Talk:True Immunity (3.5e Feat)
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Ratings
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Enigma favors this article and rated it 4 of 4! |
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| I think it is good for its purpose, immunity being immunity. |
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The-Marksman favors this article and rated it 4 of 4! |
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| I actually like this. I can see what Ghost is saying about game design, but that comes down to the DM. You can't balance everything under the concept that you have to prevent a DM from being a dick. If a DM wants to be a dick, hes doing to find a way to be a dick, with or without any abilities on this wiki, it is what it is.
As to this actual feat, I like this. When something is supposed to be immune to something, it's supposed to be immune to something. The fact that so many immunities can be "bypassed" is a cheap cop-out, which cheapens the concept of immunity in-and-of itself. I agree with Leziad that this is much more likely to be taken by an NPC than a PC, since players dont regularly have actual immunities that aren't granted by a spell or piece of equipment, and players are much more likely to have abilities that bypass an immunity. This feat can allow for the BBEG to stand out from the countless hordes of NPC's that the players come up against. The idea that a fire elemental can't be immune to something that normally bypasses fire immunity, or an undead that should be immune to critical hits, and that a player that can usually bypass critical hits on undead cant do so to this one character, is silly. This feat allows for a DM to challenge the players, and it's more likely to be used well by a good DM, than it is to be abused by a dick DM. If you want to say that something is bad game design, it would be calling something an immunity and then allowing something to bypass it! That completely undermines the concept of the word immunity in the first place. THAT is bad game design. This feat corrects that and restores the meaning of the word immunity! |
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Eiji-kun likes this article and rated it 3 of 4. |
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| The arms race begins.
In all seriousness, it serves its purpose well. Especially in VH games where this is an issue. |
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Foxwarrior dislikes this article and rated it 1 of 4. |
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| I've changed my mind. Since it's mostly useful on monsters, it's a way to make any monster into arbitrary nonsense the players could not have anticipated, in a way that requires the DM to consciously choose to surprise and annoy probably one specific player. The immunity game is a pretty decent way to play, but if you love it enough to think about using this feat, you should instead make a variant rule that says immunities can't be pierced and tell everyone about it during character creation, so you don't surprise anyone with their character being worse than they thought it would be. |
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Ghostwheel opposes this article and rated it 0 of 4. |
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| I'm not rating this on power, but rather on system design. Heck, from a power standpoint, it should really be Unquantifiable, since giving an undead monster true-super-real immunity from Disease or something similar is kinda weak and would not fit VH.
With that said, immunity in a system against something players use fairly often is not a good thing. It strongly limits their options in the worst way possible at best, and at worst causes them to lose one or more turns until they figure out if the creature is outright immune to whatever they have. Because immunity is such a bad thing, abilities that allow that immunity to be pierced and for abilities to stay relevant are good. This... does the opposite of that. Which is why its very concept is bad for the system as a whole. |
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Leziad opposes this article and rated it 0 of 4. |
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| I changed my rating, time and repeatedly seeing the effect of this feat really really soured it in my view. I will agree on Ghostwheel that this is poor system design.
Firstly if a PC take it it worse than Toughness. Yes, fricking Toughness. At least the 3 hit poinst are going to come up much much much more often than the benefit of this feat. It is best used on damage immunity, such as immunity to cold or fire. However while some PC class allow you to bypass such resistance, alongside pure elemntal weapons, it is very rare that those things are used on NPCs. I cannot on the top of my head of a single monster which bypasses immunities, or at least in a way that matter. Secondly if used on a monster, it will ridiculously fuck over the PC who can bypass immunity. There a reason some classes grant the ability to halves it, it because being not able to do anything in combat really really blow. |
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Undead Knave opposes this article and rated it 0 of 4. |
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| I'm with Leziad and Ghostwheel on this one. This feat is either on a PC - in which case it's worthless because NPCs don't get things which bypass immunities - or it's on an NPC - in which case it shuts down specialized characters, the only ones who get the ability to bypass immunities in the first place. Either way it's bad. |
Interaction with Energy Anti-Resistance
