No Int Score Creatures and Illusions Help!

[Fushigi]

I am going to be DMing a game tomorrow, and I know most of what I want to do, but I need some help from more experienced players.

First of all, I have a character with MindSight in group, so I'd like to nullify his ability to see creatures that are coming up. The best way to do this would be if I used creatures without intelligence scores, but I don't know which creatures those would be. We are all 20+ in level, so I'm looking for something I don't have to modify much to get an appropriate CR.

Secondly, my game is meant to be relatively short. I'm looking to have the party scour a forest, trying to find the entrance to a cave, a short battle at the front of the cave, some dialog, then traversing the cave, then final battle and wrap up.

Now, instead of having a whole bunch of rooms in the cave with random creatures and stuff, I want an illusion that makes it seem like the cave is bigger than it is. Like, an endless hallway of sorts. I'm unsure of how I can go about this, but any help would be appreciative. Also, one of my players automatically detects magic, which could obviously mess everything up. Is there a way to make the illusion undetectable? And with no save to resist it?

[Crake]

Include some creatures that punish mental contact? Something like the Tainted Raver from Heroes of Horror. I believe there's also a feat that somewhat mimics the Tainted Raver's insanity ability. Either way, each round while those creatures are in range, the character with mindsight will slowly go insane.

[Crasical]

Can a creature with mindsight turn it off? It might be kind of mean to so flatly tell the PC they have to stay however far away or they take damage.

[avr]

There's always the endless tunnel trick. A trap teleports you 100' (or whatever) back down the tunnel when you pass a certain point.

[Namfuak]

There's always the endless tunnel trick. A trap teleports you 100' (or whatever) back down the tunnel when you pass a certain point.

This actually gives me an idea. What if you made it so that the trap would trigger when someone stepped into a fork in the tunnel. The actual trap is one square into the tunnel, but that square triggers a porticullus to block off the tunnel, so you split the rogue from the rest of the party (assuming he is not careful after he searches for the first trap).

[Curmudgeon]

This actually gives me an idea. What if you made it so that the trap would trigger when someone stepped into a fork in the tunnel. The actual trap is one square into the tunnel, but that square triggers a porticullus to block off the tunnel, so you split the rogue from the rest of the party (assuming he is not careful after he searches for the first trap).
You're talking level 20+ Rogues (or Rogue 19/<whatever>s, more likely), so there's no way they'd fail to find any traps; those max out at DC 34. There aren't any Epic traps; instead, there are "Epic Obstacles and Hazards" (see Epic Level Handbook on pages 105-106), which have worse consequences but not higher DCs.

There simply aren't any high-level Rogues who fit into the "not careful" category. :smallwink:

[Fushigi]

You aren't going to believe this, but out of the 8 people in my group, none of us are rouges.

As for the Tainted Raver, I really like that idea, but with Mindsight, it'd be a continual effect, right? The character constantly sees anything in the radius, so is it constantly taking taint?

As for the trap, that's a really good idea, but can I make it undetectable from Detect Magic? And I'm not very familiar with traps, can anyone point me in the right direction?

What about zero Int creatures? Any ideas on those?

[Splendor]

Constructs, Vermin, Ooze, most Plant creatures, Lemure and Swarms are usually mindless so he wouldn't be able to detect any of those.

Creatures who can find them without having line of effect. Like tremorsense could attack them without Mindsight sensing them (burrow, earth glide)

Creatures that are in the ethereal or astral planes couldn't be sensed.

I don't know the specifics of his telepathy but undead in general are immune to mind-affecting spells/abilities so that would render them immune to Mindsight.

Anyone targeting an allip with telepathy takes 1d4 points of Wisdom damage, no save.

A trap that summon monsters wouldn't be noticed by him until they were triggered.

[Cheiromancer]

Make sure you put in encounters where mindsight and/or permanent detect magic are useful. It will make those players happy.

[Fushigi]

Well, the reason I'm trying to negate it is because the last few games the player with Mindsight has basically confused everything to death, leaving no fighting for us. And, although that makes for a very interesting thing to watch unfold, it's not very fun when he does it and no one else gets a chance to attack, ever.

Also, the campaign is based on a rouse, so if he can see what's happening, it would ruin everything. Quite inconvenient for a DM to deal with...

[Flickerdart]

Not every creature within 100 feet is an enemy. A crocodile and a rabbit have comparable Intelligence scores, as do a level 1 kobold commoner and a level 20 fighter.

