Lucid Dreaming Utility

[Curelomosaurus]

I love all the weird splatbook skills in 3.5, and I've been looking at Lucid Dreaming lately. All I've been able to find on the skill here on the forums is using the Dreamscape to assassinate people from thousands of miles away, but I feel like there's gotta be more to the skill than that.

In particular, can Lucid Dreaming be an effective way to communicate with people? What about giving people "visions" to manipulate them? Causing nightmares to disrupt spellcasting?

Are there any other fun uses of this skill that y'all have come up with?

[Kalkra]

The trick with Lucid Dreaming is to find things which aren't magical. Or at least, things which aren't magical when you use them. For instance, if you cast Charm Person, it would presumably wear off once the target woke up, but in the meantime, the target could have told you all sorts of information, and you'd remember that once you woke up. Additionally, the spell Hypnotism might work, and even if it doesn't mundane hypnotism would definitely work, as would a good ol' fashioned Diplomacy check. Also, it's kinda unclear exactly how far you can go with Lucid Dreaming, but if nothing else you should get free copies of all your gear, including consumables. Also, time moves 10 times as fast, which means that in theory you could use a Divination scroll, wake up, go to sleep again, and only a minute has passed in the waking world.

tl;dr Lucid Dreaming is very good for gaining and conveying information. Also, killing people.

Some people claim that you can create things in the Dreamscape and then cheesily bring them to the Prime Material, but to me it seems pretty clear that such tricks don't work. A RAW argument could be made, though.

[Darg]

Some people claim that you can create things in the Dreamscape and then cheesily bring them to the Prime Material, but to me it seems pretty clear that such tricks don't work. A RAW argument could be made, though.

You can if you use a spell to enter the dreamscape directly and then use a spell to leave. At least, that is how I read it. Then again I really just skimmed it.

[Kalkra]

You can if you use a spell to enter the dreamscape directly and then use a spell to leave. At least, that is how I read it. Then again I really just skimmed it.

Yeah, with an 8th-level spell and a permissive DM you can do it, but making items in the Dreamscape in the first place is kinda iffy, and it requires you to be able to cast 8th-level spells in the first place.

[Uncle Pine]

Using Lucid Dreaming to prepare all sorts of spells by materializing completely innocuous arcane architectures in your own dreamscape can be pretty handy*.

Change Aspect: An aspect of a dreamscape includes background features such as lighting, terrain, architecture of a given building, vegetation (or lack thereof ), and other relatively innocuous characteristics of a dreamscape. You can’t use Lucid Dreaming to make a bolt of lightning strike a foe or open a pit below an enemy.


EDIT: *As well as absolutely free.

[daremetoidareyo]

Dream scion feats from secrets of salondric put you into a state of wakeful dreaming. So if you activate them, you should be able to modify terrain.

What happens if you shape a dream tree and climb it? Are you levitating?

[Kalkra]

Dream scion feats from secrets of salondric put you into a state of wakeful dreaming. So if you activate them, you should be able to modify terrain.

What happens if you shape a dream tree and climb it? Are you levitating?

That's a stretch. First of all, It's not even clear that Lucid Dreaming works on Ebberon, because the dreaming situation is different there with Dal Quor and whatnot. I mean, Heroes of Horror also has rules for dreams and it doesn't mention Lucid Dreaming either. Mixing spaltbooks can lead to weird results.

Also, Dream Scion connects you to the dreamspace, which is different than the dreamscape, as detailed on page 18 of Secrets of Sarlona. (Really annoying though, just switching two letters like that.) Regardless, Lucid Dreaming specifically allows you to alter a dreamscape, and you don't enter a dreamspace or a dreamscape, so altering it wouldn't do anything for you.

Even if you could, you'd run into weird results with everything you did undoing itself when you leave the dreamtouched state, or something.

[Miss Disaster]

Using Lucid Dreaming to prepare all sorts of spells by materializing completely innocuous arcane architectures in your own dreamscape can be pretty handy*.

EDIT: *As well as absolutely free.

I've used Uncle Pine's interpretation of this to have my 14th level wizard creating her dreamscape "spellbook". It's very cool. And you need to use the Plane Shift spell (necessitating higher level spellcasters) to finish the process.

His fleshing out of the idea came from an older thread here on Lucid Dreaming where I believe him and Crake were debating just how far you can take Lucid Dreaming.

The poorly/loosely worded rules parameters from the Lucid Dreaming skill has always spawned a lot of interesting debate in 3.X forum discussions.

[Sinner's Garden]

That's a stretch. First of all, It's not even clear that Lucid Dreaming works on Ebberon, because the dreaming situation is different there with Dal Quor and whatnot. I mean, Heroes of Horror also has rules for dreams and it doesn't mention Lucid Dreaming either. Mixing spaltbooks can lead to weird results.

Also, Dream Scion connects you to the dreamspace, which is different than the dreamscape, as detailed on page 18 of Secrets of Sarlona. (Really annoying though, just switching two letters like that.) Regardless, Lucid Dreaming specifically allows you to alter a dreamscape, and you don't enter a dreamspace or a dreamscape, so altering it wouldn't do anything for you.

Even if you could, you'd run into weird results with everything you did undoing itself when you leave the dreamtouched state, or something.

It's worth noting that that's not definitively how it works (or rather, doesn't work). I've seen this combo brought up before and even used in a few games, and this is by far the most conservative take on it I've seen.

[Kalkra]

I've used Uncle Pine's interpretation of this to have my 14th level wizard creating her dreamscape "spellbook". It's very cool. And you need to use the Plane Shift spell (necessitating higher level spellcasters) to finish the process.

His fleshing out of the idea came from an older thread here on Lucid Dreaming where I believe him and Crake were debating just how far you can take Lucid Dreaming.

The poorly/loosely worded rules parameters from the Lucid Dreaming skill has always spawned a lot of interesting debate in 3.X forum discussions.

Not sure what you mean by "dreamscape spellbook". I'm pretty sure you get a copy of all of your gear in the dreamscape, spellbook included (assuming you had it when you went to bed). Also, yeah, two castings of Plane Shift would presumably allow you to pull game-breaking cheese by RAW (although definitely not by RAI) just like casting or manifesting Dream Travel. So that's two 5th-level spells (if cast by a cleric) instead of one 8th-level spell or 7th-level power.

I do agree that the wording of Lucid Dreaming is pretty bad, in that it allows you to make things like Wondrous Architecture when it clearly wasn't intending to, naively thinking that phrases like "relatively innocuous" would have any mechanical effect.


It's worth noting that that's not definitively how it works (or rather, doesn't work). I've seen this combo brought up before and even used in a few games, and this is by far the most conservative take on it I've seen.

If you have a RAW or RAI argument, I'd be glad to hear it. This isn't something I've thought about a lot. I just saw the post, thought "Really?" and looked up the source and it seemed to me pretty clear that it wouldn't work. But if there's some trick to it, please let me know.