Damage Reduction = Insect Immunity?

On Sep 10, 3:58 pm, Tetsubo wrote:
>         Does having damage reduction make a character immune to mundane
> insects? Even DR 1/- would mean a common insect can't penetrate the
> characters skin. This would probably have little in game effect. But
> taken from a realistic angle this would revolutionize health care. It
> would make a person immune to dozens of deadly diseases and afflictions.
> Not to mention make a persons life a whole lot more pleasant. Imagine
> never getting bitten by a mosquito or black fly again.

I'd argue it doesn't help.

If an insect bite does damage it does a minimum of 1 HP vs. any target
without DR.

Do 3 non-poisonous insect bites cause serious danger of bleeding to
death? If no, then they do no damage. If no damage then nothing for
the DR to stop.

In article ,
Tetsubo wrote:

> Does having damage reduction make a character immune to mundane
> insects? Even DR 1/- would mean a common insect can't penetrate the
> characters skin. This would probably have little in game effect. But
> taken from a realistic angle this would revolutionize health care. It
> would make a person immune to dozens of deadly diseases and afflictions.
> Not to mention make a persons life a whole lot more pleasant. Imagine
> never getting bitten by a mosquito or black fly again.

Depends on the DM's definition of "damage," in my view. If the
definition in use is, "anything that breaks the skin" then no, insect
bites and the like (except those from swarms, of course) would be
stopped by DR. If the definition in use requires that "damage" have an
immediate (note the modifier) effect on combat - and even the loss of a
single hit point can do that, if it's the last hit point a character has
- then the loss of *less* than a hit point wouldn't qualify and wouldn't
provoke intervention by DR.

Poisons and diseases, on the other hand, seem generally to cause the
loss of at one hit point or ability point of damage (and frequently
more) when they take effect. They probably would be affected by DR
unless there's something I haven't found in RAW that contradicts the
assumption - always a possibility even now. And that, of course,
assumes that a loss of ability points is the same thing in game
mechanics as a loss of hit points. Which is probably a whole 'nother
discussion.

Or so it seems to me.

Baird

--
In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice
there is. -Yogi Berra

Tetsubo wrote:
> Does having damage reduction make a character immune to mundane
> insects?

No more than any character without it. Mundane insects only do hit
point damage in a swarm, and however DR works, it doesn't
automatically block the sort of damage that accumulates from hundreds
of small bites.

--
tussock

Tetsubo wrote:
> Does having damage reduction make a character immune to mundane
> insects? Even DR 1/- would mean a common insect can't penetrate the
> characters skin. This would probably have little in game effect. But
> taken from a realistic angle this would revolutionize health care. It
> would make a person immune to dozens of deadly diseases and afflictions.
> Not to mention make a persons life a whole lot more pleasant. Imagine
> never getting bitten by a mosquito or black fly again.

Not the worst problem (in my part of the world, anyway[1]). I can use
medical aids (such as lidocaine) if I get bitten by a mosquito. The fun
part is being immune to paper cuts. I get a couple of these every year,
and they're very annoying, and for a long time.

Also, being immune to blistering, e.g. from walking a lot, is even more
attractive. But sure, some summers I get dozens of mosquito bites (I
think I got a single one this summer, but I'm not even sure if it was a
mosquito bite or something else). It'd be convenient to avoid that.


[1] Global warming might mean that malaria moves further north in the
coming decades. Not fun at all!

--
Peter Knutsen
sagatafl.org

Baird Stafford wrote:
> Depends on the DM's definition of "damage," in my view. If the
> definition in use is, "anything that breaks the skin" then no, insect
> bites and the like (except those from swarms, of course) would be

Why exclude swarms? That's not realsitic!

A swarm doesn't actually do 2+ damage ever, it does several instances of
damage *each* worth 1 HP. Even DR 1/- ought to protect against that.

> stopped by DR. If the definition in use requires that "damage" have an
[...]

--
Peter Knutsen
sagatafl.org

In article , tetsubo DeleteThis @comcast.net
wrote:

> Does having damage reduction make a character immune to mundane
>insects? Even DR 1/- would mean a common insect can't penetrate the
>characters skin. This would probably have little in game effect. But
>taken from a realistic angle this would revolutionize health care. It
>would make a person immune to dozens of deadly diseases and afflictions.
>Not to mention make a persons life a whole lot more pleasant. Imagine
>never getting bitten by a mosquito or black fly again.

