Won't Work On Me: Difference between revisions

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** In the BECMI edition of D&D, Immortals are the equivalent of gods. An Immortal's true form was completely immune to even the most powerful mortal magic, and the most that even the most powerful of mortal magical weapons (+4 or +5) could do to them is [[Scratch Damage]].

** In D&D 4e, Gods are immune to anything thrown at them from anything below level 21. Anyone not of epic level, who have some trace of divinity themselves, is completely incapable of affecting the gods in any way.

** Theoretically, ''sphere of invulnerability'' or ''antimagic shell'' gives everyone inside ~~immuninty~~ to most magic. Practically, high-level wizards ''expect'' to confront highly magic-resistant opponents (and each other) sooner or later, so they care to get attacks that bypass these things. There are also spells immune to simple dispel, especially curses, greater enchantments and strong magic defences, and some can even keep out 'antimagic shell' and/or prevent it from forming, if not break existing one.

** Theoretically, ''sphere of invulnerability'' or ''antimagic shell'' gives everyone inside immunity to most magic. Practically, high-level wizards ''expect'' to confront highly magic-resistant opponents (and each other) sooner or later, so they care to get attacks that bypass these things. There are also spells immune to simple dispel, especially curses, greater enchantments and strong magic defences, and some can even keep out 'antimagic shell' and/or prevent it from forming, if not break existing one. Andrui's Baneful Backfire (''[[Greyhawk (Tabletop Game)|Greyhawk]]'') neutralizes a dispel attempt and retaliates, Curse of the Grinning Skull and Dispel Shunt (''[[Forgotten Realms]]'') reflect dispels back (former) or anywhere in range the caster wants (latter).

** ''[[Forgotten Realms]]'' had a (mostly implicit) history of magic "arms races" - development of spells intended to defeat spells that in turn were developed to defeat the older and simpler spells.

*** A few spells compromise even 'antimagic shell' (it suppresses magic, ''not'' makes a true magic-dead zone, or it would disable itself upon activation) by working on a deeper level: 'Lauthdryn's Cleaving', 'Lesser Cleaving', 'Mystra's Unraveling' and 'spell shear'<ref>an elven spell never given in stats</ref>.

*** A few spells compromise even 'antimagic shell' (it suppresses other magic, ''not'' makes a true magic-dead zone, or it would disable itself upon activation) by working on a deeper level: 'Lauthdryn's Cleaving', 'Lesser Cleaving', 'Mystra's Unraveling' and 'spell shear'<ref>an elven spell never given in stats</ref>. Also, 'Sphere of Ultimate Destruction' (non-FR spell) ignores it, due to creating a controlled sphere of annihilation — planar rift that does naughty things to the underlying continuum; and so does 'Black Blade of Disaster' (due to creating… a rift of similar nature, but fancy-shaped).

*** The main purpose of 'Silence' spell is to disable [[Magical Incantation|verbal components]] of other casters. What [[Forgotten Realms]] "arms race" did to this one? Introduced 'Vocalize', which allows its caster to circumvent this specific side of silence. ~~And~~ 'Dispel Silence' (obviously gesture-only) cancelling silence in the area. And 'Power Word, Silence', which trumps 'Dispel Silence' and prevents activation (yet not ongoing effect) of 'Vocalize', [[No Saving Throw]], but affects only a single target for "the rest of this round and the next" duration.

*** The main purpose of 'Silence' spell is to disable [[Magical Incantation|verbal components]] of other casters. What [[Forgotten Realms]] "arms race" did to this one? Introduced 'Vocalize', which allows its caster to circumvent this specific side of silence. 'Dispel Silence' (obviously gesture-only) cancelling silence in the area. And 'Power Word, Silence', which trumps 'Dispel Silence' and prevents activation (yet not ongoing effect) of 'Vocalize', [[No Saving Throw]], but affects only a single target for "the rest of this round and the next" duration.

** Damage resistance in D&D also works as a kind of No Sell, although it is limited to low to mid level damage.

** Damage resistance in D&D also works as a kind of No Sell, although it is limited to low to mid level damage. And of course there are ways to weaken or boost it.

* A particular trait of a bad game master will be to arbitrarily nullify the character's actions regardless of a die roll if it would upset his storyline or make his [[Villain Sue]] look bad.

** Subverted by ''[[Paranoia]]'', where the rulebook specifically tells GMs to disregard any and all inconvenient dice rolls, including ''rolling dice in plain view'' and '''ignoring''' the results.

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* One of the advanced Dementation abilities in ''[[Vampire: The Masquerade]]'' (available only to characters of sixth generation or lower, which generally includes only NPCs and [[Cannibalism Superpower|diablerists]]) allows the character to completely ignore an object for the duration of an encounter. For example, everyone else may see a perfectly ordinary sword pass straight through him harmlessly, but the character himself will wonder why the unfriendly chap is swinging his empty hand around like that.

* Strangely implemented in ''[[BattleTech]]'' with what is known as the Phantom 'Mech ability, the only sort of 'mystical' ability put forward by the franchise. In the Kell Hounds sourcebook, the ability basically disrupts enemy targeting systems by causing the 'Mech to 'disappear' from sensors, making the pilot using it nearly impossible to hit by imposing an automatic +4 to-hit penalty as well as doubling the range counted by the weapon. This could mean that an enemy just a few spaces distant suddenly counted as twice as far away (and incurring some horrific range difficulty modifiers, up to +4), or worst of all, considered 'out of range' of a weapon. The average pilot needs to roll a 4 or higher out of 2d6 to hit a stationary target. Suddenly, that previously 4-or-better hit requirement now requires an 8 or higher because of this ability, and the shot becomes much more difficult...or impossible. Canonically, only three pilots ever exhibited the ability in the course of the Warrior trilogy, with two of them genetically related and the third being a primary antagonist to the first two. The effect of not selling enemy attacks in the fiction, though, is considered both so rare and so traumatizing that the only warriors to survive the experience take themselves out of battle and into retirement or hermitage for a timespan on the order of years.

== Video Games ==