Possessing fiends and Mental Abilities

[Crake]

Can a possessing fiend, ala fiendish codex I (not fiend folio) use mental abilities while inside it's host? Things like sending, or suggestion? Can it use it's telepathy to contact creatures other than the one it's possessing? I used to think it lost access to all of it's abilities, but it seems the line I saw specifically said only while on the plane it's body is on and in an incorporeal form. It even goes on to say that while on the ethereal plane it has access to all it's abilities, and I can't find anything that says once it's possessing a creature it loses access to it's abilities.

Obviously things like touch spells or rays that require an attack role would also require the fiend to control the victim, since it needs to aim, but could a fiend with say, a dominate person SLA dominate people around it's victim?

[Kelb_Panthera]

A fiend in incorporeal form lacks access to -all- of its own special abilities when on the same plane as its body. I don't see anything that would suggest that this condition is alleviated by actually taking possession of a mortal creature.

Therefore, no, you can't use mental spell-likes while possessing someone.

[Crake]

A fiend in incorporeal form lacks access to -all- of its own special abilities when on the same plane as its body. I don't see anything that would suggest that this condition is alleviated by actually taking possession of a mortal creature.

Therefore, no, you can't use mental spell-likes while possessing someone.

would that mean that a fiend in incorporeal state possessing someone while on the ethereal plane retains all of it's abilities? That seems like a strange distinction, since they can shift to the ethereal plane at will, and have access to all of their abilities while on the ethereal plane (for some strange reason). It would seem they can even possess creatures from the ethereal plane, so it's equally wierd.

[Kelb_Panthera]

would that mean that a fiend in incorporeal state possessing someone while on the ethereal plane retains all of it's abilities? That seems like a strange distinction, since they can shift to the ethereal plane at will, and have access to all of their abilities while on the ethereal plane (for some strange reason). It would seem they can even possess creatures from the ethereal plane, so it's equally wierd.

Upon rereading the section in more detail, I believe a possessing fiend's ability to take one of the six roles of possession is an exhaustive list of what it can do while possessing. It can take one of the six roles, in the case of controller it can use the hosts abilities as described, and it can choose to leave the host. That's it.

The existence of options that specifically give them back the ability to use their own special abilities lends some credence to this idea. Note the sidebar on the transformer type suggests that the possessor must transform its victim's head to access its SLA's and Su'sl, for example.

[Crake]

Upon rereading the section in more detail, I believe a possessing fiend's ability to take one of the six roles of possession is an exhaustive list of what it can do while possessing. It can take one of the six roles, in the case of controller it can use the hosts abilities as described, and it can choose to leave the host. That's it.

The existence of options that specifically give them back the ability to use their own special abilities lends some credence to this idea. Note the sidebar on the transformer type suggests that the possessor must transform its victim's head to access its SLA's and Su'sl, for example.

Just to play devils advocate here, it says that the fiend can take the 6 roles "with respect to it's victim", so those are methods with which the fiend can affect it's victim specifically, it says nothing about the fiend being limited to those abilities, and regarding the transformer type, it says that once it is done, it simply says that it has access to all it's normal powers and abilities, however the way it's worded doesn't really imply much, since whether the fiend had access to some or none of it's abilities, the wording would be the same.