Keeping Mind Affecting effects relevant at high OP/high level (3.5)

[flappeercraft]

Basically how can this happen? From what I can see the only way to really keep it relevant would be some way to bypass Mind affecting immunities and considering Mind Blank and similar effects being common on high level and high op, how exactly would you do that? I have seen arguments that debatably Dread Witch can let the Mind-Affecting go through if it has also the fear tag but it doesn't quite convince me.

If it helps the thing I want to specifically make work is False Sensory Input but answers that don't just answer that in specific are also welcome.

Of course dispelling and disjoining would be options but for the purpose of this let's assume it is not really viable. The only thing that comes to mind would be a cheater of mystra character to suppress the buffs while still working but that still does not cover type immunities and other kinds of non-magical immunities.

[Bucky]

You can use mind-effects like Dominate Monster on someone other than your main enemy.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Are you asking this as a player, or as a DM?

Even at the higher levels there should be plenty of opponents that won't be outright immune to mind-affecting, if you're the player.

In either case, you may want to consider using Major Image instead.

As a DM, you could house rule it to branch it out to different categories of immunity. For example, while undead and mindless creature would still be outright immune to all mind-affecting, a Mind Blank or an item that duplicates its effect could only protect against arcane (mind) or divine (spirit) or psionic (psyche) mind-affecting effects, not all three, unless it's cast multiple times. Having all three immunities effectively renders the character mindless (Int nonability), and prevents the character from using many skills and certain class features, or even speaking or carrying out simple tasks. Immunity to arcane (mind) mind-affecting prevents the use of arcane spells and abilities, the same goes for immunity to divine (spirit) blocking the use of divine spellcasting and abilities, and psionic (psyche) with psionic powers and abilities.

[martixy]

Well, if we're going speculative, just adopt PF's approach. Mind-blank there doesn't make you immune to mind-affecting, just adds a bonus. Though perhaps you might wish to not go ALL the way to PF, which makes it a resistance bonus. And it has a few metamagics like Threnodic for affecting undead and that other one for plants.

Besides that you can always use PAO to strip type-based immunities. Music of the gods is an epic level thing bards can take.

I also wonder if there is a way to somehow forcefully bestow the feat Craven to a creature.

[molten_dragon]

If you're looking for house rule ideas there's lots you could do.

In addition to the things already mentioned, you could make it so mind blank only works if it's cast at a higher level than spell/effect you're being targeted with. Or include an opposed caster level check if you don't want to make it automatic pass/fail.

You could simply shorten the duration of Mind blank. Make it 1 round per level so it's still useful in combat, but difficult to provide round-the-clock protection.

You could make Mind Blank work like Spell Turning where it only protects from a limited number of spell levels.

If you're looking for options already within the game rules, I can't think of anything.

[noob]

If you're looking for house rule ideas there's lots you could do.

In addition to the things already mentioned, you could make it so mind blank only works if it's cast at a higher level than spell/effect you're being targeted with. Or include an opposed caster level check if you don't want to make it automatic pass/fail.

You could simply shorten the duration of Mind blank. Make it 1 round per level so it's still useful in combat, but difficult to provide round-the-clock protection.

You could make Mind Blank work like Spell Turning where it only protects from a limited number of spell levels.

If you're looking for options already within the game rules, I can't think of anything.

The problem is that immunity to divination is 322342342343568795678% needed for surviving at high level.
So making mind blank function conditionally just means the adventurer die instantly to scry and die when it gets any significant opponent.

[Deepbluediver]

Redesign the magic system from the ground up. I'm not even joking here- magic was terribly unbalanced in many ways, and the few limitations WotC put on it are horribly implemented. A lot of the enchantment spells have the potential to be extra-special broken; someone once pointed out to me that Dominate Monster can basically represent that same thing as a Disintegrate spell plus a Summon Monster X[whatever] spell in one package.

Unfortunately, WotC decided that the best way to handle this would be to give several broad creature types immunity to mind-affecting spells. To explain why immunities are terribad, I'm gonna paraphrase a game log I once read about playtesting someone's homebrewed system: all the high level NPCs were supposed to be super badass, and so they were immune to everything. But this immunity even included other high level NPCs, so really they couldn't actually accomplish anything at all; in the game they really just stood around and the PCs where supposed to fawn over their badass-itude.
(the game system had multiple problems, but...) The point is, immunities suck pondwater. Resistances can be worked around but an immunity is an impenetrable wall infinitely high and wide and deep.


