Another Immortals Handbook thread

[Wolv0rine]

Hiya mate!
According to one website I visited, hypothermia can lead to confusion and disorientation.

Well, keep it in perspective, UK mate... so does getting hit by a baseball bat, a severe burn, suffocation, and pretty much anything else that causes a significant amount of damage to the body.
Having suffered a minor case of frostbite in my youth, I can tell you that recovering from the experience was significantly worse than the discomfort that caused it. It was in fact many hours later until I realized that anything was wrong, when I couldn't warm my hands up no matter what I did, cold water burned, and the pain started to build. Until then, it was just like being really cold.

 

[Alzrius]

I think it makes perfect sense. For starters the Plane of Fire isn't a big fireball (or Sun for that matter). If it was, the City of Brass would melt.

I disagree. I think the Plane of Fire should be considered at least as hot as the sun. The City of Brass just has fire immunity.

Gaining a new power/item is not a creative solution, and forcing players to gain power 'x' to overcome enemy 'y' is contrived and tantamount to railroading.

I disagree with this also. The idea of going on an epic quest to retrieve a legendary item (or spell, or power, or find a proper location) is much older than D&D. The One Ring had immunity to damage, not just a large amount of hardness, otherwise tossing it into any volcano (or otherwise inflicting any large amount of damage) would have done the job, and the book would have been much shorter. Laying down the basis or an adventure isn't railroading.

Much worse, IMHO, is that by reducing immunities to resistances, you encourage players to powergame to try and get massive amounts of damage. They start thinking in terms of [feat X + (spell Y * magic item Z)] = 700 points of fire damage, 200 of which will beat the creature's resistance!

Wrong.

By removing the absolute nature of an immunity you make its acquisition less important.

Player's won't seek to gain resistances any less than they will immunities if you remove immunities totally. All that does is take away a large degree of power from higher-level PCs and NPCs. Things are much less epic when even a sentient sun can be burned.

But you are not working within any boundaries, you are closing off one section and opening another. Which means you are alienating everything thats come before.

Closing off a section tends to mean that that's a boundary, which is what an immunity is. I'm not sure what you mean by "opening another" and I certainly don't see how retaining immunities alienates what came before.

You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink.

But fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

If we had as many people playing immortal campaigns as non-immortal campaigns I am sure the problem would have been recognised long ago.

Supposition, there's nothing to support that...the same way there's nothing to support that this is even a problem at all. I don't see how this makes a game break down...some options to DMs will be closed, and to players also, but nowhere near anything bad enough to ruin the game...all the moreso since I think, to a limited degree, immunities should have circumstances where they can be overcome.

You are dodging the obvious here. Lets say for the sake of argument the giant is holding his breath - or if the gets hit by a spell that duplicates the effects of the big bang, according to you the giant is okay...am I correct?

In all honesty, I don't see the problem with fire giants living on the sun. I can see all sorts of fire creatures living there. They had that in Spelljammer, and it seemed fine then, as now. CRGreathouse made a good point about the Big Bang though.

A fire would even be destroyed by a much hotter fire.

Hey, if you want MegaFlames, you're welcome to them.

So I can have MegaFlames, but not MegaFlame Immunity.

Yes. To put it otherwise, use common sense regarding immunities and immunity-breakers. Even a novice DM should be able to stop it before it gets to the level of nonsense that SKR is saying will destroy a game.

It says that my use of words differing from yours is a sort of microcosm of this argument - in that everything to you is black and white.

Everything to me is not black and white, and you have no basis for ascribing that to me. Don't try and portray yourself as having the more "colorful" option just because I disagree with you.

Well for the record a lot of the immunities in D&Dg were not present in the IH. But I must admit SKRs article was revelatory.

Sometimes its difficult to see the wood for the trees.

SKR's big problem wasn't even immunities, IMHO. It was that there are effects that grant something, counter-effects that negate it, counter-counter-effects that negate the negation, etc.

If you have Manyshot, but an enemy has a magic item that negates your Manyshot against him, but you have a spell that negates that magic item's power, but he has a class ability that negates that spell (ad naseum), the answer is not to change the whole ranged combat system.

...and how many 100 year old SUVs do you see being driven on the roads?

As CRGreathouse said, this is my point.

Well I am thinking more along the lines or reticence and trepidation rather than fear and panic.

Again, please don't tell me what my motives are. I'm not the one fearing that existing immunities will break an epic/immortal game.

