Pathfinder 1E how to reduce will save of an undead(incorporeal) creature?

[PnPgamer]

Hi
My players will discover a Polong eventually, and the backstory is that the previous owners of the dungeon used it for their own assassination schemes. However, checking the will save on a polong its a +11, and the inbuilt dominate monster effect is a DC20, so the polong obeys less than half the time. How would one reduce the will save of an undead creature as i recall them being immune to ability damage and drain? Any alternate options?
I am thinking about this from the perspective of previous owners of the bottle, not to inform my players.
EDIT:
quoting the ability in question:

Bottle-Bound (Su)​

A polong is bound to a bottle as part of the ritual to create it. A polong must remain within 1 mile of its bottle, and regains 1d8+5 hit points for each hour it spends inside its bottle. If a polong’s bottle (AC 11, hardness 1, hp 1) is destroyed, the polong is considered staggered until the bottle reforms in 24 hours. Once per day, a creature that possesses a polong’s bottle can attempt to take control of the polong for 24 hours as if the polong where under the effect of a dominate monster spell. The polong can attempt a DC 20 Will save to negate this effect.


A creature that’s controlling the polong is immune to its murderous intent aura.

 

[glass]

Hi
My players will discover a Polong eventually, and the backstory is that the previous owners of the dungeon used it for their own assassination schemes. However, checking the will save on a polong its a +11, and the inbuilt dominate monster effect is a DC20, so the polong obeys less than half the time. How would one reduce the will save of an undead creature as i recall them being immune to ability damage and drain? Any alternate options?
I am thinking about this from the perspective of previous owners of the bottle, not to inform my players.

Undead are categorically immune to Wisdom Drain, but not Wisdom Damage. So if you can find a source of Wisdom Damage that does not specify a living target and does not fall foul of their other immunities (mind-affecting, disease, poison, anything with a fort save). Unfortunately I cannot think of anything that fits those criteria OTTOMH (I thought Lamia, but they do drain).

However, you might have a more fundamental problem - dominate monster is mind-affecting, so the Polong is immune to it anyway - unless you have a way around that already (in which case that might also help with inflicting the Wisdom Damage).

EDIT: For undead you generally need Command Undead (the feat) or command undead (the spell). There is also control undead, but that only lasts minutes so not long enough for an assassination.

_
glass.

 

[PnPgamer]

Undead are categorically immune to Wisdom Drain, but not Wisdom Damage. So if you can find a source of Wisdom Damage that does not specify a living target and does not fall foul of their other immunities (mind-affecting, disease, poison, anything with a fort save). Unfortunately I cannot think of anything that fits those criteria OTTOMH (I thought Lamia, but they do drain).

However, you might have a more fundamental problem - dominate monster is mind-affecting, so the Polong is immune to it anyway - unless you have a way around that already (in which case that might also help with inflicting the Wisdom Damage).

EDIT: For undead you generally need Command Undead (the feat) or command undead (the spell). There is also control undead, but that only lasts minutes so not long enough for an assassination.

_
glass.

to quote polongs special ability called, which made me make this question:

Bottle-Bound (Su)​

A polong is bound to a bottle as part of the ritual to create it. A polong must remain within 1 mile of its bottle, and regains 1d8+5 hit points for each hour it spends inside its bottle. If a polong’s bottle (AC 11, hardness 1, hp 1) is destroyed, the polong is considered staggered until the bottle reforms in 24 hours. Once per day, a creature that possesses a polong’s bottle can attempt to take control of the polong for 24 hours as if the polong where under the effect of a dominate monster spell. The polong can attempt a DC 20 Will save to negate this effect.


A creature that’s controlling the polong is immune to its murderous intent aura.

 

[glass]

OK, fair enough, sorry; I clicked the link to check there were no extra immunities or anything, but I did not read the full text of that ability. Of course, "as if the polong were under the effect of a dominate monster spell" means "not at all", but it is clearly intended to work, so let's pretend they remembered to specify it bypassed their mind-affecting immunity.

Given that, arguably bestow curse would work. It is not very clearly worded, but given the context of the spell having a duration I would interpret "decrease of an ability score" to inflict a penalty (which makes the "cannot go below 1" part nonsense, but a lot of spells have that particular dysfunction). And since ability penalties work like ability damage, undead are not immune to them (as long as they are not to physical scores). A six-point penalty to Wisdom is a three-point penalty to Will saves. Sadly most things that inflict damage or penalties on mental score are Mind-affecting themselves, but bestow curse is not.

Unfortunately, it is bestow curse is also a will save, but due to the permanent duration you only need to land it once (unless you deliberately dispel it so your assassin is not vulnerable to Will-save spells from its target and their allies). A Misfortune hex could help you land either this or the dominate (possibly both if the Witch is at least eight level).

Hope this helps (this time).

EDIT: Another possibility is cast control undead and then order the polong to deliberate fail its save agains the dominate. This also has a Will save, but a decently optimised caster is going to have a save DC much higher than 20. OTOH, if you are chucking seventh-level spells about, it is probably not worth going to that much effort to secure a CR 8 assassin! Command undead as mentioned above would work at a more reasonable level, but obviously the DC would be commensurately lower, and deliberately allowing itself to be dominated is definitely something the polong "wouldn't ordinarily do", so you would also need to pass an opposed charisma check.

_
glass.

 

[PnPgamer]

OK, fair enough, sorry; I clicked the link to check there were no extra immunities or anything, but I did not read the full text of that ability. Of course, "as if the polong were under the effect of a dominate monster spell" means "not at all", but it is clearly intended to work, so let's pretend they remembered to specify it bypassed their mind-affecting immunity.

Given that, arguably bestow curse would work. It is not very clearly worded, but given the context of the spell having a duration I would interpret "decrease of an ability score" to inflict a penalty (which makes the "cannot go below 1" part nonsense, but a lot of spells have that particular dysfunction). And since ability penalties work like ability damage, undead are not immune to them (as long as they are not to physical scores). A six-point penalty to Wisdom is a three-point penalty to Will saves. Sadly most things that inflict damage or penalties on mental score are Mind-affecting themselves, but bestow curse is not.

Unfortunately, it is bestow curse is also a will save, but due to the permanent duration you only need to land it once (unless you deliberately dispel it so your assassin is not vulnerable to Will-save spells from its target and their allies). A Misfortune hex could help you land either this or the dominate (possibly both if the Witch is at least eight level).

Hope this helps (this time).

EDIT: Another possibility is cast control undead and then order the polong to deliberate fail its save agains the dominate. This also has a Will save, but a decently optimised caster is going to have a save DC much higher than 20. OTOH, if you are chucking seventh-level spells about, it is probably not worth going to that much effort to secure a CR 8 assassin! Command undead as mentioned above would work at a more reasonable level, but obviously the DC would be commensurately lower, and deliberately allowing itself to be dominated is definitely something the polong "wouldn't ordinarily do", so you would also need to pass an opposed charisma check.

_
glass.

Alright thank you very much. I started thinking that does one need to free a Polong from its bottle to dominate it? Would possessor of the bottle know if the domination worked? Could he keep on trying and only release the polong after it failed its save?