Here's a thread were I suss out the problem in more detail with some other folks: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?283563-Should-Intelligent-Undead-(or-Plants)-be-Immune-to-Mind-affecting-Effects

Although I admit it wasn't universally effected, the simplest solution I've been able to come up with is something like this- scrap the race-based immunity and anything similar; if you MUST have an immunity make it something artifact-related. For mind-affecting spells on normally mind-affecting immune creatures, have it cause them to be Confused for a number of rounds equal to the spells level. This way it won't have it's full effect of instantly turning enemies into allies, but it will still accomplish something. The idea being that some minds are to alien to be affected normally, but you can still mess up a creature's mental/neurological processes with strong enough magic.

[Zombimode]

Basically how can this happen? From what I can see the only way to really keep it relevant would be some way to bypass Mind affecting immunities and considering Mind Blank and similar effects being common on high level and high op, how exactly would you do that?

On what exactly do you base your assumption that "Mind Blank and similar effects being common"? Are high-Level arcane magic users (or Occult Slayers) your main enemy?

Looking over the Monster Manuals there is not are particularly high ammount of creatures that woul be resistant to mind-affecting at high Levels. Type-based immunity, sure, but that exists at all Levels.

[Darth Ultron]

Well, in D&D a great many things become irrelevant as the OP/Levels go up. But this is part of the game and it's how reality works.


Mind Effecting is one of the things that quickly becomes irrelevant. High OP/Power/Levels means you don't need to worry about such things anymore.

You can, however:

1.Get rid of the protection/immunity/defense Now this is ''frowned upon'' in a modern game, but it's still an option. It's simple enough: remove whatever is blocking you. In a lot of cases it's a spell or magic item and both are easy to get rid of with lots of way to do it. A greater dispel magic, for example. Or sealing or destroying the item. Plus anti magic.

2.Ignore it. So they have a defense against X? So just use Y or Z. Blast them with 100 damage or obliterate their soul, and it does not matter if they are immune to X.

3.Go around it. The sneaky thing is, a lot of illusions, transmutations and necromancy are NOT Mind Affecting....though they do effect the mind. So there are a lot of rules here to back you up as if you X, it's not listed as a mind affecting effect, so immunity to mind effecting affects won't do anything.

For things like charm or domination, if you can't just ''control someone's mind'', you might have to control them any of the other dozen ways like kidnap a loved one or put a bomb in their head.

A lot of magic does not differently effect a person, so it's not subject to immunities.

Pathfinder does have some (I think) feats and such that can break immunities....and 3.5 has a couple like Searing Flame.

[King of Nowhere]

A very fast rough fix would be to houserule that spells giving immunity to X merely give a +10 to the saving throw. Strongly increases the chances of resisting, but can still be overcome.

[flappeercraft]

Ok suggestions seem good but I am trying to do this without houseruling.

On the Major Image, what if I want to target a specific person? What about placing the illusion to be as thin as a contact lens and putting it right infront of the targets eye? I can't think of any reason why that would not work RAW.

[molten_dragon]

The problem is that immunity to divination is 322342342343568795678% needed for surviving at high level.
So making mind blank function conditionally just means the adventurer die instantly to scry and die when it gets any significant opponent.

There are other counters to scry and die tactics besides mind blank.

[noob]

There are other counters to scry and die tactics besides mind blank.

How do you counter 50 consecutive waves of 50 wizards with spells prepared in function of what you did at any time where you exit your base for doing something?
I think you need them to not find you in the first place.
Nondetection is fallible and if you get teleportation anticipation(that spell that delays teleportation) it is limited in range and so is all the teleportation preventing spells.
Getting at will teleportation(which is not hard) for fleeing helps indeed due to scry duration but then it means you can not stick to a place for long.

[Hunter Noventa]

How do you counter 50 consecutive waves of 50 wizards with spells prepared in function of what you did at any time where you exit your base for doing something?
I think you need them to not find you in the first place.
Nondetection is fallible and if you get teleportation anticipation(that spell that delays teleportation) it is limited in range and so is all the teleportation preventing spells.
Getting at will teleportation(which is not hard) for fleeing helps indeed due to scry duration but then it means you can not stick to a place for long.

You speak as if this has actually happened, and that sounds like quite a story if so.

[molten_dragon]

How do you counter 50 consecutive waves of 50 wizards with spells prepared in function of what you did at any time where you exit your base for doing something?
I think you need them to not find you in the first place.
Nondetection is fallible and if you get teleportation anticipation(that spell that delays teleportation) it is limited in range and so is all the teleportation preventing spells.
Getting at will teleportation(which is not hard) for fleeing helps indeed due to scry duration but then it means you can not stick to a place for long.

