I’ve talked before about the peculiar penchant for 4th Edition’s designers to “fix” a “problem” by either (a) making it worse or (b) not fixing it at all. Mike Mearls is talking about a similar “solution” that didn’t actually get implemented for 4th Edition, but demonstrates the same inability to solve a problem even when you’re explicitly trying to solve it: I Hate Resistances.
You can click through and read his entire blog entry, but allow me to sum up. Mearls has two problems with resistances, both of which stem from the fact that you’re better off NOT dealing cold damage to a creature with resistance to cold damage:
(1) It creates a value disparity between energy types if the DM predominantly uses creatures with one particular resistance type. (For example, if there are lots of creatures with resistance to cold damage, then cold-based spells are devalued compared to other energy types.)
(2) It means that if you’re a in a cold-dominated setting (with lots of cold-based creatures with resistance to cold damage), then you’re better off NOT playing an ice mage (since you’ll have a bunch of cold-based spells). Mearls finds this thematically inconsistent because he wants his Frozen North populated with ice mages and his Sultry South populated with fire mages.
These are both absolutely true. (Although I’ll delve into the aesthetic sense of the latter a little later.)
Mearls then proposes two “solutions”:
(1) Instead of resistances, creatures would get abilities that would allow them to negate damage from energy attacks of a particular type. Basically these are still resistances, but you can only use them against X number of attacks per encounter or per day.
(2) Instead of resistant damage, creatures would get bonus abilities when hit with sympathetic energy types. For example, a cold-based creature hit with cold damage might get an extra breath weapon attack or a bonus to AC.
The problem? Neither of these does anything to solve the problems Mearls claims to be solving.
WHAT PART OF THE WORD “FIX” DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND?
Here’s the root of the issue: The problems Mearls cites are emergent behaviors based on the fact that a cold-based creature benefits from being targeted by cold-based damage (even if that benefit is nothing more than “I take less damage than if you’d hit me with something else”). Because the cold-based creature benefits from cold-based damage, you’re making it advantageous to use non-cold-based damage on them.
Mearls’ “solutions”, of course, still benefit cold-based creatures targeted by cold-based attacks. And, as a result, the exact same emergent behavior results: You’re better off using non-cold-based damage against cold-based creatures.
However, with that being said, I will point out that both of the mechanics Mearls proposes are, in fact, interesting mechanics. I can imagine a lot of interesting uses for them: A membraneous horror that reflects sonic attacks. A fire-infused demon that absorbs ambient flame, concentrates it in their translucent-skinned stomach, and belches it forth. A frost-born behemoth that armors itself with living ice.
They just don’t do what Mearls claims they do.
ICE MAGES IN THE FROZEN NORTH
I can also understand the thematic interest Mearls has in having ice mages rearing crystalline towers in the Frozen North and fire mages dancing on volcano rims in the Sultry South.
But if that’s your goal, then you need to explain why wizards in the Frozen North would tend to prefer ice-based magic. I would suggest creating a system where extreme environmental conditions encourage the use of sympathetic magic types. (In other words, if you’re on a glacier it’s either easier to use your ice magic or your ice magic is more powerful or both. Similarly, volcanoes are great places for fire magic. And you can strengthen this association if you impose penalties at the opposite extreme — casting ice-based magic is more difficult near volcanoes; casting fire-based magic is more difficult on a glacier.)
Without that kind of sympathetic encouragement, it will never make much sense for wizards in the Frozen North to specialize in ice magic — for much the same reason that it doesn’t make much sense to turn your air conditioner on in the middle of winter.
ARCHIVED HALOSCAN COMMENTS
Muninn
Maybe if there was some kind of system that granted extra spell slots to arcane casters who prepare spells in such environments (or cast them, in the case of spontaneous casters)
For example, a wizard who prepares two 5th level ice spells while in an environment of extreme cold gains an additional 5th level spell slot that can only be used on another ice spell. (and possibly can only use the extra spell if they are still in the cold environment).
Either that, or they could do something like reduce the level adjustment of metamagic applied to ice spells in a cold environment.
…of course, these are all 3.5 edition solutions, I’m not sure if the same concepts apply in 4e
Wednesday, January 06, 2010, 3:08:36 PM
Pink
If you really want ice mages in the north you can have them research spells that, instead of just tossing cold damage, manipulate the cold properties in cold subtyped creatures…
Wednesday, March 11, 2009, 8:40:42 AM
Josh
I find it more amusing that, in 3rd edition (3.5 actually), there is already a mechanic for environment-themed mages to do their thing with their analog element.
