High level play; Immunities and AC.

[veekie]

Theres always supernatural diseases and poisons.

I agree with that. Because otherwise you just deny plausibility of assassin character concepts.

I disagree with that. 

And I thought that ravages were stupid,too.

I'm not talking about weakass, 'it's like poison only it's magic', I'm talking about Disintegration Plagues, incendiary poisons, a poison that turns the victim's blood into solid gold etc.

Most high level poisons in the game right now are very simply ordinary venoms with bigger numbers.

[Kerrick]

Immunities are easy - just change it to a large bonus to saves (+10 or +20). For energy immunity, I changed it to 10 + 1/2 HD for subtype (fire giant, e.g.) and 15 + 1/2 HD for elementals. A fireball will wipe out a Small (2 HD) elemental, but the reasoning behind this is that the larger source of fire (the fireball) sucks all the oxygen away from the smaller one (the elemental), snuffing it out.

I've never seen a problem with ACs, except on the monsters' side (natural armor gets ridiculously high), but then, I've never played with serious min-maxers. I changed concealment effects so they grant a flat +2 or +4 bonus to AC, instead of the miss chance (less dice rolling). One thing you could do to curb the rampant AC boost is put a cap on how much each bonus type can add, and/or the number of bonus types you can have - say, armor/shield/Dex/enhancement/natural/size are basic and apply to everyone; after that, you can apply one of: deflection/divine/morale and one of: competence/dodge/insight/luck/Wisdom. The only problem is that in a game like yours, players will be sorting through all their bonuses trying to find the best one (which is why I ended up dropping that rule, sadly).

[minmax]

Elemental immunities:  Even if you allow fire elementals to be damaged by fireballs, there's still the issue of environmental damage.  Immersion in lava is 20d6/round, standing in a fire should be about 10d6/round. They need at least 30 resistance to consider being around fire and much more if you think they could represent some elemental force of a volcano, too.  Are fire elementals no longer safe in fires?

[bearsarebrown]

Standing in fire is only like, 3d6 IIRC. But that's a good point about Lava nonetheless. Without getting stupid and saying environmental damage is different then spell damage I don't know how to get around that.

EDIT:
Unless you made Searing Spell/Peircing Cold type affects more popular...

[veekie]

Depends, a Small Fire Elemental might not be safe in lava, just as a candle flame isn't. A Large or Huge one wouldn't be bothered.

[RobbyPants]

Standing in fire is only like, 3d6 IIRC. But that's a good point about Lava nonetheless. Without getting stupid and saying environmental damage is different then spell damage I don't know how to get around that.

EDIT:
Unless you made Searing Spell/Peircing Cold type affects more popular...

How about stuff that bypasses SR also bypasses immunity?  This actually makes evocations better in that regard compared to conjuration spells.

So, you end up with:

Effect             Bypass  Bypass
                   SR?     immunity?
_________________________________________
Normal fire        No      No
Lava               No      No
Fireball           Yes     Yes
Fire Orb           No      No

This gives you a somewhat less arbitrary metric for why a magic or normal fire would behave differently.

[The_Mad_Linguist]

Depends, a Small Fire Elemental might not be safe in lava, just as a candle flame isn't. A Large or Huge one wouldn't be bothered.

I feel like we have mechanics that treat fire elementals surrounded by fire the same way as water elementals surrounded by water or air elementals surrounded by air. 

[veekie]

Are Water elementals by default immune to pressure damage from deeps? Not too sure on that.

[bearsarebrown]

Are Water elementals by default immune to pressure damage from deeps? Not too sure on that.

   Some deep-dwelling creatures are completely immune
to pressure damage. Aberrations, elementals, and outsiders
with the aquatic subtype are generally immune to pres-
sure damage, as are certain other creatures adapted to the
environment (such as giant squids or whales). 

-Stormwrack Page 8

Had to look it up, but it seems they are.

@RobbyPants
I think that's actually a good idea. Give elementals immunity to SR typed elemental damage and give high resistance to normal elemental damage. Like 50-75. This gets rid of stupidity like Fire elementals being damage in lava and it means that you're only ever going to be killing them with fire at high levels. And even then, it's a bad option.

[snakeman830]

@RobbyPants
I think that's actually a good idea. Give elementals immunity to SR typed elemental damage and give high resistance to normal elemental damage. Like 50-75. This gets rid of stupidity like Fire elementals being damage in lava and it means that you're only ever going to be killing them with fire at high levels. And even then, it's a bad option.