I have never been in an actual game where something like this was a concern.

[sleepyphoenixx]

The problem is that mind-affecting spells are generally really damn strong. If you're going to remove immunity you're also going to nerf most of the spells that have it because "you can't use it on everyone/it can be defended against" is one of the balancing factors.

Not to mention that other spell schools deal with that issue too. BFC has to contend with Freedom of Movement, Illusions have to deal with True Seeing, damage spells have to deal with resistance and immunities, necromancers have to deal with Death Ward (and a ton of cheap effects that absolutely hose undead) and so on.
Compared to those Mind Blank is rare, and the types that get racial immunity are generally some of the lesser threats, undead aside. And for undead there are tons of specialized counters, as mentioned.
You're not supposed to be able to deal with every problem with the same spell.

Mind-affecting spells still work fine on demons (who make up a big chunk of high level combat), dragons, humanoids with class levels... and they're absolutely devastating against them unless they have an 8th level spell or equivalent item.

TL:DR? The idea that mind-affecting spells are worthless at high levels is a myth. They are relevant, even at high OP/high levels.
They're just not the tool to solve every problem, but neither is any other spell school.


How do you counter 50 consecutive waves of 50 wizards with spells prepared in function of what you did at any time where you exit your base for doing something?
I think you need them to not find you in the first place.
Nondetection is fallible and if you get teleportation anticipation(that spell that delays teleportation) it is limited in range and so is all the teleportation preventing spells.
Getting at will teleportation(which is not hard) for fleeing helps indeed due to scry duration but then it means you can not stick to a place for long.
Has it occured to you that if you manage to piss off 50 high level wizards to the point they're all attacking you at once you should die?
That's the whole point of removing immunities.

Nondetection works fine for anything remotely approaching a level appropriate opponent.
Anticipate Teleportation works fine against scry & die tactics because scrying has a 10ft radius of vision. You have to teleport into the AoE of it or you have to teleport blindly, without scrying first.
Not to mention the ton of other anti-scrying spells and items.

Also keep in mind that enemy casters have limited spells and time constraints too. If they don't the problem is your DM, not divination.
They can't just spam Greater Scrying over and over until your party walks out of their Mage's Private Sanctum warded room or every time they fail the CL check against Nondetection.

[Darth Ultron]

Ok suggestions seem good but I am trying to do this without houseruling.

On the Major Image, what if I want to target a specific person? What about placing the illusion to be as thin as a contact lens and putting it right infront of the targets eye? I can't think of any reason why that would not work RAW.

Mind Affecting immunity DOESN'T help against Illusion (Figment), Illusion (Glamer) and Illusion (Shadow) spells - the best ones. Those three subschools are NOT mind-affecting, so they can even affect undead and golems!

Also: Wish, Limited Wish, and Miracle.

How it works:
Wish, Limited Wish, and Miracle all have their own school and descriptor line. They all duplicate other spells.

By the standard inheritance rules, anything specified in the spell you're actually casting overrides the stuff that the spell text says it acts like. So Polymorph (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/polymorph.htm) is still a Sor/Wiz 4, has a material component, is touch range, requires the subject be living, and lasts minutes/level, even though the spell it refrences (Alter Self) is Sor/Wiz 2, has no material component, is personal range, has no restriction on the subject's creature type, and lasts ten minutes/level.

So when Limited Wish inherits from Charm Monster, the school and descriptor line of Limited Wish overrides the school and descriptor line of Charm Monster... thus, that duplicated casting of Charm Monster is no longer mind-affecting.

[noob]

The problem is that mind-affecting spells are generally really damn strong. If you're going to remove immunity you're also going to nerf most of the spells that have it because "you can't use it on everyone/it can be defended against" is one of the balancing factors.

Not to mention that other spell schools deal with that issue too. BFC has to contend with Freedom of Movement, Illusions have to deal with True Seeing, damage spells have to deal with resistance and immunities, necromancers have to deal with Death Ward (and a ton of cheap effects that absolutely hose undead) and so on.
Compared to those Mind Blank is rare, and the types that get racial immunity are generally some of the lesser threats, undead aside. And for undead there are tons of specialized counters, as mentioned.
You're not supposed to be able to deal with every problem with the same spell.

Mind-affecting spells still work fine on demons (who make up a big chunk of high level combat), dragons, humanoids with class levels... and they're absolutely devastating against them unless they have an 8th level spell or equivalent item.

TL:DR? The idea that mind-affecting spells are worthless at high levels is a myth. They are relevant, even at high OP/high levels.
They're just not the tool to solve every problem, but neither is any other spell school.


