Illusionist Wizards - What about all the monsters that are immune?

[Ryujin]

As I see it, an attack that does psychic damage and that has a secondary effect involves the psychic damage acting like a can-opener, to open the way for the after effect. Once you've pried open the opponent's 'head', you're then free to mess around a little. So I guess I'm with WalterKovacs on that; apply damage, but not the riders that would accompany illusion for a creature that has immunity.

Or you take a page out of the errata for resistance and say that unless you have immunity to all applicable keywords, you still take the effects.

 

[yesnomu]

Or you take a page out of the errata for resistance and say that unless you have immunity to all applicable keywords, you still take the effects.

At that point, though, you're making illusion immunity effectively useless without corresponding psychic immunity, and there is no monster yet printed with both.

I like the "take the damage, but no other effects" idea, although for stuff like Phantasmal Assailant it might be better to give nothing at all. I can see this one being more case-by-case.

 

[ppaladin123]

A decent number of monsters are immune to fear. A few of the choice illusion powers have the fear keyword sadly.

 

[Vicar In A Tutu]

How come mindless undead are not immune to psychic damage?

Illusionist: "Casts Grasping Shadows"
Mindless Skeleton: Oh no, the horror, the horror! (takes 9 psychic damage)

From the Monster Manual (p. 234): "... a skeleton is emotionless and soulless". The emotionless skeleton is, BTW, not immune or even resistant to fear.

 

[franzel]

Truesight: The monster automatically sees through illusions within the specified range (in squares) and within its line of sight. ~MM

41 creatures with truesight by compendium

Wow. This was stealth errata'd without anything in release notes. From the new MM:

Truesight: The monster can see invisible creatures and objects within the specified range and within its line of sight.

Guess the only problem are the few creatures just flat-out immune.

 

[Nebulous]

How come mindless undead are not immune to psychic damage?

Illusionist: "Casts Grasping Shadows"
Mindless Skeleton: Oh no, the horror, the horror! (takes 9 psychic damage)

From the Monster Manual (p. 234): "... a skeleton is emotionless and soulless". The emotionless skeleton is, BTW, not immune or even resistant to fear.

Good point. You could argue that it is magical fear and causes it to "remember" what fear was like, and thus suffer some psychic damage. Personally, i'd rather just make them resistant or immune. It wouldn't come up so often that it would be a problem.

 

[DracoSuave]

Looking through the Monster Manual, I noticed quite a few monsters that are immune to illusions or have true seeing. Considering this, is making an illusionist wizard really such a good idea?

Answer: The Spellbook Class feature.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Answer: The Spellbook Class feature.

Question: what class feature can be used to avoid the DM maliciously punishing me for taking illusions, when psychic damage should work just fine?

 

[KarinsDad]

Question: what class feature can be used to avoid the DM maliciously punishing me for taking illusions, when psychic damage should work just fine?

It's not a class feature.

It's a common sense PC design feature.

If one creates a PC that has only one schtick, sooner or later that PC is going to be in trouble when an encounter is resistant to that schtick.

An illusionist should pick good illusion powers, but should not pick only illusion powers. He should mix and match a few other powers in there.

 

[keterys]

It surely seems to me like the illusionist is in better straits than the fire or cold specialist. In fact, it seems to me that the illusionist is in a better situation than the wizard who has a wide variety of powers, because psychic resistance and immunity to illusions is extraordinarily rare.