Ways to Gain Immunity to Artifacts?

[MaxiDuRaritry]

I know the entropomancer PrC (C.Divine) gains immunity to spheres of annihilation, but what other ways are there to become immune to artifacts, especially greater ones? The annulus, for instance, from the XPH. Sure, it's easy to escape the thing's radius, but immunity would be even better. Any other ways to become immune to these incredibly powerful items? How about things like mythals? Any other obscure but very dangerous items that need looking out for, and how would you go about gaining immunity to them?

The rod of construct control essentially dominates mindless constructs with no save. And it's a potentially major danger to warforged, as well. Other than getting a rod yourself, how would you give immunity to any constructs in your possession? Or for yourself or your party member(s) for warforged (N)PCs? Would an item of protection from [alignment] work for this?

[Anymage]

Be the one to bring pizza and snacks to every game session.

Because artifacts are literally the DM getting carte blanche to ignore any other rules, and trying to swaddle yourself in rule based protections (like the save game trick or excessive divinations) are likely to be short circuited by all magic failing at just the moment that a meteor falls on you. If the DM wants to use a fiat ability to mess things up, that's his prerogative. Your only recourse then would be to walk. So your best hope is to make it so that he really doesn't want you to leave his game.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Be the one to bring pizza and snacks to every game session.

Because artifacts are literally the DM getting carte blanche to ignore any other rules, and trying to swaddle yourself in rule based protections (like the save game trick or excessive divinations) are likely to be short circuited by all magic failing at just the moment that a meteor falls on you. If the DM wants to use a fiat ability to mess things up, that's his prerogative. Your only recourse then would be to walk. So your best hope is to make it so that he really doesn't want you to leave his game.That reply is not a helpful or useful part of this thread.

[Jack_Simth]

That reply is not a helpful or useful part of this thread.
At the same time, though, it's mostly correct. They're straight-up intended as plot devices. They're not really intended to play by the rules. Best you can hope for is something heavily implied in the artifact description itself.

Take... oh, The Shadow Staff's powers:
Summon Shadows: Evil, no SR, and Summoned creatures: Protection from Evil will do you (as long as you don't attack them).
Summon Nightshade: Evil, SR 31, and Summoned: SR penetration techniques will be needed, but Protection From Evil again does most of the work.
Shadow Form: Only affects the user.
Shadow Bolt: Deals cold damage, which the Energy Immunity spell will handle.

Take The Moaning Diamond: Summons an Earth elemental (and does stone shape). You can get around the Earth Elemental with Protection From Evil, no problem. Stone Shape... well, there's spells for getting through stone.

However, as noted: Plot Devices, and the DMG straight-up says they're only examples and should be modified to fit the campaign. They're not required to act predictably.

As to the Annulus, specifically? You're mostly concerned about the 1/year ability, I imagine... it's a very obvious item, has a range of just 100 feet, and takes ten rounds to activate. Turns you to dust. There's a thing, though: It has no clause about irrevocable destruction of the targets. So something like, say, a Death Pact spell (Spell Compendium page 60) will do the job (sort of)... and then it can't be used again for a year. Sure, it bypasses your defenses. It kills you. You just come back to life immediately. Or you can, you know, just get out of range.

[frogglesmash]

Not being a dragon makes you immune to many of the effects of the orbs of dragonkind.

[Mike Miller]

Become a deity?

[Goaty14]

Without having any spellcasting, disjoin it with a scroll and then use a high enough bluff check to point fingers at whoever was using it against you. Your DM will likely be so mad as to use fiat against you, but hey, it technically works.

[Mike Miller]

Without having any spellcasting, disjoin it with a scroll and then use a high enough bluff check to point fingers at whoever was using it against you. Your DM will likely be so mad as to use fiat against you, but hey, it technically works.

By disjoin, do you mean disjunction? That is a low chance of working though. Enough tries and it should work I guess.

