Ask The GMs: When players make themselves immune, remember that “Resistance Is Futile”
How do you handle PCs who seem to be immune to magic?
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Mike’s Answer
I no longer have access to most of my AD&D sources, so I’m unsure just how much help I can be to our hapless DM in resolving this particular conundrum. About the best that I can do is to offer some generic and systemless suggestions, seasoned here and there with a couple of ideas from D&D 3.5, and hope they can be translated into AD&D terms by our enquiring DM (and anyone else who’s interested).
If anyone has any more specific advice relating to AD&D, I would encourage you to help out by posting your thoughts to the comments for this post.
I want to start by suggesting that I detect a strong odour of collusion amongst your players, who are probably reacting to a demonstrated preference for a specific mode of targeting them in your campaigns. If you’ve been hitting them too hard in the past with attacks that require saving throws, this sort of reaction is a natural evolution, but even so it seems to be a remarkable coincidence that all your PCs have this characteristic in common.
At first glance, this is tantamount to a declaration of war against the GM, and much of the advice I am about to offer can be viewed as an escalation of hostilities. While it might come to that, I am sure Johnn will offer some more diplomatic avenues for consideration; these should definitely be employed before the more extreme suggestions that I am going to make. It might be that it is all a coincidence, or simply a case of convergent evolution in response to a previously-experienced GMing style. If that’s the circumstance, you should moderate the degree to which you implement the following advice.
I note you mention a high-magic game setting; it’s quite possible that your players have had a paranoid overreaction. Consider this an opportunity, not a burden!
Target The PC’s Deficiencies
In all forms of D&D, high Saving Throws derive from specific characteristics having high values. In AD&D, as I recall, the problem is somewhat exacerbated by racial bonuses, but setting that aside, the first technique for handling this problem is that having one thing high implies another is low – which means the characters have weak spots that can be targeted, especially at lower levels.
The attributes that are going to be vulnerable in 3.x, (and, if memory serves, in AD&D as well) are Strength, Intelligence, and Charisma:
- Strength can be targeted by confining or restraining the characters with nets, lassos, and the like. Wrestling matches are another means. Swimming is strength dependant in 3.x, I’m not sure about AD&D. Outside the combat arena, you can manouver them by making selected doors to heavy to move, weights too heavy to lift, etc. You should strictly enforce carrying capacities and make sure that every scrap of weight is accounted for. If they attempt to get around this weakness with beasts of burden, steal or kill the beasts and the goods that they are carrying, which WON’T have unusually high saving rolls.
- Intelligence can be targeted through deceptions, lies, and outright fraud. You don’t think that word will quickly get around that these people are thick as posts? Psionics is another option, and one that I have a personal dislike for; if you don’t share that position, feel free to exploit it. Puzzles and conundrums should become featured elements of the campaign. Of course, your players might be smart enough to see through the flimsy lines of argument – but either they are not roleplaying their characters properly (which should be penalised), or they will be forced into making intelligence rolls for their characters.
- Charisma means they are vulnerable to non-magical charms and seductions, and should quickly acquire a reputation for being soft touches, easy prey for a sob story – again, unless they are roleplaying especially badly, in which case penalties may be called for. Between this and the Intelligence factor, several people should have the PCs wrapped around their little fingers in short order. Admittedly, this is an extreme reaction; I dislike taking control of their characters away from the players, but if they are actively trying to take advantage of that dislike, they’ve asked for it!
Player: “I’m suspicious of the old dude with the pointed teeth – he’s trying too hard to be charming, I think he’s a Vampire.”
GM, rolling dice: “No, you don’t think of that, and you trust him implicitly. You are captivated by his charm, grace, and wit, and are sure he can invest your wealth far more effectively than you can.”
Player: “Why on earth would I think that?”
GM: “What’s your INT and CHAR again?”
Player: “Oh…”
NB: It should go without saying that the LAST thing you should permit is for the characters to get their hands on magic items that make up for these deficiencies. No way, no how.
Keep The Switch Flipped
Okay, so the characters are relatively immune to magic. That’s not just enemy magic, that’s ALL magic. Bless. Cure Light Wounds. Protection from evil. Resurrection. Wish. Potions. You name it.
