Cure/Cause wounds w.r.t. extraplanar and undead (split topic)

[CamDawg]

IWDification does it, kinda. The Cause X Wounds (including Harm and Cause Disease) are adjusted to IWDEE exclusions, namely they do not affect undead, golems, and 'extraplanars' (by race: salamanders, (dark)planetars, (anti)solars, tieflings, genies, elementals, mephits and demons) but the Cure spells remain universal.

edit: the discrepancy is to allow for enemy AI. While there are only a handful of occasions where an enemy using a restricted Cause X Wounds spell on a PC is wasted (essentially if targeting Hexxat, Haer'Dalis, or some summons and familiars), there are many places where using a restricted Cure X Wounds spell would be wasted since they're using them on their allies, which are more likely to run afoul of the exclusions.

Edited May 4, 2022 by CamDawg

[suy]

After reading and thinking about the conversation, I suppose that indeed changing the descriptions is not only easiest, but also probably the most reasonable way to go, as maybe it's the only way...

I've done some searches on the Planescape campaign setting, and I don't really find anything specific about what happens with a planar being on the Prime Material Plane. Magic is supposedly affected on the planes, but not on the Prime. So I don't see why the curing spells should not affect someone like Haer'Dalis. The description from the PHB certainly says so, but I don't know the reasoning. An elemental or Aerial Servant not being affected by healing spells, I would understand. Their "body" is not normal.

Haer'Dalis, though, since he's a Doomsguard, should be affected by this:

Quote

RESTRICTIONS. The Doomguard are naturally resistant to healing and cures. For any such spell or magical device to have effect, a Doomguard cutter must first fail a saving
throw vs. spell. If the save is successful, the magic is negated.

I suppose no-one cares this much to have this implemented.

BTW, there is a much complex can of worms to open if one wants to implement rules that affect creatures and items from the prime in the planes. Items, for example, should lose power when one travels to other planes. We don't even know where the Planar Prison is exactly located (Carceri?), but all the weapons that the primes bring there should be adjusted by some levels and be less effective. I think all the planes that are visitable by the players are Inner or Outer planes, and that's 2 levels less!

[Luke]

On 5/4/2022 at 6:14 PM, subtledoctor said:

Even tielfings are called "plane-touched", not born directly of the planes. They are at least 75%+ of mortal lineage. (And I think really supposed to be more like ~99%.)

I see, that's what @Angel said too... Guess the same holds for Aasimar, right (since they're also labeled as "plane-touched")...? If that's the case, then IWDEE is wrong...

Unfortunately, 2E PnP says little to nothing about creature immunities (or maybe it's just me not really knowing where to look for this kind of information...). I'm currently referring to 3E, which seems to say a bit more about creature immunities...

Having said that, I'm all in for an "optional, but cool component" that implements all of that... To sum up, the creatures that should be immune to such spells are:

• GENERAL = UNDEAD
• GENERAL = WEAPON // Mordenkainen's Sword
• RACE = MEPHIT
• RACE = GOLEM
• RACE = ELEMENTAL
• RACE = GENIE
• RACE = GITHYANKI // not sure about this one...
• RACE = IMP
• RACE = DEMONIC
• RACE = SOLAR
• RACE = ANTISOLAR
• RACE = PLANATAR
• RACE = DARKPLANATAR
• RACE = SALAMANDER

Additionally, we could:

• make Cure Wound spells / abilities harm UNDEAD
• make Cause Wound spells / abilities heal UNDEAD

which would be even cooler (as @CamDawg said, all of this would require adjusting the AI, but should be doable...)

[CamDawg]

4 hours ago, Luke said:

Having said that, I'm all in for an "optional, but cool component" that implements all of that.

In BG2FP, we used the OBC components as "we're pretty sure this is a bug, and this is how it should be fixed". Notably, all of the OBC components were incorporated into baseline BG2EE, which is a reflection of how well we did. The current implementation of Cure/Cause spells w.r.t. extraplanars and undead in BG/BG2 is, as far as we can tell, working as intended.

