Quote Originally Posted by Chaos Jackal View Post
Effects robbing characters of their agency are extremely annoying, but they're still part of the game. However, in recognition of their nature, they are quite limited in scope. Especially mind control.

If it's a rare occurence, it's just part of the game. Someone will get stunned eventually. Or paralyzed. Or charmed. They might even die. It's not a common thing, but it is a thing. And given the limitations it's often bad luck to fall victim to such a thing, and extremely bad luck to have it last (seriously, you need terrible luck or abysmal saves, in which case you deserve it, if you have a Hold Person or, worse, a Dominate effect, last more than a couple rounds).

Where it gets truly obnoxious is when it happens very often, or when effects are taken out of context. That typically means charm effects being used as domination; while the Dominate spells give a ton of saves and have a number of restrictions, most charm effects last long and have little counterplay.

The DM in one of my games, who is very lacking in rule knowledge and tends to houserule things on the spot whenever he's told that an effect he's using doesn't work like that and doesn't suit his narrative, once did something of the kind with a vampire. Their charm was used as full mind control (and it's a very hard effect to get rid of), houseruled on the spot when I informed him that this isn't how things work. So our fighter ended up spending the entire session attacking us. Needless to say, he wasn't very happy about having an immovable brainwashing effect stacked on him.

You can't remove effects like these from the game. It would be unfair if only the PCs had access to them and would limit options and damage fantasy greatly if nobody had them at all. We live with them. But precisely because of their tricky nature they're not something to be abused.
Suppose I play a character with 12 Wisdom of a class not proficient in Wisdom saves. Why do I deserve to suffer Hold Person? Why must I always take Resilient Wisdom feat or forever be blamed for whatever fear or charm effect my character suffers? What if I have an 8? Maybe it's 8 IN and I'm forever trapped in a Phantasmal Force. Maybe it's 8 ST and I'm forever trapped in Entangle or Web.

No player "deserves" to suffer because he happens to have a low score somewhere. It can happen. It's part of the game. You deal with it. You never "deserve" it.