Unsatisfying mind flayer encounter

[Urbannen]

I just ran an adventure from Dungeon 92 that takes place in a mind flayer prison. The players did not like it because half of them were stunned half the time from mind blasts. Although mind blast may seem like a good villain power on paper, in reality it makes for a very boring encounter. What happens is that half the players get stunned and then the cleric has to try to run interference with the mind flayer using hand-to-hand combat until his comrades recover (while arcane spellcasters stand around feeling useless because of the creatures' SR). Once PCs recover, they just get stunned again.
Maybe it's just me, but a ability that can be used at will on many PCs at once and that robs those players on average of 7-8 rounds of action on a failed DC 17 Will save is just not fun. I don't know if its unbalanced, but I do know that it makes the game very uninteresting for players, moreso than attacks that simply do damage.
If I ever DM with mind flayers again, their mind blast ability is going to have to be altered. I'm thinking making the mind flayer wait 1d4 rounds before using the ability again might be a good start, followed by decreasing the rounds of stunning to 2d3. Another alternative would be that that a mind blast can only be used on one creature at a time. What would be an effective way to revise the ability?
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Other observations about mind flayers: These creatures are good against all classes. Their mental abilities are potent against rogues and fighters, they almost always ignore offensive spells, and their skills are so high that rogues have little chance of sneaking up or fooling them.
Mind flayers potentially make scarily good rogues. They have key rogue skills as racial class abilities. They have super-high Ints, meaning they catch up fast with any skills they don't already have. They have Weapon Finesse and a racial Dex bonus. A creature stunned by a mind blast loses Dex bonus to AC, and a mind flayer can make 4 attacks on a full attack action. This means that a mind flayer with only one level of rogue can regularly expect to deal 4d6 sneak attack damage with a full-round action (Not even talking about the 4d4 tentacle damage and threat of extraction)

 

[Greatwyrm]

What types and levels of characters did you have in the party?

 

[Piratecat]

Although mind blast may seem like a good villain power on paper, in reality it makes for a very boring encounter.

After finding the same thing, here's what I now do. A character stunned by a mindflayer doesn't feel "stunned." Instead, they're plunged into a fantasy world where everything is perfect. They see people they love, acquire fantastic weapons, and learn tremendous secrets -- all of which disappear as soon as they come to their senses. At the illithid's option, they can instead be plunged into a fantasy where the mind flayer is their best friend and doing everything it can to help them. This way the PCs are still helpless, but at least the players are somewhat amused.

 

[mikebr99]

After finding the same thing, here's what I now do. A character stunned by a mindflayer doesn't feel "stunned." Instead, they're plunged into a fantasy world where everything is perfect. They see people they love, acquire fantastic weapons, and learn tremendous secrets -- all of which disappear as soon as they come to their senses. At the illithid's option, they can instead be plunged into a fantasy where the mind flayer is their best friend and doing everything it can to help them. This way the PCs are still helpless, but at least the players are somewhat amused.

What?? you let them at the xbox, beer & pizza?? How do you get them BACK to the table?




Mike

 

[Plane Sailing]

I know what Urbannen means, I think... Even 4 rounds of melee can easily take up to half and hour of game time (often more), and a stunned PC can leave a player wandering off to read comics or watch TV.

I'm interested in other possible solutions since I'm planning to run this adventure in the near future too

 

[Urbannen]

Greatwyrm: It was a group of 5 11th level dwarf characters that I had created myself for a one-shot "tournament" adventure. They included a cleric, two fighters, a rogue, a ranger, and an 8th level cleric cohort. Their saves were decent, but mathematically they are bound to fail. If you have a base Will save of 3, a stat modifier of 2, a racial bonus of 2, and a resistance bonus of 1, you still only have a +8. That means you need a 9 to save and fail 40% of the time against an at-will area attack performed by potentially multiple mind flayers.

PirateCat: Umm, that's an imaginative attempt to keep your players entertained. Unfortunately the people I play with have little affinity for such a literary or dramatic approach (i.e. they're pretty dull).

Plane Sailing: I have some suggestions for changing the adventure if you want. As I see it, you can change the mind blast 1 of 2 ways.

1. You can keep the mind blast ability the same, but limit the mind flayers' use of it. I would suggest once every 1d4 rounds, kind of like a breath weapon (but in this case, a psionic breath weapon!)

2. Change mind blast so it only affects one creature at a time.

If you want, I can e-mail you my other observations/3.5 updates.

 

[dcollins]

Go back to AD&D 1st Ed. DMG p. 78 and roll on the original "Psionic Blast Upon Non-Psionic Creature" table (the original mind flayer power).

The players may then be stunned, asleep, confused, enraged, panicked, feebleminded, temporarily or permanently insane, thrown in a coma, or just dead. They probably won't be bored by that!

Oh, the mind flayer can then only use the ability about 14 times, so there's the limit you were looking for.

 

[Phasmus]

I haven't tried this myself, but consider giving mind-blasted characters a new save every round like they did for 3.5 hold person.

Of course, if people are getting hit by multiple mindblasts, that can lead to a bit of extra book keeping, but making all those saving throws each round gives the stunned characters something to do.

Alternatively, consider making the effect of mind-blast confusion (as the spell, but for the 3d4 duration) rather than stunning. I think it is a nice representation of the temporary insanity resulting from having a thoroughly alien mind briefly impress itself upon your tender consciousness. (If you do this, consider adding a single-target stun ability... mind-flayers need some means of rendering their foes safe for extraction, and insanity isn't that).

 

[Urbannen]

Another problem with mind blast: there's no cure for it. It's an instantaneous effect, so disple magic doesn't work. It isn't paralysis or slow, so remove paralysis doesn't work. The party cleric was trying to restore his comrades and I allowed an area dispel to work, but strictly speaking it shouldn't have.

Personally I would consider it a pain effect, but there aren't any PHB spells that deal with those. (MoF has some, I think, like Rosemantle).

 

[Nail]

I think a random effect - as listed by another poster above - would be most interesting. Keep it simple, and only for 1d3 rounds. Then the Mind Blast would be a confusion effect, and dispelable or curable.