Feature Request: Condition Immunity Checks

[TheIronGolem]

Something I'd love to see HL do in the future is warn me when I give a character a condition that they're supposed to be immune to (not prevent it, of course, since sometimes immunities get overridden). If I check a condition on the Conditions tab (or the Tactical Console), HL should highlight the condition in red and add a "Character is immune to this condition" message to the warning list.

That would keep some of us harried/absent-minded DM's from flat-footing rogues or frightening paladins when we shouldn't (Yes, in theory players should remind us about these things, but they can be forgetful and/or reluctant to speak up sometimes). Plus, us modders would also be able to take advantage of this by leveraging the same tags (maybe "CondImmun.?", inheriting values from Condition) to implement abilities that grant/remove immunities.

 

[AndrewD2]

It's not a bad idea and probably wouldn't be difficult to do as a custom mechanic with a bunch of eval rules.

 

[ShadowChemosh]

My only thought would be would you notice the little warming message? Unless it turned the condition itself "Red" I am not sure I would notice on the iPad or even the desktop.

But yeah if it could turn the condition "Red" right away when checked I think it would be a good feature.

 

[AndrewD2]

I think you might be able to set the condition to invalid with a script. I know you can do the panel.

 

[TheIronGolem]

My only thought would be would you notice the little warming message? Unless it turned the condition itself "Red" I am not sure I would notice on the iPad or even the desktop.

But yeah if it could turn the condition "Red" right away when checked I think it would be a good feature.

That was what I was envisioning, yes: "OK, the orc chieftain succeeds on his Intimidate check against you, so I'll check this box to mark you as shaken and - wait, why is it red? Oh, right, paladin..."

 

[Togainu]

While the idea is nice I know an issue that can happen with this and can think of one such scenario right now. Looking at the feat Furious Finish at the end it states "(even if you would not normally be)". Which means even though you are immune to fatigue in this example you will still get the condition.

This is one of the reasons why the responsibility is (and in my eyes should be) with the player to inform you about the immunity

 

[TheIronGolem]

While the idea is nice I know an issue that can happen with this and can think of one such scenario right now. Looking at the feat Furious Finish at the end it states "(even if you would not normally be)". Which means even though you are immune to fatigue in this example you will still get the condition.

This is one of the reasons why the responsibility is (and in my eyes should be) with the player to inform you about the immunity

A good point, but I have three of my own in response to that:

1. It's not clear at all that Furious Finish would override immunity to fatigue; the "even if you would not normally be" clause is obviously there for the sake of Tireless Rage - which is something that prevents a condition from being applied, not something that grants immunity to that condition. "Apply this condition even if you normally wouldn't" is not the same as "Immunity to this condition doesn't work".

2. The particular case of Furious Finish aside, I've already acknowledged that there are cases where immunity would be ignored (like Aura of Cowardice suppressing the fear-immunity from Aura of Courage). It's for this reason that HL would only throw a warning under my proposal, not actually prevent the condition from being applied. I think this is an edge case that would not happen often, since immunities are much more common in the game than immunity-breakers. The warning would therefore be right much more often than it would be wrong.

3. Granted, players are generally expected to alert the GM about this sort of thing. But as I mentioned, players sometimes forget that they have a particular ability, or they're reluctant to speak up due to shyness or a mistaken assumption that the GM knows about their immunity and the enemy has something that negates it. HL and similar tools exist precisely because we don't have all these details in the forefront of our minds at all times.

 

[Togainu]

Well as I said it isn't that I don't like the idea or wouldn't see the usefulness. And I also agree the quantity of immunity-breakers isn't high.

As for your third point, I can understand where you are coming from (I am relative shy myself). But making a tool be a solution for that is kind of the wrong way to go in my eyes (it won't help the person ever get passed it. Or in case of the assumption stop assuming things. Which actually can cause very unfortunate circumstances in real life as well).

Besides the combat aspect of the game it is still it is still a game based around communication. Those people would actually be helped by being guided to overcome those traits.

Taking your "OK, the orc chieftain succeeds on his Intimidate check against you, so I'll check this box to mark you as shaken and..." as an example. The player could actually roleplay his/her immunity out along the lines of: "While Holy Mac Holiness flinches for a short second he (tries to) snap(s) out of it immediately". In which case you as a GM can ask why or deny him the attempt if you can't resist it in anyway.

Again as I said I don't object to the idea of this getting implemented and I totally see the use for it (As for the forgetting part). Just think your trying to solve something that could be addressed in a different manor and help each other grow.

----last bit about the feat example----
As for your point 1 it is very open to interpretation. If you are immune to something you normally wouldn't be affected. And by that standard Furious Focus would still cause it. The reason I see them for putting that line there was to prevent rage cycling people from doing max damage every round. (Anyway enough about that we aren't here to discuss our interpretation of the feat in detail. It was only meant as an example anyway.)

 

[RavenX]

I think for this request a color change to the text on the condition might be more appropriate so things you are normally immune to can be a little more obvious. They should still remain as they are however due to the fact that some spells, feats, or other factors may bypass your immunity and give you the condition anyway. Mythic versions of abilities can sometimes curb stomp non-mythic immunities so you have to be careful in how this handled. I could also see a listing on the basics summary panel under performance combat that lists off such immunities as a possibility but it would be up to the coding team to decide if its something they could implement and to find time to do so.

Also do remember that most of the time your immunities do show up on the Special Tab, so if you need to check that before implementing an adjustment feel free to look there. I usually do that for monsters as I run encounters, personally.