[PF+3.X] Immune to damage - how to kill?

[Darius Kane]

A character that has Regeneration (no weakness) and immunity to non-lethal damage is immune to damage, period. How can you kill him?
As a secondary question - what ways are there to become immune to non-lethal damage, other than becoming undead or a construct? I'm using the Unarmed Fighter archetype (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/fighter/archetypes/paizo---fighter-archetypes/unarmed-fighter) which gives it at 20th level.

[Baroncognito]

It looks like suffocation is a perfectly viable method of killing said character. The rules also say that you can die because of starvation or dehydration, but both of those take considerably longer. Also you may be able to eat your flesh and drink your blood in order to stay alive, I don't know.

But you can't create your own air.

Beyond that, any number of "save or die" spells would work to kill you.

A sorcerer with the undead bloodline gets non-lethal immunity at level 20, and they don't gain the undead template, they can just fool the undead into thinking that they too are dead.

[ArcturusV]

What gives Regeneration (No Weakness)? The only ones I can think of all have weaknesses to Holy Water, Unholy Water, Fire, and/or Acid.

Honestly I'm thinking in that case technically Death isn't an option. Though I ponder how that situation comes about. Sure the immune to non-lethal is easy enough. Only source of Regeneration I know of with no generic weakness... least now that I'm taking longer to think of is Regeneration due to having an ungodly high constitution. Of which I'd think the normal "Zap them with Debuff spells/Poisons/Diseases" would suffice. Though Poison and Disease would be hard to effect with someone who had such a large Con bonus to Fort Saves. Course there's also lots of spells and abilities that lower Saving throws too.

Of course there's also always functional death. Like my cheap favorite of Stone to Mud, Mud to Stone, neither of which use Fort but Reflex so your theoretical 40 Con character probably doesn't have it. And by the description that means you can bury them up to their neck in solid rock.

Due to "Immune to non-lethal" and starvation/dehydration, environment, etc, not ever doing lethal damage you wouldn't kill them. But well... they'd be suck and unable to do anything but possibly jaw at anyone in range. So functionally dead. Helpless and unable to escape on their own, with no ability to impact their environment. Most people would roll up a new character at that. And the "Immortal Floor Head" would probably be something of a random tourist trap until the end of time.

[Baroncognito]

Due to "Immune to non-lethal" and starvation/dehydration, environment, etc, not ever doing lethal damage you wouldn't kill them.


A character who has no air to breathe can hold her breath for 2 rounds per point of Constitution. If a character takes a standard or full-round action, the remaining duration that the character can hold her breath is reduced by 1 round. After this period of time, the character must make a DC 10 Constitution check in order to continue holding her breath. The check must be repeated each round, with the DC increasing by +1 for each previous success.

When the character fails one of these Constitution checks, she begins to suffocate. In the first round, she falls unconscious (0 hit points). In the following round, she drops to –1 hit points and is dying. In the third round, she suffocates..

I don't see anything about non-lethal damage in these suffocation rules. I see them in the slow suffocation rules, but it looks like if I stuck your head in plastic bag, you'd be dead three turns after you failed a Constitution check.

[Kane0]

Hmm. Killing without inflicting damage...
- Ability/Level drain to 0?
- Save or dies?
- Suffocation/Starvation/Dehydration?
- Polymorph/Stone to flesh?
- Some form of permanent incapacitation (Paralyzation, Unconsciousness, etc)?
- Teleporting/transporting somewhere they are helpless?

[Darius Kane]

What gives Regeneration (No Weakness)?
Immunity to the weakness.


I don't see anything about non-lethal damage in these suffocation rules. I see them in the slow suffocation rules, but it looks like if I stuck your head in plastic bag, you'd be dead three turns after you failed a Constitution check.
He said nothing about suffocation. Although he could have meant it with the "etc.".

[Baroncognito]

He said nothing about suffocation. Although he could have meant it with the "etc.".

He/she said Environment, and suffocation is in the Environmental Rules section. But I suppose I could have been reading too much into it.

And, to be fair, slow suffocation requires that you fall unconscious due to non-lethal damage before you can start taking lethal damage.

[Baroncognito]

Old age looks to be perfectly viable still. Someone would just need to trick you into a pocket dimension with a faster time stream.

Though, they might as well stick you in a dimension without air if they're doing that.

[kardar233]

The Emerald Legion (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=101587) is a highly-advanced form of what you're referring to here. Look at the "Strengths" section for immunities you should look at acquiring, and the "Weaknesses" section for further uncovered vulnerabilities.

[JaronK]

The best character I know for immunity to damage simply is a Learnean Lumi. You can't take hit point damage, and you can only be killed by a Disintegrate spell. With the right defenses against that spell, you're basically impossible to kill (but paralyzing is possible). You're ECL 10.

JaronK

[Fouredged Sword]

Trollbane is a poison that causes a weapon to ignore regeneration for a single attack. Slap that on an unbercharger, or hold person and use a coup de grace to kill him one hit.

