lothos
2016-03-05, 06:45 AM
Hello,
A friend of mine is DMing a 3.5 edition D&D game. He was talking to me about the villain he is creating for an upcoming campaign. I'm not playing in the game (wish I had more time..) but I was really interested in something he asked me about my opinion on and I couldn't really give a good answer. So I thought I'd post something here.
This campaign will use quite a lot of source books including things like complete arcane, complete divine, players handbook 2, races of destiny, races of stone.. about 15 or so source books are allowed for the players, but none of the psionics books are allowed. My friend has 3 psionics books (the psionics handbook, the complete psionic and the expanded psionics handbook), but his gaming group usually don't include them in games and none of the players are very familiar with the mechanics.
Now the DM has this idea for the villain that I think is quite cool. He is an evil (just) epic level wizard (maybe 22 ? I don't know exactly). The campaign also does not allow Epic Spells (the ones that are based of a seed of magic).
He wants this guy to have an arcane spell that does almost exactly what the psionic power "Mind Seed" does. It's on page 88 of the Psionics Handbook, or you can read about it here (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/mindSeed.htm). Basically if the victim fails a will save, then 7 days later their personality gets overwritten entirely with that of the caster / manifester. It takes a week for the "seed" of the casters / manifesters mind to "germinate". After that 1 week, the new copy of the caster has a personality and experiences identical to what the caster had when he manifested the power, but is 8 levels lower. From that point on, the copy personality can have new experiences and form new opinions, it's not under any kind of control from the original caster / manifester. However it would initially at least have the same outlook, desires and goals.
One tiny difference between the book version and the SRD version I linked to is that the SRD version says the spell is [evil] but the book doesn't actually say that. Now I think most people would agree that overwriting someones personality and obliterating everything they are is usually evil... but let's not get in to a discussion about if it's "morally justified" to overwrite someones personality :-) The bad guy for the campaign is going to be evil, probably lawful evil.
The idea is that he has an ENORMOUS ego and thinks he is the "best" person in the world and that the world would genuinely be better of if everyone thought like him... exactly like him. He will be trying to do something like Agent Smith did in the 2nd and 3rd matrix films when he could overwrite other people and make copies of himself. This guy will use mind seed to copy his mind, then polymorph any object to make the new mental copy of him look as much like him as possible. He will use polymorph any object, because apparently this kind of change is intrinsically permanent unless dispelled.
What my fried asked me was this - "Mind Seed" is an 8th level psion power. What level arcane spell did I think it should it be ? It would allow a will save, just like the power does and have identical affects and limitations. According to him (and some google searches I just did), there is no published spell of this, only the psion power.
I suggested he look at cases where there were identical spells and psionic powers, like suggestion. He said they were mostly the same level. He also mentioned a class I wasn't familiar with called the "Erudite" which can have a feat called "Spell to Power", which apparently is a big deal, raising the Erudite with that feature to being in "tier 1". However there's no feat (so far as I know) called "Power to Spell" for Arcane casters. I guess the thing is, there are just so many arcane spells. Many more than psionic powers. So it's quite rare to want to go the other way, to create an arcane spell to mirror a psionic power.
My opinion is that the arcane spell should be 8th level. However we did discuss how some of the psion telepathic powers are actually slightly lower level than their equivalent arcane spell. So maybe the arcane spell equivalent should be 9th level ?
If epic magic was allowed in this campaign, presumably you could build an epic spell to do it, because epic spells seem to be able to do just about anything. But they aren't available in this case. He wants this guy to be able to do this thing with a spell up to 9th level.
Now, I know he is the DM, so anything he says can be true. He can make it a 0th level spell if he wants :-) But I was just wondering - does anyone have an opinion on this ? Should it be 8th level ? 9th ? Some other level ? Not allowed at all ? Is this like letting a wizard research the "heal" spell or something ? (you know, how healing is meant to be for divine casters). Maybe this kind of thing is meant to be only for psions ?
We did discuss the spell "mind rape" from the book of vile darkness. This evil guy will apparently have made extensive use of mind rape as well to "correct" the thinking of many, many other people in positions of power that he is trying to "guide" towards his way of thinking. I did ask him if he didn't think it would just be easier to rule that mind rape could let this guy basically "reformat" and then "copy" his way of thinking over the mind of it's victim. Then there would be a 9th level spell that could do what Mind Seed does and other stuff too. Any thoughts about that ?
If you assume mind rape can be used to change a victims mind to basically emulate the thoughts and opinions of the caster, I guess Mind Seed should be 8th level as an arcane spell, because then you have a 9th level spell that can do slightly more. However mind seed also grants the victim the psionic powers that the caster / mainfester had when he was 8 levels lower. I guess mind rape wouldn't do that. Not that the evil guy in this campaign cares, all he really wants is to "improve" the personality of everyone he meets to "bring their thinking up to the standards he has".
But the question I want to pose is this - if you had a spell that was identical to the 8th level psionic power "mind seed" as an arcane spell - same effects, same range, same saving throw, same limitations, what level would you say that should be ?
