A change to vorpal immunity mechanics

[HarveyMilk]

Everyone knows that blanket immunities are bad. But, how to change?

Make each mob take a certain number of vorpal strikes. Make each one different so we get to discover the details of the mechanic as we kill.

Vorpal immune 6-man trash = about 10 vorpals kills the mob, some less, some more

Vorpal immune 12-man trash = about 20

Vorpal immune 6-man red names = 30-60

Raid bosses = about 100

Epic Raid bosses = about 200

It would be really fun to be about done taking eDQ down and some assassin III rogue or pale master get a lucky vorpal. I'm including all instant death effects here.

Devs could even write a bunch of fun descriptions to make watching the Z button window useful, while still not knowing the exact number of vorps left. Would be fun with charged gauntlets on too, so you can shout out whenever you get a vorp, in case the group knows how many vorps a certain mob/boss takes and is keeping track, before asking the casters to unleash a bunch of fingers/wails/fods/destructions.

I don't want to go back to the pre-epic vorpal/insta-death domination, I just want it to be an interesting mechanic still.

[jwdaniels]

I'm not sure you realize quite how vorpal works - you do realize that you have to roll a 20 to-hit with a vorpal weapon to insta-kill, and that assumes you're not dealing with a big named boss that is immune. 10 vorpal hits should, on average, require 200 swings, which will result in 180 hits and most likely do enough damage to bring down any 6-man trash I've seen.

The vorpal mechanic is lifted straight from pen and paper and goes back to the 1970's. I don't think it's unbalanced at all. It doesn't work on every type of mob and it only goes off 5% of the time. Most melee-types will kill mobs faster, and most non-melee types have other insta-kill effects that they can use without entering melee.

[dkyle]

Vorpal weapons should continue to work as they do. If you want to insta-kill something immune to them, use smiters or disrupters.

Assassin III vs Undead or Constructs, I'd say keep as is. SA doesn't work on those, so it's reasonable their super-sneak-attack on 20s doesn't either

Assassin III vs Bosses, on the other hand, I'd like to see give extra damage on 20s. Every PrE should be designed to have something to offer in boss fights, as these generally are the most challenging parts of DDO. The extra sneak attack dice from the Assassin line is at least better than what some PrEs get, but the key feature of Assassin IIIs shouldn't be useless against bosses.

[Khanyth]

Just dumb.

If you have deathblock, should 6 mobs be able to kill you if they each land a death spell on you?

[patang01]

I dunno, this sounds like a bad idea. In essence, anything that is immune against vorpals either have something like DW or deathblock on. If we can vorpal stuff that is normally immune then it means they should be able to do the same to us.

Vorpal is a weapon that cuts a head off. It would be wierd if we're required to cut the same head off 10 times before it actually dies and you're more likely to kill it faster with regular weapons instead.

I rather have specialized weapons that lower crit range slightly instead beyond keen. Like a barbed arrow or weapon just to make it unique instead of a change to vorpal that can make it kill red named.

Limb chopper for the world.

Come to think of it - make limbchopper and vorpal more visual instead. make the head or limb fly off. Gruesome for sure.

[Chai]

Vorpal weapons should continue to work as they do. If you want to insta-kill something immune to them, use smiters or disrupters.

Assassin III vs Undead or Constructs, I'd say keep as is. SA doesn't work on those, so it's reasonable their super-sneak-attack on 20s doesn't either

Assassin III vs Bosses, on the other hand, I'd like to see give extra damage on 20s. Every PrE should be designed to have something to offer in boss fights, as these generally are the most challenging parts of DDO. The extra sneak attack dice from the Assassin line is at least better than what some PrEs get, but the key feature of Assassin IIIs shouldn't be useless against bosses.

I think they need to make the other two rogue PRE more useful before we start handing assassin some more goodies. I dont like the thought of one PRE being king and the others low on the totem pole unless they serve some other purpose. I can get 99% of all traps a mechanic can get on my assassin and wiz18 rog2 is as good if not better DC, and immunity to knockdown doesnt make up for the difference in DPS on an accrobat.

[jwdaniels]

Come to think of it - make limbchopper and vorpal more visual instead. make the head or limb fly off. Gruesome for sure.

This was the best part of Age of Conan. Unfortunately, I think the game would lose it's T for teen rating if they made it more gruesome.

[CaptainPurge]

Come to think of it - make limbchopper and vorpal more visual instead. make the head or limb fly off. Gruesome for sure.

+1 I've always said they need some kind of visual, be it a head flying off (requiring animation updates for every single monster in the game susceptible to vorpalling - and hence too intensive for Turbine to want to deal with), or some other identifier similar to the Slay Living skull graphic overhead upon proc.

