Game Mechanics: "all EQ guards seem to be immune to the charm series" July 2001

[Jimjam]

Stumbled upon the following 2001 quote:

Like merchants, all EQ guards seem to be immune to the charm series.

Originally Posted by Dolalin [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Nice find. That's very clear and leads us down an interesting rabbit hole regarding guards as well.

Dolalin has peaked my interest!

After some quick research it seems in contemporary EQ all city guard types are immune to charm (tested with a high level enchanter shroud and a low level dark elf enchanter on live. Visited Neriak, Oggok and Qeynos - from low level sewer sentries to superbuffed level 50 gate guards).

Guards that don't wear a uniform nor are on a guard faction (e.g. some of the village / wilderness guards in Rathe and East Karana which are just humans in plate) can be charmed.

On the whole it looks like city type guards (including those in travel zones) are uncharmable, and were uncharmable since 2000 with a few other zam posts backing this up.

I'll reply with quotes and links from zam later. Other classic boards need to be searched too.

[Gustoo]

Killing guards is not only evil it would invoke the wrath of death touching city leaders

[realsubtle]

They should just make NPCs unkillable.

[Gustoo]

I don't think that fits with the open world nature of the game. this server should be as classic as possible. My preferences for guards to obliterate people trying to pharm them because they're usually inappropriately easy to to manage unlike a real mob in a real dungeon doesn't mean anything i this context.

[branamil]

It's spelled "piqued"

[Tunabros]

no one cares

[Jimjam]

Originally Posted by branamil [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

It's spelled "piqued"

Thank you!

[Dolalin]

I seem to have found a possible timeline for guards being made immune to charm. Here's a post about Nektulos guards specifically being made immune to charm in July/August 1999 from the EQ-Enchanters mailing list.

Message ID: 1855
Date: Wed Aug 18 00:01:30 BST 1999
Author: Silverlock
Subject: Re: Charm nerf?


At 06:48 AM 8/17/99 -0500, you wrote:
>From: "refplace" <refplace@...>
>
>
>
>>From: Silverlock <croesus@...>
>>
>>Ok heres the situation. At level 28 or 29 I went to nektulos Forest with
>>some friends and we killed Guards and corporals for loot. We sometimes drew
>>overpulls but beguile let us escape them, usually by charming a guard to
>>fight the corporal. Today we dicided to go to Solusek and as I waited for
>my
>>friends someone pulled the corporal and two guards. All three were dark
>>green to me at level 32.
>>The Corporal on walking apst came at me and I tashani'd him and tried to
>>beguile him. And failed. 8 times in a row. I killed it the old fashioned
>way
>>and thenwhen my friends came we experimented. $ casts on Dark green guards
>>all after tashani all resisted. Another 8 casts on Corporals also after
>>tashani everyone resisted.
>>
>>I was mad as hell. This isn't a random number problem this is deliberately
>>making a mob that I should ahve a chance of charming IMMUNE to it. When I
>>travel solo I have a choice, I always go with a pet spell memmed or with
>>beguile. Usually beguile because my other spell mix is geared to flight
>>rather then fight. I used to be fairly certain that with 160 charisma I
>>could reasonably expect to succeed in a charm of a green. Now that faith is
>>gone. What other random mobs has Verant decided to make IMMUNE to one of
>the
>>Major spells we Enchanters rely on? How many deaths am I going to face
>>discovering these little changes. I feedbacked it.
>>I petitioned it. I got a tell from a GM or Guide that siad they couldn't
>>discuss game mechanic changes but there was something in the news file. I
>>logged out to check the news file and didn't see anything so is there
>anyone
>>out there who can enlighten me as too what the guide or Gm was referring
>to?
>>And what benefit did we get in exchange for making a spell that we could
>>reasonably count on now totally uncertain? I could understand making charm
>>spells harder to resist, but thats not what happened. They made a certain
>>mob type Immune to them and if they did it for one they probably did it for
>>others.
>>I think we need to ask Verant to undo this change, Charm spells are the
>core
>>of the Enchanter class and screwing around with them in that manner is
>>crazy. Thanks. Any help or comments are appreciated.
>>--
>>Silverlock, ICQ 474725
>
>Why would you think all creatures are vulnerable to any spell much less this
>one in particualr?
>There are a couple of Magic immune MOBs out there.
>Also I disagree that Charm is our core spell.
>

This isn't a magic immune mob. I easily destoyed it with chaos flux. This
mob was immune to a certain particular spell that it wasn't immune to a
month ago.
--
Silverlock, ICQ 474725

Household Pests? The SW-404 'SpitFire' APRL cleansing system
will remove them, we Guarantee IT! Not responsible for damage
to persons or structures from use of this product.
Dial 1-800-FRY-THEM for info and a home demonstration.

https://github.com/dbsanfte/eq-archi...html/1855.html

[Dolalin]

Here's another one from eq-bards in October 1999 that talks about Nek guards being immune to charm (and their resists being boosted in general):

Message ID: 8948
Date: Wed Oct 20 20:18:45 BST 1999
Author: kim@xxxxxxxxxx.xxx
Subject: Re: Resist on chains gotten worse lately?


