PaleMaster - Ray of Enfeeblement

[irivan]

It has recently come to my attention the Pale masters in undead form can be affected by certain stat damage, in my exploits undead have always been immune to stat damage, so why in undead form, when you pick up undead traits are you not immune to this?

Some other stat damage that i have taken are also the ego whip from certain Quori monsters as well, Charisma damage specifically, haven't noticed any others yet.

Is this WAI?

A Dev response to this would be nice, and even nicer if it could be fixed and implemented with update 8.

http://compendium.ddo.com/wiki/Spell...f_Enfeeblement

[rimble]

You 'assume many traits' of a lich/wraith. Not all traits of a lich/wraith.

[bradleyforrest]

You 'assume many traits' of a lich/wraith. Not all traits of a lich/wraith. Nor do you actually become Undead.

Actually, you do. You are considered undead instead of your normal type. This is the reason that Burning Blood doesn't work on you in Lich/Wraith form

[irivan]

You 'assume many traits' of a lich/wraith. Not all traits of a lich/wraith. Nor do you actually become Undead.

Thats interesting Rimble, because other spell effects are stopped by taking on undead traits, such as immunity to level drain, being healed be negative energy, as mentioned in another thread immunity to burning blood once in form, etc...

It seems to me that in order to remain consistent with this that this should be included as well.

Also curious as to why Lich form does not provide cold immunity, or at the very least high cold resistance, since you seem to gain all other Lich traits.

Like i said it would be nice to hear from a Dev on this issue.

[rimble]

Actually, you do. You are considered undead instead of your normal type. This is the reason that Burning Blood doesn't work on you in Lich/Wraith form

I'm just a font of misinformation. Leave your quote correcting me, but gonna edit mine out to avoid spreading it.

[rimble]

Thats interesting Rimble, because other spell effects are stopped by taking on undead traits, such as immunity to level drain, being healed be negative energy, as mentioned in another thread immunity to burning blood once in form, etc...

It seems to me that in order to remain consistent with this that this should be included as well.

I'm just trying to say that the Pale Master description says you take on 'many' traits, and I don't know where they draw the line on which traits. You can see the Undead traits from the source material here:

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/typessubtypes.htm

There's an annoying precise verbage problem here, I've always hated it (from PnP):

'ability drain' has to do with permanent ability damage, the kind you need a Restoration to recover from (although in the newer kinder DDO you can just wait for those to expire now).

'ability damage' has to do with things like Ray of Enfeeblement.

So it's possible to be immune from the Strength 'ability drain' of a Shadow, and still be completely susceptible to the Strength 'ability damage' of Ray of Enfeeblement--if they decided to grant 'ability drain' immunity, but not 'ability damage' immunity.

I've always ALWAYS hated the very fine difference between those two phrases.

So, I guess what I'm trying to say is, if you always take 'ability damage' and never 'ability drain', then things could be considered to be working consistently, since they are technically different categories of effects. But if you take some types of 'ability drain' and/or some types of 'ability damage', and not others, then something is inconsistent and off.

This is also predicated on them having categorized spells/effects that way, which I think they have, or at least have tried to.

I hope a dev clarifies for you.

[Tirkan]

*cough*

Another annoying bit of Verbiage for you...Ray of Enfeeblement applies a strength penalty...not Damage or drain.

[rimble]

*cough*

Another annoying bit of Verbiage for you...Ray of Enfeeblement applies a strength penalty...not Damage or drain.

*laugh*

I give up, I just need to stop posting today. I hate hate hate this aspect of the system.

I guess 'ability penalty' is completely outside of 'ability drain' and 'ability damage' and Undead aren't immune to that. I don't know.

Let's just say I'm good for bumping this thread...

[Drakos]

'ability drain' has to do with permanent ability damage, the kind you need a Restoration to recover from (although in the newer kinder DDO you can just wait for those to expire now).

'ability damage' has to do with things like Ray of Enfeeblement.

Actually, depending on how they implemented 'Ray of Enfeeblement' it could be even worse. According to the the PHB, it isnn't an Ability Brain nor Ability Damage. It is listed as a direct Penalty of 1d6 + 1/two caster levels. In D&D it works on creatuers immune to both Drain and Damage.

Again, I'm not sure how they implemented it in DDO but it works correctly according to the D&D rules. It being a penalty is why they don't stack in D&D either.

