Hey everyone. Just curious. Me and a friend were discussing this since during our last game, we both fell victim to an advanced vampire's Domination. She told us both to eat dirt. We both failed HORRIBLY. Both times.
So, now, for a minimum of almost 2 weeks, we're putting complete focus on eating dirt, and when we CAN, somehow, getting water or food to not die, then going back to eating the nearest pile of dirt.
Should I just make a new character at this point? Like, I mean, nobody else in the party is even aware of what happened. Our characters were away from the rest of the party when it happened, and the only other witness to this was torn to shreds in about 2 turns...
I am kinda venting, but I am also kinda just curious. Is my character useless at this point? Because aside from metagaming like crap, the party has no way to know we're being dominated by a vampire, so they shouldn't be casting protection from evil or anything on us for no reason. And the domination seems to say we put priority on this task above all other things, aside from those needed for survival. So we'd get a good night's rest just to get up, eat breakfast and drink something to live, then eat dirt...
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Well, you have been dominated. If your group does find you, they'll only need a DC 15 Sense Motive check to see what's going on, and that could make a great story.
The vampire might get bored, or have other business. This would give: "If you don't spend at least 1 round concentrating on the spell each day, the subject receives a new saving throw to throw off the domination."
Also, the duration is in days, so the effect would wear off if the vampire isn't paying attention.
About the eating dirt... "Subjects resist this control, and any subject forced to take actions against its nature receives a new saving throw with a +2 bonus. Obviously self-destructive orders are not carried out."
It could be argued that eating dirt is self destructive, but I wouldn't. However, it might just be against your character's nature.
Good luck with this, and go for whatever makes the best story!
As noted, we failed both (Like, including the +2 because eating dirt is not fun for us lol).
Yeah. Will see how things go.
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I'll finish that sentence.
If your party doesn't realize something is up because you're eating dirt all day, then you're probably better off just sticking with said dirt.
Why?
Because the dirt is smarter than your party.
Also, the human body can't digest large quantities of nutrition-less mineral matter like that, I'm pretty sure. Seems to fall under "obviously self destructive" to me.
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Uh, guys. There are only two of them. They both failed the save. What party?
Like, I mean, nobody else in the party is even aware of what happened. Our characters were away from the rest of the party when it happened, and the only other witness to this was torn to shreds in about 2 turns...
I am kinda venting, but I am also kinda just curious. Is my character useless at this point? Because aside from metagaming like crap, the party has no way to know we're being dominated by a vampire, so they shouldn't be casting protection from evil or anything on us for no reason.
My guess would be the one he mentions like three times but I dunno man maybe I'm wrong
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Looks like someone missed the op's comments. Regardless, once you start feeling I'll, or eat too much dirt, you should be free to ignore the command as it becomes obviously harmful. Also, your party should be in contact with you at some point. The second they see you doing something that is not normal for your character (or in this case species) they should immediately be suspicious.
If they have seen you eating dirt and not noticed that anything is wrong or different, I would suggest finding another group of players who posses at least low intelligence.
Hey everyone. Just curious. Me and a friend were discussing this since during our last game, we both fell victim to an advanced vampire's Domination. She told us both to eat dirt. We both failed HORRIBLY. Both times.
So, now, for a minimum of almost 2 weeks, we're putting complete focus on eating dirt, and when we CAN, somehow, getting water or food to not die, then going back to eating the nearest pile of dirt.
Sounds like a fun campaign.
I believe your characters would be so ashamed of being seen eating dirt that they wouldnt do it in front of others. But they would get suspicious and try to find out why you get away from the group after every meal (or just think you are going to take a dump).
There is really little you can do, you wont eat dirt until you die because the order simply said "eat dirt", not "eat dirt until you pass out" or similar. So you dont have to eat a lot of dirt, and you dont have to eat ONLY dirt, but you will have to eat a little of dirt everyday.
Until the domination is over, that is.
PS: Fun story.
You should have gotten an additional save. Eating actual soil is against most sentient beings' natures.
On the bright side, domination person specifically allows you to continue doing things necessary for day-to-day survival (such as sleeping, eating, and so forth).
So there's that. You won't starve or die of thirst any time soon...
