Burning Staff and Ice Crystal Staff

[Deydrania]

The elemental resistance and and vulnerability of certain elemental weapons in this game (and in MajorMUD) are flawed.

The Burning Staff for instance- It grants protection form fire while dealing fire damage... this means you'll either do zero extra damage or negative damage (healing) against creatures that do fire damage (which the staff will protect you from).  It also gives a -50 resist cold penalty.  So while the staff does extra damage against cold, it will cause the wielder to suffer greater damage from every single cold attack by the monsters you're fighting.

Ice Crystall Staff is exactly the same in reverse.

Can't the Burning Staff be like carrying around a campfire?  When I'm near a campfire, I'm protected from the cold because the fire warms me.   

If the Burning Staff protects against the cold, then it becomes so much more useful and not broken.  And if the Ice Crystal Staff grants resistance to fire (instead of the -50 penalty), it also becomes so much more useful instead of the broken stick it is now.

Thanks for listening

[Hurricane Omega]

No, the burning staff uses the magic of elemental fire as its power source.  When wielded, it bolsters damage by projecting fire onto the wielder's opponent and when fire is used against the wielder, it absorbs the fire which reduces the damage.  the same goes for cold with the Ice Crystal Staff.  This is a fundamental concept of magical items rather than the physical world.  Since fire magic and cold magic often oppose each other, using the opposing element can cause extra damage.

My 2 cents.

[Deydrania]

I disagree.
Keeping someone warm is what fire does.  It creates heat.   It feeds off the heat that it creates and it does this so efficiently that it can grow exponentially hotter as it spreads.  You don't even need that much heat to create fire.  If this wasn't true, then you woudln't be able to create a campfire with a single match when you're in freezing temperatures.  And that camp fire is able to keep you warm through the night. 

So there is no argument that a burning staff- a staff that is literally on fire- makes you even colder.  Yes, the staff doesn't just not provide cold resistance- it makes you more vulnerable to the cold.  No fire does this.  Just like with the Ice Crystal Staff-  Nowhere in existence does ice make you hotter.  Holding a staff of pure ice won't make fire do more damage to you.

Also in games-

In every other game, elemental weapons work like they're supposed to.  Final Fantasy, Dungeons and Dragons, etc.... All of the elemental weapons in those games either provide no resistances or they provide resistances to opposing elements.   Take the frost sword that belongs to Drizzt Do'Urden- one of the most famous characters in D&D:

Icingdeath:
Icingdeath was a +3 scimitar. It had the powers of a frost weapon.

It was also a frostbrand weapon. The weapon absorbed fire and heat, protecting its wielder against fire. It also had the ability to extinguish magical fire. For example, it extinguished a portion of the wall of fire conjured by the powerful demon, Errtu. However, it could also be set on fire in order to harm trolls, though this was only when the magic of the blade was being repressed

https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Icingdeath

MajorMUD was the only game that got this backwards.   And the reason it wasn't corrected was because no one gave it any thought- they just copied the data over instead of making the correction that was needed.

[Skirmish101]

I'm glad this topic got brought up because there is one item I could throw into this debate is the flaming scimitar. Everything about this item is saying its fire based, the name, location, affinity to the boss that drops it and even has the ability fire burns 100% for 5-15 damage. Yet it has Rcol +50, Rfir -50 with +25 Illu. This weapon clearly different from the same element types. Why is that? 

[Greater]

Yes, this is a necropost.

I agree that there is a lack of continuity with these elemental weapons. It's tough to change them at this point when people have been used to them for years, but never say never.