I’m running a game right now with a mage that uses ice magic and he frequently uses a feat from the frostburn book that allows his ice spells to bypass cold resistance and immunity (except to creatures with the cold subtype).
I know there’s a similar metamagic feat in sandstorm for fire and I houseruled a feat that does something similar for the other elements.
Thursday, February 26, 2009, 2:50:56 PM
Justin Alexander
@Jason: Mearls did some amazing work before joining WotC’s team. I’ve talked in the past about the huge influence In the Belly of the Beast has had on the way that I design roleplaying-intensive scenarios.
When 4th Edition was first announced, the reputation Mearls had built made his involvement a real positive for me.
But there were already signs that Mearls had drunk the WotC kool-aid. His re-design of the rust monster was truly idiotic (the rust monster still corrodes, warps, and cracks metallic equipment and weapons… but 10 minutes later all of that equipment is A-OK without any explanation for how or why it repairs itself).
Perhaps the first warning sign was when Mearls — who had designed some amazing skill-based stunt systems for 3rd Edition — suddenly posted an entry on his blog featuring not only bad math skills, but repudiating the entire concept of stunt systems!
I remain completely baffled by the repeated and documented failures by 4th Edition’s designers to do even the most basic probability analysis on their mechanics. I remain even more baffled by a design ethos at WotC that presents an interesting mechanic… but then uses it to “model” something for which it is completely inappropriate.
Thursday, February 26, 2009, 1:55:20 PM
Lior
I find Justin’s last paragraph so obvious that Mearls and me must be inhabiting different worlds of literary influence. It simply wouldn’t occur to me to have “ice-mages” or “fire-mages” in my game without having the first more powerful in an icy environment the second in a hot one.
I think Mearls’s problem is that he doesn’t think of PCs and monsters on an equal footing. He’s willing to teak the powers of monsters but he really doesn’t want to create disparities between PCs, even when these are necessary.
Fundamentally, if fire mages, ice mages and illusionists are to all have about the same power in all circumstances “to preserve game balance” (and probably to make all players who like a particular specialization equally happy) then their power must be independent of the environment, and that means that monsters must react equally to all of them. It also means that the choice of which kind of mage to play is entirely “fluff” — it is not reflected in the game world.
This is a fine design decision in a roleplaying-heavy game (e.g. in OD&D all weapons do 1d6 damage). There, the players will create the disparities normally (the player of the fire-mage will continuously complain about the cold and have his character be less effective). It’s the wrong decision in a tactical miniatures game, where min-maxing is the only way to play. If the role-playing is supposed to be driven by the simulation then the simulation must react to player choices in the right direction.
Thursday, February 26, 2009, 11:21:45 AM
Sashas
Mearls’s “solutions” are really just moves in the direction of making everything worse. I quite literally cannot find a single redeeming feature of his suggestions. Some particulars:
“For instance, the elemental might have the “magma born” ability, which lets it ignore fire damage from terrain.”
I am disgusted with all attempts to separate combat and non-combat damage like this. There is not even a plausible explanation for this ability, and I can see numerous cases where player actions would force a GM to abandon the rules and wing it. (One example: Suppose the PCs trap a fire elemental in a barn. If they torch the barn, the rule clearly states that the elemental would be unharmed. If, however, they scourge the elemental with a Flaming Whip, it takes damage. What if the PCs don’t have a Flaming Whip and decide to just torch some rope and flog the elemental…?)
“First, I think it’s OK if a monster has limited access to damage denial. Maybe once or twice a combat it can reduce the damage from an appropriately themed attack.”
Ah, yes. I am a being made of fire, and am unaffected by the first two flaming arrows to strike me. After that, I’d better be careful, or I’ll have burns on my fire…
(Such 1-or-2-shot shields are legit, but only as a supplement to resistances.)
“Blasting a ghoul with necrotic energy gives it an action point.”
Wait, they TOOK AWAY the effect of negative energy healing the undead? What?!?
(I mean, seriously, that would have been a perfect example of what he was aiming for… and he missed it…)
…
Some of the comments are almost worse. I never thought I would read the phrase “heavy keyword users” in reference to D&D.