Whether they should work on tieflings in IWDEE is more of an academic question, as there are none in the game.

[subtledoctor]

5 hours ago, Luke said:

Guess the same holds for Aasimar, right (since they're also labeled as "plane-touched")...? If that's the case, then IWDEE is wrong...

I just checked and the IWDEE Cure Wounds spells do indeed have a 324 effect preventing them from working on tieflings. I don't think that game contains any tieflings or aasimar, BUT I'm not sure that matters. Considering dev intent:

The devs pretty clearly intended to prevent the Cure spells work working on tieflings, since an op324 effect was specifically added for them. Case closed? No:

• Those op324 effects in Cure spells were pretty clearly intended to implement the PnP rule that Cure spells don't work on extraplanar beings.
• Per PnP AD&D, tieflings do not count as an "extraplanar race." (Not any more than a human or dwarf who happens to hail from the outer planes.)
• I haven't found any shred of evidence that there is an alternative or homebrew rule floating around that prevents tieflings being Cured.
• IWD is in a number of ways more faithful to the PnP ruleset than any other IE game.
• This suggests the IWD devs intended to follow the actual PnP rule, but were mistaken about its proper implementation.
• Game files reflecting a developer error in implementation is, more or less, the very definition of a "bug."

So IMHO it is worth stripping that op324 effect from the Cure spells in IWDEE. (This FixPack contemplates IWDEE, right? Not just the BG games?)

EDIT - I don't have an oIWD install handy, so I cannot see what the spells look like there. If I had to put money on it, I would guess that the tiefling race does not exist in the oIWD game files, which means this errant op324 effect would have been added by Beamdog. Probably just being overzealous in the process of converting the files. If oIWD lacks an equivalent effect, I think it bolsters the case to remove it. I mean, unless someone has a theory that Beamdog had a specific reason to apply an except to the spells for something that doesn't even exist in the game... seems unlikely to me.

Edited May 11, 2022 by subtledoctor

[CamDawg]

oIWD funneled all of these through 206/290 (the EE equivalent would be 318/324) opcodes, but they only worked with a hardcoded list of conditions. In this case it used unnatural (55); after looking through the code this was undead, golems, and the existing extraplanars of IWD (essentially salamanders, demons, and elementals). The rest (mephits, genies, imps, celestials, tieflings) were added by BD, yes. Remember that the standard is dev intent, not PnP. I'm going out on a limb here, but I feel "these things explicitly added by BD are not BD's intent" may not quite be up to the standard.

Again, though, we're arguing over a moot point. There are no tieflings in IWDEE, and I'm perfectly happy to leave any such decisions to whichever mod decides to add some.

[Bartimaeus]

1 hour ago, subtledoctor said:

Per PnP AD&D, tieflings do not count as an "extraplanar race." (Not any more than a human or dwarf who happens to hail from the outer planes.)

Does anyone know if curing spells not working on extraplanars is specific to their current status as an extraplanar to the Prime Material...or would a celestial be able to be healed in its own home plane, and would a mortal not be capable of being healed on that same plane?

Looks like I found my answer, and it's "yes" to both questions - a celestial would not have the extraplanar subtype when it's in its own plane, while Primes would have the extraplanar subtype when not on the Prime Material:

Quote

Extraplanar Subtype: A subtype applied to any creature when it is on a plane other than its native plane. A creature that travels the planes can gain or lose this subtype as it goes from plane to plane. This book assumes that encounters with creatures take place on the Material Plane, and every creature whose native plane is not the Material Plane has the extraplanar subtype (but would not have when on its home plane). Every extraplanar creature in this book has a home plane mentioned in its description. These home planes are taken from the Great Wheel cosmology of the D&D game (see Chapter 5 of the Dungeon Master’s Guide). If your campaign uses a different cosmology, you will need to assign different home planes to extraplanar creatures.