[Bohandas]

I think there's a coupleof cards in the deck of many things that allow you to avoid the effects of one thing of your choice

edit:
here we go
Fates

This card enables the character to avoid even an instantaneous occurrence if so desired, for the fabric of reality is unraveled and respun. Note that it does not enable something to happen. It can only stop something from happening or reverse a past occurrence. The reversal is only for the character who drew the card; other party members may have to endure the situation.

[Goaty14]

By disjoin, do you mean disjunction? That is a low chance of working though. Enough tries and it should work I guess.

Yes, because that's what disjunction does.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

I think there's a coupleof cards in the deck of many things that allow you to avoid the effects of one thing of your choice

edit:
here we go
Fates

This card enables the character to avoid even an instantaneous occurrence if so desired, for the fabric of reality is unraveled and respun. Note that it does not enable something to happen. It can only stop something from happening or reverse a past occurrence. The reversal is only for the character who drew the card; other party members may have to endure the situation.Looks like it's time to acquire a Deck and a handy haversack. Those two items have amazing synergy.

[unseenmage]

Only defense I know of for the Rod of Construct Control is to have more of them ready to use than your opponent.
Being a cleric with the Warforged Domain or a Domain Draught of such helps too.

[ManicOppressive]

So in 1st edition, Artifacts had one real purpose: Rule them all, find them, gather them all, bind them.

That is to say, Gygax very explicitly based artifacts on the One Ring from Lord of the Rings. In 1st and to a lesser extend 2nd edition, artifacts were all but guaranteed to corrupt their wearer in some way for their purposes. They were designed not as optimization tools but as plot points, and as such they were given a wide carte blanche for ignoring the normal rules of the game.

Since 3.0 and 3.5 came out concurrently with the widely popular Lord of the Rings movies, and since it was moving more toward a "rules for absolutely everything" mentality, this was lessened distinctly in that edition, and artifacts lost the "definitely more plot trouble than they're mechanically worth" aspect in favor of, as has been glibly mentioned above, their status as plot coupons and DM fiat sticks.


Artifacts are extremely powerful. Rather than merely another form of magic equipment, they are the sorts of legendary relics that whole campaigns can be based on. Each could be the center of a whole set of adventures—a quest to recover it, a fight against a opponent wielding it, a mission to cause its destruction, and so on.

No table has been included to randomly generate specific artifacts, since these items should only enter a campaign through deliberate choice on your part.

Artifacts are not technically inherently Epic in 3.5, but they are as close as counts. As such, the blunt answer to your question is "no." There is absolutely nothing in 3.5 that is going to grant you immunity to artifacts, because there's nothing about artifact rules that says the DM can't just make a new artifact that reads "This artifact destroys the artifact of artifact immunity, and is not included in said item's immunity."

If you're optimizing for TO, artifacts are rarely considered because of their typical lack of adherence to the normal black and white power curves and rules. If you're optimizing for PO, then the correct answer is honestly that you can't counter something your DM wants to overpower you.

Finally, if I could direct you to an interesting clause in the spell "Mordekainen's Disjunction", the only way (in Core) to destroy an artifact with accessible magic:


Destroying artifacts is a dangerous business, and it is 95% likely to attract the attention of some powerful being who has an interest in or connection with the device.

You'll note that it's quite difficult to achieve that level of awareness of an item you've made as a caster in 3.5. That's really indicative of the level of power you're dealing with when it comes to artifacts: The act of tampering with them is encouraged by the rules to immediately summon something bigger and nastier than you that is offended by said tampering.

So in short: Artifacts are no more counter-able than your DM is.

[Psyren]

Looks like it's time to acquire a Deck and a handy haversack. Those two items have amazing synergy.

Yeah, some artifacts can beat other artifacts. Groundbreaking stuff there :smallbiggrin:

For the Annulus, a combination of "not being psionic" and "immunity to psionics" (or just mind-affecting) helps.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Actually, since you have to be targetable for the annulus to affect you, why not just get 50% concealment or otherwise prevent yourself from being targeted? Greater concealing amorpha would do it, for example.