Page 1 of 2

I'm confused... can anybody clarify something?...

Posted: Tue Dec 06, 2005 5:04 pm
by Boccaccio Barbarossa
I was wondering about something that seems unclear in the RLPHB.

The entry, on p. 115 of the RLPHB says this about the protection from energy spell:

"Ravenloft insulates undead creatures from the influence of other planes. thus, the attacking undead creature suffers only 1d6 points of damage from positive energy, and if it succeeds at a Fortitude save, it takes no damage from the spell at all."

What does this have to do with anything? :?

It sould to me like this is the description of what should happen when an undead creature interacts with the Negative Plane Protection spell, which is a 3e spell : it is nowhere to be found in 3.5e PHB.

So, what gives? Are we to take it that you can use protection from energy to defend against Negative energy damage, even though the spell itself only offers up acid, cold, electricity, fire and sonic as vaible options?... or are we to assume that Negative Plane Protection was not supposed to be removed from the 3.5 e PHB?

I checked the errata on the site here, for RLPHB, but found nothing. I checked the WotC errata for any mention of oitted spells in the PHB and found nothing...

Can anybody help?

Posted: Tue Dec 06, 2005 6:17 pm
by artent
Ravenloft was not published by wizards. It's likely just a copy paste error from the 3.0 ravenloft campaign setting book. Ignore it.

Posted: Tue Dec 06, 2005 7:09 pm
by Boccaccio Barbarossa
artent wrote:Ravenloft was not published by wizards. It's likely just a copy paste error from the 3.0 ravenloft campaign setting book. Ignore it.
With regards to the protection from energy, yeah... but is Negative Energy Protection still out there? (I mean, I'm sure you can keep it around if you want, but did it ever make it in 3.5e)

Re: I'm confused... can anybody clarify something?...

Posted: Wed Dec 07, 2005 12:16 am
by Mangrum
Boccaccio Barbarossa wrote:It sould to me like this is the description of what should happen when an undead creature interacts with the Negative Plane Protection spell, which is a 3e spell : it is nowhere to be found in 3.5e PHB.

So, what gives?
In the 3.0 Ravenloft Campaign Setting, the description you quote is indeed for the negative energy protection spell. None of the actual energy resistance spells are listed, which means (as should also be the case in 3.5) that Ravenloft does not alter them (aside from having them fail against closed domain border effects).

What you quote appears to be a shoddy, inattentive attempt to update the rules to 3.5. Shocked, shocked I am, to hear of it.

Posted: Wed Dec 07, 2005 5:20 am
by Mortepierre
Boccaccio Barbarossa wrote:With regards to the protection from energy, yeah... but is Negative Energy Protection still out there? (I mean, I'm sure you can keep it around if you want, but did it ever make it in 3.5e)
Sort of. Libris Mortis has it as the "Protection from Negative/Positive Energy" spell. It doesn't work at all like the previous version though.

Posted: Thu Dec 08, 2005 4:12 pm
by Boccaccio Barbarossa
well, it seems right that my character should have it, and it is a rather, well, it's a crappy spell, in a way - short duration and not guranteed to work... but I should have it as a cleric of the morninglord so I'm sure my DM will not object to me adding it to the list. ;)

Thanks anyways.

Posted: Thu Dec 08, 2005 4:38 pm
by Rucht Lilavivat
What you are looking for is Death Ward. p. 217, D&D PHB 3.5

It makes you immune to death spells, magical death effects, energy drain, etc. I could go on, but it's in the book.

This spell basically replaced the 'ol Negative Energy Protection spell in 2nd edition.

It was via this spell that my party was able to visit the Necropolis, by the way. Yep. I know I'm going to get flames started on this one. Keep in mind that the party I was running could walk into the Necropolis with a death ward spell up, but they could not cross into or out of the city if the borders were closed.

Discuss amongst yourseves.

Posted: Thu Dec 08, 2005 5:35 pm
by BlackBoxGamer
It was via this spell that my party was able to visit the Necropolis, by the way. Yep. I know I'm going to get flames started on this one. Keep in mind that the party I was running could walk into the Necropolis with a death ward spell up, but they could not cross into or out of the city if the borders were closed.
Not a flame, but... Did they have a wand of Death Ward or something? I mean, the spell only lasts for 1 min/caster level. So what was the deal? Were they high level, or just come across a magic item(s) with Death Ward in it?

Just curious.

