A Weird Question- be afraid... be very afraid.

[Alatriel]

****Ok... as stated in a different post, please only reply to this if you are in fact a gm. Very much appreciated****


Ok, so I was wondering... why is it that the weird spell causes elementals and undead to die? Does it work on constructs? Is this a bug? It seems to me that an elemental or undead shouldn't be able to be frightened to death... and yet they are? Or has this been changed recently? Also, if a paladin is immune to fear, can they be weirded to death? What about oozes and jellies? Do they have a "will" to make a save? What about a bug? Do they see the spell and think "OH MY GOSH! It's a huge shoe about to squish me!! AHH! *dead*" Or should this spell really only be affecting sentient-non-undead-thinking-feeling-emoting-creatures who aren't immune to fear? Or is this just mechanically there for game balance, and the description is not exactly accurate and there simply for flavor?

Just a curious thought, I don't play a mage at current, so I was just wondering. Thanks for your time!

[Chongo]

Yeah, it's best not to bring up the bugs associated with weird.  Leanthar closed the book on any further effort towards this spell over a year ago.

Here's how it all works out, both mechanically and what I deem the proper interpretation for casters IC, and how to behave OOC regarding the spell.

1) There is a fear bug.  If a creature has fear immunity, it is a classic no-save poof-kill.  Since we will not be making an effort to fix this, fear immunity has been removed from all creatures save for a few here and there I've missed or figured that it was a non-issue.  I do not know if this bug applies to PCs if they wear an item with fear immunity.

2) The only way for me to actually block the spell on a creature is A) Spell School Immunity: Illusion, or B) Spell Immunity: 9th Level and Lower, or C) Specific Spell Immunity: Wierd.  I've done this in certain cases where it makes sense to have immunity to illusions.  Some folks think it is still broken even with these, and in my experience these three above are only negated if you fail to remove Immunity: Fear from the creature's skin or items.   If there's fear immunity anywhere on the creature, it overrides everything and brings in the major auto-kill bug.  Mind spell immunity does nothing to stop the spell unfortunately.

3) How to behave IC:  You are creating an image you do not see or know.  The Al'noth creates the illusion, you are merely harnessing the Al'noth in this method.  So nobody actually ever sees anything (including the silly spell image *rolls eyes*) with the exception of the target(s) falling dead to the ground.  If asked what image you created, you as the caster do not know.  You only know the means by which you created it.  As a caster, you know that non-sentient creatures can not be frightened to death, so you do not bother casting on them.

4) How to behave OOC:  You don't capitalize on the fear bug (although there are so few instances of this left that I frankly don't care since it can't be abused).  You don't cast on non-sentient undead, constructs as a whole, non-sentient elementals, and anything in general that does not have the capacity to fear something.  Now, that is a very general idea to consider, and if you are a caster using the spell, you should spend a great deal of time evaluating creatures.  Any time you tilt your head at a creature and wonder if it has brain function/ the ability to feel fear... you should think it over, and at your next safe rest, you should perhaps bring up the topic with your party.  The discussion I usually entertain is: "What do you think xxxx really is?"  This ends up delving into brain function/ intelligence invariably in my experience.


I hope this helps.  Do a search on the spell in the forums/ bug reports etc... I'd recommend reading these before posting anything else.  There has unfortunately been a lot of uneasy discussion on this spell.  And it has been shut down as a project - so it's not going to be worked on further.  As always, I like to point out to anyone who views this bug as an unfair advantage that 1) I have dealt with this issue in the module extensively on the build side.  The rebuild of creatures/ items during V3 was quite extensive and creature skins have been mostly altered to take away the major bug (auto-kill with fear immunity).  As a player who has a high level caster specializing in illusion... I know how it works in game with more anecdotal evidence then any other player.  I have combated the issues the best I can in a manner that maintains some semblance of equality between weird and wail on a mechanical level, 2) Do the math on a double save then compare with wail.

The main focus is how players deal with the spell in character.  Consider the implication of intelligence/ emotion in creatures.  Discuss with others around you.  If you take the time to do this then you really can't go wrong - because in spirit you've got the right idea behind playing the game as Layo would prefer it.

[Alatriel]

Thanks for the lengthy response, the OOC/IC ways of dealing with it was actually very helpful, though now I'm a bit concerned in that with paladins having a built in fear immunity (unless that's been removed also) that Daniella may have an auto kill if attacked with that spell.

But still, basically what I'm getting is, use the honor system, and as a mage, you shouldn't be casting that particular spell on non-sentient creatures that should be immune to the effects even if mechanically they are not, regardless of how powerful the spell is, it would be bad form rp-wise to be using it where and when not appropriate.  Thank you very much!  You've answered my question  I'm not exactly sure what it did or did not work on, but when reading the description of what the spell actually was it didn't make any sense as to why it would be used on certain things.  So.... it doesn't seem to be that it's the mechanics of the game that need to be changed, rather the rp surrounding the use of the spells.  Thanks again, and I appreciate your promt reply.

~E

[miltonyorkcastle]

Man, totally glad you tackled that one, Chongo, so I didn't have to.

[Chongo]

But still, basically what I'm getting is, use the honor system, and as a mage, you shouldn't be casting that particular spell on non-sentient creatures that should be immune to the effects even if mechanically they are not, regardless of how powerful the spell is, it would be bad form rp-wise to be using it where and when not appropriate.

As a sidenote, this part gets tricky in mobs.  Using the wildly varied spawns in the Deep as an example, where all sorts of creatures are in the fight at once - my personal opinion is that it's not the player's duty to forego using a spell because there are 5 undead in a spawned group of 30 creatures.  It's a bug.  And while players should never capitalize on bugs, it isn't fair to expect them to police themselves (or worse each other) just because their spell managed to 'wing' a few questionable creature types.  If someone came out at the old mithril mine entrance with "//hey chongo... you just weirded 8 undead creatures... not cool dude", then I'd probably want to smack them since there were 30 other creatures all around me that were perfectly sentient and obvious targets for the spell.  At the same time, a lot of casters like to use other spells creatively in such instances for plain fun.  It's kinda style points in a way.  As an example, Alantha actually goes out of her way to not use any mass death spells solely for the sake of having more fun and keeping battles exciting and 'stylish'.  It's a very cool way to approach the game.  That said... she rarely has to worry about her usual partygoers (a fat dwarf or wildly nimble old human lady with a rapier come to mind) being in danger... so style is a bit easier to maintain a tempo with.  Still - it's a good example of a mindset to pursue when you're playing this game.

As casters, you should follow the "spirit" of the spell as much as you can.  As long as your head is in the right place I think you'll do just fine.

[Thief Of Navarre]

Wow, good response! Its good to know someone is willing to make a stand on it...

Since its one of many Save or screwed Illusion spells it puts a clean stone wall for the rest of us that we wont be subject to RP policing and just our own judgement when I comes to casting things that are governed by unavoidable bioware issues.