A more typical interpretation is that the characters are only immune to spells that have a saving throw, and they can forgo that saving throw if they wish (i.e. for spells that are cast by an ally). In the middle of a fight, they are going to stop and think about whose spell it is that’s about to affect them? Not likely!
If they permit ANY magic to affect them, ALL magic should affect them until the start of their next action. Maybe they should even have to concentrate (make an INT roll?) to change their magic-vulnerability status while in battle – unless they forgo a round of attacks.
Sauce For The Goose
Another point to make is that you should never ignore the potential of NPCs who are just as resistant as the PCs!
Always remember that you are both playing by the same rules. Anything they use against you, you should be able to use against them, and vice versa!
Indirect Applications Of Magic
Consider the following: don’t cast fireballs at resistant foes, cast them at the strategically-placed barrels of gunpowder. If a spell creates an acid rain, who’s to say that it’s the RAIN that’s magical? Maybe it’s the clouds. A Dig spell doesn’t have to hit the characters to open a pit beneath their feet. Look for INDIRECT applications of magic that can partially or completely bypass their immunities.
Smart enemies will deliberately avoid wasting attacks on strong defences; once the characters get a reputation for being resistant to magic, they will find other ways.
One of the most obvious is having your NPC spellcasters cast spells that augment a strike force instead of harming the PCs.
Reverse Your Roles
Put yourself in their shoes for a minute. Assume you are a player designing a character, and the GM has a habit of giving his NPCs really good saving throws that make them virtually immune to magic. How would you deal with the problem?
Target the source of their resistance
Finally, consider the potential for attacks that drain the characteristics that are giving them these high saves in the first place. Then strike while they are vulnerable!
Hopefully, these solutions will point you in the right direction. Now, it’s over to my co-author for his input…
Johnn’s Answer
I like Mike’s answer of having the world react to the PCs. Unless you are doing pure dungeon crawls and each situation can never have foreknowledge via word of mouth, reputation, scouts, villain planning and whatnot, then have NPCs update their tactics once the PCs make their magic immunities known.
Curses
A curse is a great way to reduce abilities, and they spawn quests for removal – a double win. Random curses would be unfair, but curses caused by adversaries looking for advantage is great gameplay. Perhaps foes drop a cursed sword down the monster hole, which the critter greedily adds to his horde just as the PCs are about to crawl in. A mysterious gift, when opened, sprays unwary PCs with curses. An ambush is specifically designed to get curses successfully placed on the PCs. Do sleeping PCs get full magic saves in 1st edition? I can’t remember.
Critters
With rust monsters, disenchanters and other creatures designed for meta-gaming reasons, how about creating a magic saving throw eating creature? Let the PCs hear about this beast in gossip and rumours first. Then have victims start appearing with horrible stories. If the PCs do not investigate, provide them incentive, such as a bounty or quest.
Do not force a meeting through a random encounter or pre-determined collision. If the PCs avoid the creature then let it lay low for a bit. Then look for ways to bring the PCs to that area for other reasons, at which time encounters with the creature for any reason are fair game. By then, hopefully it has had time to breed.
Getting young sucks
In 1st edition I think there are negative age modifiers on INT and WIS for young folk. Hit the PCs with an anti-ghost. Each time a PC is hit he gets younger. This makes more sense in a way as killing PCs this way is faster than making them get older. Perhaps the god of undead sees this flaw in the ghosts he’s created and starts pumping out anti-ghosts instead.
Create trade-offs
If the PCs are stacked up for magic immunity they might be tricked into disadvantageous trade-offs. Since the characters are already immune to magic, give them treasure that further increases their magic saving throws but makes them weaker in other areas (what have you got to lose?).
Conversely, offer treasure that boosts other abilities in exchange for magic saving throw reduction.
In either case, it’s all PC choice and your group will be ok with that.
Use more anti-magic fields
If the PCs are immune to magic then get rid of magic altogether for awhile. Put in anti-magic fields and null magic zones. This means the flora and fauna will need to resort to other defenses and abilities. Do this to provide in-game reasons why fewer attacks are using magic these days so it doesn’t seem as arbitrary to the players. Yes, the anti-magic zones are arbitrary, but if you forewarn the PCs or create an anti-magic villain then you address things at the campaign level.
