Unusual Attacks and their defenses

[Jowgen]

So there is all this stuff that falls into the category of "common attacks", i.e. things you will almost invariably encounter and will probably want to have defences against. Physical attacks vs AC/Miss-chance; Mind-affecting vs Will-save/Immunity; Ability Damage vs Naberius; Save-or-X vs specific countermeasures, and so on and so forth. I'm talking about the stuff that's expected and thus prepared for.

What I'm curious about is the uncommon kind of stuff, the niche-type effects that are so rare, situational or just not thought to be that much of a threat; and of course defences against that kind of thing. For example, I've never come across anyone talking about how to prevent an enemy plane-shifting you to bad-place-X. Or situations where the Anti-Impact armor special ability from Complete Warrior might come in handy.

So yeah, what kind of unusual attacks have you come across, or think you might come across and happen to know a good counter for?

[GilesTheCleric]

Do you want to include unusual types of attacks like that weapon enchantment that reduces SR on hit? For some things like that, I'm not sure if there is a counter.

The most unusual attack I use frequently are desiccation and vile damage. There's a number of creatures in Ss that are immune to desiccation, so shapechanging can solve that. Vile, I'm not sure.

The Team Solars build (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?188138-Team-Solars-%28Archiving%29) has a whole lot of buff spells; it might include some that are very specific and thus would point out the unusual type of attack.

Edit: Were you going to put a table/list in the OP?

Double Edit: There's a number of ways to prevent being plane shifted: casting Dimensional Anchor on yourself, keeping Dimension Lock up, carrying a weirdstone, casting Anticipate Teleportation, Teleport Redirect, etc.

[Douglas]

The Team Solars build (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?188138-Team-Solars-%28Archiving%29) has a whole lot of buff spells; it might include some that are very specific and thus would point out the unusual type of attack.
It includes several that are very specific, and a few that are mind-bogglingly broad. Immunity to metal, anyone?

Let's see, some of the more unusual defenses in that list:
planar traits
petrification
rust
harmful gases and vacuum
wind
drowning/suffocation
high environmental water pressure

For a really odd one, I picked Stone to Flesh as one of my choices for Spell Immunity. Why? Because of how it interacts with the Stone Body spell.

[Jowgen]

Do you want to include unusual types of attacks like that weapon enchantment that reduces SR on hit? For some things like that, I'm not sure if there is a counter.

The most unusual attack I use frequently are desiccation and vile damage. There's a number of creatures in Ss that are immune to desiccation, so shapechanging can solve that. Vile, I'm not sure.

The Team Solars build (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?188138-Team-Solars-%28Archiving%29) has a whole lot of buff spells; it might include some that are very specific and thus would point out the unusual type of attack.

Edit: Were you going to put a table/list in the OP?

Double Edit: There's a number of ways to prevent being plane shifted: casting Dimensional Anchor on yourself, keeping Dimension Lock up, carrying a weirdstone, casting Anticipate Teleportation, Teleport Redirect, etc.

The SR-reducing weapon seems like a counter to a common defence to me.

Desiccation... the damage type that should never have been. It certainly qualifies as unusual though, especially considering that you never know when you'll come up against something where it just might not work for some reason.

Vile damage is also an interesting one, but the damage amount is usually so small that it barely ever impacts anything. As for counters, there's an ASA in BoED that protects against it. Might be the only thing to do so, actually. So yeah, unusual attack that's just as hard to defend against as it's hard to make effective.

I'll have a look at the team solars thing. And I was not going to make a table. Yes, I like compiling handy tables for stuff (e.g. see my sig), but this is not such a case. It's really just an informal question asked out of curiosity for obscure game stuff that might be interesting.

[Jowgen]

It includes several that are very specific, and a few that are mind-bogglingly broad. Immunity to metal, anyone?

Let's see, some of the more unusual defenses in that list:
planar traits
petrification
rust
harmful gases and vacuum
wind
drowning/suffocation
high environmental water pressure

For a really odd one, I picked Stone to Flesh as one of my choices for Spell Immunity. Why? Because of how it interacts with the Stone Body spell.

Now that is some obscure stuff. Deepdweller armor and Greater Crystals of Adaptation spring to mind when looking at some of those. Will definitely look into that Stone of Flesh thing...

