Empathic Transfer [Hostile]

[Garrett]

Having a discussion on this power (XPH p.99), I'm not convinced that the DM's ruling was accurate or not...
Situation: room full of Evards Black Tentacles (PHB p.201), evil wizard at the far end.
My character (not that its relevant) is a 10 Psychic warrior/ 2 Dread Champion~

I get grappled by one of the tentacles, and figuring they have health (and I'm missing a lot of health) decide that I want to pay the augment for the manifest and use the area drain on the tentacles.
so heres the power in a nutshell~

Telepathy school, mind affecting. saves and stuff are irrelevant.
touch attack
I basically give someone else my 'hurt'

"transferd damage is empathic in nature, so powers and abilities the subject may have such as damage reduction and regeneration do not lessen or change this damage.
the damage transferred by this power has no type, so eve nif the subject has immunity to the type of damage you originally took the transfer occurs normally"
The augment applies this to all things in a 20' radius (but says nothing about needing the touch attack, also confusing, I assumed it was auto hit)

So I wanted to drain these tentacles. The DM ruled that the tentacles are mindless, so they are immune to the damage, and so I wasted an awesome ammount of PP for nothing.
The spell description says nothing about the tentacles being immune to mind affecting stuff.
Tentacles have HP, I think 1 per caster level.
I'm not convinced, but I see both sides of the argument.
Thoughts?

Secondly, Dread champion gains me the undead template, would this power even work on me? Since I'm immune to mind affecting things~

The other weird thing about this, is the friendly one, where you take pain from someone else, and apply it to yourself, is Psychometabolism, where the hostile one is Telepathy...

I dunno I'm looking for some input here.

 

[Hypersmurf]

From the spell text: "The tentacles are immune to all types of damage." And no, they don't have any hit points.

They did have 1 hp/caster level in 3E, but not in 3.5. Since the XPH is a 3.5 book, I assume that's the edition you're playing?

Now, the power does state "the damage transferred by this power has no type, so even if the subject has immunity to the type of damage you originally took the transfer occurs normally"... and it could even be argued that immunity to "all types" of damage does not in fact include typeless damage. But that doesn't change the fact that in 3.5, the tentacles have no hit points to deal damage to.

Basically, in 3E, Black Tentacles was almost like a Summoning spell that created a certain number of quasi-creatures that grappled. In 3.5, it's more like a Web or Entangle spell, that creates an grappling area-effect. The number of tentacles isn't specified in 3.5... there are always enough to grapple one more creature than they're currently grappling

And yes, undead are immune to Hostile Empathic Transfer.

The other weird thing about this, is the friendly one, where you take pain from someone else, and apply it to yourself, is Psychometabolism, where the hostile one is Telepathy...

Like Cure Light Wounds is Conjuration [Healing], and Inflict Light Wounds is Necromancy?

-Hyp.

 

[Garrett]

Hmm, I didnt ask which version he was using, i think the tentacle spell was 3.0, my crew has too many likes/dislikes to solidly select one version or the other. I made my Psiwar from the 3.5 edition Psionics book.

Time to make a new character I think~

 

[Tzarevitch]

Your DM is correct. The tentacles are a spell effect not a creature. They don't have a mind to affect.

Tzarevitch

 

[moritheil]

Secondly, Dread champion gains me the undead template, would this power even work on me? Since I'm immune to mind affecting things~

The other weird thing about this, is the friendly one, where you take pain from someone else, and apply it to yourself, is Psychometabolism, where the hostile one is Telepathy...

So presumably if you became undead, you couldn't heal yourself via hostile transfer, but you could still transfer damage from your teammates. Hmm.