On Wed, 20 Oct 1999 jhenders@... wrote:
>
> Last night the Cerf.net servers all went down so I logged into Tarrew
> Marr to play my bard for the first time in a while. I decided to go see
> if I could kill some hill giants in W Commons and while looking ran
> across Kizdean Gix. He attacked dispite being 20 odd levels below me and
> I fired up chains intending to chain and fear him. Hmm. 8 resists in a

They beefed up the resists on all the dark elves about a month
and a half ago. Zytl, and the guards in Nektulos are pretty
much immune to Chain, charm, and fear (at least to me in the
upper 30s). Gix and Dorn are slightly less resistant, but
resist so often that it's generally a better idea to stick to
self/party buffs. About the same time, they also beefed up
the damage these guys do, or lowered the low-level damage cap.
I could easily solo Gix and Dorn at 30, but when the change
went in I couldn't solo either of them at 35.

> the zone, I happened to spot some big wisp spawns and killed them.
> Again, wisps were resisting chains like crazy. Have resist rates gone up
> on chains lately? I don't remember having near this much trouble last
> time I played my bard. My druid can get snare to stick on reds with more
> reliability than this.

Dunno about wisps, haven't killed one in a long time. They
did make wisps in Befallen immune to chain/snare/root (or
practically immune) several months ago, so I wouldn't be
surprised if they did the same to all wisps. It would help
cut down the number of high level players harvesting them.

Once nice change I noticed is that Chain now stops runners if
they're below half health, which coincidently is when most
greens start to run. If you've got an annoying green runner,
snare (and the old Chain) will not stop it until it's at about
25% health. The only option used to be rooting it. Now you
can Chain it. It also makes Chain/Screech a much easier combo
to use since your opponent will be immobile half the fight.

--
John H. Kim
kim@...

https://github.com/dbsanfte/eq-archi...html/8948.html

Also I recall filing a bug a long time ago that most greens should run at 50%, there's a bit more evidence for that too.

Will keep looking to see if I can find references to other city guards being charm immune.

[Jimjam]

Own Experience of (contemporary unrevamed zones on) Live:

lvl 50 gate guards: uncharmable (qeynos, oggok, neriak)
sub 50 city guards: uncharmable (qeynos, oggok, neriak - this includes the exhausted guards and sewer sentinels in the qeynos aqueducts)
neriak cleric guild guards: uncharmable
neriak 3rd gate city guards: uncharmable (these seem to all be SKs!)


Posts from Zam

Jul 16 2003 High Keep https://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/...05836347552487
Hi i have a lvl 30 enchanter and i decided to charm solo guards. Unforunately i found out that guards cannot be charmed (fortunatley i had rune up and tried to charm the guards near the zone). I was wondering if i could charm anything else in the zone for killing or i should use my uncontrollable pet? Also can guards be mezzed i see no reason why the shouldnt but just wondering.


Jun 21 2003 Qeynos Hills Guard Fefslan https://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/...05620519267079
Guard Fefslan "Immune to charm." note: (this guard appears to have been added/adjusted post classic to be part of the newbie armour/weapons quests).


Dec 07 2002 North Karana Guard Shilster https://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/...05620519267079
So I handed in about 340 times and got from dub to amiably. Then he started to walk away, as I was not finished I try to charm but stupid guards cant be charmed so not sure where he was heading too...


Mar 13 2000 Sir Lucan D`Lere's guards EFP https://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/...1&p=5#comments
One poster asks whether Lucan's guards can be charmed/mezed/etc and a subsequent poster advises (in era) to entrance them.


Jun 28 2021 Sir Lucan D`Lere's guards EFP (appears to have been a progression server - classic version of zone) https://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/...49015411287417
A more contemporary poster advises in 2021 Lucan's guards are uncharmable and reiterates the advice to mez and burn.

Legacy of Ykeshka onward Neriak C Gribnor's guards (these are body guards - not a city guard) https://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/npc.html?id=12809
Gribnor's 'guards' (Ykesha era - in Neriak) are charmable (but these are body guards and not city guards).


Apr 21 2000 Guard Carnita (Mountains of Rathe - not a city guard) https://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/npc.html?id=3050
Get a shaman and an enchanter with best cha possible sow both shaman heals enc charms... This dumb guard hits for 90ish and bashes for 32 charm him sic him on drakes and have fun [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.] has low hp though so have shaman heal it while its enc pet. if shaman is level 19 malise it so charm sticks better and if charm breaks run like the wind, root, and recharm this is a power levelers dream...

Summary: City Guards appear to have been uncharmable since at least 2000. This includes low level guards, but it does not include all village/wilderness NPC's with 'guard' in their name that also don't use guard model/skins/factions (as found in East Karana, Lake Rathe, Mountains of Rathe, etc).