You mean immunity to normal elemental damage and resistance to SR:Yes?

[bearsarebrown]

@RobbyPants
I think that's actually a good idea. Give elementals immunity to SR typed elemental damage and give high resistance to normal elemental damage. Like 50-75. This gets rid of stupidity like Fire elementals being damage in lava and it means that you're only ever going to be killing them with fire at high levels. And even then, it's a bad option.

You mean immunity to normal elemental damage and resistance to SR:Yes?

...yes  .

[RobbyPants]

I realized I worded my proposal last post backward; although I made the table right.  what I meant was stuff that is affected by SR bypasses immunity.

[veekie]

@RobbyPants
I think that's actually a good idea. Give elementals immunity to SR typed elemental damage and give high resistance to normal elemental damage. Like 50-75. This gets rid of stupidity like Fire elementals being damage in lava and it means that you're only ever going to be killing them with fire at high levels. And even then, it's a bad option.

You mean immunity to normal elemental damage and resistance to SR:Yes?

...yes  .

That would be an excellent compromise.

[The_Mad_Linguist]

OK, I can buy that.

[minmax]

Standing in fire is only like, 3d6 IIRC.

Thanks for the correction, I couldn't find it in the SRD where the lava and acid immersion was.  Fire elementals are different from other elementals; they're the only elemental subtype that is also an energy subtype.  Robby has a good idea, but I think I prefer that those creatures with energy subtypes retain their immunity to that energy type.  In the MM, I think that's mostly dragons although I'm sure I've read of elementals for all the energy types (and more) too.  Energy immunities granted by other subtypes like archon, tanarri, etc can go.  I further suggest that nonabilities grant their immunities, because otherwise it might just not make sense!

So, to return to the OP:
-Ability damage: +20 saves
-Ability drain, death effects: +20 saves (Those without CON are still immune)
-Negative energy: should this be +20 to saves or straight resistance to negative energy?
-Nonmagical weapons: eh, no biggie
-Poison, disease: +20 saves
-Critical hits/precision: I'm tempted to allow critical hits on anything, but precision maybe not
-Mind-affecting: +20 saves (those without INT are still immune)
-Grapples: +20 grapple check?
-Illusions: +20 saves
-Elements: resistance 30 (those with energy subtypes are still immune)

Not typically a problem with PC's, but a lot of monsters are immune to magic, which could be replaced with a tough SR like 20+HD

What do you think?

[bearsarebrown]

I think that works. I would increase Elemental Resistance to 50 though.

A big problem is what to do with things that don't grant a save. If you have fake-immunity to them, then what? Do they grant a save or are you just immune to things that don't allow saves?

[veekie]

-Nonmagical weapons: eh, no biggie
-Critical hits/precision: I'm tempted to allow critical hits on anything, but precision maybe not
-Elements: resistance 30 (those with energy subtypes are still immune)

Nonmagical weapons immunity, simply replace with a scaling DR/magic. I think 10 points per CR should do the trick, same goes for elemental damage, even inclusive of subtypes.  It's functionally immune against natural sources of the damage, as well as most PC sources.

Crits and Precision I'm inclined to take a leaf from Upper_Krust's work. Basically organise crit immune creatures under those categories, and simply deduct that much from the crit multiplier and sneak attack dice, same goes for fortification armor.

[snakeman830]

-Nonmagical weapons: eh, no biggie
-Critical hits/precision: I'm tempted to allow critical hits on anything, but precision maybe not
-Elements: resistance 30 (those with energy subtypes are still immune)

Nonmagical weapons immunity, simply replace with a scaling DR/magic. I think 10 points per CR should do the trick, same goes for elemental damage, even inclusive of subtypes.  It's functionally immune against natural sources of the damage, as well as most PC sources.

I think the immunity to nonmagical weapons is supposed to mean Incorporeality.  It makes no sense to damage a ghost by hitting it really hard with a normal sword.

[veekie]

You're at the level where Superman can punch a hole in space/time with his fist by the time you can do that much damage. No problems eh?

[snakeman830]

You're at the level where Superman can punch a hole in space/time with his fist by the time you can do that much damage. No problems eh?

Yeah, but Superman can make up powers as he needs them.  Most people in D&D can't do that.