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

[FadedC]

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.

From what I can tell there is no such things as completely mindless undead in 4th edition. Skeletons for example have an int of 3 which makes them smarter then wolves. So they obviously have some kind of mind that can be attacked.

 

[Mad Mac]

From what I can tell there is no such things as completely mindless undead in 4th edition. Skeletons for example have an int of 3 which makes them smarter then wolves. So they obviously have some kind of mind that can be attacked.

Of course, this just brings up the all important question of what skeletons fear more than anything. Dogs? Clowns? Re-runs bumping new episode of their favorite television program?

 

[Garthanos]

Of course, this just brings up the all important question of what skeletons fear more than anything. Dogs? Clowns? Re-runs bumping new episode of their favorite television program?

fluffy cuddly bunnies of course, pink ones are the worst, shudder.

 

[Saeviomagy]

From what I can tell there is no such things as completely mindless undead in 4th edition. Skeletons for example have an int of 3 which makes them smarter then wolves. So they obviously have some kind of mind that can be attacked.

Well, mindlessness never really made much sense: if something is truly mindless, then how is it responding to stimuli?

As for what skeletons are afraid of? Whatever it is that turn undead does.

 

[FadedC]

Well, mindlessness never really made much sense: if something is truly mindless, then how is it responding to stimuli?

As for what skeletons are afraid of? Whatever it is that turn undead does.

Hmm yeah that always bothered me too about the whole mindless undead thing too. Or for that matter how are they skillfully wielding a weapon and attempting ot move out of the way of other people's attacks? Or understanding and interpreting spoken commands?

And yeah even "mindless" 3e skeletons and zombies have always been vulnerable to fear and cowering when a cleric was present. I guess it's one of those things where's it's easier for some people to accept a cleric doing it then an illusionist.

 

[DracoSuave]

It's not a big problem in the long run, for two -big- reasons.

One: Spellbook. You're in a place where there's a predominant majority of illusion-immune creatures? You swap out your dailies with the illusion keyword and go to town with your other powers.

Two: Your game has a DM. The DM shouldn't be setting up encounters where one character is completely ineffective unless there's a good reason. They certainly shouldn't set up adventures like that.

And even then, if they do, because of number 1, they can give information such as 'Your Nature check tells you that this section tends towards monsters that ignore your illusions.' Then you swap out.

 

[NMcCoy]

The glossary in MM states that a creature with immunity never takes damage from (thing that it's immune to) and can't suffer any other ill effects from a (thing it's immune to) attack.

Not quite - quoth the Compendium:

The monster has immunity to the stated kind of damage or effect. For example, a monster with “immune poison” never takes poison damage and can’t suffer any other ill effect from a poison attack.
​

After some discussion on another thread, I (personally at least) came to the conclusion that this means that a creature with Immune foo
A) Doesn't take foo damage, and
B) Ignores all ("any other") effects of a foo power that aren't straightforward damage.

Checking this against existing powers seems to validate the reasonableness of this interpretation: A creature immune to Fear takes the radiant damage from Dire Radiance, but is undaunted by its secondary effect, for example. Thus, you'd get your "Hit: XdY Psychic damage" on your illusion-immune enemies, but that's all it would do to them.

 

[DracoSuave]

Not quite - quoth the Compendium:

The monster has immunity to the stated kind of damage or effect. For example, a monster with “immune poison” never takes poison damage and can’t suffer any other ill effect from a poison attack.
​

After some discussion on another thread, I (personally at least) came to the conclusion that this means that a creature with Immune foo
A) Doesn't take foo damage, and
B) Ignores all ("any other") effects of a foo power that aren't straightforward damage.

Except that powers with foo keyword have foo effects, so the damage -is- a foo effect... regardless.

Checking this against existing powers seems to validate the reasonableness of this interpretation: A creature immune to Fear takes the radiant damage from Dire Radiance, but is undaunted by its secondary effect, for example. Thus, you'd get your "Hit: XdY Psychic damage" on your illusion-immune enemies, but that's all it would do to them.

Except that psychic damage is a fear effect, by dint of having a fear keyword. Compare/contrast with powers that have only parts of them explicitly laid out as effects of a different keyword.

 

[Ryujin]

If a power has the Illusion keyword but not the Psychic keyword, but does psychic damage, then I would buy that immunity to illusion would work. My feeling is that by the same logic that a power with two or more distinct damage types requires both resistances, a power with two or more keywords would require all applicable immunities.

 

[NMcCoy]

Except that psychic damage is a fear effect, by dint of having a fear keyword.

Perhaps so, but it's not "fear damage", nor is it "any other [i.e., non-damage] ill effect" of a fear power. If the psychic damage is a fear effect, then the lightning damage of Lightning Serpent must also be a poison effect, which seems questionable at best. (And for the record, WotC CustServ says that a creature immune to poison still takes the lightning damage.)