[Lord Vukodlak]

Well Mindsight only functions out to the range of your telepathy, which typically is 100ft due to a one level dip in mindbender. Just begin the encounter at 110ft.

Mind Blank also makes once immune to devices and spells that detect, influence or read emotions/thoughts. I'd say that would block mindsight from detecting you.

[Segev]

First off, two broad categories of creatures are often mindless: undead and constructs.

Undead also do not detect on Detect Magic; only on Detect Undead, which you haven't said the party has up all the time.

Look into the spell Nondetection and the spell Mindblank. Those help where you're looking, and at your level, at least some of the big bad things out there can have them both.

Nystul's Magic Aura (or simply Magic Aura (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/magicAura.htm) in the SRD) can suppress certain magic auras, and can also be used to lay a false trail of lots of magic auras on nonmagical things.

If you make the entire cave an intelligent magic item, it not only will register, itself, on Mindsight (as being "everywhere" when they're inside it), but can work for you. Give it the special purpose to "confound adventurers" and a highly mischievous CN personality, and the ability to cast Create Food and Drink and Nystul's Magic Aura either at will or as rarely as once per day. It leaves food out, enchanted with the latter spell, for local wildlife to eat. Now all those bunnies and bears and badgers and bullettes register as magical!

You're going to have a hard time making the illusion non-magic, though you can get away with a bit with Magic Aura, still. I suggest, as well, an anti-magic field in front of any major magic traps. It should end with the trap just outside it, so that Detect Magic fails at the aura (or even senses the aura) but can't actually "find" the trap.

You can also have fun with Phantom Trap (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/phantomTrap.htm). Used in conjunction with Magic Aura, it can either not detect as magic at all, or it can be an obvious magical trap that the rogue has to spend time disarming. Put one every 50 feet or so. They'll get very sick of trying to disarm them, and eventually the real one might get them.

For the Infinite Hallway trick, perhaps go with Veil or Hallucinatory Terrain, and combine it with Guards and Wards (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/guardsAndWards.htm) or Gust of Wind (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/gustOfWind.htm). The magic detector may well sense the illusion, the abjuration, and the transmutation, but the illusion itself hides the Gust of Wind as a gentle breeze, perhaps an ominous "breathing" effect coming from the distant end of the cave. The Gust of Wind pushes them back, while the illusory terrain "moves" appropriately to how fast they THINK they're going.

Perhaps a Phantom Trap and the illusion cause, if they're pushed out of the cave due to stopping, the cave mouth to detach from the world behind them and start collapsing, encouraging them to keep moving forward.

Mindless undead and constructs might be Illusion-covered to look like living things, possibly with Magic Mouths to speak for them. Intelligent things can then be mixed in safely. And Mind Blank should protect from Mindsight just fine for the one or two major intelligent things you want to keep hidden.

As a final word of advice: if they find a way to outthink this with their tools, don't thwart them. Reward them. But make it almost creepier to realize what's going on. The trick behind your rouse-based adventure must rely not on completely fooling them, but on keeping them guessing and fooling them "long enough." Therefore, layer the rouse behind multiple other rouses. Make each thing by itself make little sense, until they realize it's a trick. Then hide the final rouse in plain sight in such a way that it seems something they have to look beyond, and make them overthink it just long enough for it to be "finished."

[Sith_Happens]

I think you have a bit of a more fundamental problem here than "pulling one on the Mindsight guy for once:"


I'm looking to have the party scour a forest, trying to find the entrance to a cave, a short battle at the front of the cave, some dialog, then traversing the cave, then final battle and wrap up.

I'm not seeing the "in the 622nd layer of the Abyss" that should append the above in an epic game. Honestly, if a Permanencied Detect Magic is stumping you, maybe you should try lower levels.

[Curmudgeon]

Also, one of my players automatically detects magic, which could obviously mess everything up.
Mess up that PC. One of my favorite tricks when playing a Sorcerer is to stick Nystul's Magic Aura (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/magicAura.htm) everywhere, many with Heighten Metamagic added, to burn up unused spell slots. You get to specify the type of spell you're faking every time, so they'll differ in both aura strength and school of magic. You'll drive the PC nuts with hundreds of fake magic auras plastered on innocuous things which could be potentially deadly: lots of big trees, random patches of cave ceiling and floor, & c. You can also add Arcane Mark, which is the basically graffiti left by arcanist taggers. This should get the number of Detect Magic hits up to over a thousand, making that ability pretty much useless.