Once you have given a dominated creature a command, it continues to attempt to carry out that command to the exclusion of all other activities except those necessary for day-to-day survival (such as sleeping, eating, and so forth). Because of this limited range of activity, a Sense Motive check against DC 15 (rather than DC 25) can determine that the subject's behavior is being influenced by an enchantment effect (see the Sense Motive skill description).
No one in the party has been able to succeed on a DC 15 sense motive check? This would tell them you are under magical influence and allow them to take appropriate action to free you.
You have an actual rules question or just looking for advice? (Sounds like the latter).
Personally I'd ask your GM what's up... if he is making you come to each play session and spend the entire time eating dirt.
I think the assumption is that they are separated from the rest of the party. I mean, obviously they were separated when it happened. But really, if the rest of the party aren't asking questions like "so, weren't we going to go adventuring? Because you're just sitting there eating dirt all the time", well.
As noted, the dirt is smarter.
If you're completely separated from the party, and they aren't looking for you, this makes no sense at all.
Yeah this whole scenario doesn't make much sense.
Is the GM having these two players just sitting there for the entire game session because their characters are doing nothing but eat dirt? That sounds like very poor GMing.
If these two are still separated from the rest of the party why have the others not tried to find them in the two weeks they have been stuck eating dirt?
On the other hand the OP says aside from metagaming the rest of the party has no reason to know they are controlled in order to cast a Protection from Evil. This implies that the rest of the party is now with them but doesn't know they are being controlled. However, each member of the party does get a DC 15 Sense Motive check to realize they are being controlled. No one has made that easy of a check in two weeks?
Personally I as a GM would not even require a check for the party to notice that two of their party members suddenly started eating dirt to the exclusion of all other activities.
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Well, you broke rule 1: NEVER SPLIT THE PARTY.
There were two of you alone against an advanced Vampire. I would be thankful the DM decided to humiliate your characters with a relatively harmless interpretation of dominate person instead of killing you and turning your character into vampire spawn for the rest of the party to fight.
It may be story based metagaming, but the fact that you weren't killed means there will be an opportunity to escape. You may get new saves to break free, and NPC with break enchantment may show up. Your friends may find you. You may hear rumors of some particularly tasty dirt and set off in search for it as it's better dirt than the dirt where you are. Just be patient and look for an opportunity to present itself.
And maybe next time, don't split the party.
Well, you broke rule 1: NEVER SPLIT THE PARTY.
There were two of you alone against an advanced Vampire. I would be thankful the DM decided to humiliate your characters with a relatively harmless interpretation of dominate person instead of killing you and turning your character into vampire spawn for the rest of the party to fight.
It may be story based metagaming, but the fact that you weren't killed means there will be an opportunity to escape. You may get new saves to break free, and NPC with break enchantment may show up. Your friends may find you. You may hear rumors of some particularly tasty dirt and set off in search for it as it's better dirt than the dirt where you are. Just be patient and look for an opportunity to present itself.
And maybe next time, don't split the party.
The tone of this post comes off to me as staggeringly condescending. Hopefully it was intended as humor but it sure didn't come off that way.
First, there were three of them not two since the OP says there was a witness but he got torn to bits.
Second, you are simply making the assumption that any party split was intentional. Perhaps the party was separated by a trap or something. Even if they did willingly split the party there may have been a good reason for doing so. To imply that there is NEVER sufficient reason to split the party is ignorant.
Third, the GM's interpretation isn't "relatively harmless". Most players have limited amounts of time to devote to gaming and to have precious game time devoted to sitting there doing nothing while others have fun because your character is being punished for a bad decision, which we still don't know this was, is ridiculous.
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Sorry, it was meant to be light-hearted, tone doesn't always convey well in text. But seriously, it's a much better outcome than the poor guy who got killed, and it's an easy DC 15 sense motive check to recognize the domination.
And while it's possible to get separated, it should be avoided whenever possible, as it by definition leads to some of the players waiting around doing nothing while the other players do things, wasting their precious gaming time.
This outcome is better than death or becoming an undead npc or being ordered to find and attack your friends. It has a built in expiration date. It is easy to spot that something is wrong. The OP's question to retire the character over this is what was ridiculous.
Sorry, it was meant to be light-hearted, tone doesn't always convey well in text. But seriously, it's a much better outcome than the poor guy who got killed, and it's an easy DC 15 sense motive check to recognize the domination.