The Energy Anti-Resistance ability I came up with has 3 tiers — ability to overcome resistance, ability to overcome immunity, and ability to overcome absorption. Energy absorption is already a logical next step up from immunity; you don't merely take no damage (or suffer no ill effects) from an effect of that energy type, you actually get healed by it (or get some other benefit). Thus, for the purpose of anti-resistance, I'm not sure what this feat should do. Should it merely block capacity to overcome immunity (thus making the immunity into pseudo-absorption), or should it outright defeat energy anti-resistance, even if it overcomes absorption? My default interpretation is the former, and I just tweaked the article to say as such, but I felt that you should be made aware so you can change it if you disagree. Also, if it does merely negate ability to override immunity, should it be possible to take the feat twice for a given energy type to negate the ability to override absorption as well? Hey, it's an important question, and I want to hear what you think. --Luigifan18 (talk) 15:16, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
- I missed you making this change until just now. Honestly this shouldn't need to be said, but I'll leave your example up (though without the needless explanation). I'd hoped the text was pretty clear: You are immune to something, you cannot be damaged by it in any way, full stop. If you have true immunity AND absorption to a particular element, and are hit with something that deals that element and overcomes absorption, you would still take no damage, you just wouldn't be healed by it. Absorption isn't actually immunity, the effect merely functions as such mechanically. It doesn't necessarily follow that something that overcomes absorption also overcomes immunity, because they are two separate, unrelated mechanics. If you'd like to treat it that way, fine, but it still shouldn't get around this feat. -Spanambula (talk) 06:25, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
Response to Ghostwheel's oppose rating
(yeah, this is old, but I've just come back from hiatus and am reviewing things with a fresh eye)
First, you were right, this should be Unquantifiable, so I fixed that. "I'm not rating this on power, but rather on system design." Nice to know your opposition isn't related to the mechanics of my feat, it's just because you don't like the idea of immunity. I mean, I'll agree to disagree with your playstyle views sometimes, but this argument is ridiculous. "Because immunity is such a bad thing..." is one of the most ludicrous things I've ever seen you write. So in your view, fire elementals shouldn't be immune to their own element? Wights should give themselves negative levels when they scratch their armpits? The fact is that immunity is a vital part of creature design to the D&D system. If you don't like it, fine, but that's not a valid reason to oppose something.
Secondly, "immunity... against something players use fairly often is not a good thing" is arguing against DM playstyle, not the feat. I agree that a DM who designs all his encounters to neutralize all his players' abilities is a bad thing. But I also think that a game where players can use the same ability to overcome every encounter is equally bad. Good game design should use a variety of encounters that challenge players to think creatively, which does carry a risk of frustrating your players until they figure shit out. Either way, it has nothing to do with the function of this feat, so I'd appreciate you not claiming my feat shouldn't even be on the wiki just because a DM could potentially use it to be a dick. Please either provide a legitimate reason for opposing this article or change/remove your rating. Spanambula (talk) 21:24, 20 February 2016 (UTC)
Response to Leziad's oppose rating
First things first: I'm going to break standard procedure and compare wiki material to other wiki material rather than source material, since there's precious little in 3.5e/pathfinder that lets you overcome immunities. So. Again, this is a niche ability designed for VH play with fairly high-level or even Epic level parties. Saying it's worse than toughness because it won't come up often is just silly in a wiki full of fairly niche feats. But suddenly Leziad doesn't like immunities. Well I do. I'm also not a fan of the ability to overcome immunity being handed out like candy to anyone with a few thousand gold for the appropriate weapon enhancement. It makes thematic sense in the case of some classes based around a specific damage type (like the flammenwerfer), but for the most part I'm pretty skeptical. Why? Because there are already a host of workarounds. Fire immunity? Here, have hellfire. Have light damage. Radiation damage. The wiki has all sorts of weird energy types that almost nothing has any defense against. But I guess the inability for some PC's super-special fire to be super effective all the time every time is a bridge too far.
I evidently didn't convince GW of this since he never responded (surprise.), and I probably won't convince Leziad, but I'll try. Because here's the thing: "it will ridiculously fuck over the PC who can bypass immunity. There a reason some classes grant the ability to halves it, it because being not able to do anything in combat really really blow" is a complete bullshit argument. You know what also really really blows? Being a caster in an AMF. Being a fighter stuck in a resilient sphere. Being a vanilla rogue in a dungeon full of undead, constructs, and oozes. Being a melee brute who's being attacked by aerial foes. Fighting in fog or magical darkness. Failing save-or-sucks. A whole slew of negative status effects. Getting Time Hopped. Getting Mazed. Being out of spells. Being out of GOOD spells. Being out of power points. Getting dominated and attacking your own party. When your dice decide they hate you and you fail stuff you should be really awesome at for entire encounters. And so forth. D&D is a game where crappy, neutralizing shit happens A LOT to the players. True Immunity is not an insurmountable hurdle for a party, it just isn't. Ghostwheel's argument about it costing the PCs a turn or two in figuring out what tactics to use being game-breakingly bad design still makes me headdesk with the sheer illogic of that statement. I guess all encounters should start and end with the PCs knowing exactly how to effectively fight every foe, no matter what, and if they don't then get your shit off the wiki.