[HarveyMilk]

Maybe I was too broad in my op.

I meant a change to epic and red-named inherent vorpal immunity, not deathward. If some enemy has a normal deathward, cast by a cleric enemy or on an item, that's fine. I think blanket immunities are bad.

[dkyle]

I think they need to make the other two rogue PRE more useful before we start handing assassin some more goodies. I dont like the thought of one PRE being king and the others low on the totem pole unless they serve some other purpose. I can get 99% of all traps a mechanic can get on my assassin and wiz18 rog2 is as good if not better DC, and immunity to knockdown doesnt make up for the difference in DPS on an accrobat.

Obviously Mechanic and Acrobat need help. That doesn't mean improvements to the Assassin PrE aren't worth discussing in a topic about Assassin III and other insta-death effects. Assassin is clearly superior to the other Rogue PrEs, but I don't think it's quite up to par with Kensai and FB.

[Cyr]

I see little reason to single out vorpal as an effect to bypass immunities.

If you are going to go down the path of eliminating insta-death immunities then you should do it across the board in an organized manner. The most common suggestion I have seen is a set damage instead of insta-death against immune targets (with PC's often given a much favorable number due to the massive mob hp/pc hp ratio).

The basic premise of the OP's suggestion is flawed in that it provides no noticable benefit for those using vorpals (the mobs would be long dead before it went off) against normally immune mobs and therefore would serve no purpose besides keeping a developer busy for a little bit coding it.

[Rodasch]

Make vorpal strikes into a short duration, no-save stun or incapacitate (hold) on the named/special immune mobs (stuff that if non-named and non-epic would otherwise be vorpal susceptible) for a short time and I think you'd wind up with a balanced and satisfying solution. This gives vorpal (and assassin III) an actual viable use in epics and on bosses without making it instadeath overpoweredness.

[sirgog]

I see little reason to single out vorpal as an effect to bypass immunities.

If you are going to go down the path of eliminating insta-death immunities then you should do it across the board in an organized manner. The most common suggestion I have seen is a set damage instead of insta-death against immune targets (with PC's often given a much favorable number due to the massive mob hp/pc hp ratio).

If they added damage and made it anything significant (say 500 or more damage) it would make vorpals into the best DPS weapons against vorpal-immune bosses.

Some percentage of the target's present hitpoints, however, I could get right behind (example: The ToD trash at the start of Normal has about 3800hp - making a Vorpal do 15% of their present HP makes it a great weapon when the mobs have full health, but a pretty poor weapon when it has only 600hp left). Red and purple nameds would need to remain immune, however - doing 1% of elite Horoth's hp on a vorpal strike would make a +1 vorpal weapon out-DPS a Devil's Ruin augmented Epic Sword of Shadows against him.

[Meetch1972]

Make vorpal strikes into a short duration, no-save stun or incapacitate (hold) on the named/special immune mobs (stuff that if non-named and non-epic would otherwise be vorpal susceptible) for a short time and I think you'd wind up with a balanced and satisfying solution. This gives vorpal (and assassin III) an actual viable use in epics and on bosses without making it instadeath overpoweredness.

I was about to /sign this idea when I realised in a RAID with vorpal immune boss fight that even if the stun effect only lasted 2 seconds, a hasted party with 10 TWFers each using 2 vorpals could statistically keep the boss stunned/helpless most of the time (statistically there would be windows it would get to do what it wanted, but those wouldn't last long unless the party had a real unlucky streak.

It might be balanced enough if a vorpal strike with a vorpal weapon on a vorpal immune boss caused a short circuit to its next action or attack. Not much, but... something.

[xoowak]

Make vorpal strikes into a short duration, no-save stun or incapacitate (hold) on the named/special immune mobs (stuff that if non-named and non-epic would otherwise be vorpal susceptible) for a short time and I think you'd wind up with a balanced and satisfying solution. This gives vorpal (and assassin III) an actual viable use in epics and on bosses without making it instadeath overpoweredness.

So vorpal would be pre-nerf Weighted 5%, but also work on bosses?

[Rodasch]

So vorpal would be pre-nerf Weighted 5%, but also work on bosses?

by short duration I mean 1 second or less. If stun/hold is too powerful still, some other sort of "debuff" could suffice as needed. either way, getting vorpalled should not be shrugged off by every mosquito and leaf in epics just because the dungeon is "epic", nor should it do absolutely nothing to the vast majority of bosses. It's a +5 equivalent magical property, it should not be less valuable (as in useless) than a +1 to +3 equivalent elemental strike or burst ability the instant you turn 20.