How to include Dominate/Hold Person/etc and have balance?

[Orion]

Dudes, knights, barbarians and swordmasters in fantasy traditionally are noted for their incredible strength of will and purpose. They're seen *all the time* shrugging off mind-control that snares well-meaning scholars and rogueish sidekicks.

If Fighters aren't likely to be able to make lots of mental attacks, at least let them take a few.

[Thymos]

A few things.

Charm spells like the jedi encounter should work more like diplomacy rolls, they can work on npc's and probably not on PC's.

The whole reason I'm proposing the npc pc balancing on the same scale is to get rid of this shit. Save or die is literally shit in all circumstances, and it's really obvious in the hands of NPC's.

Also, we can work with things other than damage. To work in 3.x mindset what if charm spells gave penalties to your wis score, petrification gave penalties to your dex score and move speed etc.

I actually played a half medusa once, but while the LA was right, her once per day petrify was really just not a balanced ability. I asked the dm to drop her LA by one and change the ability significantly. Now she could force one opponent to make a con save every round as a free action, and if they failed the save they would take a -2 dex drain (that went away after so many rounds) and -5 move speed; if their dex hit 0 then they would be petrified. I thought this was cool because it simulated them turning to stone slowly.

I think almost all save or die can replaced by things like this, so to me actually keeping save or die is lazy.

Maybe the beguiler forces a save as a free action every round, and if the opponent fails they take a -1 wis drain and depending on how badly they fail have different effects. fail by 5 or less, they lose an action (movement or standard), 6-10 they lose their turn, 10+ the beguiler controls them for a turn. If their wis hit's 0 then they are under the beguiler's control. Sure, this is strong, but it's better than save or die (I'm not sure how balanced this is personally, but I'm just trying to give an idea of what it would be like).

[ckafrica]

Perhaps we need mental combat to have its own system. Mooks should go down (or become agreeable) like a sack of bricks but having a battle of wills with a puppeteer while in the midst of combat is cool.

Perhaps there is each round their is a control roll between the mind mage and the victim. When the puppeteer succeeds X happens depending on the spell/power being used. When Y amount of success are made by either the battle either ends and the puppeteer loses or Z happens as described by the power.

[Username17]

Dudes, knights, barbarians and swordmasters in fantasy traditionally are noted for their incredible strength of will and purpose. They're seen *all the time* shrugging off mind-control that snares well-meaning scholars and rogueish sidekicks.

If Fighters aren't likely to be able to make lots of mental attacks, at least let them take a few.

Definitely agree. Seriously, when every single warrior hero has extraordinary willpower for a warrior you have to come to the grips that this is a normal warrior hero ability that they all have.

-Username17

[Psychic Robot]

SoDs are a simple fix: save-or-dying. It's a house rule I will use in every game (particularly because I hate rezzes)--enemies are reduced to -1 HP from an SoD. I'm okay with some effects, such as flesh to stone, being an auto-kill, because those can be reversed fairly easily (and I find the flavor of turning someone back from a statue far better than that of returning someone from the dead).

Of course, I'm also all for the multi-round casting. It doesn't matter if the caster turns the BBEG to stone on the third round because the rest of the party have been doing things for three rounds. And it makes the caster very vulnerable to disruption.

Speaking of which, perhaps disruption should be easier. Maybe you shouldn't be able to cast defensively, and if you can, maybe the Concentration DC needs to scale, something like DC 10 + spell level + the threatening opponent's BAB.

[violence in the media]

Dudes, knights, barbarians and swordmasters in fantasy traditionally are noted for their incredible strength of will and purpose. They're seen *all the time* shrugging off mind-control that snares well-meaning scholars and rogueish sidekicks.

If Fighters aren't likely to be able to make lots of mental attacks, at least let them take a few.

Nothing wrong with this approach. However, if wizards are the most vulnerable to their schtick, then why do fighters have the largest amount of "physical" HP?

I'm not disputing the fantasy tradition of strong-willed fighters. I'm asking who should be the weakest-minded of a group of PCs? Which type of NPCs should you expect to be able to easily dominate?