[GilesTheCleric]

In another thread, a user wanted immunity to blindness from their character's light sensitivity. Does daylight (such as from the True Daylight ACF, or the sun) count as a unique attack for your purposes? There's many easy ways to counter it, however.

[Anthrowhale]

"Transcend Mortality" is not designed to be an attack spell, but there are a couple ways to make that happen. Used as an attack spell, it's a no-save-you-die. The only counter I know is the immunity to transmutation armor enhancement in Complete Arcane.

The positive plane explodes you. A defense is Fort 25+ and Steadfast Determination.

Illithid brain extraction is a 'just die'. AC is a defense that can be circumvented, so having multiple heads or no heads may be desirable.

One of the elder evils (the snake one) has an aura that negates immunity to poison. Combined with trollbane, it's a no-save shutdown of regeneration. Defending is difficult.

Level draining attacks delivered via Fell Drain can stack up to kill quickly. Font of Life is an obscure feat that plausibly adds saves, and soulfire armor provides immunity.

Holy Word & Variants + caster level increases are deadly. Immunity to sonic effects works.

Searing Fire spells penetrate fire immunity to do half damage. Fire shield[cold] halves this again. I don't know how to reduce this further, except via esoteric regeneration + nonlethal immunity techniques.

[Hiro Quester]

My previous Bard character always carried around a few scrolls for these kinds of highly situational needs.

Eg being silenced. Carried a scroll of Joyful Noise

Greater dispel magic: spellblade weapon enhancement with GDM forged into it. Protects wielder from the spell it was forged with. (Perhaps that's a common attack for a self-buffer though.)

[ezkajii]

Is there any defense against untyped damage?

[GilesTheCleric]

Is there any defense against untyped damage?

What do you mean? Depending on the source, yes. Untyped magic damage has SR, mundane is DR, and things like fall damage can be negated or reduced with items or class features.

[Story]

Another obscure attack is that one Knowledge Affiliation ability that removes traits. IIRC it offers a save though.

Speaking of Transcend Mortality, I've always wanted to find a way to use Infallible Servant offensively, since it is not meant to be offensive at all. I guess you could get around the 1 minute cast time to use in battle via Limited Wish if you really wanted to kill someone in a way that makes prevents True Resurrection (but Miracle still reverses it).

Alternatively, you could cast it beforehand on a pet and then suicide them in combat for a nausea bomb. Unfortunately, even for this niche usage, it's inferior to Stinking Cloud in almost every way. I guess the one advantage is that it's triggered on death so you could conceivably have it take effect without any actions during combat.

[JDL]

Regarding Plane Shift and getting thrown somewhere bad, the best failsafe would be a Bag of Holding and a Portable Hole.

Assuming you're in combat with a bad-touch cleric that Plane Shifts you to the Negative Energy Plane or the Plane of Fire, and that you survive the first round there, you can put your Portable Hole in your Bag of Holding and get sucked into the Astral Plane. Sure, you're now stranded, but you can probably survive here a lot easier than wherever you were before. No need to be a spellcaster, no need to have any special contingency spells active. You just spend your move action and you're safe(ish).

[Chronos]

Vile damage is no harder to defend against than any other sort of damage. Vile fire damage is stopped by protection from fire, vile weapon damage is stopped or reduced by damage reduction, and so on. The only thing vile damage does is it makes it harder to heal (IIRC, it can only be magically healed if you're in a consecrated place).

And you can also get immunity to transmutation (Transcend Mortality, Stone to Flesh, whatever) from ten levels in Master of Many Forms, and I think there's a binder vestige that gives it, too.

One I wonder about is decerebrate, which teleports out a portion of your brainstem. Dimensional Anchor/Lock will stop it, but that also prevents you from using any teleportation abilities you want to use. You can't just jump back like you can with an offensive plane shift, because most of you stays right where you are. Is there any good defense against that one?

[ezkajii]

What do you mean? Depending on the source, yes. Untyped magic damage has SR, mundane is DR, and things like fall damage can be negated or reduced with items or class features.

I... uh... I'm actually not sure what I meant when I wrote that. Go ahead and disregard, lol.