Creatures not labeled as extraplanar are natives of the Material Plane, and they gain the extraplanar subtype if they leave the Material Plane. No creature has the extraplanar subtype when it is on a transitive plane; the transitive planes in the D&D cosmology are the Astral Plane, the Ethereal Plane, and the Plane of Shadow.

Guess that would mean if this idea were implemented, technically speaking, you would not want the player to be able to use healing spells when in e.g. the Planar Sphere hell realm. Though I now also question what it takes for a particular plane to be considered your "native" plane - would a human born in the Abyss have that plane as their native plane and thus be extraplanar when in the Prime Material, or are they considered to be the same matter as their parents and thus they and all of their children and their children's children and so on also be considered Prime? Would this also mean Tieflings are not on their native plane if they're born in and live their entire lives in the Abyss...or can you have multiple native planes? The thought that the player character may be technically considered extraplanar when in the Pocket Plane is a funny thought - even if the player is a special exception, the rest of your party shouldn't be.

Edited May 11, 2022 by Bartimaeus

[subtledoctor]

22 minutes ago, CamDawg said:

I'm going out on a limb here, but I feel "these things explicitly added by BD are not BD's intent" may not quite be up to the standard.

Respectfully, I would agree with you if anyone could put forth even a hypothetical rationale for why that was added - what the "intent" actually is, beyond "dev intent is what the devs did." (If that's the case, then all sorts of bugs should not be fixed. Including, particularly, every instance of multiple copies of a "unique" item.)

Put another way: I think this is worthy of a bug report being submitted to the IWDEE devs. They should at lest be alerted to the question, so they can (re)consider what pretty clearly seems to be an oversight. And hey, this is intended to be a model the BD devs can look at when evaluating changes for a future patch! Putting the change here would 1) do no harm; 2) correct something that seems incorrect (again, nobody has made a case that it is actually correct), and 3) put it where the BD devs can easily see and evaluate it for a future patch. What's not to like?

Edited May 11, 2022 by subtledoctor

[subtledoctor]

5 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

Guess that would mean if this idea were implemented, technically speaking, you would not want the player to be able to use healing spells when in e.g. the Planar Sphere hell realm.

I don't think anyone is suggesting that is within the scope here. (The official PnP rules get into all sorts of minutiae about how magic should function differently on other planes, and it is very interesting and applying that stuff to the brief interplanar excursions in these games would also be very interesting. But the immediate question is simply, how do Cure spells work on the Prime plane.)

5 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

Though I now also question what it takes for a particular plane to be considered your "native" plane - would a human born in the Abyss have that plane as their native plane and thus be extraplanar when in the Prime Material, or are they considered to be the same matter as their parents and thus they and all of their children and their children's children and so on also be considered Prime?

Especially in the context of BGEE engine mechanics, the question is not "where are you from?" but "what type of being are you?" Very quickly and roughly stating the 2E cosmology, Elementals are composed of the stuff of their plane. Fiends and celestials are immortal spirits created from the ethos and energies of the outer planes. By contrast, any number of mortals have learned to travel to and survive in other planes, but they are still mortal races whose linage was created on the Prime. A tiefling is just a bog-standard (demi-)human who has a great-great-great-great-great-great-great-granddaddy that was a fiend in a form that could functionally breed with mortals. A bog-standard (demi-)human with a touch of weird lineage is still a (demi-)human, and (demi-)humans are not on the list of the types of being who cannot be affected by Cure Wounds spells. It's that simple.

[Luke]

2 hours ago, CamDawg said:

In BG2FP, we used the OBC components as "we're pretty sure this is a bug, and this is how it should be fixed". Notably, all of the OBC components were incorporated into baseline BG2EE, which is a reflection of how well we did. The current implementation of Cure/Cause spells w.r.t. extraplanars and undead in BG/BG2 is, as far as we can tell, working as intended.

