Lich immunity to L1-5 spells

[subtledoctor]

Reach for your fainting couch if you must; I remain unconvinced. Bioware shipped the game with a ~250-page manual, much of which was taken straight from the PnP literature. A lot of stuff, in the manual and in the game text itself, was actually straight-up incorrect - and still is. Is it fine? Is the game fun in spite of that? Sure. I think I expressed that numerous times now. But is it good? Should that be what a game company aspires to do? If you think so... agree to disagree. You can put Bioware up on a big shiny pedestal, you can look at the game through the lens of 20-year stan... I try to consider things from a more detached perspective.

FWIW Bioware by its actions more or less agreed with me, because in ToB they started using the formerly useless in-game texts to document deviations from monsters’ traditional stats. If that idea shocks you, take it up with them...

[DavidW]

5 hours ago, CamDawg said:

Earlier today I was out in the paddock and the sky went dark and a chill wind blew across the lands--I suddenly broke out in goose pimples and started sweating.

Now I know why.

I hope your weekends aren't booked up.

[DavidW]

3 hours ago, subtledoctor said:

Reach for your fainting couch if you must; I remain unconvinced. Bioware shipped the game with a ~250-page manual, much of which was taken straight from the PnP literature. A lot of stuff, in the manual and in the game text itself, was actually straight-up incorrect - and still is. Is it fine? Is the game fun in spite of that? Sure. I think I expressed that numerous times now. But is it  good? Should that be what a game company aspires to do?

There is a huge difference between 'make sure the manual is correct' and 'make sure you document every deviation from an entirely different manual, for a game in a different medium.' I for one am really relieved that they didn't waste time on the latter. They weren't sitting around drinking California cabernets instead of documenting lich abilities; they were coding something else. There is literally no feature* of BG2 that I would be willing to cut in order to provide in-game lore for lich immunities.

3 hours ago, subtledoctor said:

FWIW Bioware by its actions more or less agreed with me, because in ToB they started using the formerly useless in-game texts to document deviations from monsters’ traditional stats.

I'm not 100% sure what you're referring to. But

(i) this is really implausible on its face. ToB released in September 2001, the year after 3rd edition D&D was released. Does it really seem likely that a video game company would put significant resources (doubly significant given ToB had a severe wordcount limit) into catering to that tiny slice of their player base who were intimately familiar with an already-obsolete PnP system?

(ii) My best guess is that you're thinking of bookee.itm, 'Elminster's Ecologies', which notes Marilith use of Protection from Magic Weapons (to be sure, not something from PnP so far as I know). But that book does not list all deviations from PnP in ToB (it doesn't list Baalor use of Implosion, for instance), and it also lists several creatures which are faithful renditions of PnP (the Fire Troll is from Dragon Magazine 199; the Dense Pudding is from the second Undermountain boxed set; I don't have the product the Magic Golem came from but I think it's faithful.) It's pretty obvious that the reason for Elminster's Ecology is the same as the reason for scattering Wands of Magic Striking and barrels full of nonmagical weapons around Watcher's Keep: it's there to stop casual players getting frustrated by apparently-indestructible monsters on the critical path. It doesn't have anything to do with PnP fidelity.

* I suppose, on reflection, that if they'd cut Bondari or the chinchilla Bhaalspawn in favor of a lore entry on liches, I'd be in favor. But then, if they'd cut Bondari or the chinchilla Bhaalspawn in favor of more time with those California cabernets, that would be fine too.

[DavidW]

Also:

3 hours ago, subtledoctor said:

Bioware shipped the game with a ~250-page manual

I'm curious about this. I bought SoA on release, and I'm looking at the manual now; it's about 140 pages. Was there a later rerelease version or something?

[subtledoctor]

On 8/17/2020 at 11:08 PM, DavidW said:

I'm curious about this. I bought SoA on release, and I'm looking at the manual now; it's about 140 pages. Was there a later rerelease version or something?

I had that in my head from a couple months ago, now couldn’t find the source. I just did a search and found the TOB manual for download, listing “319 pages.” That, or something like it, is likely what I saw. Inspecting closer, that is an ePub conversion so the page numbers may not line up with the physical product. 

(Not engaging anymore nonsense straw man arguments. I’ve done my duty to the gods of the internet for the month.)

Now excuse me while I go delete all the information in my mods' Readme files, since apparently it's better for players to just intuit it.

Edited August 22, 2020 by subtledoctor

[CamDawg]

One of the benefits of keeping an install of every IE game:

• oBG came with a 164-page manual, and TotSC added a 40-page addendum. The GOG versions are 82 and 43 pages, respectively. The paper manual (from the 5-CD version, I believe) is 160-ish pages.
• My from-CD SoA came with a 266-page manual, whereas GoG has a 139-page manual. ToB adds a 42 page supplement. Actual paper manuals are 192 pages for SoA and 48 for ToB.
• BGEE came with a 154-page Adventurer's Guide, a 79-page Sword Coast Survival Guide, and a 144-page Mastering Melee & Magic. SoD adds a 32-page field report. I have no idea what's in my SoD Collector's Edition box because it remains unopened.
• BG2EE came with the same Mastering Melee & Magic and a 66-page Amn Survival Guide.