[Fushigi]

Mind Blank has been ruled on before by our group and they declared that it would limit ALMOST everything that he can do. But it was decided that he'd still be able to tell the Int score, Race, and exactly where they were. I believe it stopped him from communicating with them as well. My main problem is that I can't let him see what one character truly is. And at the end, I can't let him see that there are several creatures in the final fight.

As for the not epic sounding quest, I have two reasons for that. One, this will be my first actual DMing experience, we each take turns and mine has finally come. Second, the main purpose of this quest is to provide background and a way into a much more important quest. I think it's perfectly acceptable to have non-epic quests at epic level. You don't see the Dovahkiin refusing to help random villagers just because he's saved the world.

[Talya]

You aren't going to believe this, but out of the 8 people in my group, none of us are rouges.


What about mascaras? eyeliners? Are any of you lipsticks?

[Venger]

Constructs, Vermin, Ooze, most Plant creatures, Lemure and Swarms are usually mindless so he wouldn't be able to detect any of those.

Creatures who can find them without having line of effect. Like tremorsense could attack them without Mindsight sensing them (burrow, earth glide)

Creatures that are in the ethereal or astral planes couldn't be sensed.

I don't know the specifics of his telepathy but undead in general are immune to mind-affecting spells/abilities so that would render them immune to Mindsight.

Mindsight is not mind-affecting, so intelligent undead are not immune to it. There is a requirement for LoS since it's keyed off of blindsight


Well Mindsight only functions out to the range of your telepathy, which typically is 100ft due to a one level dip in mindbender. Just begin the encounter at 110ft.

Mind Blank also makes once immune to devices and spells that detect, influence or read emotions/thoughts. I'd say that would block mindsight from detecting you.
again, mindsight is not mind affecting so mindblank does not protect you.

[Sith_Happens]

You don't see the Dovahkiin refusing to help random villagers just because he's saved the world.

Sure, but you also don't expect the no-name bandits the villagers need help with to give him particularly more trouble than tying his shoes.

[Lord Vukodlak]

again, mindsight is not mind affecting so mindblank does not protect you.
Irrelevant,
Mind-affecting isn't a requirement for Mind Blank to shield you from the effect

The subject is protected from all devices and spells that detect, influence, or read emotions or thoughts. That's the opening line of the spell. The spells and devices being mind-affecting isn't a requirement its an addition.

Mindsight lets you sense creatures by detecting their minds, that clearly falls under the first line of Mind Blank.

Furthermore in the same book, Elder Brains have this identical ability called Telepathic Awareness out to 350ft(which even works through solid rock) and Mind Blank is called out as a protection from that sense. It also blocks wish and miracle when used to affect the subjects mind or gain information about it.... If it can block &*&*)@ wish it can block mindsight.

[buttcyst]

have you thought about a non-magic, mechanical trap with a bunch of magic auras elsewhere? or the trigger is on the ceiling, PCs walk through a reversed gravity field to trigger it. traps are fun like that, and besides, you are the DM, you can simply tell the party that they didn't see it because it was more advanced than they are (adding to your rouse).

for your illusion, I agree with others, best done in layers of active and passive effects, adds to the confusion and to the amount of magic to be detected.

litter the area with "magic graffiti," awaken trees and animals that have nothing to do with the quest, or the mission, or anything. Point out mundane details to draw attention away from where it should be.


You, as DM, use rhetoric to keep description fully detailed but at the same time keeping everything separate and vague. if the trap is the endless tunnel, don't draw a map, or maybe keep the cave mapping limited to just the exact location the PCs are at, only showing the directions they can go from there and then use fast words to navigate any tunnels.

***recap***
non-magical traps; magical graffiti; misdirection; rhetoric

hope this helps a little

[Vaz]

Well Mindsight only functions out to the range of your telepathy, which typically is 100ft due to a one level dip in mindbender. Just begin the encounter at 110ft.

Mind Blank also makes once immune to devices and spells that detect, influence or read emotions/thoughts. I'd say that would block mindsight from detecting you.

RAW it doesn't (Mindblank is not a "device" or a "spell" (you know, that "first line" of the spell), but I personally rule that it would, otherwise there is very little to counter it (especially with changing into a Spellweaver easily accessible at Epic levels.)

Characters on the Ethereal plane are immune to it, however (they aren't within 1000miles, they are on an another plane entirely), so including things like Shyft's with Magic In the Blood, or Casters with Etherealness/Jaunt and some ability to attack from the Ethereal Plane (Ninja 8 or Ethereal Reaver weapon from CPsi, IIRC) makes them a bit of a threat.