In a typical game designed for a character like Thor (even one much less powerful), his damage immunities wouldn't matter too much, since any setting including the Aesir would logically have at least some magical weapons around.
For characters like Iron Man, Captain America, and the S.H.I.E.L.D. team, though? He's an (almost) unassailable brick wall.
As far as Timely Publishing is concerned, the Aesir are perfectly viable with other races of the same level as long as you keep them far away from low magic/no magic campaigns. And even then it's more of a sub-race issue, Loki can be hurt by regular means same as anyone and Tony would have done a decent chunk of damage to Thor just there if he was playing literally any other type of Artificer.
There is a reason why Kevin was very emphatically not planning to bring anyone from the Aesir campaign over until Clark made the call.
Nice, both the story at present and the foreshadowing. :D
Immunities are always tricky business. I mean, they rarely make sense until they do. XD Some things IRL seem immune because of the amount of [insert other thing] it takes to do them harm.
Dunno. Still trying to work up enough interest to watch it. ;) Obviously, that doesn't affect anyone else working it out, it just means that I personally am not aware of who has.
Oh, and since you posted it as a response to my question, I will point out the "IRL". In fiction, immunities frequently come up. In real life, not as much. Like, an insulator can be overwhelmed. Assuming I used the correct terminology. XP
Yeah, that's a good one for relative perspectives. I guess that means it is time for my GURPS tangent on the matter. XD I notice you've got robust discussion under this comic, so if you don't have a response, or just don't have time for a response, no worries. :)
GURPS used to have an Advantage in Third Edition (and maybe before) called "Invulnerability". You could take it to things like "Kinetic Energy" if you wanted to build someone like Superman, or Electricity for someone like Thor. Why did it go away? Besides it usually only applying to fantastic, fictional situations, balancing the CP cost for it, especially against the other ways of dealing with damage (Injury Tolerance and Damage Resistance), wasn't possible. Eventually, it became apparent you should just take enough Damage Resistance that nothing in that setting can exceed it, if being "Invulnerable" matters that much. If nothing in the setting can do more than 50 damage... then DR 50 fakes invulnerability. More importantly, if the things that do more than 50 damage technically exist in the setting, but they're unlikely to ever matter to the campaign (let alone individual gaming sessions), it is just easier to the GM to avoid putting your character into such a situation than dealing with the headache of balancing Invulnerability. If you have to buy so much DR that it isn't possible for your character to stay on budget, you probably need to rethink the character concept.
Oh, and there's a flipside to it as well; Disadvantages you can take to increase how much damage you take in a situation. Guess what a slug has? ;) Still, it was a good example; salt does affect humans, it just takes such an absurd amount that yeah, we seem "Invulnerable" or "Immune" to salt from the perspective of a slug. :)
I take an educated guess that in Aesir setting cosmic and gamma type of damage don't exist, and all Aesir simply "immune to anything not-magic." Why would any GM allow such race, and even make it playable, is beyond me. Justification "There are a lot of magic weapons around, so only SOME enemies can do absolutely nothing to you" I find very weak.
Yes, they are races that immune to certain types of damage, like phoenix immune to fire, undead to necrotic and God of Thunder to electric (duh). But just sit down and count how many immunities this completely fair and balanced Aesir race has. I'm not an master expert in DnD, but I can count quite a few: slashing, piercing, force, radiant, fire, cold, lightning, corrosive, necrotic damage, and I'm sure I forgot some. I'm sure I wouldn't be happy to face an enemy like that, even the Dreadful Gazebo had two weaknesses: fire and slashing.
And finally, that being racial immunities means Loki has them too. You know, the guy that is the Main. Villain. Of. The. Campaign. Imagine Kevin gathering the players ode the Earth campaign and saying" "Sorry I forgot to tell you, but you can't hurt the main villain in any way." A roleplayer can find a reason to stay, but I can see someone like Rob walking out this instant.
I'll be fair: such campaign can work. I did one myself, it was about finding a weapon that can hurt a Big Bad. But that's exactly why I know how many things can go bad with it.
