Dominate Person, Feeblemind, etc..

Last session ended up like this:

- Duelist PC captured by enemy wizard after being possess by his Magic Jar
- Ranger PC captured by enemy wizard after stabilizing at -9 hp !!
- Shadow Adept PC barely escaped, jumping off a cliff using his Ring of Feather Fall.. but is feebleminded..
- Rogue PC falls to his death after trying to climb down that cliff in an escape attempt.

First of all... feeblemind.. the wizard is as intelligent as a lizard, but still retains his wisdom.. he knows he need to find some friends, which he has in the nearby village (half-hour walk). On his way, he finds the body of the rogue. Does his state of mind prevent him from thinking: "I need to take this body to the village for burial/raising?"

Secondly, I have some devious plans for the ranger PC. I have told my players that they will probably play some NPCs attempting to rescue the captured characters, together with maybe the cured wizard and raised rogue. Funny thing, when they attack the wizard and his castle anew, the mysterious fighter with the full plate mail they defeated last time is back! Maybe they kill him.. just to discover that it in fact is the ranger, who has been Dominated by the enemy wizard. So, what will Dominate Person allow you to do? It says that you wouldn't do anything against your nature, but what does that really mean? Would you attack your old friends if commanded to do so? Will you kill innocents? The ranger is Chaotic Good by the way. And it also says that if commanded to do something against your nature, you receive another save. If you make that save, are you free from the spell, or only that you won't do what you're told to do? In my opinion, this ranger wouldn't kill innocents or harm nature (as he is a good ranger), but attacking his former friends is OK.

Dominate is a thorny one. New save if the action is against your nature... Now I'd say fighting is a very familiar activity to your average PC... so arguably not against their nature. Paritcularly if they're ordered to fight someone they didn't like much anyway!

Butchering villagers is another difficult one, if I were the BBEG I'd make it look as if the villagers were up to no good... Illusions could be a really useful tool there. No new save if the ranger thinks he's really killing off a village full of demon worshipers? Imagine him finding a village of corpses later, then recalling that he did it and things looked very different.

However, I'd rule that fighting other PCs generates a new save. It may not be strictly correct, but I think it makes some sense. And it stops players getting really mad at you!

Either that or I'd give them some sort of spot/sense motive roll to notice the new armoured fighter was different from the one they killed. Also moves and fights just like their friend...

Beware of Magic Circle vs X. If he gets in the AoE of one of them, the domination will no longer apply. That really got me in a fight I ran!


As for the feeblemind I'd let the wizard scoop up the body. Otherwise they'll have to go back, get healed, go back for the body, return again... Same result, but more hassle!

Presumably the wizard PC has a Headband of Intellect or similar item. This would boost his Int at least to levels of sentience, so he could perform basic functions like getting his buddies raised.

If he doesn't, he's in trouble.

I think the Feeblemind (at least in 3.0 it was) states, that you still retain the ability to act humanlike just on a very low level. You can still protect your friends, for example.

So yes, I'd assume, he would (if strong enough) carry the rogue with him, but he won't be able to communicate so the villagers would have to figure out what's wrong by themselves.

The only "survivor" being feebleminded... that's tough!

Bye
Thanee

Trellian said:

First of all... feeblemind.. the wizard is as intelligent as a lizard, but still retains his wisdom.. he knows he need to find some friends, which he has in the nearby village (half-hour walk). On his way, he finds the body of the rogue. Does his state of mind prevent him from thinking: "I need to take this body to the village for burial/raising?"

Click to expand...

Well, it definitely would prevent him from thinking something that complicated. "Smun ugh urgl duh" is what he's going to think, I'd say.

But his wisdom is untouched, and he knows who his friends are. If the rogue was a particularly good friend (and that's a judgement call for the player, but it's safe to assume for a game that the player won't be a jerk about it and will say "Hell YES, he's a good friend!"), he'll realize that his friend is dead and that something needs to be done to help him. He'll nudge and paw at him a bit to see if the rogue'll start moving again, and when he doesn't, he might drag the body with him just in case the rogue gets better or in case his friends in the next village can help.


...and I'll say it again, Feeblemind is a nasty spell. If it were fixable with lower-level spells than Heal or Limited Wish, I wouldn't mind it so much. If it had a duration, even of a day per level, I wouldn't mind it so much. But as it's written, it's more vicious than most 8th-level spells, and it scares me.

--
my wizard character desperately wants a ring of counterspells just to block feeblemind
ryan

Thanks for the feedback guys. I didn't think of the Headband of Intellect.. I'm not sure he even has one, lol. What I don't exactly get with the "new save", is whether this allows one to break free from the enchantment, or just refuse to do the command.

And yes, its quite a mess because the only survivor is feebleminded. I think I'll let him drag his friend to the village. He's to stupid to carry him.
The two captured PC's told me that they would rather try to escape themselves than play rescue NPCs.. we'll see how easy that will be when the big bad evil guy blinds the duelist and dominates the ranger..

The new save does completely end the spell. And usually in these cases, the character gains a bonus to his Saving Throw.

It is, I think, completely okay to let the spell break of when the character is ordered to attack party members. Party members are allies. It is against your nature to attack your allies, even if you don`t like them particualarly.

For determining if something is against one`s nature, just think about what he did in the past. Did he ever slaughter villagers before ? Yes? Than ordering to do so again might work. If he didn`t, its probably against his nature.

And just a rant, or at least critic:
As much as I like the Dominate spells / power from a story-telling perspective, they are unbalanced if they work to easy. Compare Dominate vs. Desintegrate: On a failed save, the target of a desintegrate is (usually - even with the new damage) dead. This means, he can no longer help the rest of the group (and it might also mean the player has to roll up a new character, or valuable resources must be spend to resurrect him).
On a failed save, the target of a dominate is controlled by the enemy. This means: he can no longer help the rest of the group. Instead, he fights them!
So, basically, dominate is something like a combined desintegrate/summon monster, and the summon monster part scales much better than a real summon monster spell, because Summon Monster usually summons creatures of lower CR than the spellcaster who casts the spell, which is usually not the case with Dominate spells (you alway get something that is an appropriate CR for the enemy, because you get the enemy himself!). On top of that, Dominate powers usually last longer than Summon Monster spells.
In our group, we had several adventures that contained dominating creatures. These were always the most deadly encounters for the players, even though there were encounters with higher EL.

Mustrum Ridcully

On the other hand,

a: Dispel Magic usually doesn't bring disintegrated people back to life.
b: Dominate xxx has a 1 round casting time, so its somewhat difficult to pull off

Al said:

Presumably the wizard PC has a Headband of Intellect or similar item. This would boost his Int at least to levels of sentience, so he could perform basic functions like getting his buddies raised.

If he doesn't, he's in trouble.

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The spell makes the Int stat 1.

No other magic besides the counters listed in the feeblemind spell will change this, including magic items. If said party member puts a headband of intellect on on, his Int will still be 1.

Check the latest FAQ on this.

pyk said:

The spell makes the Int stat 1.

No other magic besides the counters listed in the feeblemind spell will change this, including magic items. If said party member puts a headband of intellect on on, his Int will still be 1.

Check the latest FAQ on this.

Click to expand...

Good point. I always used to play that the 'base' stat was reduced to 1, so Headbands of Intellect could at least get it to 3-7 (not fantastic, but better than 1!) Ah well, thanks for pointing that out.