Mindsight recognization

[DrBloodbathMC]

Fellow Giants, I have a quick question on opinion for the Mindsight feat that I've been unable to find (either it was never answered or my google-fu isn't strong enough), the wording in mindsight is

" The creature also perceives several observable characteristics about each being detected with mindsight, including the being's type and Intelligence score. The creature need not take any additional or special actions to gain this information; it is as obvious to mindsight as the being's race and clothing would be to eyesight."

By this reading would it be fair to say that a player with this ability can recognize creatures that they are extremely familiar with? IE I can recognize my friends by eyesight so would mindsight be able to recognize "Brain waves" for lack of a better term?

[John Longarrow]

Check with your DM. In the games I've ran and played in, I or the DM ruled you would. Some DMs may not as it is not stated it can.

[Venger]

Well, no, but if you know your friends' int scores and types, and that you'll be in a dungeon together, you can probably make an educated guess. or, since you've got telepathy, you could just ask.

[Ettina]

" The creature also perceives several observable characteristics about each being detected with mindsight, including the being's type and Intelligence score. The creature need not take any additional or special actions to gain this information; it is as obvious to mindsight as the being's race and clothing would be to eyesight."

By this reading would it be fair to say that a player with this ability can recognize creatures that they are extremely familiar with? IE I can recognize my friends by eyesight so would mindsight be able to recognize "Brain waves" for lack of a better term?

Type and Int are more obvious than individual identity, in my opinion. I have prosopagnosia (an impairment in facial recognition) and so I often look at someone's face and have no idea who they are despite having met them many times. I always know that they're human, though, and usually what race they are.

I'd rule that you can't tell your 13 Int human fighter pal from a 13 Int human commoner. But it may still be useful in a dungeon setting or any other situation where those features would make your party stand out.

[Kraken]

The problem as I see it is that the "several observable characteristics...including" wording strongly implies that you get more than intelligence and type out of mindsight, but doesn't actually give any hints about what those other things might be. Strictly in terms of what makes the most sense, I agree that you should be able to intuit that person over there feels like Brian, based on whatever the mindsight equivalent of eye color, facial hair, skin tone, etc. are, even though I'm generally in favor of the most restrictive possible interpretations when it comes to super powerful stuff like mindsight.

[Debihuman]

FYI, the Mindsight Feat is from Lords of Madness page 126.

A creature that has this feat possesses innate telepathic ability that allows it to precisely pinpoint other thinking beings within range of its telepathy. The creature perceives where the others are and how powerful their intellects are.
Prerequisite: Telepathy special quality.
Benefit: A creature that has this feat can detect and pinpoint beings that are not mindless (anything with an Intelligence score of 1 or higher) within range of its telepathy. This works much like blindsense—the creature knows what square each thinking being is in, but it does not see the being, and the being still has total concealment unless the creature can see it by some other means. The creature also perceives several observable characteristics about each being detected with mindsight, including the being’s type and Intelligence score. The creature need not take any additional or special actions to gain this information; it is as obvious to mindsight as the being’s race and clothing would be to eyesight.

All you learn is where the Int beings are (and what their Int score is) and what Type they are (but apparently not subtypes).

Debby

[Chronos]

Quoth Kraken:

The problem as I see it is that the "several observable characteristics...including" wording strongly implies that you get more than intelligence and type out of mindsight, but doesn't actually give any hints about what those other things might be. Strictly in terms of what makes the most sense, I agree that you should be able to intuit that person over there feels like Brian, based on whatever the mindsight equivalent of eye color, facial hair, skin tone, etc. are, even though I'm generally in favor of the most restrictive possible interpretations when it comes to super powerful stuff like mindsight.
On the one hand, this makes sense to me... but on the other hand, it raises a whole host of questions. How do you disguise yourself against Mindsight? Under what circumstances will two individuals "look" similar? What level of familiarity is needed to recognize someone? Absent any guidance on questions like this, I'm inclined to say that it gives you type, intelligence, and nothing else.

[nedz]

On the one hand, this makes sense to me... but on the other hand, it raises a whole host of questions. How do you disguise yourself against Mindsight? Under what circumstances will two individuals "look" similar? What level of familiarity is needed to recognize someone? Absent any guidance on questions like this, I'm inclined to say that it gives you type, intelligence, and nothing else.

Polymorph can change your type, but does this work ?

[DrBloodbathMC]

Thank you everyone for your input. I talked to my dm and came to the conclusion that yes, after sufficientl exposure to a person I am allowed to recognize their "brainwaves"

Further for those interested we decided that I have to be aware of a creature to telepathy him, which once I grab mind sight I'll know all creatures anyway.

