Frequency of monster debuffs

[GilesTheCleric]

I ran a quick search of monsters (4448 entries) by the types of debuffs they could apply, and here's what I found:

Update: tables are now sortable!



Condition
Frequency


str dmg
17


str drain
1


dex dmg
2


dex drain
8


con dmg
5


con drain
34


int dmg
1


int drain
6


wis dmg
15


wis drain
18


cha dmg
7


cha drain
22


blind
85


confuse
79


cower
7


daze
51


dazzle
15


deaf
20


entangle
100


exhaust
14


fascinate
0


fatigue
14


fright
776


fear
188


nausea
10


negative level
16


panic
2


paralyse
99


petrify
15


poison
919


shaken
3


sicken
29


stagger
0


stun
89



The search was pretty rough, so these are, at best, ballpark minimums within 1 factor of the actual number. How true to the game do you feel these numbers are as relative percentages, and does anyone have a more accurate evaluation?

Edit: Added general "poison". Also, here's an incredibly rough immunity summary. I don't see a way to easily count creatures with "immunity to acid and cold" without a whole lot of false positives or manual counting. Updated to include immunities granted from sub/types, so there may be duplication if an individual monster's SQ section lists the immunity separately.



Immunity
Frequency


acid
298


air
4


cold
438


elec
403


fire
743


sonic
58


magic
110


force
12


slash
77


pierce
77


blud
79


ability drain
605


ability damage
364


compulsion
951


crits
1022


disease
605


death effects
605


mind-affecting
946


enchant
16


energy drain
605


exhaustion
605


fatigue
605


fear
16


flanking
309


illusion
1


charm
963


poison
1216


paralyse
2087


pattern
914


phantasm
914


petrify
55


polymorph
170


spells
5


sleep
2087


stun
945


nonlethal
605


necromancy effects
364



Here's all of the sub/types that impact immunities. This should be within one or two standard deviations of being entirely accurate, so progress! My personal list of published sample undead (which I believe to be 100% accurate for 1pp, non-adventure sources) totals 350, whereas this larger list only has 241.



Sub/type
Frequency


(angel)
5


(archon)
20


(baatezu)
79


(cold)
20


construct
364


dragon
1142


(eladrin)
17


elemental
170


(fire)
260


(guardinal)
13


(incorporeal)
117


ooze
62


plant
108


(swarm)
117


(tanar'ri)
77


undead
241


vermin
139

[ATHATH]

Ooh, very nice.

I don't suppose that a status-immunity list would be too much to ask for?

[Nifft]

I ran a quick search of monsters (4448 entries) by the types of debuffs they could apply, and here's what I found:



Condition
Frequency


str dmg/drain
17/1


dex
2/8


con
5/34


int
1/6


wis
15/18


cha
7/22


blind
85


confuse
79


cower
7


daze
51


dazzle
15


deaf
20


entangle
100


exhaust
14


fascinate
0


fatigue
14


fright
776


fear
188


nausea
10


panic
2


paralyse
99


petrify
15


shaken
3


sicken
29


stagger
0


stun
89


negative level
16



The search was pretty rough, so these are, at best, ballpark minimums within 1 factor of the actual number. How true to the game do you feel these numbers are as relative percentages, and does anyone have a more accurate evaluation?

Woah, that's impressive.

If you include poison, the ability damage numbers jump up a lot -- but then, poison immunity blocks all of that.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Awesome work!

The takeaway, I guess, is "don't be vulnerable to fear?"

[GilesTheCleric]

Ooh, very nice.

I don't suppose that a status-immunity list would be too much to ask for?

Added. I'll think of some ways to improve the accuracy of that. Anyone good at regex? As-is, I can't count the eg. fire immunity of something with eg. "immunity to acid and fire". (EDIT: well, maybe I could use LEN, LEFT, and RIGHT to try to filter out "vulnerability" and "resistance", but I'll work on that at some later point)


Woah, that's impressive.

If you include poison, the ability damage numbers jump up a lot -- but then, poison immunity blocks all of that.
Added "poison", which includes some of the ability damage already listed, but that's fine since it's still useful to know. And wow, there's so much poison. I never thought poison immunity was of much value, but now I'm reevaluating.


Awesome work!

The takeaway, I guess, is "don't be vulnerable to fear?"

Luckily, Remove Fear will suppress it for your whole party for the cost of a single level 1 spell ^^

[ATHATH]

Did you count immunities derived from types in your immunity-list? The list of creatures with immunity to mind-affecting stuff seems way too low.

Did you remember to record immunity to fear?

[Nifft]

Added "poison", which includes some of the ability damage already listed, but that's fine since it's still useful to know. And wow, there's so much poison. I never thought poison immunity was of much value, but now I'm reevaluating.

Yeah, Poison is huge.

Poison Immunity ought to be on everyone's checklist.

[Fizban]

Luckily, Remove Fear will suppress it for your whole party for the cost of a single level 1 spell ^^
Remove Fear only suppresses the effect if you cast it after they're affected, otherwise it's just a +4 on fear saves. And while it gives you 1+1/4 instead of just 1/4, you still need to make your save and have cl8 to be sure you can get the rest of the party out if they fail theirs.

Unlike Delay Poison which does just shove back everything that hits you while it's running.

[GilesTheCleric]

Updated the OP with subtype-based immunity, plus added sortable headers.


Remove Fear only suppresses the effect if you cast it after they're affected, otherwise it's just a +4 on fear saves. And while it gives you 1+1/4 instead of just 1/4, you still need to make your save and have cl8 to be sure you can get the rest of the party out if they fail theirs.

Unlike Delay Poison which does just shove back everything that hits you while it's running.

Clerics are pretty good at will saves, luckily. But that's a good point regardless.

[Fizban]

Which is good design, its just not effective against some of the crazy high DCs on certain fear monsters. For those you need flat mind-affecting or fear immunity.

[Malimar]

That's a lot of Dragons. Are you counting each age category as its own creature?

[GilesTheCleric]

That's a lot of Dragons. Are you counting each age category as its own creature?

I think each one is counted individually in this list of monsters, yes.