Mind Blank defeats the effect of a True Strike?

[chilibean]

No, I think you're missing my point.

You're not scrying the person at all. Your just finding all the areas that cannot be scryed within a certain range. Forget about crystal balls, they couldn't do this. I mean using a wish spell. But not to locate a particular person, because that is impossible. Just to locate any areas that are warded only against divination magic.

Imagine something like the wish spell sprinkling everything in range with a special invisible glitterdust and then looking for the dark spots. You have no idea what's in the dark spots, because they are impenetrable to the wish spell, you just want to know where those dark spots are.

So if you have an idea where your quarry is, and get lucky enough to only have a couple areas show up with the spell, and can get to all of them quick enough, you might catch the guy.

 

[nwn_deadman]

No, I think you're missing my point.

You're not scrying the person at all. Your just finding all the areas that cannot be scryed within a certain range. Forget about crystal balls, they couldn't do this. I mean using a wish spell. But not to locate a particular person, because that is impossible. Just to locate any areas that are warded only against divination magic.

Imagine something like the wish spell sprinkling everything in range with a special invisible glitterdust and then looking for the dark spots. You have no idea what's in the dark spots, because they are impenetrable to the wish spell, you just want to know where those dark spots are.

So if you have an idea where your quarry is, and get lucky enough to only have a couple areas show up with the spell, and can get to all of them quick enough, you might catch the guy.

I have your point. You cannot use wish or miracle to find areas that are masked by Mind Blank. This is not to say that you could not use Wish or Miracle to find areas that are warded by other means (such as lead walls).

You cannot use a Wish or Miracle to detect the "presence" in an area when that "presence" happened to be a Mind Blanked Wizard.

Example,

Your party is chasing down the big, bad, mean, ugly and overpowered RED WIZARD (muhahaha)

You saw him with your own 10 eyes (party of 5) and as he ran into town you lost him in the crowd (change self, alter self?)

Now you "Know" he is in town somewhere so you use a Divinitation spell to see if there are any areas in town that the Divinitation spell will not work (gather information) in.

You see that there is a tiny spot somewhere off to the north and you arrive at the sport where the Red Wizard is resting...

This is an illustration of what you are thinking "Could" happen, but CANNOT.

Get it now?

 

[CRGreathouse]

I wouldn't let you detect dead spots like that; I tink the spell "fills in" blank areas with reasonable things nearby. Thus, you'd just see the road and houses and such things where the warded person is.

 

[hong]

The only argument I can see for supporting "Mind blank defeats True Strike" is based on the "information gathering by divination spells" clause of Mind Blank.

And I'm still waiting for someone to give me a rationale for why this clause even exists. I can understand foiling Detect X spells, but nothing else.

In the absence of a plausible rationale, I can only conclude that the given clause is silly.

 

[KarinsDad]

And I'm still waiting for someone to give me a rationale for why this clause even exists. I can understand foiling Detect X spells, but nothing else.

In the absence of a plausible rationale, I can only conclude that the given clause is silly.

Why? Because an 8th level protection spell actually does something?

Because there is a spell which unilaterally protects against the hoard of divination spells which give PCs (and NPCs) a lot of answers about an enemy that are usually more difficult and risky to get any other way?

Quite frankly, I am glad there is a high level all encompassing (for the most part) anti-divination spell. Low level spells like Nondetection protect slightly, but they are vulnerable to the "let's try again" syndrome. Knowledge is power and divination spells hand out knowledge like candy.

 

[chilibean]

I agree divinations hand out knowledge very easily. But a wish spell? Geeze, you ought to be able to come up with SOMETHING?

Could you wish to know where the last person to see him was? Wish for a summoned celestial bloodhound that can track any scent flawlessly? Wish for every small bird and mammal in 1000 miles to start searching for him and let you know telepathically when one finds him?

Ok, that last one might be a bit much

I can see not letting a wish find him directly, but come on, it can't wipe every trace of your existence from the face of the earth.

 

[KarinsDad]

I can see not letting a wish find him directly, but come on, it can't wipe every trace of your existence from the face of the earth.

I think the idea is that, yes, it can wipe every current trace of your existence from the face of the earth, at least with respect to divination magic.

Hence, someone doing a wish would have to word it very carefully such that they found out information from the past or the future that might help them.

 

[CRGreathouse]

Ah, but would it let you talk to a random person who's recently seen the person (with the spell running)? If not, but you klnew a person who was near the guy with the spell running, would it let you see from his eyes (a record of what he thinks he sees, not a magic sensor)? Would it let you talk to the person (like whispering wind, perhaps) and get constant reports on where the subject is?

 

[Ristamar]

I think the core of the argument comes down to whether or not Mind Blank is supposed to be flat out "Protection From Divination -- Period -- And Against Mind Affecting/Emotion Infuencing Spells," or just an ultra souped up version of NonDetection.

Judging on (my interpretion of) designer intent, as best as I can tell, I would say that True Strike is not nullified by Mind Blank, though I can certainly see why people may argue that it might. However, if it protected from all forms of divination magic, I believe they would have explicitly stated such instead of qualifying it with phrases like "information gathering," in my opinion.

Also, the short description of Mind Blank states that the "Subject is immune to mental/emotional magic and scrying." *shrug* I don't know. To me, it just doesn't sound as if they intended it to protect against True Strike. Wouldn't they have simply worded it "Subject is immune to divination spells/effects, mental/emotional magic and scrying"?

Of course, I'll probably just write Skip and see what he explanation he offers, then go with that.

 

[Little_Buddha]

It's fairly obvious that the answer isn't clear in the rules. Had Mind Blank said "the target is protected from and immune to any and all Divination spells that even peripherially involve him or her", then we probably wouldn't be having this argument

It's a judgement call. By many readings (mine included), True Strike quite clearly doesn't fall into any of the categories laid out under Mind Blank. Many others think otherwise, or think that it logically should do so even if it technically doesn't.

No-one is going to prove anything either way at this stage, unless one of the designers would like to weigh in with the spell's original intention. Failing that, we can all use our different rulings whenever it comes up in play