[Flickerdart]

Further for those interested we decided that I have to be aware of a creature to telepathy him, which once I grab mind sight I'll know all creatures anyway.
Don't get too dependent on your mindsight. If I were your DM, I would wait for you to become overconfident and then swarm you with zombies.

[Inevitability]

Don't get too dependent on your mindsight. If I were your DM, I would wait for you to become overconfident and then swarm you with zombies.

"Oh no, I'm being swarmed by living dead! Now I'll have to flee from them at a comfortable walking pace until I come across some obstacle their empty skulls can't comprehend. A locked door, for instance."

[Flickerdart]

"Oh no, I'm being swarmed by living dead! Now I'll have to flee from them at a comfortable walking pace until I come across some obstacle their empty skulls can't comprehend. A locked door, for instance."
A locked door - or an animated object? Too late to check which one, you have been eaten by a room.

[Segev]

"Oh no, zombies. I will just have to cast chain command undead once or twice."


As for how to disguise against it, that's...harder. Probably, given the rules, a good enough Disguise check could do it; you literally think like what you're pretending to be.

[Kraken]

Maybe bluff instead of disguise? That'd be consistent with how the ELH allows bluff checks to disguise your surface thoughts, which then fools detect thoughts and so forth.

[Crake]

Further for those interested we decided that I have to be aware of a creature to telepathy him

That's actually an already established rule (as explained in the "Normal" section of the mindsight feat).

[ace rooster]

Could go either way, but I would probably rule that it you don't get enough information to reliably identify targets. You certainly have enough to rule out a huge number of possible people, so as a DM I would certainly answer "could this be x, who I have observed with my mindsight before?", with no false negatives. I would not insist on the player taking notes of everyone they meet's int score, instead just assuming that the character remembers.

I would see it as being like trying to identify a person from the noises they make; ie, footsteps, grunts, mumbles that sort of thing. We can generally easily identify a voice, but noises made without intent to communicate are much harder. I would fluff mindsight to be opening up your telepathic senses to detect the random noise that minds make. These are much fainter and less characteristic than deliberate telepathic responses.

Consider the scale for hearing. You start at deaf, then next comes being able to converse with somebody deliberately speaking loudly because they are trying to converse, then you can get a rough idea of how many people are walking around you and where they are, then you can hear acutely enough to identify people from their footsteps. Non telepathic roughly equates to deaf, telepathic equates to being able to converse, and I see no reason that mindsight should represent suddenly jumping all the way to the top of the scale.

[Necroticplague]

Don't get too dependent on your mindsight. If I were your DM, I would wait for you to become overconfident and then swarm you with zombies.

Mindless creatures don't get skill points, so anything you can't see with Mindsense is gonna be crap at hiding mundanely.

[LTwerewolf]

"Oh no, zombies. I will just have to cast chain command undead once or twice."




"Excellent the hoard of zombies was an excellent distraction for these clay golems and psion killers that were on the other side of this wall. Also haha they thought a horde of zombies was supposed to be a threat."

[Flickerdart]

Mindless creatures don't get skill points, so anything you can't see with Mindsense is gonna be crap at hiding mundanely.
Fortunately, the age-old tactic of "stand behind a door" doesn't need a whole lot of ranks to pull off.

[Inevitability]

Fortunately, the age-old tactic of "stand behind a door" doesn't need a whole lot of ranks to pull off.


Listen DC

Modifier....Condition
+5...........Through a door

A moaning, shambling corpse standing behind a door is still a moaning, shambling corpse

[Kraken]

Running water in every room, random permanent magic mouths, ghost sounds, and gusts of wind, plus any number of other distractions could easily make listen checks in an entire dungeon virtually impossible. You could work to create silence in the room that you're in, but that wouldn't help you in trying to listen to things on the other side of the door to an unexplored room. Zombies get thrown around as an example, but it's not hard to come up with scary non-intelligent enemies. A simple way to create one is simply to take something that's formidable already, has no int-based abilities, then throw the half-golem template (MM2) on it. This could be as simple as half-golem orcs with class levels.

[Necroticplague]

Fortunately, the age-old tactic of "stand behind a door" doesn't need a whole lot of ranks to pull off.

And the person with Mindsight, who is typically a caster, is opening the door instead of the fighter......why?

[Flickerdart]

A moaning, shambling corpse standing behind a door is still a moaning, shambling corpse

And the person with Mindsight, who is typically a caster, is opening the door instead of the fighter......why?

Bro, that's literally what I said at the beginning - Mindsight is not perfect, take other precautions.

[DrBloodbathMC]

Oh he's taking other precautions, with a 20 int and presumably going to get higher he knows the limits of the abilities

"Ok guys, I sense x amount of thoughts going through this place, 5 animals, 3 outsiders etc, keep an eye out for mindless creatures"

Plus we have 3 other combat heavy characters, I'm more field control as a beguiler (both class and race)