It also makes those spells that summon swarms pretty useless...

--
ISLAM: Winning the hearts and minds of the world, one bomb at a time.

In article , baird.TakeThisOut@newstaff.com
wrote:

>Poisons and diseases, on the other hand, seem generally to cause the
>loss of at one hit point or ability point of damage (and frequently
>more) when they take effect.

I know they do ability damage, which DR does not help against, but I
don't recall them doing hp damage any more (unless you are talking about
a side-effct of CON damage).


--
ISLAM: Winning the hearts and minds of the world, one bomb at a time.

On Thu, 10 Sep 2009 23:49:43 +0000, Keith Davies
wrote:

>Loren Pechtel wrote:
>> On Thu, 10 Sep 2009 16:58:53 -0400, Tetsubo
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Does having damage reduction make a character immune to mundane
>>>insects? Even DR 1/- would mean a common insect can't penetrate the
>>>characters skin. This would probably have little in game effect. But
>>>taken from a realistic angle this would revolutionize health care. It
>>>would make a person immune to dozens of deadly diseases and afflictions.
>>>Not to mention make a persons life a whole lot more pleasant. Imagine
>>>never getting bitten by a mosquito or black fly again.
>>
>> Yup, it would protect you against bugs, thorns and the like.
>
>It may depend where it comes from, but off the top of my head it seems
>to me that most creatures that have inherent DR are just Damn Tough and
>shouldn't be bothered by petty annoyances like mundane bugs. I can't
>imagine Conan slapping at mosquitoes, y'know?
>
>Adamantine full plate maybe shouldn't prevent mosquito bites, if they
>land on your nose, but I'm not ashamed to say that I'm too lazy to keep
>track of it at that level.

Yeah, I wouldn't make DR from an external source like that protect
against anything that could bypass the source. DR that's innate or
granted by an item couldn't be bypassed.

On Fri, 11 Sep 2009 04:22:31 +0200, Peter Knutsen
wrote:

>Tetsubo wrote:
>> Does having damage reduction make a character immune to mundane
>> insects? Even DR 1/- would mean a common insect can't penetrate the
>> characters skin. This would probably have little in game effect. But
>> taken from a realistic angle this would revolutionize health care. It
>> would make a person immune to dozens of deadly diseases and afflictions.
>> Not to mention make a persons life a whole lot more pleasant. Imagine
>> never getting bitten by a mosquito or black fly again.
>
>Not the worst problem (in my part of the world, anyway[1]). I can use
>medical aids (such as lidocaine) if I get bitten by a mosquito. The fun
>part is being immune to paper cuts. I get a couple of these every year,
>and they're very annoying, and for a long time.

Lidocane wouldn't help with the mosquito that gave me malaria long
ago.

I do agree about paper cuts. Also, we have fruit trees and every year
I collect some scratches at harvest time. Once my wife went to the
doc during harvest season, the doc noticed one of the scratches and
asked "kitty-cat?" and was puzzled at my response "no, apricot tree".
(My wife is more comfortable with having me there.)

>[1] Global warming might mean that malaria moves further north in the
>coming decades. Not fun at all!

I doubt it. We (USA) don't have malaria because we wiped out the
mosquitoes that carry it, not because they can't live here. Warming
could increase the zone where they can live but they have been driven
out of much of that zone anyway. The only actual effect I would
expect to see is the danger zone reaching higher altitudes in malaria
territory.

From what I've seen, DR is used to model several different mechanisms
for resisting damage. It covers the 'classic' hard target effects
(adamantine armor and such). It covers hard skin sorts of effects
(where the whole critter is 'crunchy'). It also seems to cover
instant (or near instant) regeneration effects (at least that is how I
have always envisioned lycanthropy and possibly vampire damage
resistance).