Negative energy damage and con damage can drop their max HP and kill them without dealing HP damage.

Mind control the thing and use it for your own evil ends.

Plainshift it to the positive energy plain. It will explode from the temp hp, death, no save.

[kestrel404]

Immunity to the weakness.

If we're talking immunity to fire, then the Searing Spell metamagic allows 1/2 of fire damage from a spell to ignore immunity/resistance.

[Eldariel]

Generally, you're vulnerable to something without magic too, so an AMF -> beat into submission (preferably with magic from outside the AMF) works. Of course, mindraping solves most problems.

[Darius Kane]

If we're talking immunity to fire, then the Searing Spell metamagic allows 1/2 of fire damage from a spell to ignore immunity/resistance.
Immunity to Acid actually.


Generally, you're vulnerable to something without magic too, so an AMF -> beat into submission (preferably with magic from outside the AMF) works.
My Regen and immunities are Ex if that's what you mean.

[Psyren]

Is he immune to death effects? Level drain? Ability damage/drain? Those are all ways to kill him.

And I think nonlethal from starvation/thirst cannot be regenerated or healed as well.

[Darius Kane]

And I think nonlethal from starvation/thirst cannot be regenerated or healed as well.
And I'm immune to nonlethal.

[Ravens_cry]

Hmm, how would coup de grâce interact with this? It's Fort save based on damage dealt or die, period, and it's a hard DC to beat if from a competent attacker.

[Tanuki Tales]

This isn't an issue in Pathfinder by the by. They changed Regeneration to being a buffed version of Fast Healing instead of turning all Non-X damage to non-lethal.

[Darius Kane]

Hmm, how would coup de grâce interact with this? It's Fort save based on damage dealt or die, period, and it's a hard DC to beat if from a competent attacker.
Coup de grace says "damage", but doesn't say if it has to be lethal. Personally I'm ruling it's meant to be lethal damage.


This isn't an issue in Pathfinder by the by. They changed Regeneration to being a buffed version of Fast Healing instead of turning all Non-X damage to non-lethal.
I didn't clarify it, but considering that I'm talking about Regen and nonlethal damage, it's save to assume that I'm using 3.5 Regen. Sorry for the confusion.

[LTwerewolf]

Half-black dragon war troll with an item that gives death ward would be pretty hard to kill.

[andromax]

It'd be pretty easy as others have already pointed out. Grapple & drowning, reduce Con to 0, negative level to 0, any death effect, petrification, etc

Any defenses against anything other than fireballs and swords?

[Xzar]

"Also you may be able to eat your flesh and drink your blood in order to stay alive, I don't know."

Totally awesome idea, a semi immortal regenerating being trapped somewhere for centuries forced to eat his own flesh...

[jindra34]

Thanotopic Death spells kill pretty much everything with a CON score, and undead. Even if you are immune to death effects.

[Slipperychicken]

Trollbane (Dungeonscape, 90gp a pop) + Master of Poisons feat (DotU). You need a lot of it (one dose per attack), and Master of Poisons lets you apply it as a Swift action. Allows you to ignore Regeneration. You might want some shenanigans to get the stuff cheaply, but that shouldn't be hard in a game with this cheese-elemental walking around.

Many save-or-lose will still function just fine. After a KO (I'm not even going to list all the ways to do this), shove the guy into a Bag of Holding, and puncture it. Lost forever. Cast Eternity of Torture (BoVD Pain 9) on him before his "banishment", for great justice. Actually, Eternity of Torture says the subject "can not regenerate" -all the better for when you feel like finishing him off with Trollbane CDGs.

I'm not seeing immunity to negative levels, so you just slap 20 of those babies on him. Same goes for death effects and ability drain, as mentioned before.

Cast some variation of Dominate, Mindrape, Magic Jar, etc. Great, this very-hard-to-kill guy is working for you now.

Cast Ice Assassin. Laugh as this guy gets the living daylights beaten out of him by his doppelganger. Forever.

[kestrel404]

So, we've got:
Numerous 'save or die' spells such as Disintegrate.
Ability damage/drain and level drain.
Suffocation/drowning (immediate, not prolonged).
Plane shift to the positive energy plane. You heal so much you die from it.

Can't think of anything else that will outright kill you. Still lots of ways you could 'lose' though. This is the kind of bad-guy who becomes 'evil in a can'.

[Karoht]

The version of this problem I encountered was Regeneration (no idea what bipassed it, no idea on source), immunity to non-lethal (no idea the source), immunity to poison, immunity to stat and level drain, in an AMF with a 100ft radius, possibly larger (some kind of ritual magic, I suspect Red Wizards).

We had a mailman in the party with Searing Spell and Orb of Fire, but he never managed to take a shot at the big bad so we don't know if it would have worked or not (probably not).

