Get Rid of Purple and Red Name Immunities

[danzig138]

Because those just turn fights into stupid slugfest, but more importantly, they make no sense. If you want to make bosses immune to trip, design a magical item that protects from trips (though, in fairness, it should only provide a bonus to resist, as per poison and disease "immunity"), and make that property available on PC available loot as well. Same with all the other immunities.

It's lazy design, and you can do better.

[fmalfeas]

Plus it severely penalizes bards and enchanters.

Let them have high saves, but the blanket immunity really is pretty dumb.

Or put Mind Blank into the PC spell list, so we can be immune like a red name too.

[btolson]

Agreed, would much rather see an often recurring save with boss bonus ala 4E, or diminishing returns ala several other games. Partial functionality is better and more fun than no functionality.

[Syllph]

Agreed. If it's a human-type mob - it shouldn't be immune to anything humans are not immune to. If it's a fire elemental mob sure, make it immune to whatever is appropriate.

Too many times we fight something that has no reason to be completely immune to something that we are not.

[Lithic]

Take away immunities, and it would take about 400 hits with a vorpal weapon (Assuming a 10000 AC, so that only a 20 hits, and only a 20 confirms the crit) to kill any boss, or about 20 casts of any death spell (roll a 1 on a save). 20 casts is 1-2mins if you only have one caster doing it, its about 10 seconds depending on the spell if you have lots of casters. 400 melee hits is also on the order of 10-20 seconds with several twf melees. Does that kind of boss fight sound any more fun than today's slugfests?

[MRMechMan]

Take away immunities, and it would take about 400 hits with a vorpal weapon (Assuming a 10000 AC, so that only a 20 hits, and only a 20 confirms the crit) to kill any boss, or about 20 casts of any death spell (roll a 1 on a save). 20 casts is 1-2mins if you only have one caster doing it, its about 10 seconds depending on the spell if you have lots of casters. 400 melee hits is also on the order of 10-20 seconds with several twf melees. Does that kind of boss fight sound any more fun than today's slugfests?

Was going to write almost exactly this.

1 in 20 is not that long of odds, particularly in a raid group when multiple people can spam those abilities quickly. No matter the bosses saves, it would die, fast.

It would utterly trivilize those fights.

[Merlin-ator]

1 in 20 is not that long of odds, particularly in a raid group when multiple people can spam those abilities quickly. No matter the bosses saves, it would die, fast.

It would utterly trivilize those fights.

Not necessarily. I think this is a great suggestion, this could make Mordenkainen's Disjunction actually do something if it's used to remove Deathblock or some hold immunity. Just give the bosses super-high saves and code it and their immunities as item effects. That will require a level 17+ Wizard to dispel the immunities. Wizards get Finger of Death at level 11, so the game is untouched for BB groups (which is most of the PUGs) under level 15. It seems more ridiculous to me that a fire elly in Shroud is completely immune to killing effects, holds, charms, or a bunch of other things from a character 8 levels higher than the quest merely because it says something other than "Fire Elemental" above it's head.

[MRMechMan]

Not necessarily. I think this is a great suggestion, this could make Mordenkainen's Disjunction actually do something if it's used to remove Deathblock or some hold immunity. Just give the bosses super-high saves and code it and their immunities as item effects. That will require a level 17+ Wizard to dispel the immunities. Wizards get Finger of Death at level 11, so the game is untouched for BB groups (which is most of the PUGs) under level 15. It seems more ridiculous to me that a fire elly in Shroud is completely immune to killing effects, holds, charms, or a bunch of other things from a character 8 levels higher than the quest merely because it says something other than "Fire Elemental" above it's head.

Ok, new scenario. 12 wizards all spam mordenkainens till one lands, then all spam finger and wail till one of those lands. With a 1/20 chance for each (probably higher for mordenkainens considering it's a caster level check, and unless the bosses caster level is 50+ one will get through very fast).

Energy drain in particular is just crazy powerful against enemies that are vulnerable to it. A handful of energy drains and that boss has 1/2 the hp it used to. More than a handful and it's just dead.

Red names, maybe. Purple names, no way. Abbot would be a 2min quest, potentially faster if you got lucky with the Mordenkainens/Undeath to death combo. Ditto with Hound, VOD, ADQ2 (ok, 2min quest anyway) or basically any other raidboss fight. Just a bad idea.

[EndingDoe]

1 in 20 is not that long of odds, particularly in a raid group when multiple people can spam those abilities quickly. No matter the bosses saves, it would die, fast.

