I'm looking at adding either straight up Poison & Poisoned Immunity to my Vampires (including the Spawn, regular CR 13's, and the CR 15'). Or, if not Immunity, then Resistance to Poison Damage, and Advantage on Saving Throws against both damage and the condition. This is something that's being done purely from a sort of common sense standpoint (they're creatures brought to some intangible half life through unholy means). I don't believe this will be an overwhelming advantage but certainly it can provide some. By example, the Main Villain is a Spellcaster with access to both Stinking Cloud and Cloudkill, where those spells could help protect him from Sunlight and also disable or damage Players seeking to engage him in Melee.
When adding a Resistance or Immunity like this (remembering Poison is the weakest damage BUT has tactical advantages as listed above), how do you figure that into assessing CR and Challenge? I *estimate* the BBEG will be CR 17, and the Players level 11 or 12. The final battle will be in a closed dungeon (No running for anyone), and probably consist of phases, with an initial testing of mettle, followed by hit and run attacks by the Vampire (120' move a round thanks to base speed plus Legendary Actions), followed by a Last Stand (if they survive to that point). It is also extremely unlikely there will be any Rests of any kind as Rests can be countered by giving the Vampire time to summon henchmen (both mortal and vampiric), and also because they can Dispel Resting magic like Leomunds Tiny Hut.
I may need to make a much longer post about this in the D&D DM forum, I admit. Right now just curious about the on the face addition of Poison Immunity / Resistance. I will be giving Players fair warning before creating characters of this widespread rule change, and the why.
ALSO! Is the best way to share Homebrew Content featuring an adjusted creature like The Vampire Mage or Count Strahd Von Zarovich, to simply link to Imgur still, or is there some other recommended way? Thanks all
There isn't really a lot of guidance on how to accurately factor in resistances; what I usually do is when calculating a challenge rating I try to add a percentage to a monster's hit-points based on the scope of their resistances and immunities, but I don't really use any hard or fast rule, I mostly just go with my gut. For example, if a monster has full resistance to bludgeoning, piercing and slashing (with no bypass due to magical or silvered attacks) then I might add 50% to their hit-points on the assumption that a party with half martials will see that half struggle, but the other half will just use acid, fire, etc.
Poison is a tricky one though, because a lot of monsters are resistant or immune to it already, so players aren't really encouraged to go all-in on poisoning, even if they take the Poisoner feat to bypass resistance to the damage, so players will usually have at least one other damage type they can deal.
Personally I wouldn't increase the CR at all, not unless this monster is for private use only and the party relies heavily on poisoning.
As for sharing; if you're just looking for feedback then you should be fine to copy/paste directly to the forums. While looking at the monster details page (not editing it), try to click and drag from just before the stat-block to just after the end of the content you want to include. Then just copy and paste into a forum post and it should copy in basically as it appears on the details page. This will save you juggling with off-site images. This is what I did for posting my attempt at the Bagman so I could ask for feedback.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
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I'm looking at adding either straight up Poison & Poisoned Immunity to my Vampires (including the Spawn, regular CR 13's, and the CR 15'). Or, if not Immunity, then Resistance to Poison Damage, and Advantage on Saving Throws against both damage and the condition. This is something that's being done purely from a sort of common sense standpoint (they're creatures brought to some intangible half life through unholy means). I don't believe this will be an overwhelming advantage but certainly it can provide some. By example, the Main Villain is a Spellcaster with access to both Stinking Cloud and Cloudkill, where those spells could help protect him from Sunlight and also disable or damage Players seeking to engage him in Melee.
When adding a Resistance or Immunity like this (remembering Poison is the weakest damage BUT has tactical advantages as listed above), how do you figure that into assessing CR and Challenge? I *estimate* the BBEG will be CR 17, and the Players level 11 or 12. The final battle will be in a closed dungeon (No running for anyone), and probably consist of phases, with an initial testing of mettle, followed by hit and run attacks by the Vampire (120' move a round thanks to base speed plus Legendary Actions), followed by a Last Stand (if they survive to that point). It is also extremely unlikely there will be any Rests of any kind as Rests can be countered by giving the Vampire time to summon henchmen (both mortal and vampiric), and also because they can Dispel Resting magic like Leomunds Tiny Hut.
I may need to make a much longer post about this in the D&D DM forum, I admit. Right now just curious about the on the face addition of Poison Immunity / Resistance. I will be giving Players fair warning before creating characters of this widespread rule change, and the why.
ALSO! Is the best way to share Homebrew Content featuring an adjusted creature like The Vampire Mage or Count Strahd Von Zarovich, to simply link to Imgur still, or is there some other recommended way? Thanks all
There isn't really a lot of guidance on how to accurately factor in resistances; what I usually do is when calculating a challenge rating I try to add a percentage to a monster's hit-points based on the scope of their resistances and immunities, but I don't really use any hard or fast rule, I mostly just go with my gut. For example, if a monster has full resistance to bludgeoning, piercing and slashing (with no bypass due to magical or silvered attacks) then I might add 50% to their hit-points on the assumption that a party with half martials will see that half struggle, but the other half will just use acid, fire, etc.
Poison is a tricky one though, because a lot of monsters are resistant or immune to it already, so players aren't really encouraged to go all-in on poisoning, even if they take the Poisoner feat to bypass resistance to the damage, so players will usually have at least one other damage type they can deal.
Personally I wouldn't increase the CR at all, not unless this monster is for private use only and the party relies heavily on poisoning.
As for sharing; if you're just looking for feedback then you should be fine to copy/paste directly to the forums. While looking at the monster details page (not editing it), try to click and drag from just before the stat-block to just after the end of the content you want to include. Then just copy and paste into a forum post and it should copy in basically as it appears on the details page. This will save you juggling with off-site images. This is what I did for posting my attempt at the Bagman so I could ask for feedback.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.