Hey,

Looking for some help:

Im not too keen on damage resistances unless important to maintain the credibility of a fight( fire doesnt hurt the fire elemental etc) as I think it slows down the fight and turns it into a bit of a slog which I hate.

In contrast, I rather like vulnerabilities, in particularly for bosses or difficult "monster hunt" style quests as it rewards the players for getting stuck into the world, investigating their quarry and doing their homework.

I've been approaching the more obvious elemental damage types from a loose interpretation of a "pokemon" style damage system (http://i.imgur.com/dM50AXZ.jpg). One of my players is a loremaster wizard so will enjoy working out the perfect element for each fight, and I have a druid who gets a kick out of min/maxing a fight so Id like to have a reasonably consistent, robust system to use.

As well as "elemental" attacks I would however like to reward players for having a variety of suitable physical damage types , perhaps by increasing the damage to *1.5 rather than *2. The monster manual has no real vulnerabilities like this(except skeletons), so I turn to you guys for ideas!

The simple examples that have been well received in my game thus far include

Griffon vulnerable to fire ( feathers/fur catch on fire, grounding it) Yellow musk creeper vul to fire ( a sharp sheild was embedded into its roots and had "heat metal" cast on it. I was so proud of my players I just instakilled it.) zombie type creature immune poison, vul to radiant

So the above are all very simple and obvious, but Id like to come up with ideas on how to introduce such vul/res to more conventional enemy groups examples might be - A foot solider may have no vul/res in particular, but his heavily armoured knight companion might be res to slashing, but 1.5 to piercing? Maybe vul to lightening given he is wrapped in metal? What types of enemies would you give the *1.5 bonus to with bludgeoning/slashing/piercing?

how would you approach a huge obese "strong Belwas" type character ?

Any other thoughts on the subject, or examples for me to steal from? Or is it a terrible idea?