OK, I see.

Such a tweak might be worth for Tweaks Anthology then (I can provide code if you think it might be of interest...)

[Bartimaeus]

1 minute ago, subtledoctor said:

Especially in the context of BGEE engine mechanics, the question is not "where are you from?" but "what type of being are you?" Very quickly and roughly stating the 2E cosmology, Elementals are composed of the stuff of their plane. Fiends and celestials are immortal spirits created from the ethos and energies of the outer planes. By contrast, any number of mortals have learned to travel to and survive in other planes, but they are still mortal races whose linage was created on the Prime. A tiefling is just a bog-standard (demi-)human who has a great-great-great-great-great-great-great-granddaddy that was a fiend in a form that could functionally breed with mortals. A bog-standard (demi-)human with a touch of weird lineage is still a (demi-)human, and (demi-)humans are not on the list of the types of being who cannot be affected by Cure Wounds spells. It's that simple.

No disagreement re: tieflings - I think it would be silly if a 95% demihuman couldn't be healed. Also, what you're saying about it being racially driven seems to be correct according to the Manual of the Planes:

Quote

The Material Plane is home for most of the well-known creatures of the D&D cosmology, including dragons, animals, undead, and of course the player characters' races. All creature types other than outsiders and elementals consider the Material Plane their native plane.

 

2 minutes ago, subtledoctor said:

I don't think anyone is suggesting that is within the scope here. (The official PnP rules get into all sorts of minutiae about how magic should function differently on other planes, and it is very interesting and applying that stuff to the brief interplanar excursions in these games would also be very interesting. But the immediate question is simply, how do Cure spells work on the Prime plane.)

No disagreement there either - more just musing on my part.

[subtledoctor]

1 minute ago, Bartimaeus said:

more just musing on my part

  I do enjoy a good musing session.

[CamDawg]

1 hour ago, subtledoctor said:

Respectfully, I would agree with you if anyone could put forth even a hypothetical rationale for why that was added - what the "intent" actually is, beyond "dev intent is what the devs did." (If that's the case, then all sorts of bugs should not be fixed. Including, particularly, every instance of multiple copies of a "unique" item.)

I am chastised. My answer was flippant, and I apologize.

The rationale was that tieflings are extraplanar. From what @Bartimaeus has been posting, I no longer think that's accurate, and I'm onboard with removing tieflings from the list of exclusions.

1 hour ago, Luke said:

Such a tweak might be worth for Tweaks Anthology then (I can provide code if you think it might be of interest...)

TA is certainly an option, but not the only one--I feel like IWDification may be a better fit, especially since it already does half of this. I'm going to ping @Angel as well since he's doing a lot of PnP stuff for his MiH series.

It's a shame @aVENGER_(RR) is not active any more. This is exactly the kind of PnP details he'd love for aTweaks.

[Graion Dilach]

I know the agreement was already made for tieflings to be allowed to heal, but another reasons for inclusion of it is that we've got a fair amount of tieflings already as BG NPCs and it could trip the NPC modder up that their NPC needs core changes to function. Also, does celestials include aasimars in this context? Because I'd move the goalpost further to make allow both aasimars and tieflings if that's the case...

[subtledoctor]

44 minutes ago, Graion Dilach said:

I know the agreement was already made for tieflings to be allowed to heal, but another reasons for inclusion of it is that we've got a fair amount of tieflings already as BG NPCs and it could trip the NPC modder up that their NPC needs core changes to function. Also, does celestials include aasimars in this context? Because I'd move the goalpost further to make allow both aasimars and tieflings if that's the case...

 

No versions of the Cure Wounds spells exclude aasimar from their effects. (Arguably more evidence that the IWDEE tiefling exclusion is a mistake - or if not a mistake at the time it was done, at least inconsistent now - since tieflings and aasimar have identical status in this regard.) And AFAIK the suggestion that the spells should be changed to exclude aasimar has been rejected.