As subtledoctor has already noted, the manuals for the originals were largely inaccurate since they were copy-pasted from PnP source books. The EE docs AFAIK were based on actual game content, e.g. using in-game spell descriptions.

Edited August 18, 2020 by CamDawg

[DavidW]

The hardcopy manual I have for SoA (UK version of the game, bought in 2000) is 139 pages, so plausibly that's the one that got digitized for the GoG release.

[CamDawg]

Yep, that's it. The manual from CD has 113 "armor" references and zero for "armour"; the GOG manual is 1:112 for same.

[DavidW]

I've separated off the recent part of the discussion to this thread. Anyone who wants to contribute further to the discussion of lich immunities in the context of SCS is welcome to do so. If they can manage to do so without accusing me of intellectual dishonesty they are more likely to contribute constructively to SCS.

[Guest Guest_Mantis]

Lich immunity to low level spells is a feature found in D&D, rather than 2nd edition AD&D. On p.188 of the D&D Rules Cyclopedia (a wonderful work) they are listed as being “immune to the effects of all spells of less than 4th level.” However in the same entry it is also noted that liches often have “1d2 spells on it of a permanent nature- most often detect invisible or fly”. So in that edition it was assumed that friendly spells were fine. They were also turnable, but could not be destroyed by clerics. 

[Angel]

I could not find a reference to liches canonically being immune to spell levels 1-5 in any 2e source material I have.  However, the Ravenloft book "Van Richten's Guide to the Lich" does describe several uncommon "salient abilities" for making liches tougher and more unique, and invites a DM to make up their own.  It may be something the developers added to "spice up" their liches.  (I'm pretty sure the devs had access to Van Richten's guides, because their classifications of vampires matches those in "Van Richten's Guide to Vampires" almost exactly in both naming and stats.)

Personally I think the idea of liches, the ultimate masters of magic, being immune to low-level spells does make quite a bit of sense even if it isn't an explicit rule.  It could be treated as them having a permanent (Minor) Globe of Invulnerability, which also doesn't prevent self-buffing.  Mm, perhaps I'll use that approach for my own tactical mod...

Anyway, just my thoughts on the matter, take it or leave it.

[DavidW]

Thanks to both. (I didn’t even think to check the BECMI material.)

[subtledoctor]

  

3 hours ago, Angel said:

It could be treated as them having a permanent (Minor) Globe of Invulnerability, which also doesn't prevent self-buffing. 

Yes.  Or more like a (fictitious) "Greater Globe of Invulnerability," since the normal GOI only blocks 4th-level spells but liches block 5th-level spells.  It also makes sense as a permanent undispellable spell effect rather than some kind of inherent feature of their body, given that description of BECMI liches to apply permanent spell effects to themselves.  (I very very vaguely recall BECMI giving more emphasis to the use of Permanency spells than later editions did.)

You could make a convincing argument (it might convince me, at any rate) that this could or should be accompanied by a visual GOI overlay effect.  The player who don't walk into the encounter with advance knowledge and metagaming* would likely already be familiar with the implications of such a visual effect; the only moment's pause would arise when a Pierce Magic or the like fails to remove it.  But it would still effectively communicate something like "only high-level magic will work against this enemy."

* (Admittedly probably zero players.  )

Of course none of this has anything to do with SCS, since SCS neither creates nor modifies this characteristic of liches. 

Edited August 22, 2020 by subtledoctor

[Angel]

1 hour ago, subtledoctor said:

Yes.  Or more like a (fictitious) "Greater Globe of Invulnerability," since the normal GOI only blocks 4th-level spells but liches block 5th-level spells.  It also makes sense as a permanent undispellable spell effect rather than some kind of inherent feature of their body, given that description of BECMI liches to apply permanent spell effects to themselves.  (I very very vaguely recall BECMI giving more emphasis to the use of Permanency spells than later editions did.)

"Major Globe of Invulnerability" is an 8th circle spell in my own spell pack.  It's one of only two spells that I completely made up, the other being Ramazith's Slime Summons.

And yes, that was pretty much my thought too.  For my tactical mod I'm actually giving some liches a few salient abilities from Van Richten's Guide to the Lich so I am pretty deep into researching liches at the moment.

 

[Jarno Mikkola]

1 hour ago, Angel said:

"Major Globe of Invulnerability" is an 8th circle spell in my own spell pack.  It's one of only two spells that I completely made up,

Right, so there's no normal n-and-or Minor versions in the original game.