Giving Nightmares fire resistance

[hymer]

It bothers me slightly that nightmares' hooves are flaming, and yet they have no protection against fire. Should adding fire resistance (10) to their stat block change their CR, do you think?

[Vaern]

I'd say fire resistance 10 is not only expected, but also a small enough bonus to not affect their CR. Besides being on fire, they're native to evil-aligned planes. Demons generally have fire resistance 10 built in. I'd also make a higher-level version of the nightmare with full immunity to fire to coexist with devils, as their home is much, much hotter than the abyss, and immunity to fire is practically required for survival there.

Hazards of residing in the nine hells include:
Literal fireballs, up to caster level 16, raining from the sky
A scalding city that deals fire damage to anyone too close to a wall
Quasi-sentient fire that hunts and burns anything that moves
Lakes of fire that spew jets of flames through the air, dealing upwards of a hundred fire damage to anyone caught in the blast

[Telonius]

Nightmares are Neutral Evil, and the environment is just "an Evil plane." They'd be more likely found in Hades (the Gray Waste), which isn't particularly fire-based. Manual of the Planes has them existing there in herds, but they're also listed as appearing in a bunch of other planes that are much more fiery.

From Vorpal Tribble's old CR calculator, 10 points of Fire resistance would be worth about 1/3 of a CR - not really enough to push it over to a higher one. I'd say you could add it and not worry too much about the balance.

[Nifft]

You could also give Nightmares a symbiotic bond with their riders.

A Night Hag, one of the archetypal riders, has immunity to fire & cold. Any devil rider would have immunity to the prevailing conditions of its particular plane. And so forth.

[Ruethgar]

You could also give Nightmares a symbiotic bond with their riders.

A Night Hag, one of the archetypal riders, has immunity to fire & cold. Any devil rider would have immunity to the prevailing conditions of its particular plane. And so forth.

I feel like if they really wanted to, a devil or a hag could just use magic to guard their steeds and that would be symbiosis enough.

But as to the OP, yeah, 10 FR would be a rather apt addition to a nightmare thematically and not worth much CR wise.

[hymer]

Thanks for your thoughts, everyone! I'll go ahead and add that fire resistance.

[Zaq]

Counterargument: it’s true that it shouldn’t really affect their CR. However, fire is already fairly weak specifically because practically everything above a certain CR is resistant or immune to it. Do we really need to make the most commonly resisted element even more commonly resisted? Is it so wrong to have an outsider who isn’t resistant/immune to a common energy type?

I mean, yeah, it really won’t affect their CR. But still, it seems like a bit of an unnecessary “screw you” to fire users.

Searing Spell does not fix the problem. Searing Spell highlights how real the problem is. If you need Searing Spell as a feat tax and +1 spell level tax, that’s a big part of the issue.

[Telonius]

Monster art isn't a statblock, but it seems to me that if a creature isn't bothered by its hair literally being on fire then it probably ought to have some sort of resistance reflected in the stats.

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/MM35_gallery/MM35_PG195.jpg

[Rijan_Sai]

Monster art isn't a statblock, but it seems to me that if a creature isn't bothered by its hair literally being on fire then it probably ought to have some sort of resistance reflected in the stats.

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/MM35_gallery/MM35_PG195.jpg

Ah, my second favorite demon-horse!*

Yeah, I'm just going to throw in my 2c and say that I agree it seems a pretty silly oversight that a creature who's hair is literally made of fire does not have any sort of fire resistance. I too will be adding that to any and all Nightmares that may end up in my games!




*https://pics.me.me/did-you-know-the-blue-mustang-sculpture-at-the-denver-19860821.png

[Vaern]

Monster art isn't a statblock, but it seems to me that if a creature isn't bothered by its hair literally being on fire then it probably ought to have some sort of resistance reflected in the stats.
As far as that's concerned, in the case of nightmares not having built-in resistance, I'd regard their hooves and mane as being similar to a magical flaming weapon in that the fire simply does not harm its wielder.

[Nifft]

Monster art isn't a statblock, but it seems to me that if a creature isn't bothered by its hair literally being on fire then it probably ought to have some sort of resistance reflected in the stats.

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/MM35_gallery/MM35_PG195.jpg

Sure but in support of your conclusion the statblock does also involve fire:



Attack: Hoof +9 melee (1d8+4 plus 1d4 fire)


Flaming Hooves (Su)

A blow from a nightmare’s hooves sets combustible materials alight.


Smoke (Su)

During the excitement of battle, a nightmare snorts and neighs with rage. This snorting fills a 15-foot cone with a hot, sulfurous smoke that chokes and blinds opponents. Anyone in the cone must succeed on a DC 16 Fortitude save or take a -2 penalty on all attack and damage rolls until 1d6 minutes after leaving the cone. The cone lasts 1 round, and the nightmare uses it once as a free action during its turn each round. The save DC is Constitution-based.

