I am running this as my next session on Tuesday, and I know that I will have a lot of questions from my players regarding damage types.
Since I started playing back when weapons had damage types (slashing/piercing/bludgeoning), I have no issues with those. My question is with clerics and their damage that we referred to as "radiant" in 4e. I have seen it listed as radiant, holy, or unholy (sometimes necrotic in 4e). Are these in fact discrete damage types, and we now have acid, cold, fire, force, lightning, thunder, poison, psychic, bludgeoning, piercing, slashing, holy, unholy, radiant, and necrotic? That is 15 damage types.
Please tell me what I need to hear: this is an early version of the rules and they don't have the verbiage and nomenclature of the damage types nailed down.
F-111 Interdictor Long (200+ squares) distance ally teleporter. With some warlord stuff. Broken in a plot way, not a power way. Thought Switch Higher level build that grants upto 14 attacks on turn 1. If your allies play along, it's broken. Elven Critters Crit op with crit generation. 5 of these will end anything. Broken. King Fisher Does an excellent job at keeping an enemy disabled in a few ways. Strong. Boominator Fun catch-22 booming blade build with either strong or completely broken damage depending on your reading. Very Distracting Warlock Lot's of dazing and major penalties to hit. Overpowered. Pocket Protector Pixie Stealth Knight. Maximizing the defender's aura by being in an ally's/enemy's square. Yakuza NinjIntimiAdin: Perma-stealth Striker that offers a little protection for ally's, and can intimidate bloodied enemies. Very Strong. Chargeburgler with cheese Ranged attacks at the end of a charge along with perma-stealth. Solid, could be overpowered if tweaked. Void Defender Defends giving a penalty to hit anyone but him, then removing himself from play. Can get somewhat broken in epic. Scry and Die Attacking from around corners, while staying hidden. Moderate to broken, depending on the situation. Skimisher Fly in, attack, and fly away. Also prevents enemies from coming close. Moderate to Broken depending on the enemy, but shouldn't make the game un-fun, as the rest of your team is at risk, and you have enough weaknesses. Indestructible Simply won't die, even if you sleep though combat. Sir Robin (Bravely Charge Away) He automatically slows and pushes an enemy (5 squares), while charging away. Hard to rate it's power level, since it's terrain dependent. Death's Gatekeeper A fun twist on a healic, making your party "unkillable". Overpowered to Broken, but shouldn't actually make the game un-fun, just TPK proof. Death's Gatekeeper mk2, (Stealth Edition) Make your party "unkillable", and you hidden, while doing solid damage. Stronger then the above, but also easier for a DM to shut down. Broken, until your DM get's enough of it. Domination and Death Dominate everything then kill them quickly. Only works @ 30, but is broken multiple ways. Battlemind Mc Prone-Daze Protecting your allies by keeping enemies away. Quite powerful. The Retaliator Getting hit deals more damage to the enemy then you receive yourself, and you can take plenty of hits. Heavy item dependency, Broken. Dead Kobold Transit Teleports 98 squares a turn, and can bring someone along for the ride. Not fully built, so i can't judge the power Psilent Guardian Protect your allies, while being invisible. Overpowered, possibly broken Unnamed Avenger|Runepriest/Hammer of Vengance Do lot's of damage while boosting your teams. Strong to slightly overpowered. Charedent BarrageA charging ardent. Fine in a normal team, overpowered if there are 2 together, and easily broken in teams of 5. Super Knight A tough, sticky, high damage knight. Strong. Super Duper Knight Basically the same as super knight, only far more broken. Mora, the unkillable avenger Solid damage, while being neigh indestuctable. Overpowered, but not broken. Swordburst Maximus At-Will Close Burst 3 that slide and prones. Protects allies with off actions. Strong, possibly over powered with the right party.
Please tell me what I need to hear: this is an early version of the rules and they don't have the verbiage and nomenclature of the damage types nailed down.
Thank you.
But- Isn't that what they told us from the beginning (in so many words)? Perhaps I missed where they'd said otherwise.
I mean, cmon, of course that is the case. At best, in the first packet we receive, you can expect an indication of the ideas in their heads. I think its eventually going to be up to both designers and testers to figure which damage types are working, and to make a call on which to cut.
Locke: [after mugging a merchant for his clothes] It's a little tight, but the price was right.
I'd like to see less outright immunites or DRs regarding energy types. Its one thing to say that a red dragon ignores most environmental heat, and isn't made of stuff that readily ignites, but to say they completely ignore Redox reactions is a little much.
Likewise, plenty of things are pretty much immune to tazers; that makes plenty of sense for a stone golem. But high enough intensities vaporise metal, and there's little worse short of lava that you can stick in someone than a lot of electricity. It might take a quarter of the damage, but you're still ablating it with a high amperage particle stream [woe be to the stone golem that got water in its cracks though].
Fractional damage, or, for a much easier time, reduced damage per die[min 1] might be much more sensible in many cases. Pure immunity would be the realm of things like fire elementals, and other beings of the "no, you're literally just throwing more of it AT it" type. -5/die to 10d6 would be plenty enough reason to not use that energy type against a critter that's that resistant. But it still means that someone hard-headed or desperate enough can just feed that big red THAT MUCH fire.
'Course the same goes for the players: they feel pretty safe with Res 30:all, but if they're still taking a bit of damage, that angry lynch mob isn't dealing with a literally-impossible-to-kill target, just a really tough one.
We might want something to represent less localized application of bludgeon/slashing. An Explosive type, in other words.
"Psychic damage" should be limited to mental assaults; something like a soulknife's psychic strike should be an energy type, or untyped, or perhaps explosive.
As for Force damage, keep the descriptor, but damage from force effects oughta be what it really is: physical. Sure, its a magical source, and that may indeed do the trick against incorporeals, but if you've got -2/die vs Bludgeon, it really oughta work just as well against a force lance or Magic Missile. Different effects might be Bludgeon or Pierce or Slashing, all of them count as magic, but they're still Bludgeon or Pierce or Slashing.