[Username17]

Nothing wrong with this approach. However, if wizards are the most vulnerable to their schtick, then why do fighters have the largest amount of "physical" HP?

Same reason that they are most vulnerable to fireballs, which they also cast.

I'm not disputing the fantasy tradition of strong-willed fighters. I'm asking who should be the weakest-minded of a group of PCs? Which type of NPCs should you expect to be able to easily dominate?

Frankly, the weakest willed member of a group of PCs should be the Cleric. His entire shtick is subjecting his will to a higher power. But the NPC who is most easy to dominate should be the Brute.

But the PC Warrior is not just an Ogre with a PC hat on.

-Username17

[Psychic Robot]

Frankly, the weakest willed member of a group of PCs should be the Cleric. His entire shtick is subjecting his will to a higher power. But the NPC who is most easy to dominate should be the Brute.

I don't think so. He's not letting the higher power control him; he's doing the higher power's will. It's not being weak-willed any more than doing what your boss tells you to do. And the thinking that he's doing the will of the divine should give him even stronger mental fortitude. Not to mention the high Wisdom score.

[angelfromanotherpin]

Let's be clear: not being easily dominated is a standard of being a protagonist. Or an antagonist. Nobody who is readily controlled qualifies as such a person.

When it comes to non-physical attacks, the resistances should be setting defined. In some settings, induced nerve pain will work least well on the warrior because he's used to getting knocked around, and in some settings it will work least well on the priest, because she's on drugs.

As the D&D setting defines it, Fighters and Rogues have bad Will saves. Maybe PCs should get Iron Will as a bonus feat. Maybe the fighter protagonists we see are just high level. Maybe the game is bad at representing muggles as being actual people.

This is why I liked the TNE proposed set-up of six different armor classes. It let you have confusion effects that the smart people resist more easily, and disorientation effects that the wise people resist more easily. And if your priest is on drugs, maybe they have a drug-based power that says '+x AC vs Pain,' or 'resists pain with Wis instead of Con' or something.

[RandomCasualty2]

Dudes, knights, barbarians and swordmasters in fantasy traditionally are noted for their incredible strength of will and purpose. They're seen *all the time* shrugging off mind-control that snares well-meaning scholars and rogueish sidekicks.

If Fighters aren't likely to be able to make lots of mental attacks, at least let them take a few.

Yeah. Fighters should definitely have strong willpower. Though then the main problem becomes who you want to have the low willpower.

Clerics are assumed to be strongwilled via their conection to their faith. Wizards have highly disciplined minds and are good at resisting mental attacks.

I guess that just leaves the rogue as being the only weak will character.

I suppose we could include dumb brute monsters in that too, so mind control is good versus ogres and giants, but doesn't work quite so well on most human NPCs.

[Thymos]

I think it's the schtick of being a protagonist that you have a strong willpower, it's not relegated to being a fighter, or maybe just the schtick of a character.

Strong will is more of an NPC vs. PC thing with a few exception on the NPC side.

[Orion]

During one of my manic phases I tried writing a playable demo of TNE with sample Black mana characters.

Trying to provide attacks against all the defenses was super hard. What attacks WIS and what attacks CHA was particularly douchey to try to figure. STR vs. CON was also tough. And if you don't fill the world with a balanced mix of attacks, some classes get overpowered.

Re: Will. Just because Clerics and Wizards have high will doesn't mean that they must in all settings. First of all, I don't even really like Clerics as a concept, and think that the "paladin" is a much more unversal concept. And yes, holy warriors fighting for their faith should have high will. But in most settings I think a magic-using priest should just be a clergyman who happens to be a Wizard. After all, monks hoarded all the books, and that should include plenty of spellbooks.

Rogues being weak-willed is fine as long as you *have* Rogues and Barbarians as separate archetypes. Oftentimes they're more or less the same...