A friend of mine is DMing a 3.5 edition D&D game. He was talking to me about the villain he is creating for an upcoming campaign. I'm not playing in the game (wish I had more time..) but I was really interested in something he asked me about my opinion on and I couldn't really give a good answer. So I thought I'd post something here.
This campaign will use quite a lot of source books including things like complete arcane, complete divine, players handbook 2, races of destiny, races of stone.. about 15 or so source books are allowed for the players, but none of the psionics books are allowed. My friend has 3 psionics books (the psionics handbook, the complete psionic and the expanded psionics handbook), but his gaming group usually don't include them in games and none of the players are very familiar with the mechanics.
Now the DM has this idea for the villain that I think is quite cool. He is an evil (just) epic level wizard (maybe 22 ? I don't know exactly). The campaign also does not allow Epic Spells (the ones that are based of a seed of magic).
He wants this guy to have an arcane spell that does almost exactly what the psionic power "Mind Seed" does. It's on page 88 of the Psionics Handbook, or you can read about it here (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/mindSeed.htm). Basically if the victim fails a will save, then 7 days later their personality gets overwritten entirely with that of the caster / manifester. It takes a week for the "seed" of the casters / manifesters mind to "germinate". After that 1 week, the new copy of the caster has a personality and experiences identical to what the caster had when he manifested the power, but is 8 levels lower. From that point on, the copy personality can have new experiences and form new opinions, it's not under any kind of control from the original caster / manifester. However it would initially at least have the same outlook, desires and goals.
One tiny difference between the book version and the SRD version I linked to is that the SRD version says the spell is [evil] but the book doesn't actually say that. Now I think most people would agree that overwriting someones personality and obliterating everything they are is usually evil... but let's not get in to a discussion about if it's "morally justified" to overwrite someones personality :-) The bad guy for the campaign is going to be evil, probably lawful evil.
The idea is that he has an ENORMOUS ego and thinks he is the "best" person in the world and that the world would genuinely be better of if everyone thought like him... exactly like him. He will be trying to do something like Agent Smith did in the 2nd and 3rd matrix films when he could overwrite other people and make copies of himself. This guy will use mind seed to copy his mind, then polymorph any object to make the new mental copy of him look as much like him as possible. He will use polymorph any object, because apparently this kind of change is intrinsically permanent unless dispelled.
What my fried asked me was this - "Mind Seed" is an 8th level psion power. What level arcane spell did I think it should it be ? It would allow a will save, just like the power does and have identical affects and limitations. According to him (and some google searches I just did), there is no published spell of this, only the psion power.
I suggested he look at cases where there were identical spells and psionic powers, like suggestion. He said they were mostly the same level. He also mentioned a class I wasn't familiar with called the "Erudite" which can have a feat called "Spell to Power", which apparently is a big deal, raising the Erudite with that feature to being in "tier 1". However there's no feat (so far as I know) called "Power to Spell" for Arcane casters. I guess the thing is, there are just so many arcane spells. Many more than psionic powers. So it's quite rare to want to go the other way, to create an arcane spell to mirror a psionic power.
My opinion is that the arcane spell should be 8th level. However we did discuss how some of the psion telepathic powers are actually slightly lower level than their equivalent arcane spell. So maybe the arcane spell equivalent should be 9th level ?
If epic magic was allowed in this campaign, presumably you could build an epic spell to do it, because epic spells seem to be able to do just about anything. But they aren't available in this case. He wants this guy to be able to do this thing with a spell up to 9th level.
Now, I know he is the DM, so anything he says can be true. He can make it a 0th level spell if he wants :-) But I was just wondering - does anyone have an opinion on this ? Should it be 8th level ? 9th ? Some other level ? Not allowed at all ? Is this like letting a wizard research the "heal" spell or something ? (you know, how healing is meant to be for divine casters). Maybe this kind of thing is meant to be only for psions ?
We did discuss the spell "mind rape" from the book of vile darkness. This evil guy will apparently have made extensive use of mind rape as well to "correct" the thinking of many, many other people in positions of power that he is trying to "guide" towards his way of thinking. I did ask him if he didn't think it would just be easier to rule that mind rape could let this guy basically "reformat" and then "copy" his way of thinking over the mind of it's victim. Then there would be a 9th level spell that could do what Mind Seed does and other stuff too. Any thoughts about that ?
If you assume mind rape can be used to change a victims mind to basically emulate the thoughts and opinions of the caster, I guess Mind Seed should be 8th level as an arcane spell, because then you have a 9th level spell that can do slightly more. However mind seed also grants the victim the psionic powers that the caster / mainfester had when he was 8 levels lower. I guess mind rape wouldn't do that. Not that the evil guy in this campaign cares, all he really wants is to "improve" the personality of everyone he meets to "bring their thinking up to the standards he has".
But the question I want to pose is this - if you had a spell that was identical to the 8th level psionic power "mind seed" as an arcane spell - same effects, same range, same saving throw, same limitations, what level would you say that should be ?