I think its quite clearly an improvement. I thought SKRs article did a great job of pointing out the illogic of absolutes.

I don't think he had any real point at all...just that he didn't like the way people would find a way to overcome an absolute. Removing absolutes for them to overcome is not the answer, IMHO.

If they don't adapt that is.

The point being that they died off quickly because they didn't adapt...hence why they're freakish creatures.

 

[Kavon]

Hey U_K, got a little observation to share (might be interesting, dunno )

I was thinking about the temperature table and such, and I thought of something nice (at least I think so).
What if you don't put the base at 0-30 ish degrees Celcius, but at 0 Kelvin?

It would be more logical to start at the bare minimum, I think (non-movement increasing to ever more movement).

Also, wouldn't it be more logical to give creaturs 'comfort zones' of temperature?

i.e. the Fire Giant might be quite alright at, say, 400-450 Kelvin, but at 370 Kelvin, he'd be 'freezing' his butt off, since it would be below his 'comfort zone', and he'd be burning up at more than 450-460 ish Kelvin.

This.. seems to make sense to me, at least, since what is 'hot' and 'cold' is relative to the subject, right?

Interesting? Ridiculous? Something else? :B



Oh, and about the immunities.. I'd say that in an ever increasing power level, immunities don't really work that well, since after a while you'd be practically immune to everything.. What would the point be after that? o_o

In a non-epic game, immunities are fine, though (^OO)>

Edit: This reminds me of the stats/no-stats for deity debate, btw.. it's basically the same thing, I'd say.

 

[Kerrick]

According to one website I visited, hypothermia can lead to confusion and disorientation.

Wolvy's right. Hypothermia does lead to confusion and disorientation, but that's what happens when your body starts to shut down and you aren't getting enough blood to the brain. That falls under Con, not Wis.

I disagree, I see this as more a matter of opinion than any major flaw in the game that can be conclusively said to ruin the experience. I admit I haven't any data or anything to back that up, save to say that prior to SKR's article, no one seemed to think this.

I don't know how long or how often you've been checking epic boards, but I've seen the complaints. Not often, granted, but I have seen them, and epic players do consider it a problem. I'll bet if you posted a poll here or over at the Wizards boards, you'd get a lot of people who agree.

In regards to the god of fire not being able to burn a fire giant...I can certainly see the case for that. A creature with the fire subtype is, to me, partially made of fire (perhaps not physically, but it's part of their essence), so it couldn't burn them.

A fire would even be destroyed by a much hotter fire.

Or to put it another way... you can melt obsidian or basalt, which are volcanic rocks, in lava. Yes, it'll take a while, but it can be done. That is the point UK is trying to illustrate - no matter how "immune" something is to energy, it can still be worn down by the application of enough (either in quantity or quality) of that type of energy. You talk about logic - ask a random D&D player, if you threw a fire giant into the sun, would it die? and he would likely say yes, simply because it's not logically feasible for that giant to survive several million degrees, immunity to fire notwithstanding. As for the god thing, you could easily assume that he has a feat/ability that enables him to overcome any kind of fire immunity - there's a feat in Sandstorm called Searing Spell that enables the caster to overcome fire resistance, or deal half damage to a creature with fire immunity. It's a non-epic feat. From what I've heard, there's one like it in Frostburn, too.

SKR's big problem wasn't even immunities, IMHO. It was that there are effects that grant something, counter-effects that negate it, counter-counter-effects that negate the negation, etc.

Like inventing feats to get around energy immunity?

Yes. To put it otherwise, use common sense regarding immunities and immunity-breakers. Even a novice DM should be able to stop it before it gets to the level of nonsense that SKR is saying will destroy a game.

That's the problem, Alzrius. Take a look around the boards sometime (and don't mean just these ones). I hate to say it, but there are some damn stupid DMs out there, or DMs who are unwilling (or unable) to say "no" to their players, and then complain when the game gets out of hand and they don't know what to do because the PCs are too powerful. Or novice DMs who don't know any better until it's too late. Just because you know how to play the game doesn't mean you have a decent grasp of game balance (as the sadly large number of crappy products attests to).

I disagree. I think the Plane of Fire should be considered at least as hot as the sun. The City of Brass just has fire immunity.

If that were the case, humans wouldn't be able to go there at all, unless they had rings of elemental immunity (epic items, BTW).

Gaining a new power/item is not a creative solution, and forcing players to gain power 'x' to overcome enemy 'y' is contrived and tantamount to railroading.