If you're any kind of decent DM and you know that you're going to (for example) negate your flammenwerfer in a party that's gearing up to face the Fire-Faced Flame Demon of Flamey Fireflame by giving the demon true immunity to fire, give the werfer something else to do. Provide mooks the werfer CAN hit. Have support opportunities. Maybe he finds some kind of energy admixture weapon. Hell, if your party is high level already, have them appeal to a deity who can bless their weapons with its power to the degree that they overcome the True Immunity. This is not hard. I don't know how else to say this. This feat isn't intrinsically dickish by any reasonable definition in a game that already provides varying degrees of resistance, immunity, and a wiki full of things that ignore them. Like Ghostwheel's argument, yours comes down to arguing playstyle, and like GW, you're claiming this feat is bad game design by virtue of being an extension of an integral mechanic of the game. That makes NO sense. If you don't like immunities in general, fine, give this a 1 or something. But I'm not going to listen to your objection if all you're actually saying is "Span, your fun is wrong" because of your playstyle preferences. This is no different than saying "I think Dragons are bad for the game, therefore your draconic feat gets a 0 rating.- Spanambula (talk) 01:00, 6 February 2017 (MST)
- That may have been overly antagonistic, and if so, I'm sorry. In all seriousness, I do not see a non-playstyle argument from either GW or Leziad. I'm more than willing to listen to further explanations, but I fundamentally do not think immunities are bad design, or bad for the game. - Spanambula (talk) 01:14, 6 February 2017 (MST)
- First, no offense taken. I have no problems against immunities at all. I am just saying either the feat is going to fuck over a PC on a monster or it will see less use than toughness. I do not like when immunity-ignoring stuff is overused, it a very special ability for a very specialized class (usually). Even when it is used, it typically ignoring resistance and halving immunity, so there is sill a severe damage drop, but not enough so that you are helpless. I am absolutely not saying that this feat deserve 0 because it bad game design, rather this feat get 0 because it does not work. The DM would need to do specific work for the feat to be working, like sending a high level pyromaniac or a flame phoenix against the party, and having to do special work for a feat is kinda crazy.
- Now anecdotally I have a story. I know a player who had this feat for the entire game, and it just so happened that it never got used once. It was a game where tome material and homebrew material was rife, it just never came up. In fact I accidentally used hellfire damage on said PC, without realizing he had the feat. In fact, the player who would have had better mileage out of regular SRD feats. That player also could bypass resistance and halves immunity, which came up quite often because the SRD just give immunity to fucking everything. The player simply took True Immunity for flavor reason. In fact the bad girl at the very had the ability to bypass immunities, which would be the first time the power would have come up. Except she could deal the same amount of damage in cold damage. Well shit. The story may seem familiar, because it was you who was the player. Im sorry. I really could not design around an entire party of minmaxed idiots and make every ability relevant. To be fair your character stayed very relevant, my dead helicopter boss could attest. But that feat did not contribute even a little bit to your overall power and usefulness.
- That the crust of the problem, while it niche ability much like say Iaijustsu Focus. It passive, it cannot be used by itself. Now feats like toughness are also passive, but they come up all the time. This does not, if anything it a perfect example of a 'All or Nothing' feat. It either will be extremely effective to the point of neutralizing a danger by itself, but most of the time it just a dead feat. Immunities are fine. Bypassing Immunities is also fine. Both should be used reasonably. I am not even against the concept of this feat. But the problems I outlined above I think make it so that I cannot recommend it to anyone, DM or player. --Leziad (talk) 04:38, 6 February 2017 (MST)
- Honestly this would be better as a Monster ability you can add on your own monster or grant through class features. Like some glossary stuff. My big problem is with the feat format, which I could have been clearer above. Since it in 'For Player' section and is presented as a viable option which it not. It very much a trap feat. Let me put it this way, having True Immunity (Fire) does not in any noticeable way, shape or form improve your chance of surviving a entire campaign set on the elemental plane of fire. It essentially a cosmetic prestige upgrade to regular fire immunity, which apply in 99.5% of the case. It doubly a trap, because it look really effective,, it look like it would increase your chances in that campaign significantly. But it doesn't. In fact taking SRD Toughness would improve your chance of survival in this campaign more than True Immunity (Fire). That how much of a trap option it is.
- You know, making it a monster ability is a pretty good idea. Thinking about it (and looking over my arguments), I realized my intent was more to provide a way for certain powerful encounters to be "puzzle fights" and less to see regular use. I made it a feat because I try not to give monsters too many things that a player couldn't have, though I agree this is basically a trap feat for PCs unless you have a really weird build. Alternatively, I may try to keep this as a feat but nerf it, & make it either more broadly applicable or figure out a way to have it not JUST be a weird passive ability. I'll give it some thought and see what I can work out. - Spanambula (talk) 15:06, 6 February 2017 (MST)
- Also as a monster ability it could be handed to PC, but most likely as part of a race, template or prestige class. Maybe even as one of the benefit of a scaling feat. It just that on it own, it hardly useful even when applied to the broadest thing imaginable. If saya Undead character took this feat for it Immunity to Fort save, only to learn nothing was ever made which bypass this particular immunity... --Leziad (talk) 15:21, 6 February 2017 (MST)