And while it's possible to get separated, it should be avoided whenever possible, as it by definition leads to some of the players waiting around doing nothing while the other players do things, wasting their precious gaming time.
This outcome is better than death or becoming an undead npc or being ordered to find and attack your friends. It has a built in expiration date. It is easy to spot that something is wrong. The OP's question to retire the character over this is what was ridiculous.
No worries, sorry for misinterpreting your post. As you said it is hard to interpret tone here. You are right there is definitely something wrong with this scenario and retiring a character in this circumstance shouldn't even be a thought.
Er, I shall clarify some stuff XD
Okay, so. We WERE all together in this tomb. We fought and defeated 2 vampires. 3 of the 6 of us ran after the mist because we assumed (none of us had high enough knowledge religion to know anything useful about them) they were doing something suspicious or running away. The other 3 continued on. The other 3 ran into said advanced vampire and for some reason, the brute of the party decided to now be the face of the party and be a diplomat instead of fight her (for once). She just wanted to leave, and in fact, wanted us to kill her brother. So those 3 continued into the tombs and were fighting a GIANT worm.
The other 3 of us went out of the tombs and were destroying the coffins in the caravan she came in to make it so the two that misted away would die. She then got mad at us, fight ensued, one of the three of us decided he didn't care to help, so it degraded to 2 vs her. She killed one of the 2 of us, then finally told me "Let's see how much dirt you can eat without killing yourself" (Exact quote). I failed. Then I failed the second save for that being obviously against my nature. Then, the one who ran away came back and tried to help, even though by that point it was useless cuz one member was dead, and one was under domination. He was then dominated (failed both saves, original and against nature one), and also started eating dirt. The rest of the party below has no reason to leave the tomb until they're done the quest. As far as they know, we just ran outside to find the other two vampire's coffins.
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Thing is, this should have no long term repercussions at all.
"I ate some dirt."
"Me too."
"Cool let's go."
Dominate can't make you do something destructive to the point of incapacitating yourself. The order "Keep eating it until you almost kill yourself" (essentially) is an invalid order for Dominate.
Best case scenario, it simply should not have worked, since self-destructive orders are null.
Worst case, you eat a double handful apiece, feel really full, and get back to fighting.
None of the circumstances you mentioned change that. The interference of your party is irrelevant to this.
Yeah, you guys split up for terrible, terrible reasons. Just talk to the GM and ask him/her when this exercise in "humility" is going to be over, since until then you have nothing to do.
That being said, you won't have to eat dirt for long anyways. Like people said, it's not very healthy at all (and even getting sick is going to be against the rules and free you from the domination). This will actually last around five rounds, if you eat quick.
And this is what KC's wacky Google search history is for! I get the strange ads so you guys don't have to.
So the main danger is parasites, as well as the whole "I'm eating stuff my stomach cannot process" issue. I'd say a cupfull of dirt is as much as you can take before snapping out of it.
EDIT: Guys, keep in mind that she said "as much as you can without dying". That could be interpreted as, "take as much as possible without hurting yourself". Dubious, but I'd let it slide as long as the intent was harmless.
Okay. So technically, even if we ate enough to throw up, then continued eating, that would be considered too self-destructive to really be a constant deal?
Yes. It is making you vomit. That is the definition of self-destructive.
Well, technically, this is. But you get my point.
Fair enough!
"Let's see how much dirt you can eat without killing yourself" (Exact quote).
After eating one handful: looks at each other. "Well that didn't kill us." and then be done. You met the criteria. How much dirt can you eat without killing yourself? One handful. Ate it and did not die, domination over.
Okay. So technically, even if we ate enough to throw up, then continued eating, that would be considered too self-destructive to really be a constant deal?
Yes I would say the wording is obviously self-destructive as your character doesn't know how much dirt he would have to eat without killing or harming himself. He can't know which handful of dirt is going to harm or kill him until after it is eaten so he would consider each handful to be possibly harmful or deadly. So the dominate should technically have failed.
That said now that we have the entire scenario it seems like, though the command your GM came up with on the spur of the moment may be shaky, the situation itself isn't unreasonable. It sounds like in game time only a short time has passed since the party split so there hasn't been time for your friends to start worrying. They still think you are up dealing with the coffins. If the vampire had given you the command to sit there and count grains of sand you would be in the exact same situation with even a legit use of dominate.
