should Small Fire Elemental Weakness to Water be Variable?

[Plane]

M76 prices 1d/min as [40] which means in terms of B161 that "water" is a x2 "common" (not VC like sunlight or oxygen) multiplier to the base value.

One note in the "Variable" Limitation for Weakness is that "intense sources double the rate at which you suffer harm".

That seems appropriate to reflect the idea that a heavy rainstorm should probably hurt a Fire Elemental worse (2d/min) than a light rainshower...

As for the mitigation effect (this makes the disadvantage worth fewer points, kind of like a relative advantage) the "common class of barriers that halves the rate at which you take damage" could be something like "if the Elemental is underneath a tree, half of the raindrops are deflected away from it" (only 1d/2 damage per minute)

The per-minute rate doesn't really match up with per-second water attacks like "I'm firing a squirtgun" or "I'm tossing buckets of water" though. How do we reproduce this?

I was thinking maybe if something was a No Wounding water attack (eg P140 "Water Cannon") that maybe a Fire Elemental might be designed with "Vulnerable: Water x2" but instead of 0*2 you treat *2 as +100% so that 0%+100%=100% causes a normally non-injuring attack to actually cause damage?

Already-wounding stuff like Water Blade / Water Blast (also P140) could of course benefit from the full +100% to be 200% (x2) as we would expect.

The problem is sort of how to deal with when Basic Damage is not defined for non-Innate attacks.

I think if you were in a pool and "splashing" a Fire Elemental hovering at the pool edge, perhaps you could use the Basic Damage for "Shove" ? Shove normally is limited to close-range (same hex) but you could do AOA (Long) to shove someone 1 yard away (adjacent hex) so that could be used to get range for your water splash.

As for stuff like tossing it from a bucket, maybe the GM could just calculate the weight of the water in the bucket and use the damage for thrown objects?

[Varyon]

In general, exposure to some amount of the substance you are weak to causes the damage from Weakness, and essentially inoculates you against further damage from Weakness until that time cycle is up. So, someone splashes a fire elemental with a bucket of water, the fire elemental takes 1d damage but is immune to water damage for 1 minute thereafter. This isn't the way it works "in world," but is an acceptable simplification. With Variable in play, the effect would largely be the same, although I'd allow for the possibility of further damage if later sources within the 1 minute would deal more damage than earlier sources. For example, if a fire elemental would take 1d/2 per minute in a light rain, but 2d per minute submerged in water, then if the fire elemental runs through a light rain and then falls into water a few seconds later, I'd roll the damage for the light rain (1d/2; lets say we roll a 4, so 2 HP), but then when the character later fell into the water I'd upgrade the half-die to a full dice (so 2 HP becomes 4 HP) and roll an additional dice; let's say that's a 3, for a total of 7 damage. If you want second-by-second damage, one could arguably work that into Variable. So, if you take 1d/2 per minute in light rain, 1d per minute in heavy rain, and 2d per minute in a body of water, a character who charges through heavy rain for 5 seconds to reach some leaky shelter (that still let light rain through), then after 10 seconds of searching through there for somewhere dry fell into a pool, which took 20 seconds to climb out of, then spent the rest of the minute (another 25 seconds) in the leaky house. We're looking at 1d for 5/60 of a minute, 1d/2 for 35/60 (10 seconds before falling in the pool, 25 seconds after climbing out) of a minute, and 2d for 20/60 of a minute. That's 1d/12 + 7d/24 + 2d/3, for a total of 25d/24; that would be simplified to 1d (it's just shy of 1.05d). Obviously, that's not an ideal option to work out in play; I'd suggest just using average damage, probably rounding 1d up to 4 damage (so above, the character would take 4/60=1/15 HP damage every second out in the rain, would take 2/60=1/30 HP damage every second in the leaky house, and 8/60=2/15 HP damage every second in the water; the character or GM would keep track of any fractions, and deduct 1 HP from their total whenever it reached a full HP worth of damage).

To track this quickly in-game, have a sheet of paper with 15 boxes on it. Each time the character takes 1/15 damage, put an X in a box. Each time the character takes 1/30 damage, put a / in a box unless one already has such, then tun the / into an X. Each time the character takes 2/15 damage, fill in two boxes. Once all boxes are full of X's, remove the X's, reduce the character's HP by 1, then resume filling.

For attacks that have a special effect that interacts with Weakness (like a No Wounding Crushing Innate Attack that is described as a stream of water), it would activate your Weakness normally. If using normal Variable, I'd probably treat it as being at the "typical" 1d level. If using second-by-second Variable, I'd probably treat it as being at the "heavy" 2d level, but one hit in a second is no less effective than 20 hits in that same second.

And, yes, personally I'd have Weakness (Water; Variable) do 1d/2 in light rain, 1d in moderate to heavy rain, and 2d if the character is in the water or caught in an incredibly-heavy downpour.

