Mindspy / Mindsight

[schreier]

I've been working on a beguiler/rainbow servant build, and I was trying to finish it off. I really wanted mindsight, but want to stay good (feels weird to serve the couatl but be back neutral)

I came across mindspy (http://www.realmshelps.net/charbuild/classes/prestige/general/mindspy.shtml)

Mindsight requires the telepathy special ability (http://www.realmshelps.net/charbuild/feat/Mindsight)

Rainbow servant has detect thoughts as a spell like ability, and mindspy has combat telepathy as a supernatural ability.

Special abilities include spell like and supernatural abilities (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm)

I believe that combat telepathy will qualify, since it is called telepathy and sounds similar to mindsight... but detect thoughts will not. Does that seem to make sense?

Thanks in advance
schreier

[Tiri]

Combat Telepathy, Detect Thoughts and Telepathy are all different things. Your build does not qualify for Mindsight.

[Necroticplague]

Combat Telepathy isn't Telepathy. Telepathy is a very specific ability. This doesn't work.

Incidentally, other than the name, Combat Telepathy has absolutely no connection to actual telepathy. Combat Telepathy lets you detect thoughts as a free action, Telepathy lets you talk using your mind. In fact, you could almost say they're opposite abilities: one sends messages, the other receives them.

[schreier]

Oh well ...
It is interesting how close the mindscan is to mindsight. It gives the presence of intelligence creatures, their intelligent ability score, and then the ability to try and read minds. It does not give the square that a creature is in - so is clearly different than mindsight.

I do think that the way the powers read though makes detect thoughts much more useful. The way they are written (in particular, the last power) - seem to indicate that there is no save to prevent the detection of a character, just the surface thoughts. Also - since all of the special abilities are marked as supernatural - does that convert the detect thoughts from a spell-like ability to a supernatural? (the reason this would be important is that it would bypass spell resistance, would bypass an AMF, and would add 1/2 the HD of the character instead of 2 (for a level 2 spell) ... .save would go from 11+2+Cha Bonus to 11+1/2 HD + Cha (which would be a difference of 8 at level 20))


Of course, if you pick up Supernatural Transmformation (http://www.realmshelps.net/charbuild/feat/Supernatural_Transformation) - you get your full HD as caster level, ignore SR and AMF anyways

The last power is listed below:
Instant Mindscan (Su): At 4th level and higher, a mindspy can enter her enemies' minds at the speed of thought. She gains all the information from detect thoughts (presence or absence of minds, Intelligence scores, and surface thoughts) in the same round when she activates the spell or ability. The mindspy's enemies still get Will saves to keep their surface thoughts secret.