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Author Topic: Fire and Undead?  (Read 6557 times)

Ellana Twiggy

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Fire and Undead?
« on: April 16, 2008, 11:16:53 PM »
I have a curious thing about undead and fire. I have finally made level  6 with my sorc, quite happy about it, and with such I finally took what I thought would be one of the most useful spells about. Fireball.
Well, after going to several places I have learned that a great many spirits, slimes, and undead are rather. . .impervious to fire.
I have always been under the impression that undead were vulnerable to fire, but am finding out that saddly this is not the case. I am just wondering if this is some how factoring into game play balance, when as a  sorc I am fairly limited on dungeoneering when my spells have little to no effect. I really hate following a group around when I can do little to nothing to help, especially after putting in the time to get where I am and actually not being burned yet. :-p
So,  any feed back to help me as far as future  progression would be wonderful, after all, sorcs are a little limited on spell selection and we can only change them on level up, which, as we get higher, takes longer and longer.

Nefensis

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Re: Fire and Undead?
« Reply #1 on: April 16, 2008, 11:18:33 PM »
Immaterial undead arent affected by elemental magic.

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shadymerchant

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Re: Fire and Undead?
« Reply #2 on: April 17, 2008, 02:41:57 AM »
There is much a mage can do, even at level 6, to help a party. PFE, mage armor, stat modifyers, your familiar, ghostly visage, magic missle (Can be cast as second level silent spells, third level empowered, fourth level maximized)  and other third circle spells like haste/keen, and other such spells can make a great deal of difference.

The fact of the matter is that most parties, consisting of tanks, do not want a mage throwing around evocation spells. They want to be buffed and let loose as engines of destruction. Now, you may feel that that is not fair, or your character isn't the type to do that, which is entirely reasonable. Most parties will welcome your mage though. If nothing else, one day you will be higher level, and you have every right to remember who snubbed you and who saw the potential of a young mage coming up in the world ;)

mayvind

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Re: Fire and Undead?
« Reply #3 on: April 17, 2008, 02:47:14 AM »
sorcere have limit spell so either you party sorc or a lone type sorc, pick spell carefully. fireball is one of great spell to kill mummies and many rats.

engelfire

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Re: Fire and Undead?
« Reply #4 on: April 17, 2008, 04:10:37 AM »
dont waste fireballs into rats since they only have like 1 hp anyway. go buy some acid flasks instead from murnu or alchemist fire from marcel. toss one in to band of rats and watch em explode
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Nefensis

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Re: Fire and Undead?
« Reply #5 on: April 17, 2008, 04:24:18 AM »
or run through with haste and death armor, grah! Dont run into a caliban tho.

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tzaeru

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Re: Fire and Undead?
« Reply #6 on: April 17, 2008, 05:36:37 AM »
or run through with haste and death armor, grah! Dont run into a caliban tho.

..And wait for the rat to hit you while you run + have the AC bonus from Haste + possibly from other items!  :mrgreen:

Ruxandra

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Re: Fire and Undead?
« Reply #7 on: April 17, 2008, 06:00:00 AM »
dont waste fireballs into rats since they only have like 1 hp anyway. go buy some acid flasks instead from murnu or alchemist fire from marcel. toss one in to band of rats and watch em explode

Do not listen to this man! By all means, hunt rats with fireballs. Crocodile Dundee style!

Is heck of a lot of fun anyways. :P

Burning hands works too.
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Re: Fire and Undead?
« Reply #8 on: April 17, 2008, 09:41:38 AM »
Immaterial undead arent affected by elemental magic.

Which is in fact something that is slightly wrong.. Incorporeal creatures should not be affected by natural elemental damage, magical should work.. Though it has a 50% miss chance..

Mummies, dont like fire.. And for a lvl 6 those are good xp. Juju Zombies have a slight fire immunity, but with luck you can torch those as well. Most corporeal undead are as vulnerable to fire as anyone else, but quite a few are resistant to electricity and cold. Fireball is a useful spell, as is Burning Hands - do not underestimate this spells effect on mummies :twisted:

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Re: Fire and Undead?
« Reply #9 on: April 17, 2008, 02:49:05 PM »
D&D undead in general aren't any more vulnerable to fire than other creature types. There are a few exceptions, like mummies or if they have the cold subtype.

