Get Rid of Purple and Red Name Immunities

[Jay203]

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.

hehe, back when stat damage was king? xD

in all seriousness, blanket immunity due to poor design, gazillions of hp due to power creep

[soulaeon]

Some bosses should have immunities. But others, if not immune, should have high saves or something because they are bosses and they should be difficult.

[sirgog]

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.

I remember this.

The only place it was entertaining was in the Reaver's Fate.

[HatsuharuZ]

Hmm... how about this:

1) Take away immunities to everything except for stat damage, vorpal and death spells.

2) Make it so that red and purple names get two saves vs. everything, like with slippery mind, but for all save types.

[Ginarrbrik]

/not signed.

first off, they're technically not IMMUNE. i've seen several purple names tripped with random procs from shiradi. they usually don't stay down very long because of their high balance, but a few seconds is better than nothing.

but anyway, i understand where this idea comes from, and i agree with that for the most part. but getting rid of immunities altogether, NO. that would just be way, way, way too easy.

[fmalfeas]

If you think about it, fighting a boss is kinda like fighting another adventurer. A serious cut above the trashmobs with NPC classes or racial hit dice. Geared and experienced.

So, strip the bosses of their immunities, except for raidbosses where the immunity makes sense. (Hint, Harry has the ability to cast Wish - he can make himself immune to some things.)

Then, give us access to Mind Blank - it's an 8th level Sorc/Wiz spell.

Give it to the mobs too.

Give bosses gear. This includes immunity gear. If they're CR9+, they should have a Deathblock item. If they're CR15+ and they don't have Heavy Fort, something is wrong. Give them a Resistance item.

If we've got the power, and the spell loaded, Disjunction could give us some precious time to strike at full power by supressing their gear and stripping their buffs.

If they are casters, or have helping casters? Yeah, we can undergo Dispel, Greater Dispel, or even Disjunction. We'll have to learn to cope with that, and not just say 'The clicky is good enough, it'll last to the next shrine' or 'I'll just chug some pots and be buffed up'. No, when that Disjunction hits, all those potbuffs are gone, and the clicky buffs. Maybe some of the caster-cast buffs will survive due to CL...maybe.

And fights will be a lot more interesting, and Disjunction will finally be useful.

[Stormraiser]

If you think about it, fighting a boss is kinda like fighting another adventurer. A serious cut above the trashmobs with NPC classes or racial hit dice. Geared and experienced.

So, strip the bosses of their immunities, except for raidbosses where the immunity makes sense. (Hint, Harry has the ability to cast Wish - he can make himself immune to some things.)

Then, give us access to Mind Blank - it's an 8th level Sorc/Wiz spell.

Give it to the mobs too.

Give bosses gear. This includes immunity gear. If they're CR9+, they should have a Deathblock item. If they're CR15+ and they don't have Heavy Fort, something is wrong. Give them a Resistance item.

If we've got the power, and the spell loaded, Disjunction could give us some precious time to strike at full power by supressing their gear and stripping their buffs.

If they are casters, or have helping casters? Yeah, we can undergo Dispel, Greater Dispel, or even Disjunction. We'll have to learn to cope with that, and not just say 'The clicky is good enough, it'll last to the next shrine' or 'I'll just chug some pots and be buffed up'. No, when that Disjunction hits, all those potbuffs are gone, and the clicky buffs. Maybe some of the caster-cast buffs will survive due to CL...maybe.

And fights will be a lot more interesting, and Disjunction will finally be useful.

Hehe, give us some gimp 8 con drow enemies to fight too. Or the epic characters with under 250 HP

[susiedupfer]

There needs to be something that makes them red/purple named. End bosses need to be tough to make you feel you accomplished something. Pushing the easy button is boring.

[stoerm]

No. A boss is supposed to tough, not disabled or instakilled.

Also, making the mechanics the same for PCs and NPCs is not an argument. Gameplay and challenge are more important (neither is appealing to pnp rules). NPCs are hugely penalized on their to hit rolls in comparison to PCs and nobody is complaining.

[Bogenbroom]

I hate blanket immunities as much as anyone, especially as my main is an enchanter, but it is dangerous to do away with them. Some ideas I'd had that might make it viable...

- High rate of recovery to stat damage (it can't kill anymore anyway,) so, say, stat damage restores at a rate of 1 per 3 seconds and they had the DR/1 vs stat damage.
- Recovery from general debuff spells more n line (or even better than) character recovery and not mob recovery.
- Energy drain similar to the way stat damage is now.Only a maximum of X levels, and, again, with quick recovery... say a level every 3 seconds.
- lastly, I thought it might be interesting if bosses didn't *start* with immunities, but could acquire them upon exposure and certain saves. So, say, Boss X gets hit with "blind." Rolls his save and if he rolls a 1, he rolls again, if he gets another 1 he fails. If he rolls a 17+ on the first roll he gets immunity to blind. Just a thought.

Where I am going is that support characters could have a more involved experience in boss fights if their roll came to include maintaining debuffs and such.

Death spells are a different ball of wax, insta-death vs bosses should be a no go. That is the only immunity to me that makes perfect sense.

[cforce]

Thinking outside the box a bit.

The main problem with allowing a lot of things that bosses are presently immune to is the threat of trivializing encounters with chained debilitating effects.

Another way to potentially open up a lot of the state-based spells and attacks (held, stunned, tripped, etc...) would be to nerf the *effect* when it's applied to boss-types, rather than save/duration/etc. Substitute some state-based debuff that's thematically similar, but doesn't trivialize an encounter, even if it's chained.(I'm intentionally picking on state-based stuff because I think it might be more reasonable to implement globally without having to go touch every spell, ability, etc.) For example:

Held: Attack speed slowed by 10%, movement speed by 20%
Stunned: -4 to-hit, -4 AC
Tripped: movement speed slowed by 20%, -5 reflex save
Blinded: -10% fortification, -4 to-hit

You get the idea. Make the "boss-resisted" effect minimal enough that a boss who is simultaneously Held/Stunned/Tripped/Blinded is still a major threat. It wouldn't take a huge debuff to make all of these things worth doing in an Elite boss fight, where every small advantage might be worthwhile.

(I'm actually pretty happy with the present solution for most instakills, where the "boss substitution" is just a significant package of damage.)

[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

[fmalfeas]

Eh, make PWK work by the PvP rules against bosses.

Only works if the boss has less than 101 hp left.

And you've still gotta disjunction their deathblock item first.