Preferred immunity / vulnerability combo?


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion


Let's say your GM told you before a campaign that each PC is going to gain immunity to one type of energy damage and vulnerability to another one, as chosen by the PC from the following list: acid, cold, electricity and fire. If you did not know anything else about the campaign, nor about your fellow PCs' choices, which immunity/vulnerability combo would you choose, any why?


Immunity to Negative energy / Vulnerable to Positive energy. If you are alive. Reversed if you are undead.

EDIT. Woops, didn´t see the restriction. Id go with immunity to fire / vulnerable to Cold. This is simply because Fire is the most common elemental damage in the game. Also, you will be protected from natural fires.


Why the vulnerability to cold, though, just out of curiosity?


Does the vulnerability need to be the opposite of the immunity?


Fire immunity because it's the most common generally.

Acid immunity because it's the least generally.


Hmm. I hadn't originally thought it needed to be opposites, but maybe that's actually a more interesting question? So, if you are immune to fire, you must be vulnerable to cold, and vice versa, and the same for acid and electricity. What would the choice be then? Basically you'd have to weigh immunity and weakness to two more commonly encountered elements, or to two less commonly encountered ones.


Vulnerability to cold, since i assumed it was opposites.


Yeah, no, thinking about it, that is a better way to structure the question. :)

I think I would go fire-cold too, being vulnerable to cold and immune to fire. Immunity to electricity and vulnerability to acid just seems like playing it too safe. :P


Probably cold, acid, or fire immunity and weak to electricity, because unless it's a mecha campaign it seems unlikely electricity would be used as often.

as for why any one of the immunities, fire seems most common, but I'd think the others are more devastating as potential environmental hazards.


An important question would be, does race selection affect this choice at all? For example, what happens if you create an Aasimar and go Fire Immune/Cold Vulnerability. Do you loose the cold portion of celestial resistance?

The Winter Witch grants cold immunity at 14th level... how does that combine if you pick cold vulnerability?

Scarab Sages

M1k31 wrote:

Probably cold, acid, or fire immunity and weak to electricity, because unless it's a mecha campaign it seems unlikely electricity would be used as often.

as for why any one of the immunities, fire seems most common, but I'd think the others are more devastating as potential environmental hazards.

Shocking Grasp, Lightning Bolt, Call Lightning, Chain Lightning. If you are ever fighting a Magus, Wizard, or Druid, it could hurt, no mecha needed. Not to mention Blue Dragons, Chimera, and so on.


Imbicatus wrote:
M1k31 wrote:

Probably cold, acid, or fire immunity and weak to electricity, because unless it's a mecha campaign it seems unlikely electricity would be used as often.

as for why any one of the immunities, fire seems most common, but I'd think the others are more devastating as potential environmental hazards.

Shocking Grasp, Lightning Bolt, Call Lightning, Chain Lightning. If you are ever fighting a Magus, Wizard, or Druid, it could hurt, no mecha needed. Not to mention Blue Dragons, Chimera, and so on.

Don't forget natural lightning. That can hurt. ;)


I suppose it would be fair to say that if you choose to gain vulnerability to an element in this thought experiment, you cannot gain resistance or immunity to that element. Just seems like that would go against the spirit of the thing.


Immunity to fire, vulnerability to cold (assuming opposite required).

Fire is the most common damage type. If opposites are not required, vulnerability to acid. Acid is pretty rare.


Ethereal Gears wrote:
Let's say your GM told you before a campaign that each PC is going to gain immunity to one type of energy damage and vulnerability to another one, as chosen by the PC from the following list: acid, cold, electricity and fire. If you did not know anything else about the campaign, nor about your fellow PCs' choices, which immunity/vulnerability combo would you choose, any why?

Immune Fire, Vulnerable Acid. Acid lowest used (except cantrips).

I can always Protection from Energy spell later if fighting a Black Dragon.

Sovereign Court

I'll put another vote down for immune to fire / vulnerable to acid.

Fire is by far the most common damage type, and acid doesn't come up too often. (Unless you could choose to be vulnerable to sonic instead.) Even when it does come up - the damage is always less than other elemental equivalents. (Shocking Grasp vs Corrosive Touch anyone?)


Well, I think it's pretty obvious that if the choice is completely free, fire immunity and acid vulnerability is the way to go. But if you have to choose to become vulnerable to the element opposed to the one you choose to become immune to (i.e. fire v cold and acid v electricity), would fire immunity + cold vulnerability still come out on top, as opposed to electricity immunity paired with acid vulnerability?


I think I'd go electric immunity/acid vulnerability. And find a way to drop electricity aoes on myself.


Ethereal Gears, note that certain monsters, like Brimoraks, combine vulnerability and resistance. As a thought experiment, I'd go never allowing Immunity to an element for which your character starts with Vulnerability. But if you can somehow pick up Resistance through character progression, then it would layer on top of the Vulnerability. The net result is take x off the damage (resistance), then add 50% to the damage taken beyond that amount (vulnerability).

Mechanically, Resistance to Fire, Vulnerability to Acid. For flavor, I'd go with Resistance to Cold, Vulnerability to Fire - keeps it interesting.


