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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mephistopheles" data-source="post: 1669364" data-attributes="member: 4460">I think Thanee is on the right track with regard to the the workings of protection from chaos/evil/good/law (hereafter referred to as protection from alignment).The protection provided against summoned creatures can be useful but it is not guaranteed. Granted it will be fairly effective as the spell resistance of summoned creatures (of those that have it, anyway) is generally low enough that it will not allow the summoned creature to bypass the protection from alignment effect. I wouldn't go so far as to say it makes summoned creatures useless, though.Regarding protection from alignment being overpowered on the basis of the protection it provides versus mental control I think we first need to get a solid understanding of what "mental control" actually is to see what it protects against.1) From the protection from evil descriptive text:2) From the 3.0 FAQ, which should still be relevant for this issue:So rather than concentrating on the subschools of Charm and Compulsion the important distinction seems to be "mental control". All of the spells in question have the Mind-Affecting descriptor so that may seem like a flimsy distinction to make, but it does seem to be a valid distinction unless you want to extend the range of spells subject to blocking by protection from alignment to all Compulsions or even all Mind-Affecting spells, which would obviously be a mistake.Based on items 1 and 2, then, here's my understanding of the scope of protection versus mental control provided by protection from alignment in the form of two examples.***ExampleTom thinks I'm a jerk so I cast charm person on him and now he thinks I'm a champ. I then cast dominate person on Dick and give him a command to do one thousand pushups, and then I cast suggestion on Harry and suggest that he do one thousand pushups. Dick and Harry both drop and start doing pushups while Tom fetches me a beer.Next I cast protection from alignment on Tom, Dick, and Harry. The charm is suppressed by protection from alignment so Tom goes back to thinking I'm a jerk and gives the beer he just fetched for me a good shake up before handing it over. The compulsions are not suppressed by protection from alignment, so both Dick and Harry should keep doing pushups. If I try to mentally command Dick to do something else, though, he'd be protected from that control by protection from alignment. When the protection from alignment expires Tom will apologize for shaking up my beer, I'll be able to mentally command Dick to do something else, and Harry will just keep on doing pushups.***ExampleI cast protection from alignment on Tom, Dick and Harry. Then I cast charm person on Tom, dominate person on Dick and mentally command him to do one thousand pushups, and suggestion on Harry with the suggestion being that he do one thousand pushups.Tom will be charmed but protection from alignment will suppress the charm effect and so he will tell me where to stick my beer, Dick will be protected from my control by protection from alignment although he is dominated, while Harry - who of the three is the only one who has not been subjected to mental control - will drop and start doing pushups. When protection from alignment expires Tom will apologize and go grab me a beer, I will be able to mentally command Dick to do his pushups, while Harry just keeps toiling away on the pushups.***Assuming my understanding and the examples are correct protection from alignment does not seem overpowered against mental control effects, particularly considering the short duration of the spell (1 min./level, or 10 min./level for magic circle against alignment) relative to the long durations (typically hours or days) of the spells it protects against.</blockquote>

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