Got a little issue I was hoping to get some help with, if anyone has the time. If you check out
my post a few pages back, you can see the basics of my game design. The issue I'm having is with the effectiveness of Status Effects.
Unlike a lot of RPG's, I'm keeping the numbers in my game small (for instance, a high damage value at max level will be around 12-15). One of the basic character attributes is Damage Reduction, which reduces incoming damage by anywhere from 1-5 points, maximum. The issue I'm having is trying to decide what the "Burning" effect should do. Every other elemental effect has some sort of penalty associated with it (for instance, Cold damage results in the Frostbite status effect, which causes the character to take additional damage). However, since Burning is just a straight damage-over-time effect, it becomes too common for characters with any sort of Damage Reduction to be able to ignore it completely.
I've considered having it ignore Damage Reduction, but that feels like the wrong choice. I've also considered having it always deal a minimum of 1 damage, which is the strongest solution so far. The only other choice I can really think of is just to let it ride, and allow characters with Damage Reduction to ignore Burning damage, which doesn't seem very balanced.