Poor will saves pummeling the opposition

[shilsen]

They have already been warned. The spell is right there in thier PHB. In all liklyhood they already know but chose to cheat by not saying anything.

Frankly (pun unintended), I think that's a foolish assumption. We constantly see both players and DMs on these boards who have missed important aspects of spells, feats, abilities, etc., some of which benefit and some that hurt them. The DM here missed it, and it's quite possible the players missed it too. To assume that "in all likelihood" they are cheating seems a bit of a knee-jerk negative reaction.

Or, more succinctly - what Nifft said

 

[Thurbane]

So, your players tailored their characters to your campaign setting and this is upsetting you? You either need to change your campaign setting or modify/disallow character combos that don't jive with it.

LOL - that's not it at all. My players are definitely NOT what you'd call optimizers, and they didn't know before the campaign started what foes theyd most likely be encountering.

This really isn't a DM vs. player issue (i.e. "Grr, you're beating my pet monsters, I must crush you!"), it's just wanting to make encounters a little more challenging so that the players, and myself, don't get bored...

 

[Thurbane]

They have already been warned. The spell is right there in thier PHB. In all liklyhood they already know but chose to cheat by not saying anything.

No, my group really aren't like that. Most are still relatively new to 3.5, so I think it's fair to say that we all missed that little tidbit in the spell description.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

That cuts both ways though. Get one guy with attack nearest, and then his (former) ally counter attacks.

Read extremely literally, that creates a "soft lock" condition between two confused opponents.

I would not allow that to continue on though. It is all very fun to get lucky and have that happen between, say, two giants. But it is not worth it if it means having to watch to PCs beat each other to death while the players are forced to twiddle their thumbs.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

On the Confusion front, remember that a creature affected by it and then targeted by an enemy will automatically target the attacker on its next turn. So if the PCs attack a Confused creature, that effectively nullify the benefits of the Conusion spell.

Yup.

"Any confused character who is attacked automatically attacks its attackers on its next turn, as long as it is still confused when its turn comes."