Honestly, I think *Wizards* make perfect sense as the low-will class. Who says they have highly disciplined minds? First of all, you don't know that to be the case--every fantasy setting has a unique explanation of where magic comes from, and not all of them involve congnitive-behavioral therapy. Second, this is equivocation. Because the Wizard has trained himself in certain mental techniques -- visualization, memory techniques, concentration -- doesn't mean he excels at the cognitive skills needed to resist persuasion, identify illogical behavior patterns to be introspective about his own motives. In fact, the number of "mad" wizards -- often megalomaniacal or depressive -- suggests that most wizards do *not* have particularly strong cognitive toolkits.

To really drive this home, imagine a Cthuloid/Warlocky setting where Magic doesn't require intelligence and discipline so much as access to hidden knowledge and a willingness to bargain with dark powers. When the thing on the other side of the portal whispers, it's the wizard who's first to succumb. It knows him, and it's only echoing the thoughts he's had a thousand times while poring over old times late at night... maybe he *does* belong to the Other Side...

Cue Warriors heroically face-stabbing the demon and smashing up the portal while the wizard falls to his knees, clutching his face in horror. The Wizard can make up with it by using his dark powers to crush mobs of ordinary humans.

[Gelare]

I was going to give an example of wizards straining their minds to the limit of sanity in order to achieve real ultimate power as an explanation for them having low will saves, but Boolean took care of that for me. So yeah, that +1.

[sake]

Course then you have to ask, if not will saves, then what do Wizards have?

I'd say give them good fort saves. Ditch the moronic 'they're weak from all the studying' crap (which makes no sense in the first place, since they're doing just as much hard travel and adventuring as the other classes) and say that years of channeling the massive @#*$%# energies of reality itself through their bodies have made them all extremely hardy and resistant to illness.

[virgil]

From the stories that I've seen, the wizards are just plain vulnerable all around and don't actually have any good saves. The way they survive whatever is thrown their way is through preparation and spells, so they don't even have to bother with rolling.

[RandomCasualty2]

From the stories that I've seen, the wizards are just plain vulnerable all around and don't actually have any good saves. The way they survive whatever is thrown their way is through preparation and spells, so they don't even have to bother with rolling.

Yeah, I could actually see the all weak saves for a wizard. It'd actually go well with their low HP too, just in saying that they pretty much need magic to do anything.

[NoDot]

[Five minutes later there is scene of utter devastation: bits of Stormtrooper are littering the landscape, the Cantina is a smoking ruin and a Star Destroyer crammed with Empire riot-police loaded for bear has been dispatched from the nearest outpost. Obi-Wan approaches the last remaining Stormtrooper, who has taken his helmet off to vomit copiously into a smouldering crater, blood obscuring his features.]

Actually, there were ISDs in orbit already, IIRC.

[violence in the media]

From the stories that I've seen, the wizards are just plain vulnerable all around and don't actually have any good saves. The way they survive whatever is thrown their way is through preparation and spells, so they don't even have to bother with rolling.

Yeah, I could actually see the all weak saves for a wizard. It'd actually go well with their low HP too, just in saying that they pretty much need magic to do anything.

I was thinking about this the other day and I was wondering why we tend to visualize fighters with good "passive" defenses (Saves, HP, AC, etc) whereas magic users need to be active in their defense? Doesn't that reinforce the idea that fighters and magic users are playing two different games? (Maybe craps for fighters and poker for magic users?)

[Ganbare Gincun]

I was thinking about this the other day and I was wondering why we tend to visualize fighters with good "passive" defenses (Saves, HP, AC, etc) whereas magic users need to be active in their defense? Doesn't that reinforce the idea that fighters and magic users are playing two different games?

It may have a lot to do with the way Fighters were balanced in 1st and 2nd Edition D&D. Back in the day, Wizards and Clerics were still running around warping reality, but the designers realized that they needed to give Fighters something to compensate for their lack of spellcasting and utility without giving them supernatural powers. So they gave them a ton of HP, awesome Saving Throws, and the ability to quickly close in and murder both monsters and spellcasters alike.

And then we moved to 3rd Edition... whereupon the designers decided to take a big greasy shit all over the Fighters while drastically amping up the power of the spellcasters.