I disagree with this also. The idea of going on an epic quest to retrieve a legendary item (or spell, or power, or find a proper location) is much older than D&D.

I have to say that I agree with Alzrius on this count. Going on a great quest to secure the Magic Thingamabob to kill the Great Whoozits has been a staple of fantasy for centuries. BUT, these quests should be special - the Great Whoozits is a unique creature, probably the end battle in a grand campaign arc. BUT (again) a DM shouldn't be throwing creatures like this against the party every other adventure, or it would be "contrived and tantamount to railroading".

Much worse, IMHO, is that by reducing immunities to resistances, you encourage players to powergame to try and get massive amounts of damage. They start thinking in terms of [feat X + (spell Y * magic item Z)] = 700 points of fire damage, 200 of which will beat the creature's resistance!

But

Even a novice DM should be able to stop it before it gets to the level of nonsense

that you're talking about. But you still use immunity? Okay... the party mage took Searing Spell - he's still dealing 700 points of fire damage, 350 of which will beat the creature's resistance on a failed save. Players will find a way around any solution you can come up with; UK's looks to be the most tenable for game balance and enjoyment as a whole.

Also, wouldn't it be more logical to give creaturs 'comfort zones' of temperature?

I like this idea - go with Kelvin, then assign "comfort zones" based on types and/or subtypes (a fire elemental, or some being that lives on the Plane of Fire, would have a higher zone than a creature with the Fire subtype, e.g.).

Eh, I don't think that's a problem, Kerr. ... Of course, if one doesn't want to go that far, it doesn't make much sense to Begin the process, granted.

Yeah, I'm of the latter school. Course, since UK is doing all the work here, I'll just sit back and wait to see what he comes up with.

 

[Anabstercorian]

Yeah, I'm of the latter school. Course, since UK is doing all the work here, I'll just sit back and wait to see what he comes up with.

If you just sit back and wait, he'll never come up with anything. You must strike him daily with this bamboo switch or he will wander without end from subject to subject, never completing any, endlessly seizing on new cognitive fads and forever at the mercy of his flightful mind. For his own good, out of love, strike him. If you meet the Buddha on the road, you must kill him.

 

[Alzrius]

I don't know how long or how often you've been checking epic boards, but I've seen the complaints. Not often, granted, but I have seen them, and epic players do consider it a problem.

If you're referring to some of the stuff over on the WotC board, all the ones I can remember were about players bemoaning that their PC came up against a monster with an immunity to something they had. Not quite what I'd call a game-breaker.

Or to put it another way... you can melt obsidian or basalt, which are volcanic rocks, in lava. Yes, it'll take a while, but it can be done. That is the point UK is trying to illustrate - no matter how "immune" something is to energy, it can still be worn down by the application of enough (either in quantity or quality) of that type of energy.

That's the real-world physics explanation, but I don't feel that means it should apply to D&D. It seems silly, to me, to say that the Plane of Fire isn't as hot as the sun; and by extension, it seems silly that a fire giant could walk around on the Plane of Fire just fine, but be scorched by the sun.

D&D laws don't work by wearing down resistance. Something with fire resistance 10 will never be scorched by 5 points of fire damage every round, no matter the "quality" of the energy, nor how long it lasts (the "quantity"). Now, increase that resistance to infinity (e.g. immunity), and it doesn't matter if he's in the sun.

You talk about logic - ask a random D&D player, if you threw a fire giant into the sun, would it die? and he would likely say yes, simply because it's not logically feasible for that giant to survive several million degrees, immunity to fire notwithstanding.

I wish that GIF I'd tried to post had come through. "Everytime you drag real physics into a discussion about a fantasy comic, God kills a catgirl. Please, think of the catgirls." This isn't a comic, but the same sentiment applies. The immunity to fire is withstanding...immunity shouldn't have a natural breaking point.

there's a feat in Sandstorm called Searing Spell that enables the caster to overcome fire resistance, or deal half damage to a creature with fire immunity. It's a non-epic feat. From what I've heard, there's one like it in Frostburn, too.

Which I have no problem with. I admit that I may have been unclear on why though.

Having a specialty feat (or spell, or item, etc.) isn't something I see as a problem, because it's inherently restrictive. If one PC takes Searing Spell, that PC alone is overcoming fire immunity (at which point, since he's only doing half damage to fire creatures with fire spells, the creature basically already has fire resistance of [1/2 total damage]). Contrast this to having a creature just have a resistance...now every PC can potentially deal fire damage to a fiery creature, and without having to give up a feat to do so. The creature is that much less challenging now.