Has it occured to you that if you manage to piss off 50 high level wizards to the point they're all attacking you at once you should die?
That's the whole point of removing immunities.

Nondetection works fine for anything remotely approaching a level appropriate opponent.
Anticipate Teleportation works fine against scry & die tactics because scrying has a 10ft radius of vision. You have to teleport into the AoE of it or you have to teleport blindly, without scrying first.
Not to mention the ton of other anti-scrying spells and items.

Also keep in mind that enemy casters have limited spells and time constraints too. If they don't the problem is your DM, not divination.
They can't just spam Greater Scrying over and over until your party walks out of their Mage's Private Sanctum warded room or every time they fail the CL check against Nondetection.

You just need to piss off one level 14 or 15 wizard: it then spams wizards simulacrums with a mirror mephit and sends them by waves.
Or often there is wars between two countries and then it is perfectly legit tactics to focus on the people who somehow have awesome tactics.
Or all the "overturn the dictator" kind of scenarios can cause that: he just have to pay the wage of 50 wizards instead of losing.
In fact any level 15 or higher person that really does not wants to lose against an adventurer team(because it would result in their death) can probably line up the money needed for paying the wages of 50 wizard mercenaries.(I mean: you do an easy task you can not fail and if you get killed the other wizards succeeds and your Resurrection is paid and you get more than 1/10 of the money you had before(from the spoils and the salary) I would definitively be interested in that if someone paid me for that)

Basically in universe there is hundreds of reasons why 4 adventurers teams would often die to 50 wizard teams if there is no way to defend against scry and die.

Also high level wizards can be level 9 wizards: you already have teleport and scry at that level.

So basically if you remove mind blank high level adventurer teams would be only teams of 20 wizards or more.(because 4 adventurers is not enough to defend yourself)

The reason there is high level adventurer teams with low amounts of adventurer is the ability to conceal them.(4 adventurers leave way less of a trail and if they have mind blank you can not just magic up the way to find them) Without that getting as many adventurers as possible in one team(be it through communication spells for quick reinforcement or staying in huge groups(the latter being both easier and more reactive)) would be the only valid tactic.

[Anthrowhale]

See Piercing Immunities (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?454486-Piercing-Immunities) for three approaches.

In addition:
1) Polymorph Any Object is a Fort Neg solution which invalidates type-based immunity to mind-affecting.
2) Planar Bubble is a no-save solution to Planar-traits based immunity to mind-affecting.

[heavyfuel]

Mind Blank is hardly all that powerful.

I mean. It's very powerful, but people talk like it's this spell that completely invalidates casters focusing on mind affecting spells.

Three words. Greater Dispel Magic. Add in a medium Rod of Chain spells for that massive disable of everyone and their items too.

[sleepyphoenixx]

...
Basically in universe there is hundreds of reasons why 4 adventurers teams would often die to 50 wizard teams if there is no way to defend against scry and die.

Also high level wizards can be level 9 wizards: you already have teleport and scry at that level.

So basically if you remove mind blank high level adventurer teams would be only teams of 20 wizards or more.(because 4 adventurers is not enough to defend yourself)

The reason there is high level adventurer teams with low amounts of adventurer is the ability to conceal them.(4 adventurers leave way less of a trail and if they have mind blank you can not just magic up the way to find them) Without that getting as many adventurers as possible in one team(be it through communication spells for quick reinforcement or staying in huge groups(the latter being both easier and more reactive)) would be the only valid tactic.
Did you somehow miss all the other anti-divination spells and items in D&D? There's more than just Mind Blank to defend against divinations.
Detect Scrying, False Vision, Private Sanctum, Obscure Object and Nondetection come to mind. Not to mention the tons of items that exist specifically for that reason, like the Scry Shroud (MIC).

Also anyone can detect a scrying sensor with a DC 20 Int check - quite doable for int-based casters even without specifically trying - and anyone with Scrying on their spell list can counter scry, as per the rules here, at the bottom. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/skills.htm)

If being scryed on is still a big problem for you with all that i suggest learning Scry Trap and Psychic Poison and buying a Deathglance Locket (DrCom).
Then your scry-happy enemies will take care of themselves. Cast it on everyone in the party, add False Vision and Detect Scrying and don't forget to buy popcorn.

My point isn't that you don't need defenses, it's that you don't need divination immunity. You can make it too costly, uncertain and dangerous to try to keep track of you easily enough.
And probably even get more out of that strategy than just casting Mind Blank, seeing how your most dangerous enemies are basically delivering themselves to you.