Fire immunity, sonic vulnerability (everybody forgets about the sonic damage type, including this entire topic). Not a lot of stuff uses sonic, while fire is by far the most common.


Alleran, if you had read the OP you would have noticed I specifically restricted choices to acid, cold, electricity and fire. If you had read through the rest of the thread, you'd have noticed the question has now evolved to a choice between fire immunity and cold vulnerability or vice versa, versus electricity immunity and acid vulnerability or vice versa.

Jus' sayin'. :P


Ethereal Gears wrote:
Alleran, if you had read the OP you would have noticed I specifically restricted choices to acid, cold, electricity and fire.

I did read it, hence the amused remark on everybody always forgetting that sonic is a type.


Oh, no. I am very well aware that sonic is an energy type. I excluded it very deliberately. Otherwise everyone would just pick it as their default vulnerability.

Sovereign Court

Alleran wrote:
Ethereal Gears wrote:
Alleran, if you had read the OP you would have noticed I specifically restricted choices to acid, cold, electricity and fire.
I did read it, hence the amused remark on everybody always forgetting that sonic is a type.

Except... I'd already mentioned sonic damage.

Anyway - if fire & cold are opposed - definitely still take fire immunity. Fire just comes up far more often than any other elemental type, even if cold comes up somewhat more than acid.

Not only is it probably the most common spell damage type (though electric is probably a reasonably close second) there are a LOT more creatures which do fire damage. All sorts of demons/devils/elementals etc - all deal fire damage. Cold isn't super uncommon, but with creatures it's usually either a secondary attack (winter wolf etc.) or rather minor damage on top of their physical attacks.


That's an interesting observation. I actually wasn't sure whether cold or electricity were more common. I think I would've guessed cold, but I haven't actually looked up like statistics on it or anything. If that is the case it's probably the wisest choice, yes.

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 16

In order of commonality, monster attacks are probably fire, cold, acid, lightning. Acid more then lightning simply because of oozes, which almost all do acid damage, getting swallowed whole, demons with acidic skin, etc. However, more POWERFUL creatures use lightning over acid, and the spells that do lightning damage are more powerful then acid spells. Cold is common because, like fire, there's environmental areas where you will encounter all kinds of cold-using monsters repeatedly.

Fire you can find almost anywhere, and popular with spells, with some areas being filled with fire users.
Cold is semi-common, but also has areas filled with cold users.
Acid is VERY widespread, but almost never dominates a zone like fire and cold do, and tends to be the weakest in 'strength'.
Lightning is the least common, but tends to be strong when it appears.

But, in terms of frequency, lightning would be the least common, fire the most.

Note that its entirely possible to have vulnerability to an element, but be resistant to it. Demons that have the Fire subtype are vulnerable to cold, but still have the innate Res 10 of their race, so they only take additional damage from cold above 10 points, and thus are still immune to natural extremes of cold.

==Aelryinth


Oh, no, I think we're all on board with the fact that it's possible to both be vulnerable and resistant to a type of energy damage. The only caveat regarding the actual thought experiment is that it stipulates that you can never gain immunity to cover up or cancel out your vulnerability (I don't even know if that's possible by RAW). But casting resist energy or whatever is fine. Restrictions regarding resistance were too harsh, I came to realize.

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 16

It's definitely possible by RAW, mostly by templating. but I think there's an AP where you meet a fire/frost multiheaded giant that has both subtypes, so it is vulnerable to both elements while being immune to them. Mainly, you'd get them by adding templates (half-dragon is popular). So, half white dragon devil or fire giant, for instance.

==Aelryinth


I would take Acid immunity and Fire vulnerability, since I would expect every other player in the game to take Fire Immunity and Acid vulnerability, and therefore fire creatures and attacks would be a rarity in the campaign, but acid would show up all the time.

Even without the GM metagaming anything, it would become pretty apparent to any intelligent BBG that three of the heroes plaguing his operations were unaffected by fire, so the fireball spell wouldn't be one he would prepare or use. Acid though....that works...

Sovereign Court

Aelryinth wrote:

It's definitely possible by RAW, mostly by templating. but I think there's an AP where you meet a fire/frost multiheaded giant that has both subtypes, so it is vulnerable to both elements while being immune to them. Mainly, you'd get them by adding templates (half-dragon is popular). So, half white dragon devil or fire giant, for instance.

==Aelryinth

Lol - that starts to remind me of dual typed pokemon at that point. Especially dark/ghost types which have to vulnerabilities as their two types' vulnerabilities are all canceled out by a resistance or immunity.


Aelryinth wrote:

It's definitely possible by RAW, mostly by templating. but I think there's an AP where you meet a fire/frost multiheaded giant that has both subtypes, so it is vulnerable to both elements while being immune to them. Mainly, you'd get them by adding templates (half-dragon is popular). So, half white dragon devil or fire giant, for instance.

==Aelryinth

This is why I mentioned the winter witch archetype earlier as well. It will provide Immunity to cold eventually to cancel out that vulnerability... *if* the DM allows it.

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