Check for house rules
Those are a few GM vs. PCs ideas. I’d also take a look at the campaign setup just to make sure you are not sabotaging yourself. Do you have any house rules in effect that impact magic saving throws? For example, do you allow the monty haul stat rolling method from Unearthed Arcana? That’ll generate some great PC ability scores. Remove this as an option and revert back to 3d6.
Any other house rules that have crept into your campaigns over the years and are no longer questioned? If so, revert back to the official rules.
Check for optional supplements
Are you using any books whose rules are boosting saving throws? Remove these from the campaign next time. Be careful of suddenly removing them mid-campaign. That’s going to anger your group unless you have a great in-game reason for it.
Long-term – target other saving throws to create group balance
I like Mike’s line of thinking that your players are reacting to previous campaigns that exposed too much magic saving throw weakness. Create a long term strategy to expose other areas of weakness for which the players should design good defenses or attacks into their PCs. This won’t help your campaign today, but if you are playing with the same group for a long time then take this long-term approach in parallel with other short term reactions.
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October 20th, 2009 at 2:13 am
You could just throw tons and tons of saving-throw monsters at them — more than the normal CR would allow. They’ll resist a bunch and feel like they’re getting great mileage out of their resistance, then they’ll inevitably roll a 1 and the encounter will be balanced.
October 20th, 2009 at 9:28 am
In AD&D (which I used to play) does things by “raw experience points,” not by “CR” so it didn’t matter whether the players were 1st level facing a great wyrm or 20th lvl. Before a certain point, it was certain suicide to attempt to face said monster, but the players still *could* try. There wasn’t really an easy mechanic for leveling monsters as there is in 3.x and 4 though, so unless you made custom monsters (or just gave them character levels anyways, and increased the XP), you were stuck with whatever monsters were in the book(s).
October 20th, 2009 at 10:06 am
Actually, James, the closest equivalent to CR is probably HD. The rule of thumb that I always used to use was Number of HD in the party should be roughly equal to the number of HD of the monsters. I converted the party’s magic items to a gp value, which was defined as equivalent to xp, which in turn enabled an adjustment to the level of the characters, ie an increase in HD. I also subtracted the gp value of any magic items the enemy had available to them. It was a much simpler system than 3.x, and the results were a lot rougher. But it worked reasonably well.
October 20th, 2009 at 10:42 am
Try asking your players *why* they chose such-and-such a character class…. Player-GM “War” is a bad path you should try hard to avoid.
Short-term:
Also if they’re immune to some spells… use alchemy. Or psionics, or saving-throw-less spells. Or anything except that which they are invulnerable too. Mechanical traps. Dungeons made of jello. Tricking or controlling the PCs into fighting one another…. volontary sacrifices for the greater good (be aware some players may balk at this)
Long-term : All the above are merely *tactics*, and you should also be thinking strategically. The situation is only going to get worse as the PCs progress (and you should avoid slamming them with progression-denial tactics, as this kills player-enjoyment of just about everything). You need a long-term balancing factor. Eventually shutting down this PC team and starting over may be a more healthy alternative if you can’t find one. N.B. Mikes and Johnn suggestions cover almost everything, so there’s hope yet :)
October 22nd, 2009 at 9:35 pm
WARNING: I have forgotten my 2E and earlier D&D references…
My game environment was a “convention” style setting. 25+ players, 4+ GMs… big scale long story-arcs, intertwining party-adventures… all sorts of stuff.
I am a “sneaky-realist” GM. If my PCs are supposed to come up against a Wizard with WHOPPING Intelligence or a Cleric with WHOPPING Wisdom they will use their strengths to get around the PCs.
Spell Casters may try the “Blast them off the planet” method and then the next spell will be Stone to Mud or something else… Evards Black Tentacles to entangle the spellcasters and give the fighters a hassle. Summon Goons. Make people have to do Balance checks. And so on and so on. It should be a massive hassle to get to the BBEG… even when you rock up in the throne room.
