Mind-Effecting, The Mindless, and The Immune

[MesiDoomstalker]

Prior to joining this forum, I along with my group had a particular love for the Enchantment school of magic and Telepathy discipline by extension. Then I joined this forum and heard about how weak it is because of the multitudes those who are either immune or have a good chance to resist it, I.E. casters with their high will saves. I'd like to rekindle my love for Enchantment with hearing what the playground has to say about Enchantment in there own words and what they view as its short commings. I'll list mine below:

Pros:
Being able to turn an opponent into a loyal ally
The ability to turn the battlefield into chaos by turning people agianst each other.
Being a walking mind screw.
Being able to subtly manipulate others. A puppet master is a fun archetype to play.
Similiarly, having a throng of thralls, either via Thrallherd or the less awesome Mindbender, or liberal use of Dominate, just oozes awesome.


Cons:
The lawyer speak neccesary to get around wording of spells such as Suggestion and Charm X
Immune opponenets.


On the last note, I also like to catalogue enemies immune to Mind-Effecting effects for anyone playing Telepaths/Enchanters. I'm sure I missed many but I only now generalities off the top of my head.


Undead
Constructs
Plants
High CR Outsiders with "Magic Circle of X" always active*
Angel and Archon subtypes also have "Magic Circle against Evil" always active*
Mind Blanked casters
Vermin
Oozes
Anyone With a Third Eye of Conceal (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/items/universalItems.htm#conceal)


*Note Magic Circle against X only suppresses active control mainly [Charm] and [Compulsion] effects.

[Flickerdart]

Enchantment is the weakest school of magic, second only to Evocation. Telepathy is a lot better, however, since delicious things like Schism are exclusive to it. I guess though, as long as you pack a handful of illusion spells for fooling mindless opponents and powerful Dispel magic for stripping people's Mind Blanks, your only real issue becomes intelligent Undead.

While it's remarkably foolish to specialize in [mind-affecting] magics exclusively, bringing along the odd Suggestion can be quite useful when it does come up.

[Fax Celestis]

...until you get dominate, anyway. Then you can just enslave people to do your bidding. It's like leadership, but you don't need to spend a feat!

[MesiDoomstalker]

...until you get dominate, anyway. Then you can just enslave people to do your bidding. It's like leadership, but you don't need to spend a feat!

Now this is why I love Enchantment/Telepathy. Just being able to change the alliagence of anybody I feel like, in theory, is fun. Like really fun. This is reason why Thrallherd is praised so much.

[bigstipidfighte]

The problem with Enchantment is that, by and large, it mostly just does one thing. That doesn't change the fact that the one thing is AWESOME, though.

In the end I think whether specializing in enchantment is worthwhile depends on the campaign; many dungeoncrawls involve too many immune or resistant monsters, while for intrigue-based games it is the most useful school, except perhaps divination.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

Enchantment is great for early and mid-game, but if it gets out of hand there are always mind-immune enemies to throw at the PCs. So just don't get out of hand with the Confusion and you'll be fine... until the later levels, where enemies are immune just because.

[Aharon]

There is some third-party metamagic feat that removes types from spells, like [cold], [evil],...
One of the removable types is [mind-affecting].

If this is in use, it considerably raises the whole school's effectiveness :smallbiggrin:
(It's called Masked Signature, and found in the AEG sourcebook called "Feats". It raises the slot needed by one, and mind-affecting is explicitly mentioned as removable)

[Ravens_cry]

There is some third-party metamagic feat that removes types from spells, like [cold], [evil],...
One of the removable types is [mind-affecting].

If this is in use, it considerably raises the whole school's effectiveness :smallbiggrin:
(It's called Masked Signature, and found in the AEG sourcebook called "Feats". It raises the slot needed by one, and mind-affecting is explicitly mentioned as removable)
Too bad most DM's don't allow third party material, because that is broken awesome, especially with metamagic reducers.
At least we now know how the Lich-loved feat got started.:smallamused:

[bloodtide]

Enchantment is the weakest school of magic, second only to Evocation. Telepathy is a lot better, however, since delicious things like Schism are exclusive to it. I guess though, as long as you pack a handful of illusion spells for fooling mindless opponents and powerful Dispel magic for stripping people's Mind Blanks, your only real issue becomes intelligent Undead.

While it's remarkably foolish to specialize in [mind-affecting] magics exclusively, bringing along the odd Suggestion can be quite useful when it does come up.

I just don't get why Enchantment is so weak? Just as you might run into a foe that is immune or unaffected by your magic.

[Ravens_cry]

It is much easier to become, or find monsters who are, immune to mind-affecting than magic in general.
If you're a spell caster, boom Mind Blank (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/mindBlank.htm) <expletive redacted/>! Undead, which make nice enemies at all levels from level 1 skeletons to the nastier Big Bads, have a blanket immunity. As do plants, oozes, and constructs. That is a rather large chunk of potential foes, not to mention special cases from other types or anyone, as mentioned, with the use of additional magic.
I've saved the parties butts a few times as an enchanter, sleep ogre, sleep the sleep of the dead, it awaits you soon, there also has been quite a few encounters where I just sat twiddling my thumbs.

