Epic Spell: Damnation doesn't quite work

[cosmic ray]

You want epic spells to defeat the toughest enemies in dungeons and even bosses, but, because all dungeons are under dimension lock to prevent people from cheesing teleport, that creates the surely unintended side effect of blocking the epic spell Damnation. Since the expansion of dimension locks to the environments outside of dungeons and not just dungeons, it has got even worse than before. Now the places you can use that spell are along roads with wolves or goblins etc, or to enhance campfire RP. Could this be fixed please?

[cosmic ray]

Das bump.

[Steve]

I hate the dimensional lock going on, and it is really poor that this change was made and no one mentioned it (or even asked the community what that thought about it, considering just how much it affects their game experience).

[Aspect of Sorrow]

Keep the lock function, minimize where the static locks are.

[cosmic ray]

Keep the lock function, minimize where the static locks are.

That is no good, as then we'd all mark runes right next to epic chests and nobody would complete a dungeon ever again. The best solution would be to entirely remove the dimension lock on dungeons and make it so people teleporting into dungeons are taken to the start of the dungeon regardless of where they set down the rune. This idea is not mine, but I like it.

Alternatively, if possible, lift all dungeon locks and make it so teleport does not work when the target location is a dungeon. Surely it's possible to code something like this using some kind of flag?

Either of these two options seem much better than either opening up dungeons for teleports or having damnation not work outside of campfire areas. The spell might as well not exist the way things work at the moment.

[DaloLorn]

The best solution would be to entirely remove the dimension lock on dungeons and make it so people teleporting into dungeons are taken to the start of the dungeon regardless of where they set down the rune.

Bear in mind that some dungeons featuring high-level clergy and wizards actually have a valid reason to be warded against teleportation... and that Dimensional Lock is supposed to block the teleport seed responsible for Damnation's "go to hell" functionality. A blanket removal of this restriction, even with fallbacks to prevent teleporting to arbitrary locations in a dungeon, is not on the table.

However... there's also a compel seed in the mix. If the spell succeeds, the victim is supposed to voluntarily remain at their destination for 20 hours, believing they deserve what's happening to them. Obviously we're not porting the spell verbatim (maybe this is a Lesser Damnation or something?), since we also don't require a melee touch attack, nor do we provide a +15 DC boost (ours is only +5)... but this compulsion could persist despite the failed teleport. Perhaps stunning the victim for a few minutes, like a souped-up Solipsism? It'd be a lot better than dazing them for d3 rounds...

[cosmic ray]

That would be something, yes, but then, bosses on the server are magically immune to epic spells anyway, so you'd still only be using that and other epic spells against chaff spawns. There just is no point to taking these feats and, currently, Damnation is the worst of them due to being completely useless.

[DaloLorn]

Immune to epic spells? I've seen immunities to spell schools and to effect types, either of which would implicitly block a given epic spell (for instance, Damnation would be covered by Immunity: School [Enchantment], or Immunity: Effect [Mind-Affecting]), but I've seen nothing to support an explicit ban against using an epic spell on boss mobs. (As for the nonsensical school/type immunities scattered throughout the server, those are being phased out as part of the PvE rework.)

In any case, I'll raise the Damnation upgrade internally.

[Dolorof]

Unless i am missing something, there are no immunity against epic spells in bosses. Some bosses are immune to mind effect, others immune against death effect This can complicate the life of one or another epic spell, but to be specific immune against an epic spell, i am not sure this is in game.

[Aspect of Sorrow]

Unless i am missing something, there are no immunity against epic spells in bosses. Some bosses are immune to mind effect, others immune against death effect This can complicate the life of one or another epic spell, but to be specific immune against an epic spell, i am not sure this is in game.

The cast checks for teleport functionality which causes this particular spell's failure.

[Dolorof]

Unless i am missing something, there are no immunity against epic spells in bosses. Some bosses are immune to mind effect, others immune against death effect This can complicate the life of one or another epic spell, but to be specific immune against an epic spell, i am not sure this is in game.

