touch of golden ice + lots of dex damage + undead = ?

[evilbob]

"Paralyzed" is a specific condition that can result from being affected by magic, poison, etc.; unfortunately, "paralyzed" is also a very useful descriptive word to describe someone who has lost the use of their muscles.

This is actually particularly tricky: effectively, these are the same thing - however, TYPO is making a distinction between "paralysis," a special ability that causes you to be paralyzed, and "being paralyzed," which is a condition that might be caused by any number of things. Undead are clearly immune to special abilities that cause "paralysis," but I don't know if anything can completely be immune to "being paralyzed" - take, for instance, an undead being frozen in a block of ice. Clearly, they have "been paralyzed," but not affected by something that causes "paralysis." Tricky.

To that point, I think that the intent of introducing Ravages and Afflictions was to allow ability damage to creatures (specifically evil creatures) that would normally be immune to such effects. Why else would the rules specifically indicate that undead take extra damage if they can't take any damage at all?

This is an excellent point.

 

[evilbob]

The quote from above about immunity to ability damage/drain was for creatures without a Con score.

I think it might be a bit over-reaching in its description; I think it might have meant it was immune to ability damage/drain to Con scores, not to anything. Here is something that I think backs this up:

Undead Type
# Not subject to critical hits, nonlethal damage, ability drain, or energy drain. Immune to damage to its physical ability scores (Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution), as well as to fatigue and exhaustion effects.

This would imply to me that perhaps undead could be affected by ravages that effect a mental score, thus giving a reason to take "extra" damage. But they could not be affected by ravages that effect physical scores, such as this one.

Other thoughts?

 

[lukelightning]

If you can accept that they affect undead, despite the fact that undead are immune to ability damage both by their type and by their lack of con score, then you might as well say it trumps their immunity to paralysis as well.

Other thoughts?

Yeah: the whole concept of ravages is flawed, the Touch of Golden Ice is SUPER flawed.

 

[Nail]

Flawed perhaps, but not over-powered. Touch of Golden Ice is weak at best.

 

[blargney the second]

An undead with 0 Dex isn't paralyzed, it just can't move. Problem solved!

 

[evilbob]

An undead with 0 Dex isn't paralyzed, it just can't move. Problem solved!

Actually, I think that's the distinction that TYPO is trying to make. However, something that cannot move is effectively "paralyzed" - thus the confusion.

lukelightning: Well, honestly I think it's not flawed - it's just 3.0. Stuff was made up on the fly with no respect for existing rules. This still happens now, but at least it's consistent.

Nail: It's weak due to the DC 14 save, but a nightmare for a DM. As-written it means that every single time a character attacks with a natural weapon (i.e. MONK) a DM has to roll a save. And most of the time it's pointless - you're just rolling to see if you get your 5% chance to roll a 1. Not to derail my own thread or anything...

 

[Nail]

Nail: It's weak due to the DC 14 save, but a nightmare for a DM. As-written it means that every single time a character attacks with a natural weapon (i.e. MONK) a DM has to roll a save. And most of the time it's pointless - you're just rolling to see if you get your 5% chance to roll a 1. Not to derail my own thread or anything...

Yup.

In a previous game, our VoP Monk took the feat. It was annoying...and useless. We started throwing things at the player......

 

[brehobit]

Nail: It's weak due to the DC 14 save, but a nightmare for a DM. As-written it means that every single time a character attacks with a natural weapon (i.e. MONK) a DM has to roll a save. And most of the time it's pointless - you're just rolling to see if you get your 5% chance to roll a 1. Not to derail my own thread or anything...

In my experiance it is pretty scary actually. A wildshaped druid with it is pretty scary against certain baddies (casters mainly). Even if they have a +10 for save (good at levels 6-10 for an arcane caster) they miss enough. And that drops AC. And that makes things short.

I do think it is overpowered.

Mark

 

[evilbob]

FYI: elementals are also "immune to paralysis." Evil elementals are specifically mentioned in the text as well.

So I guess I could re-ask this question, disregarding all BoED/3.0 cheese and wonkiness:

If an elemental that is immune to paralysis is effected by something that lowers its Dex score to zero, is it effectively paralyzed?

(Side question, with cheese: does golden ice work against undead?)

 

[TYPO5478]

...something that cannot move is effectively "paralyzed"...

Something that can't move is also effectively disabled, but that doesn't mean it has the "disabled" condition.