Given the abstract nature of the hit point mechanic, I'm not sure that
we can parse this down to the individual bug bite I suspect that
there are plenty of annoying and possibly painful effects that simply
aren't big enough to have a game mechanical representation. Someone
with rock hard skin may not even notice the dagger that fails to
scratch them. Someone with werewolf style DR might very well feel the
pain of the dagger plunging into them, but simply shrug it off and
keep going as the wound instantly closes when the blade is pulled out.

On Thu, 10 Sep 2009 21:04:53 -0700 (PDT), tussock
wrote:

>Tetsubo wrote:
>> Does having damage reduction make a character immune to mundane
>> insects?
>
> No more than any character without it. Mundane insects only do hit
>point damage in a swarm, and however DR works, it doesn't
>automatically block the sort of damage that accumulates from hundreds
>of small bites.

--

Kyle Wilson
email: kylewilson.DeleteThis@wilson.mv.com

On Sat, 12 Sep 2009 03:20:37 +0000, Keith Davies
wrote:

>Loren Pechtel wrote:
>> On Fri, 11 Sep 2009 20:15:59 +0000, Keith Davies
>> wrote:
>>
>>>Loren Pechtel wrote:
>>>>
>>>> I do agree about paper cuts. Also, we have fruit trees and every year
>>>> I collect some scratches at harvest time. Once my wife went to the
>>>> doc during harvest season, the doc noticed one of the scratches and
>>>> asked "kitty-cat?" and was puzzled at my response "no, apricot tree".
>>>> (My wife is more comfortable with having me there.)
>>>
>>>I have a habit of doing yardwork in shorts and a t-shirt (jeans are too
>>>damn hot and bind in uncomfortable places) and tend to not pay really
>>>close attention to little things. It's not uncommon that after a work
>>>party my legs will be covered in scratches (deep enough to bleed, not
>>>just minor scrapes) and some bruises, and once or twice a couple of
>>>small burns (had a burn pile going and brushed against something that
>>>wasn't as cool as I thought).
>>
>> I almost never end up with any leg scrapes from yardwork. There's
>> simply nothing here scratchy and at that height.
>>
>> Note that I live in an extremely dry climate, the only things that
>> grow without being watered are the weeds that come in the spring.
>
>Lots of branches and stuff, and we've been clearing property for the
>last few years.

1/6 of an acre here, nothing to clear!

>>>Trees? Pick what's in reach, shake the rest down. We keep our trees
>>>pruned to about 12' high for a reason.
>>
>> That's not conductive to getting fruit that will last.
>
>'last'? What is this 'last' you speak of?
>
>Most of it gets processed or given away within a week or so.

My wife likes it best just as it comes off the tree. When the only
fruit eater is 100# the 3-4 hundred pounds of fruit we get do stay
around a while. It only gets given away if it's more than she can
eat.

Peter Knutsen wrote:
> Baird Stafford wrote:
>> Depends on the DM's definition of "damage," in my view. If the
>> definition in use is, "anything that breaks the skin" then no, insect
>> bites and the like (except those from swarms, of course) would be
>
> Why exclude swarms? That's not realsitic!
>
> A swarm doesn't actually do 2+ damage ever, it does several instances of
> damage *each* worth 1 HP. Even DR 1/- ought to protect against that.

In reality something with tough enough skin to be essentially immune to
insect bites would still be vulnerable at the eyes, inside the nostrils,
inside an opened mouth... none of which are represented directly in
D&D. I'd be inclined to leave swarms as Baird suggested.

David Lamb wrote:

> Peter Knutsen wrote:
>
>> Baird Stafford wrote:
>>
>>> Depends on the DM's definition of "damage," in my view. If the
>>> definition in use is, "anything that breaks the skin" then no, insect
>>> bites and the like (except those from swarms, of course) would be
>>
>>
>> Why exclude swarms? That's not realsitic!
>>
>> A swarm doesn't actually do 2+ damage ever, it does several instances
>> of damage *each* worth 1 HP. Even DR 1/- ought to protect against that.
>
>
> In reality something with tough enough skin to be essentially immune to
> insect bites would still be vulnerable at the eyes, inside the nostrils,
> inside an opened mouth... none of which are represented directly in
> D&D. I'd be inclined to leave swarms as Baird suggested.

I wouldn't have low DR effect swarms either. High innate DR yes.

--
Tetsubo
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