Dominated, are you still an Ally?

[Duncan_Clyborne]

Is a Dominated Ally; still an Ally? Or do them become an Enemy? Is the character a Dazed Ally and then the Dominator takes over for one action each round? The guy is always fighting the affect (therefore Dazed), but is then forced to do one bad thing. (Image of a person struggling not to stab you when commanded, but then getting in one good slash.)

I know the condition does not say the character is no longer an Ally, but what do we think the intent is? Does the character get healing from powers that affect Allies? Or powers that say; "All Ally's can blah, blah." Can an Ally move through them? How about a Heal check allowing an Ally to get a savings throw? (That's how this thought came up in a game. I wanted to use an action to grant the guy a saving throw. [Slap! Wake up, Indie!] Thankfully, Dazed characters don't get OA so it does not affect people moving around the battlefield.

I like the idea that the character is still an Allly, just being forced to do one bad thing a round. I don't like the 'evil, zombie' idea with the guy just being slow to attack. (Image of the person smilling slyly as they slowly move towards you with the knife.)

 

[chaotix42]

I don't see any reason to not consider a dominated PC an ally of the rest of the party. It's a pretty tenuous control that an enemy has over a PC when they're dominated.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Ally is pretty easy to adjudicate. If the caster would like the target to benefit from it, and the recipient would like to benefit with it, they're an ally.


Yes, that does mean that you can choose to, out of the blue, heal someone who hates your guts, and they can choose to accept, and then go on to punch you silly. Pretty much any other way of handling it turns the game mechanic into an intent detector (ie - "Is that goblin going to double cross me? Well, my heal didn't work on him, so he must be!").

 

[fba827]

I can understand the reasoning for questioning it.

You could either
1) Leave it up to the individual player that is granting the ally bonus ("Would your PC still consider this dominated PC a friend?")
2) Leave it simple and just make a blanket statement that dominated allies are still allies ("he's still your friend, just being compelled like a puppet on strings. however, your encouraging words can still reach him, and you cling on to hope that he'll be able to snap out of it soon")
3) Do the opposite of option 2 - blanket statement that dominated allies are no longer considered allies until they snap out of it.

I have my preference (#1), but, really, whatever works for you and your group since 2 and 3 are the more streamlined approach.

 

[Eldorian]

Reasons why you'd want a dominated ally to still be an ally:

He'd benefit from heals and defensive buffs.

Reasons why you wouldn't want a dominated ally to still be an ally:

He'd benefit from offensive buffs.

Reason why it doesn't make sense that a dominated ally would be an ally:

Leader powers would grant him basic attacks and such against enemies. He's dominated, but commander's strike still makes him swing on the guy dominating him?

Yeah, doesn't make a lot of sense.

 

[Whimsical]

Another consideration is having a dominated creature move through ally or enemy spaces.

If the big bad dominates the wizard and has him move through the party to end up next to him, can party members deny the dominated ally from moving through their space? Can enemies allow the dominated to move through them as if they were an ally?

 

[Duncan_Clyborne]

Well, I am still looking for what the Dominated character would consider himself. If an 'old' Ally tries to move through, would he say, "No." If an 'old' Ally tries to use a Heal check to give an additional savings throw, woud the Dominated character allow it? Could the Dominated character stop it? [Slap- Wake up you idiot!]

 

[77IM]

This came up the other day during a vampire fight. Without much rules support, I ruled that the dominated PC is an ally to both sides and an enemy to neither, except when the dominator is directing him to attack, in which case he treats his former allies as enemies for that one attack.

The rules seem to imply that ally/enemy status is unchanged, which is maybe easier to run, but leads to too many absurd situations for me (particularly with powers that target only enemies).

-- 77IM

 

[mlangsdorf]

Reason why it doesn't make sense that a dominated ally would be an ally:

Leader powers would grant him basic attacks and such against enemies. He's dominated, but commander's strike still makes him swing on the guy dominating him?

Yeah, doesn't make a lot of sense.

Makes sense to me. The character may be dominated, but he's trying to shake off the domination. The Commander's Strike narratively represents his own will triumphing briefly over the domination, long enough to get a strike in. It's rather neat.

 

[OakwoodDM]

The other question, alongside this, is whether the dominated character considers the dominating creature an ally.

Given that monsters have 1 healing surge per tier, could a dominating creature dominate the party cleric and have him use healing word to heal up?