Trying to work around a DM's restriction

[DracoSuave]

Poison immunity is always relevent to non-damaging effects of poison powers. Immunity explicitly mentions it by name.

Someone mentioned a weapon that makes the damage poison and acid which wont work because itll make the nondamaging parts poison effects and immunity doesnt work like resistance so the damage goes away too.

To remove the poison keyword all damage must be converted. Ongoing poison wont so the power wont lose the keyword and immunity will still stop the nondamaging parts.

 

[Arlough]

I don't understand your reasoning here. I think you have misunderstood the situation. He doesn't want to use a poison weapon. The powers of the paragon path deal poison damge. The proposal is to use a frost or lightning weapon to change the damage type to avoid the undead's poison immunity. Which I think is a valid option.

I had understood that:

a) A lightning Weapon CHANGES the damge type to Lightning, which means the power gains the Lightning Key Word.

Question: If the power is originally Poison, doesn't it lose the Poison Key Word as it no longer deals poison damage?
Question: If the damage type is changed to Lightning, even if the power retains the poison keyword, does that mean a creature immune to poison is unaffected by it.

Power (At-Will * Lightning): Free action. All damage dealt by this weapon is lightning damage. Another free action returns the damage to normal.

All it says is that it becomes lightning damage. It doesn't say "instead of its normal damage type" so I would take this to mean that if you used an attack with the Poison and Weapon keywords (or without the Weapon keyword, if you are able to use this as an implement), and activated this weapon's power, the attack keywords would be:
Lighning, Poison, Weapon
in addition to any other keywords present.

And, per the update on Resistance and Vulnerability

Resistance and Vulnerability
Page 276: Add the following two paragraphs to the end of the resistance section. These paragraphs help explain how resistance interacts with other types or the same type of resistance.
Against Combined Damage Types: Your resistance is ineffective against combined damage types unless you have resistance to each of the damage types, and then only the weakest of the resistances applies. For
example, if you have resist 10 lightning and resist 5 thunder and an attack deals 15 lightning and thunder damage to you, you take 10 damage, because the resistance to the combined damage types is limited by the lesser of the two resistances.

This update is designed to ensure the effect of multiple damage types is supposed to be an advantage to the attacker rather than an advantage to the defender. Though it doesn't mention immunity, I imagine that this would hold true there as well, so long as the keyword that the immunity addresses is not a delivery method (for example, if you add fire to a gaze attack, but the creature is immune to gaze, then the attack would never be delivered and thus, the fire damage would be irrelevant.)

Looking at the way that immunity changed from MM1 to MM2, I think they were heading in this direction as well. Then, it seems, they decided to just do away with immunity by the time MM3 came out (I haven't checked every monster, but immune is not in the glossary and the random monsters I flipped to all lacked immunities.) because, I'm guessing, it was getting too complicated for what they were trying to accomplish.

 

[DracoSuave]

Poison is different tho. Ignoring that immunity is not resistance and quoting resistance is irrelevent...

Immunity negates all poison damage. This part works like all other damage types. It then goes on to say that nondamaging effects with certain keywords are nullified by immunity to that keyword... that list includes charm, illusion, fear, and yes, poison.

The only way to remove the keyword is to cease to deal poison damage. As a controller poison is bad. Talking to the dm about it is the best solution

 

[jbear]

Okay, so just reread immunity and keywords more closely.

Poison, unfortunately is the only exception to the rule.

Cold could be replaced by lightning. Lightning key word would be gained and cold lost. Poison is not lost even though lightning is gained. Bummer ... because:

Immunity: A creature immune to poison is unaffected by non damaging effects of a power with the poison key word.

So, if I understand right ... you change the damage to say Lightning. The power gains the lightning key word but doesn't lose the poison key word. So the undead would not be immune to that damage, because it's lightning damage. But it would not be affected by the non-damagin effects of the power. Hence the reason DracoSuave says that poison sucks for controllers, and why this side step is pretty ineffectual.

So, yeah, if you're going to spend the whole time fighting Undead ... poison powers are a bad choice.

Wow, I knew Poison Damage was bad ... I didn't realise how bad. It takes the prize as the Worst damage type to deal as a PC I think.

 

[TheUltramark]

I've run into a bit of a problem in a campaign I'm currently in. I'm playing a druid, currently level 10, and very soon to be 11. I was really hoping to choose Coiled Serpent as my paragon path, as it fits in nicely with my character concept and within the group. There's just one problem with it, and that is the fact that our group really has a hard-on for defeating minions of Orcus. We fight a lot of undead.

Now, this wouldn't actually be a problem, except for our DM's hatred of Dragon Magazine. We are not allowed to choose any powers/feats/what-have-yous that come from only Dragon Magazine, so Assassin MC/Venom Hand Master is not an option. I was hoping that Heroes of Shadow would have something useful, but as far as I can tell that doesn't appear to be the case.

So, internet, do any of you know of any other way I could get around poison immunity, not using Dragon Magazine? Any number of feat spending is acceptable, at least to give me an idea of how it would have to happen, even if it's not worth it.