That's the problem, Alzrius. Take a look around the boards sometime (and don't mean just these ones). I hate to say it, but there are some damn stupid DMs out there, or DMs who are unwilling (or unable) to say "no" to their players, and then complain when the game gets out of hand and they don't know what to do because the PCs are too powerful. Or novice DMs who don't know any better until it's too late. Just because you know how to play the game doesn't mean you have a decent grasp of game balance (as the sadly large number of crappy products attests to).

Which is no reason to change an aspect of the system.

If that were the case, humans wouldn't be able to go there at all, unless they had rings of elemental immunity (epic items, BTW).

Assuming you mean the City of Brass, the city is an enclosed space (IIRC), so the outside fire doesn't get it, since the immunity of the city's borders keep it at bay.

But that you're talking about. But you still use immunity? Okay... the party mage took Searing Spell - he's still dealing 700 points of fire damage, 350 of which will beat the creature's resistance on a failed save. Players will find a way around any solution you can come up with; UK's looks to be the most tenable for game balance and enjoyment as a whole.

Well, first of all, it's really SKR's solution. That said, I see it as less tenable than the existing method for reasons described above. The loss of power for the creatures is more than just the totality of changing an immunity to a resistance. If a creature is supposed to be composed of fire, which reflects its nature better...a single PC only getting around that by expending a feat slot to do half fire damage, or letting all PCs do fire damage for no costs, so long as its enough to beat the resistance?

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hey Wolv0rine dude!

Eh, I don't think that's a problem, Kerr. If you're going so far as to add an effect based on logical conclusion to the white dragon's cold breath (possible freezing), it's a simple matter to add such effects to other breath weapons; a victim of a fire breath will contune to burn until put out (and suffer from burn wounds until healed), a victim of acid breath will continue to..well.. burn (and also suffer burn wounds), etc. You just have to go that far. Of course, if one doesn't want to go that far, it doesn't make much sense to Begin the process, granted.

I don't think fire damage would continue to burn you, flesh would melt rather than burn, hair might burn, some clothes perhaps. Acid and Fire damage may heal much slower than normal wounds...?

I think creating optional damage structures for each of the energy types might be interesting, although its not my priority at the moment.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hey CRGreathous mate!

I don't really like this setup, as I don't think the fire giant should have the fire subtype in the first place. In the case of a creature such as a fire elemental, though, I don't think that any level of fire or heat as such should be able to harm it -- although possibly some fire creatures (probably not a fire elemental, though) could be 'extinguished' by having another fire consume all the oxygen in the area.

Thats good enough for me, if thats the way you want to colour it.

The big bang would kill just about any reasonable creature; the temperature is the least of its effects. The pressure from the rapid expansion would deal millions of dice of damage, and the radiation would do dozens if not hundreds of dice of Con damage.

Yes but what if I am a Shape of Fire? Am I okay or am I extinguished?

I think that was actually his original point.

Give me a break - I don't understand every Americanism. I even had to look SUV up.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hello again!

Well, keep it in perspective, UK mate... so does getting hit by a baseball bat, a severe burn, suffocation, and pretty much anything else that causes a significant amount of damage to the body.

Heres a different site from the one I initially went to,

http://www.searoom.com/cold1.htm

it also mentions:

34-35 degree body temp: judgment capability impaired, but is still alert

31-33 degree body temp: + speech is slow, vague, slurred + mental confusion and apathy is present + drowsiness and strange behaviour occurs + breathing is slower and more shallow

Less than 31 degree body temp: + marked lack of coordination + may show signs of clouded consciousness or may become unconscious.

Having suffered a minor case of frostbite in my youth, I can tell you that recovering from the experience was significantly worse than the discomfort that caused it. It was in fact many hours later until I realized that anything was wrong, when I couldn't warm my hands up no matter what I did, cold water burned, and the pain started to build. Until then, it was just like being really cold.

Frostbite is different from Hypothermia though.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hi Alzrius mate!

I disagree. I think the Plane of Fire should be considered at least as hot as the sun. The City of Brass just has fire immunity.

All your equipment would melt/burn within the 1st round. So would any treasure the efreeti captured.

I disagree with this also. The idea of going on an epic quest to retrieve a legendary item (or spell, or power, or find a proper location) is much older than D&D. The One Ring had immunity to damage, not just a large amount of hardness, otherwise tossing it into any volcano (or otherwise inflicting any large amount of damage) would have done the job, and the book would have been much shorter. Laying down the basis or an adventure isn't railroading.

