Undead are *not* immune to 'Slow' !? [minor spoilers]

MrGoodkat

Hey there,

I just noticed the Undead in this game are not immune to 'Slow' or at least not all of them. The Barrow Wights on Burial Isle for example - I just slowed them.

That raises the question, what are Undead actually immune against in this game? Can they be webbed?

There are so many spells I did not even *bother* casting because I thought Undead were immune anyway. For instance I always figured they were at the very least immune to any kind of movement impairing effect that doesn't specifically target Undead. Same with blindness, deafness, etc.

DreadKhan

Why wouldn't a gigantic conjured spider web not entangle undead?

Slow agreed is a bit odd, depends on how it is pseudo-scientifically supposed to function! If it slows metabolic function, shouldn't affect undead but if its a time warp kajigger...

Belanos

They're basically immune to any mind altering spells, like Sleep, Confusion, Horror etc. And they can't be poisoned. Plus they're immune to health damaging spells like Cause Moderate Wounds, Slay Living etc. There's a probably some more, but that's all I can think of right now. They are fair game to any movement spells like Slow or Web though.

MrGoodkat

DreadKhan said:

Why wouldn't a gigantic conjured spider web not entangle undead?

Slow agreed is a bit odd, depends on how it is pseudo-scientifically supposed to function! If it slows metabolic function, shouldn't affect undead but if its a time warp kajigger...

True enough, but such immunities aren't always "logical". I'm fairly sure Undead in 3rd edition are immune to almost all kinds of movement impairment.

Maple

Addition: Most of undeads are immune to stun. At least many of them are not immune to blindness such as Glitterdust

Belanos

Maple said:

Addition: Most of undeads are immune to stun.

Stun would be another mind altering spell, like Confusion and Fear.

MrGoodkat

Just tested Power Word: Blind on various Undead and it seems to work quite reliably. Maybe only skeletons are immune since they have no eyes? But then again it's not always logical and since technically skeletons can *see* in one way or another and it's magical blindness... who knows?

DreadKhan

Belanos said:

Maple said:

Addition: Most of undeads are immune to stun.

Stun would be another mind altering spell, like Confusion and Fear.

In 3rd terminology, its a nervous-system overload, so by default most things naturally immune to Mind Affecting spells and abilities tend to be immune, but I don't think they always are.

jimmysdabestcop

Playing Burial Island on HOF right after Temple of the Forgotten God and the Vale. I used web, grease, entangle, and slow on the Drowned Dead. Then had to spawn summons.

Each battle had to take well over 30 minutes. I could almost do no damage because of their resistances and just had to continually spawn summons.

But web, grease, slow, entangle worked really well.

Azzara

Are undead immune to fear? I can clearly remember wild-surging Presio's speaker (that huge skeleton) into panic. Maybe it doesn't protect them against wild surges.

Lord_Tansheron

Undead are immune to SOME forms of fear; or I guess it depends on what is actually fear, and what only mimics it. You could for example argue that Turn Undead is a sort of fear, as it has them running away from you - though technically it is not. It could very well be that the Wild Surge effect is similarly defined, and not a true, mental-based fear (which doesn't work against undead). There may also be some divine spells that cause undead to run away, not sure.

Wowo

jimmysdabestcop said:

Playing Burial Island on HOF right after Temple of the Forgotten God and the Vale. I used web, grease, entangle, and slow on the Drowned Dead. Then had to spawn summons.

Each battle had to take well over 30 minutes. I could almost do no damage because of their resistances and just had to continually spawn summons.

But web, grease, slow, entangle worked really well.

Throw some spike growth and spike stones in there and they go down pretty fast (Druid/ranger 3rd and 5th respectively). My single Druid killed entire spawns of drowned dead and whining virgins there to get me through that area relatively easily.

lunar

Undead are also almost always immune to cold damage. Iwd has all those really nice ice spells to channel your inner Mr.Freeze, inspired by Arnold swzgnr's performance. 'Allright everyone, chill!' But hordes of undead are completely immune to them.

Frost would damage and tear down muscle and skeleton structure so cadaverous and skeletal undead should be at least partially suspectible. Ghostly undead should be immune, as they dont have bodies to freeze. But by going with the same logic you shouldn't be able to burn them with fire, electrocute with lightning, or melt them down with acid. However they are affected normally by those energy types.

Vampires in bg2 are not always immune to cold, they have high resistance but not immunity. I guess they still need the warmth of fresh blood to survive, so it makes sense. Cannibal undead like ghouls and ghasts are also suspectible to cold damage, but they have a metabolism of sorts, they crave food, they eat flesh and possibly they defacate too.

Returning to topic, the effect of slow spell does not affect the biology or metabolysm of the target creatures. Otherwise it would be a necromantic spell. Saying undead should be immune to it is like saying time stop stops the metabolysms of target creatures so undead should be immune.

Web spell should affect undead, but again spiritual undead is a problem. However, in 2e web spell is an evocation effect, which is the creation and manipulation of magical energies. The web is not a real spider web, but the reshaped magical energy. Magical lightning, fire, acid etc. hurts the ghosts so why shouldn't magical web? In 3e it is retconned as conjuration, IIRC, so I assume it summons giant and very real webs of spiders so ghost can pass right through them. However, many conjuration spells ignore spell resistance as they create very real things, I am not sure if web is spell resistance:no but I remember grease is, because there was a talk about using grease on an iron golem in a 3e forum I visited briefly.

the_spyder

MrGoodkat said:

DreadKhan said:

Why wouldn't a gigantic conjured spider web not entangle undead?

Slow agreed is a bit odd, depends on how it is pseudo-scientifically supposed to function! If it slows metabolic function, shouldn't affect undead but if its a time warp kajigger...

True enough, but such immunities aren't always "logical". I'm fairly sure Undead in 3rd edition are immune to almost all kinds of movement impairment.

This isn't third edition. To my knowledge, just mind effecting and any negative energy (such as cause light wounds spells) and any type of poison. Other than that, should be good to go.