Post/Author/DateTime	Post
MareltEkiran 11-06-06, 10:36 PM	Many monsters have resistances against the various elements. Because of these resistances, there have been various debates on which energy types are more prevalent. This is especially important for people trying to decide which energy substitution to take or which enhancement to put on their weapon. Conventional wisdom always seems to place usefulness of a particular energy in the order of: Acid > Electricity > Cold > Fire So I decided to see if that is actually true, by analysing the Monster Manual. I did this by the following rules: - Resistance 5 is worth 1 resistance point. - Resistance 10 is worth 2 resistance points. - Resistance 20 is worth 3 resistance points. - Immunity is worth 4 resistance points. - Vulnerability is worth -2 resistance points. - I counted -1 resistance point, if the energy is unusually helpful against a monster (such as stopping regeneration). - Only the base creature counts. Templates or advanced versions do not (abyssal greater basilisk doesn't count). - Templates count as one creature... with the value of the highest energy resistance possible used. - Different creatures in the same group do count (so all Baatezu count as individual creatures). - For Half-Dragons, I counted 1 resistance point for each variant that was immume to an energy. - Cryo and Pyrohydras were counted as individual species. - Vampire Spawn were not counted. In the end, I added up the score of all creatures that were counted. These were the results. Acid: 99 Cold: 135 Electricity: 155 Fire: 167 Acid is clearly the least resisted energy. However, if you don't feel like being a sorcerer that flings around balls of goo (or your DM doesn't allow it), then it seems that cold is actually the better option. This is probably because quite a few creatures are vulnerable to cold and not many extraplanars are fully immume to it. Electricity ends up in a disappointing 3rd place (mostly because so many extraplanars are immume to it). Fire remains the big loser of the bunch. This does show in the spells of the PHB (and mostly, the Spell Compendium as well). Fire spells are easy to come by and easy to use, so this is a trade-off. Electricity and Cold spells are present as well, but not as numerous or as easy to use as Fire spells. Acid spells are almost non-existant and can usually only be obtained through the Energy Substitution feat. However, this table is mostly applicable for spellcasters who want to focus on one element. After all, a resistance of 10 weakens your spell, but still allows you to do a fair bit of damage on a full hit. It's a different story for weapon enchantments, though. Any of those will only do 1d6 extra damage. In other words, it does not matter whether the resistance is 5 or infinite... either one will completely ruin the special ability of your fancy sword. So with this in mind, I did another count: - Any form of resistance counts as 1 resistance point. - No negative points counted. With this in mind, the results were as follows: Acidic: 41 Frost: 61 Shock: 53 Flaming: 67 Acidic remains superior. However, if you are playing by the DMG rules only, then there is no such thing as an acidic weapon... and it is clear to see why. In that case, unlike with the spellcasters, you will get the most out of a shock weapon. Of course, these results are taken from the Monster Manual as a whole. Normally, depending on your alignment, environment and setting, players will only be fighting a subset of these monsters, so these results should only be used as a rough guideline. Perhaps, other books can be analysed in a similar fashion as well, to see if this trend holds true, thoughout the published materials.
runestar 11-06-06, 11:48 PM	Acidic remains superior. However, if you are playing by the DMG rules only, then there is no such thing as an acidic weapon... and it is clear to see why. In that case, unlike with the spellcasters, you will get the most out of a shock weapon. The acidic weapon property can be found in the Waterdeep Splatbook, for anyone wishing to know.:) And aren't you forgetting sonic damage? Mastery of elements anyone.:P