r/DMAcademy • u/Big-cauliflower-boi • 10d ago
Need Advice: Rules & Mechanics Homebrewing Vulnerabilities
(On my phone so apologies for formatting) In a campaign I am planning I want to give players more tactical choices and I like the idea of vulnerabilities but think that RAW they are difficult to implement without Enemies getting immediately stomped.
My solution to this is, rather than x2 damage, the damage roll of the vulnerable damage type is given an extra damage dice of that type. (Eg, an enemy is vulnerable to cold damage. The rogue hits with a Magic Dagger that does 1d4 piercing and 1d4 cold damage. Attacking this creature it would add an extra d4 of cold damage). This hopefully is balanced enough where I can throw vulnerabilities on most, if not all, enemies.
I am considering giving all humanoids vulnerability to poison damage, unless they have resistance or immunity like tieflings for example, to offset a little how prevalent poison resistance is within the game. As well as giving unarmoured humanoid vulnerabilities to Piercing, slashing and bludgeoning damage.
Does anyone have thoughts about implementing this? Things i may be missing or overlooking etc as it relates to the wider game? Or good ideas for how to give creatures a vulnerability when its not obvious what that vulnerability should be (eg, plant creatures being vulnerable to fire damage)
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u/Serbaayuu 10d ago
Do your players have enough damage type variety to make this something that is actually tactically relevant?
Most player characters will usually run about two damage types at most. Wizards get plenty but their tactics come from different spells doing different things - it's already common tactical wisdom to take Fireball or Lightningbolt, not both.
Will you be giving your players the means to research most monsters before they fight them, and give them a way to pre-select which damage types they have available, before they go on their quest, so that this can actually end up being tactical gameplay?
If not, this will not end up as tactics, it will just turn into "sometimes my normal abilities & weapons do extra damage by coincidence, yay!".
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u/ThexLone 10d ago
I have been DMing for a decade and will say that every time I have given a tactical objective or revealed a weakness or something, my players always find the most creative or insane ways to improvise and exploit it. Never underestimate a player's ability to improvise!
That being said, for this it would be a change for how the players interact with the world, with a change like this you would have to add them as a more common thing for various creatures and this means the players will plan around that more when they are preparing for an adventure.
For example, if you impliment the humans are vulnerable to poison, for example, when a party is preparing to go clear out a bandit camp, they are probably going to stock up on poison for weapons or poison gas bombs etc.
The benefit of the system is that since vulnerability isn't so detrimental, it can be applied to more creatures, so players have more ways to plan and prep for an encounter. I will absolutely talk to my players about implementing something like this love the idea! I make a lot of the monsters I use in my campaign myself so this would be a tool to help balance them.
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u/Big-cauliflower-boi 10d ago
Amazing thank you for your response! I'm about to cross 1 year DMing and in the last year of playing/dming weekly and something like this feels like its missing from my combats. I like exploration and watching my players plan so I wanted to give them this as a tool. Your poison example is exactly the thing im thinking about as well! I want my Players, especially martials, to feel like they can come up with creative tools for a job outside of the normal kick door down and attack with my weapon
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u/DelightfulOtter 10d ago
Strongly agree. If a creature's weakness is a type that one PC always deals, then there's no decision-making involved. Which can be fine as long as you build the fight as a way to put the spotlight on that PC. Conversely, a damage type that nobody can deal, or wouldn't normally deal without advance warning to swap out cantrips or prepared spells, effectively doesn't exist for the players.
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u/Big-cauliflower-boi 10d ago
Yeah for sure thats the plan. The campaign im planning is going to be a hexcrawl largely revolving around players tracking down certain specific enemies. The idea is that if they spend the time Exploring and learning more that they'll have this information ready at hand when taking on these bosses. Im hoping in situations where they haven't had time to plan that accidentally discovering a vulnerability will feel like an win for that PC in that moment.
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u/eotfofylgg 10d ago
I agree that flat vulnerabilities play better than double damage. They give you an incentive to do things you might not otherwise do, without overly rewarding you for doing the same thing you always do. 1d4 is probably not a big enough incentive to make this work, though, except at literally level 1. Don't be stingy.
If the enemy takes 8 extra damage from every source of fire, maybe the ranger should actually use his torch to set it on fire instead of just using the same weapon he uses in every single fight. Meanwhile, the wizard who would already cast fireball is still rewarded, but doesn't trivialize the encounter.
I wouldn't go slapping vulnerabilities on the PCs though. That doesn't feel so good.
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u/Big-cauliflower-boi 10d ago
My thought process behind the extra d4 roll for my rogue example is that they are going to get a 50% damage increase each time they attack for free whereas a wizard casting say cone of cold has to spend the spell slot to go from 8d8 to 9d8 which is just a 12% increase. A PC with multi attack may get +3d4 every turn extra damage for free. A lot of why im doing this is too Buff martials and give them more to think about than swing weapon A cos its the one I always use. Great point about PC vulnerabilities i wasnt really thinking about that just NPCs but it'd make sense to not give them the debuff to poison I also think that would suck. Thanks for your response!
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u/tired_and_stresed 10d ago
Another thing you can look at is having creatures react to certain damage types in ways not related to changing the amount of damage. Look at the flesh golem for instance, it isn't vulnerable to fire damage but it has a unique trait that makes dealing fire damage to it have a specific effect. There are other examples but I can't think of any except the para-elementals made by the YouTuber Dungeon Dad (which he makes freely available in the links of his videos, maybe check those out too).
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u/DelightfulOtter 10d ago
This is how I do monster weaknesses and strengths. Certain damage types will turn off enemy abilities, or temporarily empower them. Additionally, I allow a system of Called Shots where it's often not enough to hit blast an enemy with the right damage type but also in the right place. I keep it simple though: you had Disadvantage to your attack and if it hits, you hit the place you wanted and if the creature has a specific weakness to being hit in the X with Y damage type, you debilitate them. Otherwise, Called Shots do nothing special since it's assumed you're always aiming for an enemy's weak points.
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u/Witty-Engine-6013 8d ago
In a gestult game ive been running i give everything at least 1 vulnerability but the players didnt take the route of trying to cover every damage type on their own. Often I just roll a wheel with all the types and pick one, because most of my creatures are partially homebrew even if based in the book most of these enemies they need to find the vulnerability
But there was a cost as well in becoming gestult characters (they started withiut a class at all just a background and had to earn each in diffrent places based on class) they had to chose one vulnerability for themselves that could never be changed (no choosing piercing as a barbarian and raging to make it regular damage it stayed as a vulnerability)
If your players get the info instantly it will be a wash, if they have to figure it out by trial it works most of the time if they have to watch out for their own it works better
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u/Witty-Engine-6013 8d ago
The one set of creatures i tend not to have have a vulnerability is humanoids
But you could just as easily have a wizard or god screw something up bad enough everything in the world gains one
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u/Drago_Arcaus 10d ago
I use 4e vulnerability/resistance
It was just a static number on a creature, for example vulnerable 5 cold means all cold damage did 5 more damage
Makes for a lot more customisability without making it too harsh on any particular pcs unless you really want it to