Edit: Darn I was ninja'ed!!! +1 for the ninja that is Trikan

[Scraap]

http://compendium.ddo.com/wiki/Spell:Heal just to throw another wrinkle in there

"and remove ability damage and the conditions blinded, confused, dazed, dazzled, deafened, diseased, exhausted, fatigued, feebleminded, insanity, nauseated, and poisoned"

Doesn't list it as removing penalties, and yet it does.

So, working as intended, or an oversight?

[ChildrenofBodom]

You 'assume many traits' of a lich/wraith. Not all traits of a lich/wraith.

Ha don't take things so literally. They put "many" because they new they would forget stuff like this. They were covering their ass.

[LeLoric]

The str loss from ray of enfeeblement and the cha dmg given by ego whip are really the only two effects I have noticed that affect PM's in form. While this is all fine and dandy as I know they said you take on many traits of undead but not necessarily all of them.

The problem here is that you are immune to restore effects while in form also. This means that you can't cure these effects without dropping form. It also means that if for some reason you had a neg stat/lev effect on you before going into for you can't cure it and it also doesn't recover over time.

There needs to be some sort of consistency here. The viability of pm has gotten much better but there are still some pretty glaring bugs/poor mechanics with it that need to be resolved.

[frznvimes]

I think they should add immunity to ability drain/damage/whatever to undead forms for the simple reason that the spell which protects against it, death ward, blocks negative energy too, thus making you immune to healing.
edit: and, as stated above, you're immune to restoration effects

[bradleyforrest]

The str loss from ray of enfeeblement and the cha dmg given by ego whip are really the only two effects I have noticed that affect PM's in form. While this is all fine and dandy as I know they said you take on many traits of undead but not necessarily all of them.

The problem here is that you are immune to restore effects while in form also. This means that you can't cure these effects without dropping form. It also means that if for some reason you had a neg stat/lev effect on you before going into for you can't cure it and it also doesn't recover over time.

There needs to be some sort of consistency here. The viability of pm has gotten much better but there are still some pretty glaring bugs/poor mechanics with it that need to be resolved.

In this vein, I noticed a bug a little while ago. If you get negative levels from something like Enervation and then go into Lich/Wraith, you will not lose the levels. You will get immune messages when you would normally lose a neg level. Looks like it's a positive effect that's causing it.

[LeLoric]

I think they should add immunity to ability drain/damage/whatever to undead forms for the simple reason that the spell which protects against it, death ward, blocks negative energy too, thus making you immune to healing.
edit: and, as stated above, you're immune to restoration effects

Most of these effects they are already immune to. The problem is a few remaining things like ego whip and ray of enfeeblement.

[irivan]

Just so those of you who were talking about ray of enfeeblement as being something that could possibly still effect the undead due to some obscure wording in the spell description....

Why then does it not affect undead in this game? They are completely immune to it.

Also should not being in Lich form have some ability to resist cold damage? It is a fundamental immunity of that Monster.

Perhaps Lich form should cost more than Wraith form to compensate for the additional immunity. Say 125 sp? Maybe 150? I know some wretch at the idea of this, but personally i think it would be worth it.

[MrCow]

Just so those of you who were talking about ray of enfeeblement as being something that could possibly still effect the undead due to some obscure wording in the spell description....

Why then does it not affect undead in this game? They are completely immune to it.

The issue with this statement is that Ray of Enfeeblement does indeed affect other undead in the game, like zombies, wights, and vampires.

[irivan]

Really cow, cause i could swear i just blasted a vamp in the orchard and he laughed it off.

[MrCow]

And I just zotted a Dread Zombie to watch his scaled (on normal) damage range go from 3-6 to 1-3.

Also, for good measure about your vampire case:



I imagine he is unhappy restoration can't affect him either.

[irivan]

And I just zotted a Dread Zombie to watch his scaled (on normal) damage range go from 3-6 to 1-3.

Also, for good measure about your vampire case:



I imagine he is unhappy restoration can't affect him either.

You have made me a believer then, maybe i did not connect earlier. Wondering if this should be changed then, because in PnP i believe that undead are always immune to anything that would affect its physical stats, but hey this is likely one of those loop hole things that will never be addressed.

It could be that i am thinking of the wizard king and the abbott who both have mantle of invulnerability too....hmmm