Immunity, Resistance, & Vulnerability Overhaul v0.6.2 #

Immunity #

WORKS AS IS! From a design standpoint Immunity is actively GOOD because it adds more variety in encounter planning!

• It also has the added benefit of REINFORCING an existing trope or concept in lore and legend.
• Werewolves having immunity to non-silvered/magic physical damages, etc. Or for a potential logical justification.
• A being made of fire should be immune to damage from fire (it should not be damaged from itself).

Resistance #

Existence feels like an appeal to logic, and creates very little fun.

• Being submersed in water makes you resistant (but not immune) to fire. When used sparingly it is functionally a wider Vulnerability.
• Though it directly lacks the fun part of Vulnerability of finding the “weakness” and simply punishes. Because it’s not immunity, players can still brute force the encounter/puzzle What would a rework to this potentially look like?
• Finding out something is resistant to what you did shouldn’t be an “Oh good my turn is less fun.”
• Plus the whole “you feel like this attack didn’t affect it as much as you’d expect” is lame and awkward. Thus we can have resistance enable the MONSTER to ACTIVELY do something on ITS turn.
• This eliminates PCs blanketly saying “Half ain’t bad” & brute forcing encounters that feature resistance.
• It does so by allowing us to add in our own mechanics with our own level of gravity.
• This could function somewhat like Drive Reversals from SF6.
• Resistant Creature gains “Armour”(unconfirmed dmg shield) & a follow up strike. Alternatively
• Instead of being a constant passive effect, it will nullify an amount of damage a limited number of times.
• This is similar to Legendary Resistances (what a fitting name) by letting the MONSTER spend resources.

Vulnerability/Weakness #

Logical appeal

• Trees made of wood are likely to burn better than human flesh However, that implies being ACTIVELY on fire, a 1d8 fire attack has no reason to become 2d8.
• I.e. not all forms of Vulnerability make attacks HURT MORE. They do however worsen the situation. So how can we adjust the mechanics of Vulnerability to be more inline with its logical appeal? We do so by making Vulnerability a modular system. Examples:
• Water Elemental. Vulnerability. Cold Damage: Speed -20ft until the end of its next turn.
• Fire Elemental. Vulnerability. Water: For every 5ft the elemental moves in water, it takes 1 cold damage.
• Vampire. Vulnerability. Radiant Damage: Regeneration disabled during the Vampire’s next turn.
• Vegepygmy. Vulnerability. Cold, Fire, Necrotic Damage: Regeneration disabled during the Vegepygmy’s next turn. Some of these examples (can you guess which?) already existed. They just aren’t called “Vulnerability”.
• The answer is all of them, all of these examples exist in the features, traits, etc of various monsters but at their core should be defined by the system as Vulnerabilities (or Weaknesses depending on your naming preference).

Vulnerability Discussion Notes:
	5e Vulnerability takes away from encounters
	    It greatly favours casters
	    It has a boring pay off
		2x damage is a strong effect but not an interesting one
	All other damage options become LESS significant
		Reduces the "viable" options that players have to deal damage
    Once you solve the puzzle it's over. Thus the fight begins to be drawn out
	Often leads to questionable meta knowledge requirement to use it which exacerbates the double damage.