Lich immunity to L1-5 spells

[Salk]

What about using the feedback window to inform the Player about racial immunities (not just liches then) whenever a spell fails to affect those creatures?

 

[Endarire]

The DDO (D&D Online) Lich boss Black Abbot is immune to spells of level 4 and below.  Whoever did it probably pulled the immunity from the same source.

[Ardanis]

On 8/18/2020 at 2:45 AM, subtledoctor said:

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.

Minor nuances like this thread's subject aren't discussed by a council of game designers at round table. They're just put in by whoever is responsible for implementing the content on the "does it break something? If not, then let's roll with it" basis, before moving on to the next item from a very lengthy list.

[subtledoctor]

On 8/23/2020 at 1:30 AM, Salk said:

What about using the feedback window to inform the Player about racial immunities (not just liches then) whenever a spell fails to affect those creatures?

That’s an interesting thought. That’s a fair bit of hand-holding. But OTOH the existing text feedback with opcode 102 immunity is pretty bad - something like “lich: unaffected by Lightning Bolt.” I get how in a PnP campaign it might be fun to keep players guessing about this sort of thing, but that doesn’t translate into a computer game. You could make a good argument that accuracy should trump being coy, and the feedback should be more like “lich: unaffected by third-level spell.”

[Endarire]

@subtledoctor
By RAW in 3.x, Liches are immune to Cold, Electricity, and Polymorph effects unless they are willing for these effects.

[Angel]

FWIIW, I have completed a component that makes the spell level immunity of liches configurable in my tactical mod Encounters & Quests.  It will be in the next release.

[subtledoctor]

2 hours ago, Angel said:

FWIIW, I have completed a component that makes the spell level immunity of liches configurable in my tactical mod Encounters & Quests.  It will be in the next release.

Can't say the conversation wasn't productive then! (Even if a bit pugnacious.)

I was also inspired to make a small mod based on this thread: I revived my old "Breachier Breach" concept, which gives the interior effects of the Breach spell a power level of 7, so it works correctly with SR versions of Spell Deflection while achieving SCS's goal of allowing Breach to work against liches, without resorting to a bunch of individual 206 effects in lich.itm...the mod also makes rakshasa vulnerable to 7th-level spells, so Breach will work against them as well.