[Runestar]

Do note that magic circle/prot from alignment only defends against spells with ongoing control. Enchantment spells with a one-off command, like suggestion or insanity, still work. :smallsmile:

[Emperor Tippy]

The problem with Enchantment (and most mind affecting things) is that they are either great or they suck, there is no middle ground.

Enemies (and even allies) are either immune to mind affecting things, in which case your character is essentially worthless, or they aren't; in which case they almost always loose immediately and can become a brokenly powerful ally without any real effort on the PC's part.

With a good DM and in the right games Enchantment can be great fun, and I usually play Telepathy when I go Psion, but from both optimization and ease of play stand points it's not a good choice.

[AmberVael]

On the last note, I also like to catalogue enemies immune to Mind-Effecting effects for anyone playing Telepaths/Enchanters. I'm sure I missed many but I only now generalities off the top of my head.


Undead
Constructs
Plants
High CR Outsiders with "Magic Circle of X" always active
Mind Blanked casters



Vermin
Oozes
Anyone With a Third Eye of Conceal (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/items/universalItems.htm#conceal)

[NeoSeraphi]

The problem with enchantment spells is their total lack of variety. (Same problem with evocation spells). Most enchantment spells give you the ability to issue a command or commands to your opponent, with a long duration if it's a powerful spell. And you sit here and go...so what?

Yes, charm monster is stronger than charm person. Yes, mass suggestion is better than suggestion. But the effects are the same. It removes quite a bit of the appeal of gaining new spell levels, as opposed to say, specializing in transmutation, where you go from getting fly to getting flesh to stone, and everything in between.

As long as you struggle for variety in your spells known, you might have fun. Hold Person, Rage, Mindless Rage, Entice Gift (SC), and Solipsism (SC, not enchantment, but every sorc/wiz should have solipsism because of its awesomeness).

As for immune enemies, you left out vermin and oozes. For outsiders, all outsiders with the angel subtype or the archon subtype have a constant magic circle against evil effect active.

[MesiDoomstalker]

So I'm hearing 1 trick pony, boring encounters with immune-a-plenty enemies, boring spell selection, extreme polarity in effectiveness, but useful at early to mid levels.

From my own personal experience, immune enemies are less of a threat as I have had a series of Dominated or Charmed "allies" to support my team while I use other spells such as Illusions or Transmutation buffs or Conjuration battlefield control.

@Aharon: My DM allows that book as a source book! I never saw that feat before! :smallbiggrin:

[Gotterdammerung]

My group has a few house rules that make enchantment and illusion more playable.

#1 Basically any spells, spell like abilitys, and/or Supernatural abilities that fully suppress or completely stop a large number of effects, is now changed to a caster/character lvl check vs a dc of 11+ caster/character lvl.

Example

A wizard lvl 15 casts true seeing. He views an illusion cast by a 12th lvl wizard. So he makes a CL check 1d20+15 vs a DC of 23.



#2 Things like vermin are still immune to mind affecting, simply because they don't have a mind to effect. And creatures with (ex) immunities are pretty much left alone.

#3 But, intelligent creatures like vampires and treants, that have their own thoughts and personality, lose their type based immunities to mind affecting.

ex. a mindless ooze squooshing around a sewer can not be dominated. But an awakened ooze would lose their mind affecting immunity.

ex. a mindless skeleton would not be subject to dominate. But a vampire would.


These houserules keep 1 low to mid lvl spell from completely shutting down entire schools of magic. And also enhance the playability of certain archetypes. Use them if you want.


In the existing rules, there is a metamagic-feat in dragon magazine that lets you use enchantment spells on undead. It changes the spell to necromancy.

Plants- rarely encountered. Use dominated minions to fight it.

Vermin- rarely encountered and not very threatening, on the whole (except for a certain improperly CR'd crab).

oozes- easy to avoid. get magic item to control them if you are really worried.

angels and archons- plenty of other fish in the sea. Use what you can dominate to fight them, and have reserve character options for fighting things you can't mindbend.

Constructs- golems require every caster to switch to a different playbook. Regular constructs are not a big deal. Get a magic item to control them if you are really worried.

Mind blanked caster's- get a dispelling based cohort.

[Ravens_cry]

MesiDoomstalker
I find enchantment fun for the role play aspect, playing someone who is as much a social engineer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_engineering_%28security%29) as a mage. The best mind control is one you can't dispel or break after all.
Who says Charisma is dump stat?:smalltongue:
With that feat, ooh, you just broke the games assumptions in-twain.
Enjoy yourself, this should be good.

[Jack_Simth]

There is some third-party metamagic feat that removes types from spells, like [cold], [evil],...
One of the removable types is [mind-affecting].

If this is in use, it considerably raises the whole school's effectiveness :smallbiggrin:
(It's called Masked Signature, and found in the AEG sourcebook called "Feats". It raises the slot needed by one, and mind-affecting is explicitly mentioned as removable)
Do note that technically Limited Wish (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/limitedWish.htm), Wish (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/wish.htm), and Miracle (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/miracle.htm) all have their own school, subschool, and descriptor line - so if you use Limited Wish for Charm Monster... it's now a universal school spell, and doesn't have the mind-affecting descriptor anymore. Sure, it's 300 xp and a 7th level spell... but it can totally be worth it. Miracle makes it Evocation and a 9th level spell, but duplicating spell effects is safe and free (provided the duplicated spell doesn't have XP or expensive components past a certain point, of course).