I'm willing to believe that some of that was DM Fiat, but I got the vibe that there was more going on than we understood, and that there might be a legit way that this was all going down.

[Arbane]

How about Bestow Curse: "STOP REGENERATING!"?

Is that do-able?

[TuggyNE]

So, we've got:
Numerous 'save or die' spells such as Disintegrate.

Disintegrate is not a save-or-die, and would be useless. Finger of death or similar would be useful though.


Ability damage/drain and level drain.
Suffocation/drowning (immediate, not prolonged).
Plane shift to the positive energy plane. You heal so much you die from it.

These would work, though.

[Slipperychicken]

I swear there was a thread not two months ago, where some guy posted a series of stats and immunities, and posters would overcome them. When a solution was found, the OP would cover it up and they'd go at it again. IF someone found that, that'd be pretty helpful.


You've always got the good old Sphere of Annihilation if you can get your hands on one.

Plane Shift to Far Realm for extra funsies. Then you can just let him go insane and turn into a pile of pale horrible tentacles with spiders in his brain. He can't get back on his own, and hopefully his insanity made him forget about you. You could also just dump him in some other hostile plane.

Teleport him into a faraway star. Not much he can do there, and he'll quickly expire from suffocation if nothing else. This should also destroy his equipment, which is sad because you don't get loot :smallfrown:

[Carth]

The flaying tendrils spell from Complete Mage lets the caster eat brains mind flayer style. This would be fatal to most things.

Edit: you also need to become immune to polymorphing if you want to avoid the regeneration simply being taken away via polymorph any object or similar turning you into a toad. The shapechanger subtype is not sufficient to avoid this situation, as you need to use a standard action to change back, but you might not be able to act in time. Standard action to cast PAO, move action to walk up to you, greater celerity to coup de grace. Or exploit some other weakness of being a frog.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

I'm pretty sure there was an official ruling from WotC that if you have Regeneration and become immune to nonlethal damage, your Regeneration is no longer capable of converting any damage to nonlethal. My Google-fu failed me this time, but maybe someone else will remember where that was.

Ray of Stupidity would be fairly easy, especially considering with Split Ray and a Lesser Rod of Maximize you're looking at 10 Int damage per shot. It only takes one charge from a Circlet of Rapid Casting to cast it Swift. Once you've put him into a coma just dunk his head in a bucket of water.

[TuggyNE]

I'm pretty sure there was an official ruling from WotC that if you have Regeneration and become immune to nonlethal damage, your Regeneration is no longer capable of converting any damage to nonlethal. My Google-fu failed me this time, but maybe someone else will remember where that was.

That would be nice if it were true, but all I know of is that Regeneration requires a Con score, and the two biggest ways to become immune to non-lethal damage are Construct and Undead types, both of which lack a Con score.

[Darius Kane]

That would be nice if it were true, but all I know of is that Regeneration requires a Con score, and the two biggest ways to become immune to non-lethal damage are Construct and Undead types, both of which lack a Con score.
Well, there's also the Sorcerer with Undead Bloodline and Unarmed Fighter archetype which were mentioned up thread.

[TuggyNE]

Well, there's also the Sorcerer with Undead Bloodline and Unarmed Fighter archetype which were mentioned up thread.

Oh, I'm well aware there's lots of other ways to be immune to non-lethal; if there weren't, we wouldn't be having this conversation. I was just pointing out their (somewhat flawed) line of reasoning, which went something like this: "Regeneration is super-broken if you're immune to non-lethal. Hmm, what sorts of things are immune to non-lethal? Let's see, constructs and undead... both of those lack Con scores, right? OK, make it so regeneration needs a Con score and we'll call it good."

And, to be completely fair, 3.0 did have undead with Regeneration, so at least they made progress on that in 3.5.

[Darius Kane]

"Regeneration is super-broken if you're immune to non-lethal. Hmm, what sorts of things are immune to non-lethal? Let's see, constructs and undead... both of those lack Con scores, right? OK, make it so regeneration needs a Con score and we'll call it good."
Seems legit.

[Vizzerdrix]

"Also you may be able to eat your flesh and drink your blood in order to stay alive, I don't know."

Totally awesome idea, a semi immortal regenerating being trapped somewhere for centuries forced to eat his own flesh...

Or forced to feed a village :smallamused:

[Slipperychicken]

Oh, I'm well aware there's lots of other ways to be immune to non-lethal; if there weren't, we wouldn't be having this conversation. I was just pointing out their (somewhat flawed) line of reasoning, which went something like this: "Regeneration is super-broken if you're immune to non-lethal. Hmm, what sorts of things are immune to non-lethal? Let's see, constructs and undead... both of those lack Con scores, right? OK, make it so regeneration needs a Con score and we'll call it good."


Ah WotC. Making things hard for everyone. Could have just said "a creature with Regeration cannot in any way be resistant or immune to damage converted into nonlethal form in this way". Kind of like the text used for Epic spell backlash.