Domination question

[shilsen]

No, not what you're thinking, you perv!

A situation came up during the last session where a vampire had dominated a pair of party-members and ordered them to attack the rest of the group if anyone attacked or cast a spell. Someone did, and the pair duly attacked. Since this counted as being forced to take actions against their nature, I gave them another save at this point at a +2 on the save, and both blew it. The combat ended in a truce after a few rounds, and after a few minutes of parleying, started up again. When the dominated pair were commanded to fight again they got a second set of saves at +2, which they promptly missed again.

At the end of the fight a player argued that the "forced to take actions against its nature" clause should have required a save per attack the character made. So, according to my player's reasoning, if a dominated archer had been ordered to attack a friend and fired four shots, he should get four saves. I disagree, thinking that "attack your friends" counts for a single save.

What do you think?

 

[Janos Audron]

Personally, I would not have given them new save. My reasoning: the command is 'attack' and unless a PC is a pacifist, attacking is not against his nature.

Besides, if every attack gave a new save, wouldn't it be rather useless as a 5th level spell with a day per level duration?

What's even worse is that, if you allow this, other reasons could very soon become 'against someone's nature', e.g. 'attacking someone who has not attacked me', 'attacking a humanoid', 'healing someone who has dominated me' etc.

 

[shilsen]

Personally, I would not have given them new save. My reasoning: the command is 'attack' and unless a PC is a pacifist, attacking is not against his nature...

What's even worse is that, if you allow this, other reasons could very soon become 'against someone's nature', e.g. 'attacking someone who has not attacked me', 'attacking a humanoid', 'healing someone who has dominated me' etc.

I figured I was being a bit generous, but did that anyway, specifically for the situation of attacking a party member. Should probably have made it just the one save at +2, but they blew it both times, so no harm done. If any of the players had tried to use some of those reasons, I would have had to use the "DM's Hideous Laughter" spell.

Besides, if every attack gave a new save, wouldn't it be rather useless as a 5th level spell with a day per level duration?

I mentioned that and was rewarded with the "you're screwing my PC" eye-roll from the player. Sometimes player cheese does go best with whine.

 

[Liminal Syzygy]

I've wondered about that myself. What exactly does "against a PCs nature" constitute?

My personal gut feeling would be that yes, attacking another party member wouldn't necessarily be against a PCs nature unless perhaps they were family or very close friends.

 

[Telperion]

I've wondered about that myself. What exactly does "against a PCs nature" constitute?

My personal gut feeling would be that yes, attacking another party member wouldn't necessarily be against a PCs nature unless perhaps they were family or very close friends.

I totally agree with that. I have seen some very hostile and competitive groups, which later on self-destructed, so attacking a party member wouldn't be "against their nature" by no means. I think it's a matter of personal beliefs.

A LG paladin would find it very difficult to attack someone that has been designated as an "ally", because his strict code of honor.

A CN rogue is another deal all together. His literally out there for himself first, and anyone else second. So stabbing a party member in the back wouldn't be that strange to him, because it might very well further his own goals.

And if the party is evil, then things get even more interesting. While alignment has some significance I think it comes down to how the character is portrayed. If we are talking about a foaming mouth barbarian, with a lust for bloodshed, then the party is in trouble. If we are talking about a highly intelligent fighter with skills and abilities to match then he might have a problem with attacking his party members, even if it is a tactical/strategic/logistic reason.

This is not a simple question, so I can't supply a simple answer. Know your players, and know their characters even better...

 

[Scion]

Personally I would definately have to say that for the majority of characters attacking an ALLY in any way, shape, or form would be go against common nature. Now based on the character it could be argued either way, if you have a choatic neutral rogue who likes to steal anything nailed down and has swindled the pc's in the past (I've seen it happen, to greater or lesser degrees) then having them attack a party member would probably not grant a save, he might even be happy to finally have a reason to do so. However, most characters tend to not want to hurt allys, who are generally also friends in some way.

If you travel with someone for weeks/months/years then there will probably be some sort of bond there. Breaking that bond would go against most peoples natures.

At least in my opinion

Although I would only grant one save per round even if told to do two things in one round. However, if it was something like ordering a paladin to break one of his oaths (or something else that would make a character lose part of themselves, class, whatever) I would grant a second save at a slightly higher bonus to just be able to say no to that one command. Breaking someone out of their class just shouldnt be an easy thing to do.

If you have very very good players (not trying to be mean to anyone, but I mean the kind of good where if you secretly had their character killed and put a doppleganger in its place they would be able to still play it to the hilt, may even come up with the idea on their own as a plot device to further the rest of the campaign) then you could ask them if it would be against their characters belief system in a big way. I think that fully half of the commands that could be given would grant a save though.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

In our past experiences, dominate was always a killer spell.
It allows the caster to not only take a character out of combat, it even allowed him to gain a new ally of a CR equal to the lost character. Think of it as a Hold Monster combined with a Summon Monster.

We decided that attacking allies was always an action against the very nature of a person (and remember, the others still are your allies, and the dominator doesn`t suddenly become your best friend), and allow new saving throws with a +4 Bonus each round.
If you see the spell as to weak now, you could decide that the spell doesn`t end after such a succesful throw, but only allows to ignore that specific command.

Mustrum Ridcully

 

[Liminal Syzygy]

In that case you just change it to a stronger charm person and it becomes safer just to have them grapple their friends. Arg, it really just proves how problematic subjective language can be.

 

[Otterscrubber]

I've wondered about that myself. What exactly does "against a PCs nature" constitute?

QUOTE]

Good question, I've always hated the subjective wording of many of the enchantment[compulsion] type spells. Dominate is a good example but so is Suggestion. If I were a dominated orc, I could easily argue that it is against my nature to take orders from a wussy elf mage thus making any command given an excuse to make a saving throw. I wish it was a little more clear cut than that.

 

[Belbarrus]

I've wondered about that myself. What exactly does "against a PCs nature" constitute?

I once had a player playing a Sorcerer that try to convince us that telling other people what spells he knows was "against his nature".

He didnt want the Vampire that dominated him to know what spells he could cast.

B