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Ellana Twiggy

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Re: Fire and Undead?
« Reply #10 on: April 17, 2008, 03:13:38 PM »
mmm, so, I am thinking of what I might be able to smite with my . . .fire ball. Yes, and I have come to the conclusion that I may as well head north and see how it effects those undead in the cold mountains. I shall probably be dead with in five min, so do take compassion upon me. :-p

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Re: Fire and Undead?
« Reply #11 on: April 17, 2008, 03:20:29 PM »
If I see your character in game I'd be more than happy to take her into the mountains and show her about ;) level 4 - 7 were the hardest to pull off

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Re: Fire and Undead?
« Reply #12 on: April 17, 2008, 03:21:22 PM »
Or just don't use fireball.  Take a tip from an expert mage:  Offensive spells aren't the way to go unless you really want to take the Multiplayer aspect of the game and turn it single-player.  There's always going to be a huge benefit with a mage that uses up a level 3 slot to make a killing machine out of a melee-character (Haste) than wasting one by lobbing something that does 20-60 damage to all targets, especially when the same machine you've just created also has your other fun support-spells on.

Mages, on this server, have the best buffing potency, with Bards and Clerics ranking right beneath.  Want to know the spell I appreciate most from a character with level 6 magic?

MASS HASTE!!!

Rex

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Re: Fire and Undead?
« Reply #13 on: April 17, 2008, 03:26:12 PM »
Situations like this are why I'm glad that when I do play PnP DnD, it's allways something like, Ptolus, Diamond Throne, or Pathfinder where your wizards can learn alternate templates for their spells.  Suck Divine Damage Fireball shadow boy.  Still though most of the Anti Undead weapons do seem to involve Fire which is useless against roughly half the undead.

Still though even with a Sorcerer there are plenty of things to do (I keep hearing that with my Fighter PC) and a Sorcerer should mow through quite a bit in comparison.  Might have to dig through my old login to find the one I was playing and check a few things.  Shelved the guy when it just got way to easy and he wasn't anywhere near 6th yet.

It's nice an all to when everyone pops up with team up here use this spell with this guy or come out with me and I'll show you the ropes, but there are plenty of situations where basically to be in character, you don't Do that.  Witch Hunter or Local really shouldn't be paling around with a pile of caster buddies and casters should actually watch out for the dedicated guy that's going to fake it one day and leave their hacked up body down in the bottom of the vampire pits, ooc friends to the rescue or what have you.

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shadymerchant

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Re: Fire and Undead?
« Reply #14 on: April 17, 2008, 06:11:47 PM »
Magiko isn't exactly walking the tight rope. He'll teach anyone that is interested. Learning how to use spells strategically can be a lot of fun and makes for a great deal of rp fodder.

Helaman

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Re: Fire and Undead?
« Reply #15 on: April 17, 2008, 09:32:00 PM »
Yeah - I think thats cool as RP... there isnt enough mentoring of late but mentoring makes great RP.

I've done mentoring as a weapon master with John and Yoshinaka and as a student with Yoshinaka (Raywyn smacking the crap out of me).. its great RP.

And Otake, Wulfgang Eberhardt, Aesin, Humiko, Bonereaver, Anthrania + whatever concept I am playing with...

Ruxandra

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Re: Fire and Undead?
« Reply #16 on: April 17, 2008, 10:10:22 PM »
Most newbie mages eager to toss blood and thunder stuff get rude awakenings when they learn that doing so immediately plants a huge "Eat Me!" sign on their backs the second it goes off.

Unless you're high enough level to be buffed to high heaven near-invincibility, don't go tossing fireballs at anything capable of offing you easily. Wisely spend your low to midlevels making friends and more importantly, augmenting them.

Improved invisibility, haste, extended stat buffs, mage armor, extended magic weapon etc will all get you more experience efficiency per spell used than a bunch of fireballs.
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Rex

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Re: Fire and Undead?
« Reply #17 on: April 18, 2008, 12:51:03 AM »
Yeah - I think thats cool as RP... there isnt enough mentoring of late but mentoring makes great RP.

