I have a player with the Elemental adept feat (Fire). The feat lets you ignore the resistance while dealing damage with the chosen element. Right now, we decided to "rewrite the first effect" the feat as follow : "Spells that deals damage of the chosen type ignore resistance to that element and downgrades immunity to resistance with the chosen elemental damage". We are still debating if immunity is not an upgrade type of resistance, meaning the feat was suppose to let players ignore both resistance and immunity to the chosen element. Which one of those would you apply ?
2- A character with resistance to cold damage received 6 temporary hit points from our healer. The enemy cast a spell that deals cold damage (rolling an 8). Which one of those options would you apply ?
A) Temporary hit points aren't affected by the character resistance because it represent a kind of magical shield around the target. Wich means the 8 cold damage reduce the 6 temporary hit points to zero (0). Then, since 2 cold damage remains, the target only recieve 1 point of cold damage because he's resistant to cold.
B) Temporary hit points represent a magical boost to the character stamina, upgrading temporarly its capacity to receive damage. Wich means the resistance applies to the temporary hit points. So 8 of cold damage divided by 2 because of resistance = 4. 6 temporary hit points minus 4 cold damage means 2 temporary hit points are still there.
THANKS FOR THE HELP !
Hi,
for the first question, I'd say immunity and resistance are two separate things. A rule that affects one does not necessarily affect the other.
For the second question, yes, when you have both temporary hit points and resistance, the resistance first applies to the damage, then the temporary hit points. Here a reference.
I'm seconding filcat's answers to these questions.
D&D 5th edition is written in "casual language" as much as possible, but even if it weren't, the rules only affect what they explicitly say they affect; which means not mentioning any effect upon immunity is functionally identically to adding the phrase "Immunity is unaffected." but takes up less of the book's limited word count.
Thirding.
...thirding? Is that a thing? Well, I agree regardless.
Resistance and Immunity seem to rely around different magnitudes. Per the book, a character with Elemental Adaptation ignores Resistance, but not Immunity, to the chosen element. Perhaps his magic creates fire hot enough to bother creatures that live around volcanoes (ergo, resistant to fire), but no amount of heat would bother a creature that is made out of fire, for example (such as a Fire Elemental).
That said, I find nothing wrong with your houserule. It allows for elementally themed casters (Pyromancers, etc) that don't roll their eyes when they fight a Magmin.
And, for the record, while I like the Resistance/Immunity thing of 5th, I often find myself pondering monster placements. "This place deals 2 fire damage per minute. Something with Resistance still takes 1 fire damage per minute, so it couldn't live here." Sometimes I miss the difference between 5/fire, 20/fire and "immune to fire".
Thanks all.
I will let temporary hit points being affected by resistance.
But I'll keep my house rules about elemental adept feat. Let just say I've decided that resistance and immunity are in the same category that we have called Damage Substraction (to make it different than damage reduction effects). Resistance represent a 50% damage substraction and immunity represent a 100% damage subtraction. So my house rules for elemental adept could be read as : You reduce the percentage of damage substraction with the chosen element by 50%. But I think my first wording was enough explicit that we didn't need to put numbers on the effect.
And yes, I think my houserule is better because my Wizard is a pyromancer (evocation school) and I don't want him to be frustrated against creatures that are immune to fire. This way, it lets players have great character design that doesn't impair their combat capacities too much. You can see it as if the feat where creating an upgrade version of fire (like magical infuse flames).
By the way, i've decided that dragon breath will, by default, have the effect of elemental adept. Why ? because dragons use their breath against each others in combat in the D&D lore even if they breath the same element (gold dragon VS red dragon).
Quoting from the DND campaign rules from Athas:
Extreme Cold
Whenever the temperature is at or below 0 degrees Fahrenheit, a creature exposed to the cold must succeed on a DC 10 Constitution saving throw at the end of each hour or gain one level of exhaustion. Creatures with resistance or immunity to cold damage automatically succeed on the saving throw, as do creatures wearing cold weather gear (thick coats, gloves, and the like) and creatures naturally adapted to cold climates.
Using this as a base, one can reasonably assume for extreme environments that creatures with resistance or with the correct gear (super fluffy inuit parkas) are immune. The resistance trait is present due to its adaption to living in the extreme environment. Extreme hot and cold int he hells? Demons dont die off after 6 days due to their resistances.
I disagree here. Just because he's a pyromancer, doesnt mean he cant learn spells with different elements. Since he's no longer locked into pre-prepared spells like in 3.0 he can aways choose to do the normal spell damage of a ray of frost instead of burning hands with bonus damage for example. No matter how good you are at making super hot fire, it will NEVER be able to harm a fire elemental, a resident of the plane of fire, where everything you touch, breath and see is fire... The weapon master specialised in greatswords fights a skeleton: he pulls out his mace. Pyromancer fights a fire elemental? He uses magic missile or a ray of frost.
In this particular case he's a wizard and free to learn ALL spells, so even less reason for him not to. If he was a sorcerer with a more limited selection it would be less ideal for him, but even then you should always have a backup. Just a single cantrip of a differing element can be cast at higher spell slot for the same kinds of damage in the 'emergency' of that fire elemental, replacing his 15+fire spells with 15+cold ones that dont quite hit as hard, but hey... still hit for about the same as the party fighter does with his shortword due to 5e damage balancing. IF they deliberately choose to not take one, then same as a fighter who deliberately chooses to not take a bow, and cant hit the archer on the wall. he has to live with his pride and suffer for it.
Immunity and Resistance are two different things. It doesn't how hot the fire gets, it ain't gonna hurt a fire elemental. But a hot enough fire will kill a red dragon. Immunity isn't an upgraded form of Resistance, as those with Immunity simply aren't capable of being harmed by a specific damage.
I assume the game treats them as two different things because I can only see rules that describe resistance as meaning you take half damage. I can't find anywhere in the rules that says immunity means you take no damage. It is understood that you take no damage from things you are immune to, but it is interesting that it isn't actually written anywhere I can find.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
To expand upon this a bit more, this is an old thread from October 2017. At the time this thread was written, Xanathar's guide had not come out yet, but the introduction of that book further specifies the order in which damage is applied as it pertains to temporary hit points and resistance:
"Not all those who wander are lost"