BBG

Posted: Thu Dec 08, 2005 6:00 pm
by Rotipher of the FoS
Sounds like a great way to scare your players, if their PCs cross into the Shroud using Death Ward to protect themselves ... and then discover the border has closed (Death's, Azalin's, or even both at once) when they try to leave. Suddenly, the whole party's survival hinges on getting the heck out of there, before the spell's all-too-brief duration expires! :wink:

Posted: Thu Dec 08, 2005 6:17 pm
by Stygian Inquirer
BlackBoxGamer wrote:
Rucht Lilavivat wrote:It was via this spell that my party was able to visit the Necropolis, by the way. Yep. I know I'm going to get flames started on this one. Keep in mind that the party I was running could walk into the Necropolis with a death ward spell up, but they could not cross into or out of the city if the borders were closed.
Not a flame, but... Did they have a wand of Death Ward or something? I mean, the spell only lasts for 1 min/caster level. So what was the deal? Were they high level, or just come across a magic item(s) with Death Ward in it?

Just curious.

BBG
In the RL:DMG there is an Amulet of Death Ward (p. 206) which would do it.

Re: I'm confused... can anybody clarify something?...

Posted: Thu Dec 08, 2005 7:14 pm
by Drinnik Shoehorn
Mangrum wrote:What you quote appears to be a shoddy, inattentive attempt to update the rules to 3.5. Shocked, shocked I am, to hear of it.
My monitor nearly broke because of that sarcasm... :)

Posted: Thu Dec 08, 2005 7:48 pm
by BlackBoxGamer
In the RL:DMG there is an Amulet of Death Ward (p. 206) which would do it.
Actually, strictly speaking, it would not protect an individual from the effects of the Shroud. If you look at the description it reads "The wearer is immune to all death spells and magical death effects. The spell* does not protect against other sorts of attacks, such as hit point loss, poison, petrification or other effects even if they might be lethal. Using this item does not force a powers check."

*I noticed that it appears to refer to the item as a spell.

The Shroud is not a death effect, it is a level drain effect. And it is also unclear whether the Shroud is a spell-like, supernatural or extraordinary effect. If it is either of the first two, then an anti-magic spell could, theoretically, allow one egress into Necropolis without the level drain. But an Amulet of Death Ward, as written, would not protect a person from the level drain.

Granted, a DM could just drive their Fiat over this little quibble and say it does, but I just thought I'd point out that according to the description, it does not.

:)

Or, if the author of this item is on these boards perhaps they could clarify what sorts of protection they were going for when they wrote up the description of this item.

So Rucht, how did your players get into (and out of) Necropolis safely?

Posted: Thu Dec 08, 2005 11:05 pm
by alhoon
I don't think that a death ward would work in canon.

IMC I use that too but still few people risk 7 minutes in necropolis ... It is like 3 minutes to go to your destination, 3 minutes to return and 1 minute to do your job.
Not much good IMO.

Posted: Sat Dec 10, 2005 3:18 am
by Boccaccio Barbarossa
Rucht Lilavivat wrote:What you are looking for is Death Ward. p. 217, D&D PHB 3.5

It makes you immune to death spells, magical death effects, energy drain, etc. I could go on, but it's in the book.

This spell basically replaced the 'ol Negative Energy Protection spell in 2nd edition.

It was via this spell that my party was able to visit the Necropolis, by the way. Yep. I know I'm going to get flames started on this one. Keep in mind that the party I was running could walk into the Necropolis with a death ward spell up, but they could not cross into or out of the city if the borders were closed.

Discuss amongst yourseves.
You're right. That is absolutely what I was looking for. I can't see how I missed it... Oh well, no biggie. It seems the topic has branched out into somethign else by now anyways. ;)

Thanks! (John Mangrum's sacrcarm caused me bodily harm... and I also lost power for 24 hours in my house... I wonder if the evenets are related. :shock: )

Posted: Sat Dec 10, 2005 10:17 am
by Rucht Lilavivat
In my campaign, the party was exploring the Necropolis with...you guess it...a wand of death ward. It was interesting because about every 7 minutes, everyone had to get popped with the wand. Which also meant that every 7 minutes, the wand would lose 4 charges.

It made for an interesting adventure. There was always something luring the party deeper into the Necropolis, but they didn't have the time to explore as much as they want. The tension of, "we have to find this" mixed with, "we have to get out of here" was fun to play with.