death ward question

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Does anybody know exactly from which death spells Death Ward will protect a character?

 

It's not clear. Even when looking at the SPL file, there's no details, since Death Ward has its own effect within the game, rather than using a bunch of individual spell immunities.

 

Basically it protects against all instant-Death effects...There are quite a lot of clerical and wizardy spells to do this:

Slay Living, Destruction, Circle of 'Death', Finger of 'Death', Symbol of 'Death', Wail of the Death, no, err, Banshee...yes it protects against these.

Not sure about the Disintegrate, but I found Divine Shell protects against Disintegrate, oddly, since it is considered a ranged attack in game terms, the shell absorbs the green ray of disintegration harmlessly. Try it if you don't believe me! Death Ward may not protect against it though, since it is the dispersing the force binding the molecules of the target, ie:disintegration of the body, rather than a 'slay' effect which causes your soul to left your body without wound or damage taken.

Dunno about PW:Kill but I guess Death Ward should protect against it too!

And no it does not protect against petrification. Oddly, you need 'Protection From Petrification' spell for that!

 

Thanks for the info. I was particularly interested in Wail of the Banshee. My necromancer is just now able to use it but I don't really want my other party members dropping dead around him so I wanted to be sure that Death Ward would protect them.

 

Shadow Mage, worry not - your Wail of the Banshee will not affect your party members...cast it with reckless abandon and revel in the instant demise of your enemies.

 

Heh heh, yeah WoB does not affect party members or allied creatures at all. It only affects enemies, so it is the number one top-nuke them all-and-watch the bad guys fall one by one-enjoy the slaughter-type of spell! Its DC gets so high that very few lucky souls can resist it in normal mode, %90 of enemies just fall like logs:it is totally cool when you are surrounded by a horde!

Death Ward is kinda useless spell in regular game. Regular enemies in the unmodded game almost never use insta-death spells, excluding a lich which likes WoB (then again when he starts casting just scram out of its range and you will be OK, it has a terrifyingly loong casting time:Spellcraft helps here to tell you when to run for it! ) I think Saablic Tan has WoB too, and a couple Disintegrate spells, but game's AI is soo utterly stupid that he never gets to use those deadly and scary spells at all! He uses PW:Kill though, so watch out for your low HP characters, Death Warding them is alwas nice.

No enemy in the regular game uses Slay Living/destruction AFAIK, plus the spells are horribly bugged and have a fixed, very low DC so any high lvl character can just resist it UNLESS they roll a natural 1. Madae do uses HARM and it can not be blocked by Death Ward. It is easy to resist though, a fortitude save of 16+ will just waste it IIRC.

Ofcourse, Tal Rasha's cool beyond words mod introduces smarter, tougher enemies:A Circle Of Death spell casted on your party is a reason for quick-load since it insta-and perma-kills your party members (if they are low level enough) and it is cool, as it is really scary!

You really appreciate Death Ward on your low fort save characters (rogues and wizzies come to mind) at times like that! Aaand, as a special bonus, Tal Rasha's mod increases the fixed DC for spells such as Slay Living, Harm, Destruction, etc.

 

After reading your very informative posts another possible problem came to mind:

Can Wail of the Banshee kill party members who are charmed or dominated? What about those who are berserk, confused, etc. (yellow circle)?

 

Yes WoB kills charmed/dominated party members since they are hostile and red-circled. Happened to me once, it was ugly. It does not affect yellow-circled members AFAIK.

It does not affect Undead.