Because of the smoke it gives off, a nightmare has concealment against creatures 5 feet away and total concealment against creatures 10 feet or farther away. The smoke does not obscure the nightmare’s vision at all.

[ksbsnowowl]

I give Nightmares the God-Blooded (of Imix) template. Gives them the (Fire) subtype.

[Zaq]

So I did a little bit of research on this.

Neither 1e nor 2e gave nightmares any special defense against fire, at least not in the basic Monster Manual versions (dunno if there were any specialized versions in other books). 3e/3.5, of course, does not, as is the topic of discussion here. 4e and 5e, however, do give nightmares defense against fire (resistance for 4e, immunity for 5e). What I find really interesting is that both 4e and 5e have the nightmare confer resistance (not immunity) to fire on its rider, which makes more sense than anything else, given that there's, you know, fire right around where the rider wants to be.

I still say that from a game balance perspective, while adding resist fire 10 to the nightmare wouldn't affect its CR, it's still not necessary given that every other bloody thing you find on the planes resists (or is immune to) fire, so fire doesn't need the nerf. That said, I find the idea of a nightmare giving its rider fire resistance to be interesting and compelling.

If we want to dive straight into homebrew territory, I'd also be on board with fire having some kind of unusual effect on the nightmare. Maybe it takes the damage normally but also speeds up, or also teleports a short distance as its plane-walking fire-hooves kick into semi-involuntary overdrive, or something like that. Or maybe it takes the fire damage and also throws up a burst of smoke—the smoke does a small amount of fire damage to those caught within it (not the nightmare or the rider, though) and temporarily blocks line of sight for everyone in it, including the nightmare. I like the idea that it's not on fire because it's a fiery creature but rather that its fiery effects are tied to its other weird aspects.

[Fizban]

I'm fine with giving them fire resist 10. I'm also fine with leaving it alone, so that there's the chance you'll have an encounter where one player wants to shoot fire at it, the other players tell them that's a dumb idea, and then they do it anyway and find out that Nightmares happen to lack fire resistance. Monsters that surprisingly lack a particular resistance are interesting- if you had to guess, would cold damage work on a Zombie or Shadow? Because it works perfectly well on both.

I had a bit of this happen in RHoD when Blue Abishai show up: they're metallic dragon themed devils, and blue dragons are immune to lightning, right? But one of the PCs has Scintillating Sphere as their main attack and tried it anyway, and it worked. Then I got him to Scintillating Sphere the party at the same time because they were Suggested to attack him and knocking them out would fix the problem quick, hehe.

[denthor]

If you give them fire resistance do not forget they should take double damage from another element.

Cold
Acid
sonic

[JNAProductions]

If you give them fire resistance do not forget they should take double damage from another element.

Cold
Acid
sonic

Why? Seriously-that's not something that's required by any means. Not to mention, resist 10 is hardly game-breaking.

[Zaq]

Why? Seriously-that's not something that's required by any means. Not to mention, resist 10 is hardly game-breaking.

You’re correct that there’s nothing “requiring” a balancing factor. I wouldn’t mind seeing it used more often, though. One thing that bothers me about 3.5 is that spells (and similar effects) having keywords is almost always a bad thing or a liability, because there are tons of immunities to various keywords and descriptors but relatively few things that actively boost the effectiveness of specific descriptors.

[JNAProductions]

You’re correct that there’s nothing “requiring” a balancing factor. I wouldn’t mind seeing it used more often, though. One thing that bothers me about 3.5 is that spells (and similar effects) having keywords is almost always a bad thing or a liability, because there are tons of immunities to various keywords and descriptors but relatively few things that actively boost the effectiveness of specific descriptors.

I could see this if the discussion was on Immunity, but Fire Resist 10 ain't that big a deal.

In concept, I agree with you; in this situation, I'm not sure.

[Fizban]

The only thing I know of that explicitly puts a percentage based weakness in exchange for a flat numerical resistance is the MiC version of the Ring of the Icy Soul. Because someone apparently decided that the original version, which gave you the [cold] subtype (which is immunity+weakness) at a high cost, wasn't appropriate? It's based on a spell that gives you the subtype, the original version of which was an xp cost spell that did so permanently. But no, MiC is too smart for you and now it's resist 20 instead of immunity so they can make it cost less than the resist 20 ring in the DMG, even though full immunity was literally the entire point of the original effect. Arg.

[Vaern]

If you give them fire resistance do not forget they should take double damage from another element.

Cold
Acid
sonic
Resistance and immunity to an energy type don't automatically constitute a weakness to another. It's generally only creatures with the [Fire] and [Cold] subtypes that have immunity to their respective energy type and vulnerability to their opposite (for +50%, not double damage), with a few exceptions such as fire- and cold-based true dragons. Vulnerabilities to other energy types are rare, and aren't arbitrarily applied to creatures as a balancing feature. In fact, demons are resistant to fire, cold, and acid, while devils are immune to fire with resistance to both of the other two, and neither gains any sort of vulnerabilities to counteract these resistances.