The Aesir situation is definitely not what a certain giant purple man would call "perfectly balanced", but a couple clarifying points:
- Loki is not immune, he can be hurt by regular things like anyone else as long as you clear his AC (Steve was dealing damage on him despite nothing he has being any of those types). The immunities are exclusive to a sub-race Kris picked for Thor that is more combat-oriented. Even then it's not super-useful in the intended setting because;
- Eight of the nine realms are so steeped in magic that it's practically woven into the fabric of their world . You have to go out of your way to find a weapon that isn't magical. Most of the inhabitants count as magical (this is also why it hasn't come up before; except for when Thor was depowered on Earth, it was expected everything he encountered could theoretically bypass it, the bigger problem was the rest of his build meaning he'd kill most things before they could touch him).
- "Cosmic" in this setting is a secondary type that refers mostly to "space-associated energy". On the higher end of things this damage type can be dealt by the Infinity Gems and Celestials, but it also encompasses most forms of extra-terrestrial blasters and in space settings is just about as common as "magic" is in the Aesir setting. It's not the most common inside of the Nine Realms, but for any Aesir looking to branch out and explore beyond them it's a lot more of an issue. You're 100% on about "gamma" though, hardly anyone uses it as a damage type and it's mostly just there because someone up at Timely decided it should bypass most immunities/DR.
I actually expected your first point, but for different reason: I expected a revelation that Loki isn't Aesir, but Yotun, which would explain him not having the same immunities as Thor.
So my main point is now moot. But two problems still exist:
1. What is that sub-race that have so many immunities? Or is it several sub-races mixed together, making Thor a hybrid of many creatures? He can only get them from his father Odin, because he shares a mother with Loki. Which would also make Odin a hybrid, which can complicate things for Kevin. (I still can assume Kevin was tired and didn't look through Kris's character sheet hard enough. Or placed a bet on using Odin to put Thor in check).
2. Why did Kris even bothered with that sub-race in a setting so steeped in magic? Sounds like ineffective build. Which Kris wouldn't want to do.
1. Aesir sub-races are based more on culture and upbringing than anything else. Since they live way longer than even elves, the idea is that the differences between them are the result of them having spent most of their lives honing a particular set of skills. Also Loki's both adopted and polymorphed into an Aesir, so I'm a little confused why Frigga would matter in the discussion at all?
2. The sub-race had a particular trait that Thor wanted, and all the alternate traits he could have swapped the immunities out for were made redundant/useless thanks to other aspects of his build. So he stuck with that one figuring something that's almost completely useless was better than anything actually completely useless.
It'd be hard for him to pull off considering he's completely and totally incapable of building magic weapons. Banner or S.H.I.E.L.D. might be able to help create a cosmic or gamma-powered Thorbuster, but S.H.I.E.L.D. likely wouldn't trust Tony with that level of technology and Mark would just as soon pit Banner against Thor directly if it came to it.
First, Tony only need magic materials to build magic weapons, and magic exist in S.H.I.E.L.D. universe (Scarlet Witch says hello). Second, S.H.I.E.L.D. have no reason to trust the Hulk more then Tony. Third, roughly quoting Fury: "We need to be prepared because of (Thor)" If next day an army of Aesir attacks the Earth, the plan can't be "throw the Hulk at them and hope for the best". Fury should be ready to that possibility, and while Kevin wouldn't trust Rob with a weapon that does a different type of damage, Nick Fury has no choice but trust Tony.
To the first, touché, but he still needs access. And currently the closest access he has is S.H.I.E.L.D, which...
Well, to the second, I think even with Banner's "anger issues" it's still kind of a toss-up since Tony here is a former black market arms dealer. Plus I never said they'd trust Hulk more than Tony, just that Mark would be just as likely to let Banner fight Thor as make a gamma weapon for Tony.
And for the third... well, he already has weapons that meet the qualifications to hurt Thor. And he could just as easily hand those weapons to people like Natasha or Coulson. ;)
Hulk buster feels like the peak “Holy shit this new book has new spells for my class, I can now play a one man party” energy. This was my reaction to the UA wizard spell that let’s them summon leveled NPCs.
Author Notes:
For characters like Iron Man, Captain America, and the S.H.I.E.L.D. team, though? He's an (almost) unassailable brick wall.