Mindbender / Eternal Charm?

[Jeff Wilder]

Tell me about Eternal Charm, please. As I look at it, it looks very powerful, with the only real limitation on the creatures affected being "Large or smaller" and "living." And of course the need to have failed a Will save.

On the other hand, the caster who gets it is two levels behind (more later, as the number of Eternal Charmed creatures goes up) in caster progression.

Is this balanced or broken? I can't help think, "Why not just charm one or more casters of your level?"

Anyway, theory is welcome, but examples from actual play are even more welcome.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

more or less broken of course, but so are all high level mages

actually that makes them balanced... really it should be no problem at all, even lower level domination spells have duration in days IIRC, on an encounter based balance i would say its less powerfull than having spells from hgher levels, but this character can use his "loyal" ally for so many different situations, you should be more versatile than a normal wizard...

conclusion: don´t wory about balance in 3.5 too much... it only depends on the DM...

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Is this balanced or broken? I can't help think, "Why not just charm one or more casters of your level?"

if you can charm that caster, he was doing somethin wrong:
he had higher level spells, better equippment, more spells...

...but yes, a acharmed high level mage could be quite handy... although it could really be annoying to constantly tell him which spell to cast etc...

 

[Runestar]

You lose caster levels, that is what's wrong. Considering that you can simply be a high lv wizard and use dominate monster/planar binding to snag cohorts of your own. That is why mindbender is essentially a 1-lv dip.

 

[legiondevil]

Mindbender is a Prestige Class that is full of flavor, and has special abilities that no other prestige class has that work to fulfill that flavor.

This is why it is a more-or-less absolutely worthless Prestige Class after a certain point. As stated earlier, Mindbender begins becoming worthless past level 1.

Why work toward picking up an ability you can only use on one monster at a time, when you can gain extra caster levels with every levels, and Charm/Dominate as many monsters as you have spells of the appropriate level per day? While the PrC looks neat at the beginning, when you realize just how much you lose by taking all of it (namely 9th level spells), it begins to seriously lose some shine.