[DangerousThing]

Weaknesses is not the same as Vulnerabilty.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Plane

M76 prices 1d/min as [40] which means in terms of B161 that "water" is a x2 "common" (not VC like sunlight or oxygen) multiplier to the base value.

One note in the "Variable" Limitation for Weakness is that "intense sources double the rate at which you suffer harm".

That seems appropriate to reflect the idea that a heavy rainstorm should probably hurt a Fire Elemental worse (2d/min) than a light rainshower...

I don't think light rain would even count as "water" for that purpose. You'd need a minimum intensity before a fire weakens.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by DangerousThing

Weaknesses is not the same as Vulnerabilty.

I know, I'm asking if anyone thought it might make sense to give them a Vulnerability to water in addition to a Weakness to it.

Also to make the Weakness "Variable" so the amount of generic water exposure matters.

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

I don't think light rain would even count as "water" for that purpose. You'd need a minimum intensity before a fire weakens.

So if we had Variable, do you figure "heavy rain" is the 1d/min baseline, and "waterfall" would be the 2d/min situation?

1d/2 could I guess cover "heavy rain when standing under a big tree" or "light rain out in the open" ?

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

I don't think light rain would even count as "water" for that purpose. You'd need a minimum intensity before a fire weakens.

A lot of that is going to depend rather heavily on how large the fire is; while only the tiniest flames would be weakened (or quenched) in a drizzle/misting, anything I'd really count as rain, even light, is going to require a fairly large fire before there's no effect. Additionally, there's a thematic link to consider - even if the rain isn't having a direct effect on the fire, a real fire would still have some difficulty being made to keep going, as the tenders cannot simply grab wood from the environs and toss it right in; as the wood is wet, it will need to be dried out first (meaning either tossing wet wood directly into the flame, which will reduce it slightly until it dries out and catches, or keeping the wood near the flame so the head keeps it dry, which requires additional care so you don't burn up that fuel prematurely). With that in mind, it seems appropriate that an elemental representation of fire would be harmed by even light rain. An elemental representation of a wild fire may require heavier rain (probably reducing "water" from "Common" to "Occasional" - the elemental doesn't just have a Weakness to water, but specifically to water in large quantities), but such an entity should probably have extreme levels of Increased Consumption.

Originally Posted by Plane

I know, I'm asking if anyone thought it might make sense to give them a Vulnerability to water in addition to a Weakness to it.

I'd be fine with it, but unless elemental-type attacks (almost certainly in the form of magic of some flavor) are somewhat common in your setting, "water attacks" is probably a Rare category.

There is some question of if Vulnerability and Weakness should interact - that is, if someone with Vulnerability x2 (Water) and Weakness (Water; 1d/min) should actually take 1dx2 Injury from water each minute (1d/min from Weakness, doubled from Vulnerability). I generally feel they shouldn't interact in this way (the damage seen from Weakness is assumed to already take the Vulnerability into account), but I could see the other interpretation (using the interaction of Bad Temper and Berserk as precedent). Note if you do have them interact, you'll want to keep "water" as Common for Vulnerability - while water-based attacks are typically rare, your Weakness makes all water into a water-based attack.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by Varyon

unless elemental-type attacks (almost certainly in the form of magic of some flavor) are somewhat common in your setting, "water attacks" is probably a Rare category.

What about mundane harnessing though, like people carrying around buckets or splashing from rivers?

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Plane

What about mundane harnessing though, like people carrying around buckets or splashing from rivers?

Vulnerability wouldn’t apply, because a normal character wouldn’t take damage from a bucket of water being dumped on them. Rather, this simply triggers the Weakness (which is Common, due both to how often it is encountered naturally and how readily foes can weaponize it against you) causing the character to take damage.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by Varyon

Vulnerability wouldn’t apply, because a normal character wouldn’t take damage from a bucket of water being dumped on them

My basis for this is how insubstantial treats it. Insubstantial targets aren't normally harmed by substantial attacks which lack "Affects Insubstantial" but H72 has Vulnerability x 4 on an insubstantial spirit inflicting x3 the damage to it, so basically the 'extra' is suffered even if the attack lacks Affects Insubstantial.

Originally Posted by Varyon

this simply triggers the Weakness (which is Common, due both to how often it is encountered naturally and how readily foes can weaponize it against you) causing the character to take damage.

Do you think that Vulnerability could be used to multiply the damage that Weakness does?

H92 for example the Undead Voodoo Zombie has Vulnerability: Salt even though Salt probably wouldn't normally do damage (unless maybe someone dropped a giant piece of it on you?) but they also have Weakness: Salt.

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by Plane

Do you think that Vulnerability could be used to multiply the damage that Weakness does?

It seems plausible by the Rules As Written, even if they don't spell it out, and it's how I would do it, but it depends on the GM.