I just reread you original question
couldn't you acquire an item, or choose a power that deals radiant damage...just one...not your whole character, not who you are, but just an "undead tool" just part of the kit. Like "what poisons undead? - radiant energy!"
when in rome, make lemonade

 

[jbear]

I've just read the Coiled Serpent PP in question as well ... and it doesn't seem to be so problematic. The Frost/Lightning weapon seems to solve most of the problem.

Unless I'm missing some loophole where PP benefits also add keywords to powers (but I'm guessing this is not the case. Guessing. Repeat Guessing )

The weapon's at will power says " ALL damage dealt by this weapon is cold damage ... "

So ...

Serpent form Feature ... gain resist poison 15 in beast form and +5 stealth: Great, not affected whatsoever by undead or non undead poison immunity.

Snake Fang Action: AP used to make an attack, each target hit takes ongoing 10 poison damage. This does not mean the power in question gains the poison key word (as far as I know). So the powers effects remain effective vs undead. And If the weapon is your implement used to make the attack, one might argue that this extra damage is also dealt by the weapon, and hence it is also changed to cold. Hehehe ... I'm sure DracoSuave will have more to say on whether this is legal or not

lvl 16: Serpents Poison: Hit with melee attack in beast form; deal 2d6 extra poison damge. No mention of gaining the poison keyword. Again your frost Dagger that has melded with your body in beast form and become frost claws also can convert this damage to cold damage, as All damage dealt is turned to Cold damage. Right?

So the features seem to work.

lvl 11 power: No poison involved at all. All good.
Lvl 12. No poison. All good
Lvl 20: Fazing Fangs. Poison key word. so you'll do the dmg (turned to frost) but no effect (no dazing and hence no damaging them if they attack. Shrug ... surely you don't fight ONLY undead creatures ... Let this one rip as soon as you come up against non-undead enemies. Besides it's only one power.

WOrst case scenario, if DracoSuave throws my suppositions to the wind, then you seem to be gearing towards Sriker Beast Form type druid. So Blood Moon Stalker is not a terrible second option. No control whatsoever unfortunately.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Obviously the key conversations have to be between the OP and the DM.

My first reaction is that if there is a campaign which is clearly focussed in a particular direction, then it is foolish and selfish to set your mind on developing a character which won't fit with the theme. If the campaign is going to be undead heavy, then just don't build a character that concentrates on poison, end of story!

One of the problems, to my mind, of having all these extra powers and feats and such floating in from other sources is that damage types start becoming anodyne names with no meaning behind them - if bypassing resistances or immunities is just a feat or a prestige class /paragon path away, why bother with them at all?

But as I say - it is really down to a discussion with the OP and their DM... and why not choose to have something standard which can be fun in the campaign which *everyone else* wants to play?

Cheers

 

[Saeviomagy]

Poison applies to both damage and effects. It is unique in this.

This means that if you have a power that deals damage and has an effect, and it has the poison keyword, it will retain that keyword even if something changes all of the damage of the power to another type because the effects are still poison effects.

Additionally it means that if you change the damage of a power TO poison, then all of it's effects are now poison effects, so they do not work against poison immune creatures. The damage will still be a blend, but only poison applies to effects as well as damage.

In other words - you can't fix a poison power by changing it's damage type and changing a damage type to permanently include poison is usually a terrible idea.

 

[Saeviomagy]

... ... ...

Your rulings are a bit tortured: first you're claiming that the extra poison dealt isn't part of a power, then you're claiming that your frost weapon will convert it to frost.

The thing is that whether or not the damage is dealt by the weapon is a function of whether you're using a weapon power or an appopriate implement power. If the damage is just spontaeneously happening, then neither is the case and the weapon isn't dealing the damage. For either to be the case, the damage has to be part of the power, which means the power should be gaining the poison keyword...

The interpretation of a lot of these features becomes really difficult when you start in on damage types: for instance if I attack someone with a power and my path makes a hit deal extra fire damage does my attack have the fire keyword when I hit? Can I kill a troll with a hit? If someone has a +1 to defenses against fire keywords, do I apply the +1 or not?

 

[jbear]

Yep, ok, fair enough... unfortunately I think you're right. And yes, even I knew it was a bit tortured.

I guess it had to be to get around the DMs restriction.

So, in short: Sorry mate ... you're screwed.

Only option left? : Talk to DM (as stated be those wiser than me): Refluff PP to Coiled Lightning Serpent ... (begin to worship Coatls?) ... even offer giving up a feat slot to achieve this if your DM isn't quite convinced? Change all poison effects to Lightning.

To be honest, this is not a problem my players will ever run into. EVER. My commiserations.

Note: The exception of poison to the key word rule seems to make this all unnecessarily complex. It also seems to remove any power, class or path from a (informed) player's consideration because Poison is so heavily inferior compared to other damage types. While it completely makes sense that undead etc would have poison immunity, I'm not quite seeing why the side step to get around those limitations has been made singularly difficult. It seems make as little sense to be able to turn psychic damage to fire damage as it does poison to frost ...