So given all that I would sit tight and hope that before long your friends realize something is up when you don't return promptly from what should be a task taking only 20-30 minutes.
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I think you eat dirt until you start to feel sick, at which point continuing would be really self-destructive.
That's not the first handful; you know that probably won't hurt you. Nor the second handful; probably still not really dangerous. At some point you'll feel it starting to be bad though.
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If you exaggerate the "it could be bad" thing, you also can't order a level 10 fighter to fight a single unarmed kobold, because the kobold could roll a crit every round while the fighter rolls '1's every time. It could happen. But it's so unlikely that it doesn't enter into decision making.
Mostly because the party has a habit of continuing on adventures as long as need be, and we've split up a couple of times, so they won't find it strange for us to be gong, to be honest.
And the woman killed a cohort, and likely wants me to kind of be ruined as long as possible. I just don't picture the effect ending soon.
To be honest, you are really lucky that the vampire didnt command you to kill your allies. Thats 99% of commands.
There are a lot of people in this thread that think dominate is more like suggestion lol.
A couple things:
1. Vampires are pretty smart, and know how their own ability works. The gm might not know exactly, causing this error. To me that seems like a lame kind of "gotcha", like "Ha ha you didn't know the rules so your vampire acted like he hasn't been a vampire for many years and has no idea how his magic powers work at all! I'm free!". Just retcon it to "Play in the dirt" and no problem there.
2. There is no "not dominated" time, where you get to act normally. You are dominated at all times, which is why you act weird.
3. The range is unlimited, and the vampire only needs to concentrate for 6 seconds a day in order to maintain control.
Welcome to dominate person! Yes, vampires are huge a!@++@@s and this spell is really, really brutal. Getting it as a standard action is pretty insane when used properly, lol. You are pretty much screwed unless you have some high level magic available. Protection from evil only suppresses it for the duration if you make another save, it doesn't dispel it.
1) How do you know how old the vampire is? Maybe she isn't that old and hasn't used the power before. Yes, had she given a command to "count grains of sand" that would have had the same effect.
2) While you are right there is never a non-dominated time you are able to take activities that are necessary to sustain life.
3) No one said the range was limited that I am aware of.
Finally Protection from Evil gives you another Will save. Dominate says Will negates. So once you save you are free.
Also your suggestions are an example of poor GMing. The primary goal of the game is for everyone to have fun and using a power in such a way that you know is going to ruin the game for one or more players is just a sign of a lousy GM. So yes as a GM I could have the Vampire use Dominate Person on the party wizard and tell him to teleport to the random desert and count grains of sand but how does that add to the fun for that player? Your comments sound like a GM who has a "GM vs the players attitude" and is only having fun when he/she is "winning" by screwing over the players.
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I hate DMs like you just fyi.There are a lot of people in this thread that think dominate is more like suggestion lol.
A couple things:
1. Vampires are pretty smart, and know how their own ability works. The gm might not know exactly, causing this error. To me that seems like a lame kind of "gotcha", like "Ha ha you didn't know the rules so your vampire acted like he hasn't been a vampire for many years and has no idea how his magic powers work at all! I'm free!". Just retcon it to "Play in the dirt" and no problem there.
2. There is no "not dominated" time, where you get to act normally. You are dominated at all times, which is why you act weird.
3. The range is unlimited, and the vampire only needs to concentrate for 6 seconds a day in order to maintain control.
Welcome to dominate person! Yes, vampires are huge a#&@*&!s and this spell is really, really brutal. Getting it as a standard action is pretty insane when used properly, lol. You are pretty much screwed unless you have some high level magic available. Protection from evil only suppresses it for the duration if you make another save, it doesn't dispel it.
Why? He didn't advocate doing this or anything like it to players, he just made some factual statements about how Dominate Person works. Which are true for the most part.
How does knowing the rules make someone a "DM you hate"? I rather thought rules knowledge was a substantial part of the job...
That isn't how I gm btw, thanks for implying that!
What you seemed to be saying:
An NPC has taken control of a PC but left a loophole in the wording. The player tries to use that loophole to escape. The GM, you say, should retcon it so that the NPC said something else instead, because vampires should be infallible. Thus, the player continues to have no agency in the game.That is the type of GMing that some people hate.