Thursday, February 26, 2009, 11:03:28 AM
Jason
Like the saying, if you like sausage, don’t watch it being made. I liked (and still do, this doesn’t change my opinion of what he’s done in the past) many of the 3e sourcebooks that Mearls was a contributor to. So I can’t help but wonder, is this train of thought he’s come up with a result of the limitations of 4e, or has he gone to crap as a game designer? Maybe a bit harsh, there. But anyway, if the question is how do we promote thematic consistency (a worthwhile goal, I think), and resistances get in the way of that only at the damage-dealing level, then shouldn’t we maybe consider non-damage dealing ways to make up for that? Wouldn’t you think an ice or fire mage should be able to not only sling their chosen elements about to damage, but also to manipulate (either grossly or finely) their chosen element? Perhaps to slow, or fear, or knock prone, or banish, or …? But I guess that type of consideration wouldn’t fit in any of the 80 core books.
Thursday, February 26, 2009, 9:32:08 AM
J.T. Hurley
Actually, I think I’d prefer the opposite. If you have access to magic, why not go with what you can’t get natively? In the arctic, making fire out of thin air would be a very valuable skill. Ditto ice/water in extremely hot or arid areas.
Thursday, February 26, 2009, 2:57:15 AM
ARCHIVED HALOSCAN COMMENT
Guest
I had a thought on the ‘ice mages in the frozen north’ idea. You wouldn’t exactly be welcomed by the local humans, would you? ‘I can shoot ice from my hands’ isn’t a selling point when most people in the area have far too much ice in their lives. You’d probably be seen as an unstable maveric at best – no better than a monster at worst.
If your goal as a magic user is to support a comunity of humans, practicing fire magic in that setting would make much more sense. Fire mages could even be seen as holy men and village leaders. The fire would represent the inside of the camp, the community, and safety, in addition to its obvious practical benefits such as warmth and supereffectivenes against local monsters. By contrast, an ice mage in the frozen north is someone who has thrown in his lot with the monsters, and, more generally, the world outside the camp. My image is someone who lives alone in a glacial stronghold, attended to by fearsome beasts. Whatever his morality, he’s seen as a ‘bad guy’ by the locals. He doesn’t need to worry so much about the monsters’ ice resistances, because he’s on the monsters’ side.
A similar dichotomy applies in a desert setting to water mages / fire mages.
If you want to emphasize this effect in gameplay, giving area bonuses to aligned magic-user types makes sense. The ice mage in the frozen north has access to great power, but at the cost of taking the side of the environment in the strugle between the village and the outside.
Thursday, December 08, 2011, 12:56:15 AM
I’m with the Guest above. I don’t think Ice Mages in an Ice region are realistic. Magic is like technology in our world, you use it to overcome the adversities. I live in a sub-tropical region where it’s hot and humid all the time, as a result Ice Cream places, air conditioning and ice factories are on every corner. A Mage from the frozen ice enviroment should be a master of Fire, not Ice.
But if you want to go against everything Darwin says about evolution and have your ice mages on the icy north pole(why are the cold places always north? We have ice in the southern hemisphere too, you know!), then the solution would be a) Monsters not having an Ice resistance but a Fire weakeness and/or b) Ice spells to be cheaper(in slots in Vancian magic or cheaper in power points or magic points in another system).
And that’s pretty much it. I never understood the whole idea of creating super uber systems when an easy solution could do it.
Another way to have your Ice Mages in the Frozen Wastes and your Fire Sorcerers in the Fiery Desert is to give them practical abilities. For example, perhaps ice mages can ward people and areas against the effects of cold (give resistance to cold damage and immunity to the effects of low temperature). This could allow the fire mages to husband their power for other uses, especially if the ice mages’ ward against cold is more magically efficient. Or perhaps frost shamans can propitiate the ice spirits, while fire mages enrage them and provoke them to retaliate with snowstorms or winter wolves.
I also like the idea of making ice spells more powerful or easier to access in icy regions, while fire spells are weakened. D&D already has the mechanics to support that, it uses them for the Elemental Planes and the like. Combine the two effects, and you get a setting where ice mages in the Frozen Wastes have a lot of power but have to use it in inventive ways, while fire mages have more obviously applicable power but using it is harder and potentially dangerous. Now that makes for some interesting dynamics!