The advantages/disadvantages of making an 'untouchable'?

[Storyteller01]

I've been reading the Eisenhorn book series (WH40K) who employees untouchables, people immune to psycher abilities (their version of magic).


What would be the effects of creating PC's and/or NPC's that are effectively walking AMFs?

 

[Hussar]

Amf?

 

[hong]

Antimagic field. Get with the program, mang!

 

[Storyteller01]

Anti-magic fields

 

[jensun]

Anything that makes members of your party hopelessley ineffective and forces them to sit their doing nothing but twiddling their thumbs in inherently unfun for the player.

So, while it may have lots of interesting social and economic consequences for a world its not something I could ever see myself using.

 

[Storyteller01]

Could you describe how this makes them ineffective?

 

[EyeontheMountain]

I would say it is a bad idea.

When I played Oriental adventures, there was supposed to be a strict social stratum, with Samurai up top and everyone below.

Well, a party of all Saurai ius not too effective, but most people would not put up with being in the lower stratum and bowing and scraping to their 'betters'.

So having people of differnt social classes who use the abiliteis of these calsses is asking for trouble in my opinion.

This is ignoring the rules based problems obviously.

 

[ajanders]

Well, if you play it the way Abnett describes Bequin's untouchability, the character would be surrounded by a relatively small (5-10 foot radius) antimagic field, as described here:
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/antimagicField.htm

At a minimum, this means the character can't cast spells, use magical items, or recieve any beneficial spells: no teleporting with the party, no bull's strength, fly, protection from energy, and, most urgently, no magic healing.

In addition, other characters would be unable to cast spells, use magical items, or be affected by beneficial spells near the character. Arcane or divine spellcasters in the party would be critically affected, as would anybody who needs a magic weapon to, say pierce someone's damage resistance.

If you're playing a d20 modern game, where magic is special, as opposed to necessary, it's workable.
In a D&D game, the character's limitations not only hinder the character, they hinder the rest of the party.

Hopefully this clarifies the situation for those unclear.

 

[hong]

OTOH, a melee brute monster with this "untouchability" thing could be awesome.

 

[jensun]

Could you describe how this makes them ineffective?

If you make them as an npc opponent you are pretty much saying to your spell casting PC's, neenah, neenah, you cant do anything. I despise dead magic zones for pretty much the same. They are a simplistic and cludgy way to make encounters more difficult which doesnt require the players or the GM to think.

If you make them as a pc class then you are pretty much srewed. You cant be healed, you cant fly, you have to walk or ride everywhere while the other players are teleporting about. The closest thing we have currently in 3e is the VoP which at least gives you some of the bonuses a typical PC of that level might want and is still fairly underpowered.