Most of my PCs learned to fear the band of 8 kobolds in the small wood… because while the traps were haphazard, badly made and not fabulously dangerous… they were a pain in the ass as the kobolds kept running and sniping from amongst the trees.
NEVER be afraid to remind your players that “Jim-Bob The Destroyer of Worlds has the intelligence of a shoe and will most likely be kissed after that pile of Displacer Beast poo…”
October 27th, 2009 at 8:43 am
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Given that a DM has limitless power and an infinite array of choices to challenge his players with, I fail to see how it can possibly be “too good”. Just keep throwing tougher stuff at them until balance is achieved.
The important thing to remember is this: your players invested a lot into making their character’s magic resistant, and so magic resistance is a defining part of their character image. Just as the player of a mighty barbarian with maxed out strength is going to expect you to put stuff in front of him to rend limb from limb, these players deserve to get a thrill out of their character’s magic resistance. Throw a ton of magic at them, let them watch it bounce harmlessly off, and bask in the joy of their triumph. Once it’s firmly established how tough they are, that’s when you spin the “armor-piercing magic” plotline into your campaign.
Offer up a little foreshadowing, then wham: the world’s getting invaded by an amped-up magical army whose powerful enchantments routinely burn right through magic resistance and apply huge penalties to saving throws. While all of your PCs’ once formidable allies are falling like wheat before the scythe, it’s up to our heroes alone to fight through the hordes of darkness and cripple the power source behind them, so that the invaders can be taken down. Assuming the campaign continues from there, let them bask in their glory a while, then re-boot the nasty power source somehow and start it all over again.
“Game balance” in an RPG serves no real purpose but in estimating how hard you can push the PCs without breaking them, because that’s what storytelling is all about: an exercise in flirting with disaster. If the basic assumptions behind your game aren’t supporting that flirtation, it’s time to change them. But unless you’re running a horror game, do it in such a way that makes the players feel empowered.
October 27th, 2009 at 1:43 pm
Sweet! I do love a good example of turning a problem into an advantage, and that the PCs are called on to be heroic *because* of their immunity hits the swet spot for me. My second-thought was “Hmm… who *else* would also be immune, and will the PCs love or loathe needing to cooperate with them…?”
October 27th, 2009 at 1:48 pm
A few things come to mind…
1. If the GM is at war with the players, something has gone horribly wrong. Figure out what that is and repair it.
2. In AD&D, new spells could still be researched. “Improved” versions of spells that are two levels higher but no longer a saving throw might well appear if the PCs are well known heroes whose ability to resist the effects of a spell is notorious.
3. The heroes might become immune to magic, but I’d bet their families, lovers, friends, and allies won’t. A clever villain might make something of this.
4. Not all threats are spell-based. Villains might well protect themselves by moving their lairs or chosen arenas to nearby (or distant) planes, whose environments themselves are inimical to life, but not actually magical in themselves.
5. Be sure that this isn’t just a GM’s petulance at powerful players, or you may find yourself alone at that table next Saturday night. GMs have a lot of power, but all of it is at the consent of the players, who are not obligated to appear.
6. Make sure what you choose to do is actually fun for everyone involved. Fun does not mean easy.
March 4th, 2010 at 2:43 am
Forgive my ignorance, but I feel there is a question going unasked here:
Is this a problem?
No, really. Is it a problem? Let’s take it farther than good rolls: let’s say that you have a group of individuals that flat-out cannot be hurt by magic.
GM frustrations aside, that could be a really compelling story. What happens to them, in a high-magic setting? How quickly does word spread? Is there an element of celebrity to this?
Does someone need them for some usually-lethal ritual? Good or Evil aligned, does it matter? If I’m Joe Warlock, I’d kill to have someone who _cannot_ be hurt by magic. I can finally finish Grand Ritual X!
And again, I concur with the sentiments above. How do you deal with someone who cannot be hurt via magic?
Hit them with a stick. You could, if you were feeling saucy, put a nail in the stick, or something. Maybe sharpen the tip.
But it’s not necessary.
Rather than view this as a problem for you, why not let it follow its course, and see where it takes the characters, what problems it might create for them?
Just a thought. Hope that you’re having fun – AD&D is a fickle mistress, but there’s worlds of enjoyment to be had.
:D