I think that Warlock (the movie with Julian Sands) has a good example of trying to destroy an artifact (some pages from a grimoire) wherein they just kept regenerating. Personally I like the idea of being able to sunder an artifact into pieces without it being totally destroyed, although you still need to be able to damage the thing in the first place. The one ring may have had DR 40, Regeneration 40 for instance.

Much worse, IMHO, is that by reducing immunities to resistances, you encourage players to powergame to try and get massive amounts of damage.

So you are saying at the moment players are trying to get low amounts of damage are you? LOL

They start thinking in terms of [feat X + (spell Y * magic item Z)] = 700 points of fire damage, 200 of which will beat the creature's resistance!

Players are always looking for an advantage, but when you allow that advantage to totally negate a percentage of the game you set a dangerous precedent wherein the challenges you set can be overcome with little or no risk whatsoever.

Player's won't seek to gain resistances any less than they will immunities if you remove immunities totally. All that does is take away a large degree of power from higher-level PCs and NPCs.

It means that such attacks are still poignant at high levels. Zeus thunderbolts still have a purpose. It means that epic level diviners, enchanters, illusionists, necromancers and transmuters are not totally hamstrung. It means sneak attack still has a point.

Things are much less epic when even a sentient sun can be burned.

Surely things are more epic (and dangerous) because of it!

Closing off a section tends to mean that that's a boundary, which is what an immunity is.

Exactly and in closing off a boundary you close off the threat of all associations with it - spells, monsters, items. Therefore immunities remove options from the hands of the DM. At immortal level you have so many immunities that the game will either reach a bottleneck or becomes an endless spiral of trumping.

I'm not sure what you mean by "opening another" and I certainly don't see how retaining immunities alienates what came before.

It is the steady accruement of immunities that will inevitably paint you into a corner.

But fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

A chain is no stronger than its weakest link.

Supposition, there's nothing to support that...the same way there's nothing to support that this is even a problem at all. I don't see how this makes a game break down...some options to DMs will be closed, and to players also, but nowhere near anything bad enough to ruin the game...all the moreso since I think, to a limited degree, immunities should have circumstances where they can be overcome.

Virtually every epic monster has its special abilities negated - becoming little more than a combat monkey.

In all honesty, I don't see the problem with fire giants living on the sun. I can see all sorts of fire creatures living there. They had that in Spelljammer, and it seemed fine then, as now. CRGreathouse made a good point about the Big Bang though.

Hey, if you want MegaFlames, you're welcome to them.

What about MegaMegaFlames though?

Yes. To put it otherwise, use common sense regarding immunities and immunity-breakers. Even a novice DM should be able to stop it before it gets to the level of nonsense that SKR is saying will destroy a game.

I don't see a point to having the temptation in the first place.

Everything to me is not black and white, and you have no basis for ascribing that to me. Don't try and portray yourself as having the more "colorful" option just because I disagree with you.

I find it incredible that my initial light-hearted comment has lead to such an acerbic avenue of discourse.

SKR's big problem wasn't even immunities, IMHO.

His problem was with absolutes in general, 'not just' immunities.

It was that there are effects that grant something, counter-effects that negate it, counter-counter-effects that negate the negation, etc.

If you have Manyshot, but an enemy has a magic item that negates your Manyshot against him, but you have a spell that negates that magic item's power, but he has a class ability that negates that spell (ad naseum), the answer is not to change the whole ranged combat system.[/QUOTE]

Is your solution to present an infinitely long list of reversals that, in and of themselves, add nothing?

Instead of MegaFlames, Mega Flames Immunity, MegaMegaFlames, MegaMegaFlames Immunity (none of which add anything and are all self-referential) its better to simply increase fire damage and fire resistance.

As CRGreathouse said, this is my point.

Too coloquial an example, the gist of what you were trying to say was clearly lost upon me it seems.

Again, please don't tell me what my motives are. I'm not the one fearing that existing immunities will break an epic/immortal game.

Courage is acting in the face of fear.

I don't think he had any real point at all...just that he didn't like the way people would find a way to overcome an absolute. Removing absolutes for them to overcome is not the answer, IMHO.

Surely thats exactly the answer!

The point being that they died off quickly because they didn't adapt...hence why they're freakish creatures.

...and how have you adapted to the fact that absolutes are illogical?