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+--- Thread: Undead status and Near Fatal attacks (/thread-3758.html)
Undead status and Near Fatal attacks - Lightning - 10-12-2018
Has anyone ever noticed that Near Fatal attacks (like Cyclonic) work on ALL undead monsters in vanilla FF3? I did some digging around today, and discovered what I think the reason is. Basically, monsters are only immune to near fatal attacks if they are immune to instant death attacks (which I'm sure everyone knows). The block "Near fatal" check box in FF3USME does nothing. However, if a monster has the undead status but is not immune to instant death attacks, near fatal will work. The problem here is that the game also has a bug in which monsters with both the undead status AND protection to instant death spells will cause weapons with the "randomly kill" flag (like the assassin dagger) to not display the "X" kill animation. Instead, you hear the "half dead" sound effect without any animation at all. I'm guessing this is why vanilla FF3 does not have any undead monsters with immunity to death spells; they were probably aware of possible bugs with the undead "re-appear" animation.
In my mod, I would like to give certain undead monsters immunity to near fatal attacks, but there doesn't seem to be a way to do that without causing the bugs mentioned above. I did some searching and thought this fix would work, but it appears to be related to something else (in fact, I am not exactly clear what that patch does). I would not be opposed to giving undead monsters immunity to near fatal attacks completely if there is no other solution, but I am curious if anyone knows of a fix to this problem!
RE: Undead status and Near Fatal attacks - Odbarc - 10-12-2018
I think spells generally have a flag that determines if it's a "doom" kind of spell. I forget what it's called exactly but when any of these abilities can hit an enemy, they all can.
Because the game (creators, or monsters) would want you to cast Doom and heal the creatures, it would be a disadvantage if they were immune to it. As such, abilities like Demi (or Cyan's SwordTech 3) are cannot be immune to either.
I thought the Near Fatal flag in the multi-editor was just the status of the character kneeling when their HP is low. Basically to be inflicted with this would change their sprite until they act and default back to their regular pose. All it would (or might) do is offer a chance to use your near-fatal Limit Breaks - maybe - if it was on your player characters.
Do any spells actually cause Near Fatal? I don't think it does. The ME just kind of includes the option(s) because it's there, like how it includes those [????????] that no one has figured out what they do yet.
RE: Undead status and Near Fatal attacks - Lightning - 10-12-2018
(10-12-2018, 08:10 AM)Odbarc Wrote: I think spells generally have a flag that determines if it's a "doom" kind of spell. I forget what it's called exactly but when any of these abilities can hit an enemy, they all can.
Because the game (creators, or monsters) would want you to cast Doom and heal the creatures, it would be a disadvantage if they were immune to it. As such, abilities like Demi (or Cyan's SwordTech 3) are cannot be immune to either.
I thought the Near Fatal flag in the multi-editor was just the status of the character kneeling when their HP is low. Basically to be inflicted with this would change their sprite until they act and default back to their regular pose. All it would (or might) do is offer a chance to use your near-fatal Limit Breaks - maybe - if it was on your player characters.
Do any spells actually cause Near Fatal? I don't think it does. The ME just kind of includes the option(s) because it's there, like how it includes those [????????] that no one has figured out what they do yet.
I used to assume that Cyclonic was considered a "near fatal" spell since it reduces enemies to near-death, but of course I later realized the near fatal checkbox in the monster editor of FF3USME does absolutely nothing.
If my first post was confusing, I was merely trying to see if it was possible to stop Cyclonic from working on undead monsters without checking the box for immunity to instant death spells - because that would then cause the "randomly kills" graphics bug (or the lack of an "X" over enemies when they die). It sounds like this may not be possible, and I guess all the undead monsters in my game have to be vulnerable to Cyclonic...
RE: Undead status and Near Fatal attacks - Cecil188 - 10-12-2018
Near Fatal is indeed just a visual effect. Cyclonic is a near fatal spell because it has a power of 15, which, when used in conjunction with the fractional damage flag, results in dealing 15/16 of a target's current HP, which will always put them below the threshold needed to cause Near Fatal status.