The cast checks for teleport functionality which causes this particular spell's failure.

Oh i know, its a counter to the spell indeed. I was referring to Cosmic ray's comment on "bosses on the server are magically immune to epic spells anyway ".

[DaloLorn]

Unless i am missing something, there are no immunity against epic spells in bosses. Some bosses are immune to mind effect, others immune against death effect This can complicate the life of one or another epic spell, but to be specific immune against an epic spell, i am not sure this is in game.

The cast checks for teleport functionality which causes this particular spell's failure.

Like Dolorof, I was referring to Cosmic's remark about bosses having a broader immunity to epic spells. I last read the Damnation script to check that exact thing a few hours ago, I'd better know teleport blocks prevent it from working!

[Bluh]

...

[cosmic ray]

I don't know how the immunity is worked into each boss's traits, but they have immunities that make them immune to epic spells, let's put it that way, then. At least, against the good epic spells that are worth taking. They are also immune or highly resistant to certain non-epic spells, like Avasculate. Even minor bosses, like the black dragon in the Snake area, take damage much lower than half their hp. Again, it may not be any line of code specifically adding an exception to Avasculate, but the end result is that Avasculate exceptionally works in a much diminished form.

This may not apply to every single boss in the module, but it applies to enough of them that it makes playing spellcasters frustrating in boss fights. Imagine having exception mechanics that blocked or diminished a weapon master's critical hits against the majority of bosses (without a proper reason for it, I mean. Undead etc should be immune to critical hits). It wouldn't be any fun.

I can't rightly say with 100% precision that x is causing y in situations like these because the combat log spam is very fast and there is inconsistency in combat log feedback too. Sometimes you get a yellow message saying a monster is immune to, say, death magic; sometimes you get nothing but you know the creature is still immune to that because that's the way they are in the monster manual. When we're talking about made up immunities based on exception mechanics to increase difficulty in a "lazy" way, it isn't always easy to make precise statements without looking at a creature's traits in the toolset, at least for someone like me.

[DaloLorn]

I don't know how the immunity is worked into each boss's traits, but they have immunities that make them immune to epic spells, let's put it that way, then. At least, against the good epic spells that are worth taking. They are also immune or highly resistant to certain non-epic spells, like Avasculate. Even minor bosses, like the black dragon in the Snake area, take damage much lower than half their hp. Again, it may not be any line of code specifically adding an exception to Avasculate, but the end result is that Avasculate exceptionally works in a much diminished form.

This may not apply to every single boss in the module, but it applies to enough of them that it makes playing spellcasters frustrating in boss fights. Imagine having exception mechanics that blocked or diminished a weapon master's critical hits against the majority of bosses (without a proper reason for it, I mean. Undead etc should be immune to critical hits). It wouldn't be any fun.

I can't rightly say with 100% precision that x is causing y in situations like these because the combat log spam is very fast and there is inconsistency in combat log feedback too. Sometimes you get a yellow message saying a monster is immune to, say, death magic; sometimes you get nothing but you know the creature is still immune to that because that's the way they are in the monster manual. When we're talking about made up immunities based on exception mechanics to increase difficulty in a "lazy" way, it isn't always easy to make precise statements without looking at a creature's traits in the toolset, at least for someone like me.

Doing a search for the boss flag reveals the following: Avasculate always deals 20% (instead of 50%) damage to heroic mobs. Vampiric Feast only gets a damage reduction (of the same magnitude as Avasculate) on a successful save, otherwise it doesn't care and just kills the target. Baleful Polymorph and Shadow Simulacrum ignore heroic mobs or mobs whose hit dice is more than twice your caster level. Glass Doppelganger ignores heroic mobs.

I can otherwise find no special checks for bosses, only regular spell/school/effect immunities. (Which are, however, sprinkled overly liberally throughout our epic content, and not even exclusively on bosses. I won't deny that... but it hasn't been the case for our newer dungeons.)