Fun with Sow Thought

[Triskavanski]

So Pathfinder has a spell Sow Thought, which is like one of the most powerful spells I've seen.

The reasons

1) Its Permanent - at least until they think other thoughts, but that thought will reside in them forever and they might think of it again.

2) Its stealthy - As long as you make sure not to make it too crazy its hard for them to realize it wasn't a thought they hand just come out of their own brain.


With a Psychic caster using Cunning Caster you've got a lot of ability to mess with all kinds of NPCs.


Things I've done/or thought of

1) Giving a person the thought they are a failure - Managed to beat a nasty caster by putting this thought into his mind as were slaughtering his minions and ruining his plan.

2) Implanting an earwig - You know those annoying little songs you get stuck in your head? Sow thought could put that in a person's head. I used Ducktales as it was the most earwiggy song we have in our world (And the GM wanted to know which one)

3) Making a person questioning their Identity - This one is tricky. It requires you to know a person well enough that you don't get too far out of their normal stream of thoughts, but far enough you can push that boundary.

4) Making someone think you're lieing - Another fun one. Come in, tell someone to total truth and put into their head that you're lieing. Why? Well look at Pirates of the Caribbean. Its all about misdirection. And sometimes the best misdirection is to have people look at exactly what you don't want them to see, especially if they trust you to not be trustful.

[Psyren]

Eh - because of the "not required to act on it" clause, it's only as powerful as your GM decides it is, and I'm not a fan of GM-dependent spells myself. Not only can it end up not doing anything, it can even make things worse - your first example for instance of making the bad guy think he's a failure could actually inspire him to greater heights of depravity, cunning and cruelty. (Without spoilers, think Kylo Ren from the new Star Wars movie as an example.)

Useful in the right circumstances with the right GM, certainly, but it's not all that powerful if those stars don't align.

[Triskavanski]

Yes, the first one that is one way that it could go. I've also seen exactly that happen when you use intimidate on a guy with the excuse "You triggered his flight or fight response and he's a fighter!"

With that particular one we had a caster who was sucking the life force of a child and our summoner to keep himself alive. So any physical attacks against him would harm those two. We'd freed two other children from his life sucking machine and he was floating up about 10 feet in the air on a rotating platform over a pit of firey doom .

And yes, I was afraid that he would pull something like "I'm a failure? NO! THIS ISN'T EVEN MY FINAL FORM!". But well, sometimes a hail mary and having a GM who actually does work with the players on things rather than trying to beat the players.

[Psyren]

And yes, I was afraid that he would pull something like "I'm a failure? NO! THIS ISN'T EVEN MY FINAL FORM!". But well, sometimes a hail mary and having a GM who actually does work with the players on things rather than trying to beat the players.

Come on, that's not fair - a GM who doesn't want a 1st-level spell beating his BBEG is hardly trying to "beat the players." It's not unreasonable to want the campaign to be a little more challenging than that.

[Triskavanski]

No no, I don't mean like that at all A DM who is always wanting to 'beat' the players wouldn't let it ever work, because of that clause you pointed out.

[Psyren]

No no, I don't mean like that at all A DM who is always wanting to 'beat' the players wouldn't let it ever work, because of that clause you pointed out.

See, I'd be fine with it working on mooks - say, the group is trying to sneak somewhere and the fighter makes a loud noise, as the guard comes around the corner you quickly implant "just a cat" and the group gets a do-over. Or you convince the stuffy clerk that you don't need an appointment to see the magistrate. Or you start a bar fight as a diversion by making the jealous warrior think the minstrel is making eyes at his girl.

But I would think that most BBEGs should have the singularity of purpose that a near-cantrip spell like this couldn't really divert them from their goals - or if it does, it diverts them to something that is just as bad if not worse.

[Triskavanski]

And that is perfectly fine, and honestly more powerful than going after the BBEG. In a good espionage campaign after all, getting an entire army of mooks hit with feelings of guilt, despair and the like could put a serious kink the BBEG's plans. Especially when coupled with Modify memory and various other mind screwing spells.



Against BBEGs if I was to use the spell (Instead of say, Charm Person) I'd end up doing more to troll them. Implant the Ducktales song into their head (Which would really be whatever was an earwig song of the world we are in.)

We need some pathfinder filk artists...