I've done mentoring as a weapon master with John and Yoshinaka and as a student with Yoshinaka (Raywyn smacking the crap out of me).. its great RP.

More mentoring Less Power Leveling.

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Helaman

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Re: Fire and Undead?
« Reply #18 on: April 18, 2008, 03:42:11 AM »
Actually Rex is on the money here...

The amount of conversation generated in a 30-45 minute session in mentoring is normally sufficient to get you a satisfied message or better and GMs tend to like it from what I can guess from the proud messages I get when a DM is on-line.

Mentoring generally is minimal danger too and minimal resources (for combat mentoring I try to stay close to the ML temple for convenient healing or close to an inn so that resting is possible) in money, healing potions etc.

Also great XP and great fun... Raywyn did some fantastic TaiChi 'pushing hands' RP with me one night with me trying to follow her moves and spar with her in slow motion... it was a great moment for me when the dice fell just right and I managed to get inside her defences... and then her foot swung around and got me in the ribs :D

There are other times when Raywyn and I did meditation under a waterfall and so on... all good XP earners and all were fun RP experiences.

And Otake, Wulfgang Eberhardt, Aesin, Humiko, Bonereaver, Anthrania + whatever concept I am playing with...

mayvind

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Re: Fire and Undead?
« Reply #19 on: April 18, 2008, 05:49:16 AM »
Yeah - I think thats cool as RP... there isnt enough mentoring of late but mentoring makes great RP.

I've done mentoring as a weapon master with John and Yoshinaka and as a student with Yoshinaka (Raywyn smacking the crap out of me).. its great RP.

I used to teach new mages and have them as apprentice but with removen of the scribing scrolls it also remove the joy of seeing my apprentice scribing his first fireball spell into his book.

I say bring back scribing spell scroll !!!

 :offtopic:

Ellana Twiggy

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Re: Fire and Undead?
« Reply #20 on: April 18, 2008, 04:16:23 PM »
oh, so the scribe scroll feat doesn't work?handy to know, I was thinking about taking it. How about wands? I know we can make bone wands but if one can't enchant them then there is little use to try and make them or to take the feat.

As for the buffing and such, well. I would love to find a teacher in game to help my mage learn rp wise, however, having two previous mages burned at the stake in the city when I began playing about two years ago has detered me from being too out spoken about my magical abilities, even to the point that I wont cast around anyone unless I know for a fact that they wont try to 'burn the witch'. :-D

Rex

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Re: Fire and Undead?
« Reply #21 on: April 18, 2008, 04:51:17 PM »
I don't recall if they Removed the scrolls thing, but I do remember the Wands thing having some absolutely astronomical cost involved just to get a first level spell.  And I mean Astronomical to the tune of well over 5 digits worth of coin, for a 0 level spell and a roll that was almost as bad right afterwards.

Maybe Scrolls and wands can be reinstated with some more reasonable rolls, OR, one can tie up a DM in it if they have the time.

As for Fire and the Undead.  I was looking at some of the other Fire Options in game, you got the Alchemist Fire, which doesn't last long and is worthless against the Immaterial undead, But it does provide a handy adder in a pinch.

Darkfire and the Arcane equivilant are spells that actually Bug me RP wise, since people that Should be leary of them and disliking of them are cruising around in the open with flaming weapons drawn (or glowing) and there is never even a by your leave, or it's just blown off as "It's Clerical Magic Dumbass!  *snooty expresssion*"  (Even though healing magic is even mistrusted).

Maybe some more Holy Water Holy Item options as well?  Or some fire Options that are just seriously cranked up damage wise, Like a 50 pound barrel of Alchemist Fire that goes up in Fire Ball Style Damage?

Just a thought.

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mayvind

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Re: Fire and Undead?
« Reply #22 on: April 18, 2008, 05:21:14 PM »
scroll scribing and wands making has been removed for a year now. So is the potion making.

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Re: Fire and Undead?
« Reply #23 on: April 19, 2008, 01:50:29 AM »
I wouldn't take any of those feats 'til an alchemical crafting system is in.


Now, back to the topic of burning shamblers please.  :mrgreen:


Rex

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Re: Fire and Undead?
« Reply #24 on: April 19, 2008, 01:35:00 PM »
How about an Alchemist fire that works like the Combust Spell?

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