[Deepbluediver]

See Piercing Immunities (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?454486-Piercing-Immunities) for three approaches.
That's a very useful list, thank you- it still feels kind of like an inelegant solution to me for most issues though. I feel like immunities should be special and rare, and that the need for solutions is because 3.5 was overly generous in handing them out.

[Anthrowhale]

That's a very useful list, thank you- it still feels kind of like an inelegant solution to me for most issues though. I feel like immunities should be special and rare, and that the need for solutions is because 3.5 was overly generous in handing them out.

The upside of immunities is that it makes low power enemies nontrivially challenging against otherwise overwhelming opponents. Much of the rest of the game functions as a glorified level check with the higher level nearly automatically winning. This property is an annoyance to PCs by default, but it can be a key advantage. A purchased PAO allows great immunities from ECL ~3, Death Ward (ECL 7), Freedom of Movement (ECL 7), Energy immunity (ECL 11), AMF (ECL 11), Mindblank (ECL 15), and Shapechange (ECL 17) are all key developments in PC immunity.

[Deepbluediver]

The upside of immunities is that it makes low power enemies nontrivially challenging against otherwise overwhelming opponents. Much of the rest of the game functions as a glorified level check with the higher level nearly automatically winning. This property is an annoyance to PCs by default, but it can be a key advantage. A purchased PAO allows great immunities from ECL ~3, Death Ward (ECL 7), Freedom of Movement (ECL 7), Energy immunity (ECL 11), AMF (ECL 11), Mindblank (ECL 15), and Shapechange (ECL 17) are all key developments in PC immunity.
That would itself seem to be a symptom of Magic being to powerful in general.

It's like...
Magic is to strong!
Throw in some stuff it will completely fail against!
But that's super-annoying to players!
So throw in some ways around it so magic works again!
But now we're back to square one, just with feat/ability taxes!
etc etc etc.

Almost as if the design team was leaping from crisis to crisis, slapping bandaids on problems as they came up without any clear end-goal in mind, and never really addressing the root-issue.
That's just my 2cp though.

[BassoonHero]

Yeah, that dynamic (OP mechanic/unconditional immunity/unconditional bypass) is one of the major flaws with magic in 3.5.

The root problem is the prevalence of spells that either win encounters or do nothing. I wonder if there's a sensible way to integrate degrees of success into 3.5.

[Deepbluediver]

I wonder if there's a sensible way to integrate degrees of success into 3.5.
Sure- just rewrite every single spell that's imbalanced.
(wait, when you said "sensible" did you mean "quick and easy"? because the answer for that is most definitely "no")

There are changes you can make to the system (personally I think you should have to roll for success every single time you want to cast a spell, for example), but ultimately the issue is individual spells producing binary game-imbalancing effects. They either work perfectly or not at all.
And the only true fix is to rewrite large chunks of the PHB and many splatbooks. Which is why, I think, WotC eventually decided they had to move on to other editions.


Edit: There might be a few broad effects you can apply, like for example if your save fails it still reduces the duration of ongoing effects by 1 round/minute/hour/day/month/year for each point above a certain value, but because of the sheer variety of different types of things that a spell can do, it's going to be pretty complicated anyway and probably still miss some things.
(every single one of those is a duration of something in the PHB, just to give you a scope of the problem)

[Anthrowhale]

Sure- just rewrite every single spell that's imbalanced.

Banning every spell that creates immunity effects may be a simpler alternative. The system is so rich that reasonable alternative already exist:
Freedom of movement -> Enlarge, Giant Size, or the skill trick which gives you an escape
Death Ward -> Font of Life
Energy Immunity -> Resist Energy + Protection from Energy
AMF -> Otiluke's Suppressing Field.
Mind Blank -> any spell improving saves, nondetection.
PAO, Shapechange -> Polymorph or other (Polymorph) subschool spells.

[RoboEmperor]

Necrotic Cysts line of spells.

Necrotic Tumor (8th level) is a Necromancy spell, and bypasses every mind-affecting defense in the game. Nothing can stop the Necrotic Tumor from permanently mind controlling any living creature.

The catch is, it's difficult to encyst. First the guy has to fail the level 2 Necrotic Cyst's save. Then he has to fail the Necrotic Tumor save. Without Heighten Spell and someway of immobilizing the target it's difficult to pull off, but if you do, only dispel magic can stop the necrotic tumor effect (not the necrotic cyst).

Because Protection from Evil and Magic Circle Against Evil is so, so very common in everything high level, really your only choice is to use Necrotic Tumor.