Redundant monster abilities

[Idea Man]

I'm pawing through the MM, looking for evils to unleash on my trusting players, when I came across something I had forgotten about.

Hellwasp swarm.
It has a common swarm ability to be immune to weapon damage. Straightforward, direct, I like simple rules. But, wait, what's this? DR 10/magic. Okaaay, why would you need damage reduction when you are immune to all weapon damage? Did I miss an errata update? I just ruled that it applied when the swarm is inhabiting a body, another of its abilities.

I was wondering if there were any other examples of blatantly nonsenseical combinations of abilities?

[ZekeArgo]

Have to say, a double post about redundancy is just a tad ironic

[Idea Man]

My fault. The computer was hanging up. :smallbiggrin:

[clockwork warrior]

weapon damage doesnt = only magic hurts

a magic weapons properies ( ie flaming)
alchemical stuff ( alc fire, acid, what not)
torches

things that, while not magic, are not weapons.

[Leicontis]

DR only applies to physical damage, so energy damage, negative energy damage, and force damage all bypass it. However, I know of only one non-weapon source of physical damage: Falling damage. If, somehow, a hellwasp swarm lost their ability to fly, and fell a long distance, they'd take 10 less damage. Also, if you were to, for example, tip a Wall of Iron on top of them, the DR would kick in. There are potential scenarios where the DR would apply, but they are exceptionally rare.

[Idea Man]

Damage reduction only applies to weapon damage. Unfortunately, it has no effect on falling damage. The wall of iron is a good example, though. For a one shot, it's not worth it, except for the horror of seeing wasps sneaking out from underneath.

Naturally, magic/alchemical damage will hurt the swarm. I was just pointing out that DR and weapon immunity are more or less exclusive, and wouldn't be combined normally. Squashing a swarm with a wall is...inventive. :smallbiggrin:

Any other examples? Pun pun doesn't count. I'm looking for monsters out of the books, unmodified, except perhaps by templates.

[Chronos]

The puzzle here isn't that there are some ways a weapon can get around the swarm trait... The puzzle is that any way to do so would either mean that the weapon is magical (and thus bypasses the DR also), or that the "weapon" (like a bottle of alchemist's fire) doesn't do any weapon damage (and thus bypasses the DR).

[Mewtarthio]

As I posted in the other thread, I think it's just for flavor. A swarm of spiders is also immune to weapon damage, but if you ever saw a spider alone, you could just stamp on it and kill it. If you ever saw a hellwasp alone, it would still be invincible.

[Shhalahr Windrider]

If the swarm was made up of enlarged Hellwasps, they'd lose the weapon damage immunity, taking half damage instead. Then the DR would apply.

[Mewtarthio]

Wait, nevermind all this. Check the first paragraph of the swarm's Inhabit ability:


A hellwasp swarm can enter the body of a helpless or dead creature by crawling into its mouth and other orifices. Inhabiting requires 1 minute, and the victim must be Small, Medium, or Large (although four swarms working together can inhabit a Huge creature). The swarm can abandon the body at any time, although doing this takes 1 full round. Any attack against the host deals half damage to the hellwasp swarm as well, although the swarm’s resistances and immunities may negate some or all of this damage.

:amused:

[Keld Denar]

Another redundancy, on topic, but off subject, is the push ability of earth elementals. Most earth elementals get Improved Bullrush as a feat, which does all the same things as push does, WITH a +4 bonus. So an earth elemental could push an enemy, with normal bull rush bonuses, or improved bullrush them, with normal bull rush bonueses +4.

Seems kind of redundant to me.

[Lord Lorac Silvanos]

Wait, nevermind all this. Check the first paragraph of the swarm's Inhabit ability:

:amused:

And so? :smallconfused:

It is still immune to weapon damage, so whether you use a +1 weapon or a normal weapon for your attack the result (for the swarm) is still going to be the same.

[Mr. Friendly]

More on Hellwasps and DR;


Some monsters are vulnerable to magic weapons. Any weapon with at least a +1 magical enhancement bonus on attack and damage rolls overcomes the damage reduction of these monsters. Such creatures’ natural weapons (but not their attacks with weapons) are treated as magic weapons for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction.

Which is of course, redundantly listed in the Hellwasp's description:

A hellwasp swarm’s attack is treated as an evil-aligned weapon and a magic weapon for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction.

However, the reason it's attacks are evil aligned and magical are a function of it being an extraplanar evil subtype critter, which has DR:Magic. Without the DR it's attacks would just be evil aligned (in most cases).

[Mr. Friendly]

Another redundancy, on topic, but off subject, is the push ability of earth elementals. Most earth elementals get Improved Bullrush as a feat, which does all the same things as push does, WITH a +4 bonus. So an earth elemental could push an enemy, with normal bull rush bonuses, or improved bullrush them, with normal bull rush bonueses +4.

Seems kind of redundant to me.

Except it isn't redundant - it's stacking bonuses. Push let's the EE Bull Rush w/o AoOs. It also let's him add his Earth Mastery +1 onto the STR check. Once you get to the Huge and above that get Improved Bull Rush, they are just adding a free +4 onto the check, which while adding even more bonuses to something they are good at, helps ensure you put the raging orc barbarian where you want, instead of him making the check. At the point when they start getting Imp. Bull Rush is the point where they start needing every little point.