It would utterly trivilize those fights.

Of course it dies fast. That's what you get when pitting a single guy against 12. You have to design around that fact or take the same path as WoW did: millions of hitpoints and immunities. So far DDO has leaned towards the latter, but not enough to make the fights interesting.

[shadereaper33]

Take away immunities, and it would take about 400 hits with a vorpal weapon (Assuming a 10000 AC, so that only a 20 hits, and only a 20 confirms the crit) to kill any boss, or about 20 casts of any death spell (roll a 1 on a save). 20 casts is 1-2mins if you only have one caster doing it, its about 10 seconds depending on the spell if you have lots of casters. 400 melee hits is also on the order of 10-20 seconds with several twf melees. Does that kind of boss fight sound any more fun than today's slugfests?

These is a simple solution to both of these problems, and 1 is already implemented in game anyway. Vorpal weapons, and similar effects such as disruption, only insta-kill if the target has <1000 hp when the effect goes off, otherwise it simply does an extra 100 dmg. As far as the casters are concerned, remove the boss immunites, but give them a property such that they do not automatically fail a save on a roll of 1. There are ways for PC's to get that effect, so it isn't beyond the realm of plausibility that bosses would have access to it.

Personally, I am not a fan of blanket immunities outright simply because a specific enemy is designated as a boss. I do not, however, think that simply removing their immunities is the way to fix this "problem". This would take a lot of work to get to a balanced point that is fair and still provides an adequate level for challenge.

[gphysalis]

or about 20 casts of any death spell (roll a 1 on a save).

1 in 20?

What is this?

I want to be able to use Power Word Kill and 1 shot any raid boss

[ddobard1]

/ not signed

[btolson]

Death effects are an aberration. I don't mind bosses either retaining full immunity to death effects, or having them work in some very limited form (melee weapons are already appropriately limited, spells could be set to always do the on-save damage even if the boss rolls a 1).

It is the blanket immunities to virtually everything else that is not dps that I want to see go away. There are many alternatives to limiting the effects of non-damage abilities that are better than blanket immunity.

[Robai]

Because those just turn fights into stupid slugfest, but more importantly, they make no sense. If you want to make bosses immune to trip, design a magical item that protects from trips (though, in fairness, it should only provide a bonus to resist, as per poison and disease "immunity"), and make that property available on PC available loot as well. Same with all the other immunities.

It's lazy design, and you can do better.

I'm not if it's a bug, but I've seen two purple named bosses being tripped (or it was something else, but they were prone for sure):
- Abbot on Hard (he was prone for a very short duration, I saw that once)
- Arach's Knight on EH/EN VoN5 (he was prone for quite some time, I saw that like 5 times so far)

Maybe it was some ED or something else, but it looked like they were tripped.

[Therrias]

I'm not if it's a bug, but I've seen two purple named bosses being tripped (or it was something else, but they were prone for sure):
- Abbot on Hard (he was prone for a very short duration, I saw that once)
- Arach's Knight on EH/EN VoN5 (he was prone for quite some time, I saw that like 5 times so far)

Maybe it was some ED or something else, but it looked like they were tripped.

Double Rainbow.

[Robai]

Double Rainbow.

Thanks (+1).

I'd like Improved Trip feat to have some small chance to work on Red/Purple mobs too.

Even this could be better than nothing (assuming that your Trip DC is high enough):
- 10% chance for red named
- 5% chance for purple named

I mean you take a feat, but it's useful only against trash mobs. Why?

EDIT:
Btw, it would be awesome if Improved Sunder could increase both the chance and the DC for Improved Trip.

[LOOON375]

I have knocked down epic red named bosses with my Arty using double rainbow stance. It's pretty cool, but it's a super rarity. And it only lasted maybe 1 second before they got back up.

This is just asking for another "easy" button. And if it was implemented, we would then have 500 more threads complaining how the game is too easy.

[Mastikator]

The players get to wear deathblock, freedom of movement items, heavy fortification items and all sorts of general immunty stuff, why wouldn't bosses? In fact, why aren't more humanoid in middle and higher levels using immunity items?

I'd agree that blanket immunity to everything but HP damage turns it into a slug fest, most bosses should have vulnerabilities.

[Therrias]

I've knocked down the abbot with double rainbow twice in one instance. Both times lasted until he teleported, one of which was over a minute.

[MrCow]

I wonder how many folks remember the timespan in Module 7 where nothing had immunity vs. death against the spell Destruction, or when Queen Lailat could be made STR-helpless. It made for some fairly anti-climactic fights.