One potential way to counteract this is to give Near Fatal moves an element, and have undead enemies nullify this element. This comes with a whole bevy of issues, such as enemies being immune to these fractional spells without actually being immune to ID(Instant Death). Furthermore, enemies weak to this element would take twice as much damage(thus, if you make Cyclonic Wind element, something weak to it will take 30/16 of their current HP). Brave New World does something relevant here, in which most fractional damage is either Wind or Earth elemental, and having (essentially) zero enemies weak to Wind or Earth. You could do something similar to this...but it is a significant concession to make any way you slice it. As for a cleaner, more technical solution...that's out of my range of expertise.
RE: Undead status and Near Fatal attacks - Lightning - 10-12-2018
Is there a way to make all undead monsters immune to Cyclonic? This would actually be fine in my mod, if it is possible and/or easy to code.
Edit: Wait a minute... I did some testing, and it seems that if I check the box "miss if protected by ailments" for Cyclonic, I can then just set "block near fatal" for all these monsters and it will no longer work. The only downside to this is that Cyclonic will no longer work on any character or monster with the "near fatal" status, but does that really matter? I mean, Cyclonic would only deal minor damage at that point anyway, so who cares if it misses. Am I forgetting anything or breaking anything here?
RE: Undead status and Near Fatal attacks - Cecil188 - 10-12-2018
The only flaw I can determine is that I can give myself Near Fatal in strange circumstances. These circumstances are exceptionally niche, however.
1. If Gau Rages something immune to Near Fatal when he is Near Fatal, the Near Fatal status can no longer be removed from him, even when he gets to full HP. Given that the only enemies immune to Near Fatal are the undead ones, however, healing him will be generally...difficult once he's in Rage. Thus, the problem solves itself, as using this silly strategy to avoid Cyclonic damage is, quite frankly, stupid.
2. Strago can Rippler Near Fatal status onto himself to be Near Fatal regardless of his HP. However, this will update rather quickly and the Near Fatal status will be removed. Thus, I'll actually be impressed if people can actually use this for anything productive, so more power to them if they can.
TL;DR: There's a couple ways to get Cyclonic immunity "illegitimately," but they're both really stupid.
RE: Undead status and Near Fatal attacks - Lightning - 10-12-2018
(10-12-2018, 06:49 PM)Cecil188 Wrote: The only flaw I can determine is that I can give myself Near Fatal in strange circumstances. These circumstances are exceptionally niche, however.
1. If Gau Rages something immune to Near Fatal when he is Near Fatal, the Near Fatal status can no longer be removed from him, even when he gets to full HP. Given that the only enemies immune to Near Fatal are the undead ones, however, healing him will be generally...difficult once he's in Rage. Thus, the problem solves itself, as using this silly strategy to avoid Cyclonic damage is, quite frankly, stupid.
2. Strago can Rippler Near Fatal status onto himself to be Near Fatal regardless of his HP. However, this will update rather quickly and the Near Fatal status will be removed. Thus, I'll actually be impressed if people can actually use this for anything productive, so more power to them if they can.
TL;DR: There's a couple ways to get Cyclonic immunity "illegitimately," but they're both really stupid.
Good points. I think it is still worth using the "miss if protected by ailments" for cyclonic in order to block it from working with certain undead monsters. This disallows players from using cyclonic on certain undead monsters like Didalos, which I feel is just cheap. I also just realized that if I disable the "spell miss if death protected" for cyclonic, I can allow certain monsters to be affected by cyclonic while still giving them protection against doom/death spells. The possibility is open.
RE: Undead status and Near Fatal attacks - ScarabEnigma - 10-13-2018
Despite all this, nothing is more cheap than tossing a phoenix down at an undead enemy
also, if i recall, enemies can have a heavy flag set to make select spells like tornado miss, but due to how much that is used, it wouldn't really help the case much...
RE: Undead status and Near Fatal attacks - Lightning - 10-13-2018
(10-13-2018, 12:50 AM)ScarabEnigma Wrote: Despite all this, nothing is more cheap than tossing a phoenix down at an undead enemy
also, if i recall, enemies can have a heavy flag set to make select spells like tornado miss, but due to how much that is used, it wouldn't really help the case much...
Life spells and phoenix downs can no longer be used to target undead monsters in my hack.
