Dominate Person: does the dominated get a save if the caster attacks him?

[Adahn_Cielo]

For once, not a Dominate Person thread on "in his nature" shenanigans. :P
My PCs are going to fight against a Brain Ooze, and I wanted to make sure I understand the rules right, considering Dominating people it's its whole shtick.

Suppose that our Ooze succesfully dominates the resident AM BARBARIAN: being a smart Ooze, it just tells him to go stand in a corner for the duration of the fight.
Suppose that then the ooze tries to zap the barbarian's brain with its tendrils: does the barbarian get a new save, and if so, when?

I'm guessing that he either gets a new save when he gets attacked (standing there being brain zapped is "against his nature", I'm guessing), or the previously innocuous "stand there" order has become a suicidal one, and so he has to ignore it: but how?

Ooooor I'm just missing a line that tells the effect ends on attack and I'm completely blind. <.<

[wraithstrike]

It doesn't really say that but it does say "Obviously self-destructive orders are not carried out.".

Standing there and letting someone attack you sounds self-destructive to me, but this is really up to the GM without any specific wording that says "you get a save if ___ happens".

[Pizza Lord]

It can certainly be a judgement call in a lot of situations, ordering a peasant to fight a dragon is not technically self-destructive due to the random variables of combat (the peasant could still run away due to dragon fear or something) assuming there's a viable way for the peasant to attack the dragon and it isn't waiting at the end of a long obviously death-trapped hallway. As players we obviously know that it's a death sentence, but an in-game character might not know the extreme CR difference or might believe tales of ordinary heroes accomplishing extraordinary (even if we also know as players that that peasant ain't gonna be one of those... unless he does somehow survive)

If the ooze commanded the barbarian to stand in a corner, he could still defend himself, dodge any attacks even from the brain ooze. Assuming the brain ooze ordered him not to move and just stand there, the brain ooze's tentacle attack might still not cause the order to be considered a suicidal or self-destructive attack. This is again a judgement call, on the one hand 1d6 electricity damage could kill you, but the attack generally results in intelligence damage which means you'll probably be knocked comatose long before you're killed. Again, it might fall back to what a character knows. If he's never taken a hit from a brain ooze, then when he gets hit he takes 1 or 2 electricity, he's probably not going to legitimately consider that a threat on the 'self-destructive' scale until he gets much lower in health.

Obviously, an enemy with an axe about to coup-de-gras you is probably much more obviously dangerous to your health, in such a situation you could certainly rule he's not going to stand still for it (though he's still dominated as that doesn't break the effect).

It's along similar lines where any player automatically states that by their very nature they resist domination and so should basically not only get a save against everything but also at a +2. It's gonna be one of those situations where you just have to realize there's no way to blueprint out every possible crazy thing a dominator might ask someone to do and what the current situation around them is.

[Drahliana Moonrunner]

Dominate Person is an extremely powerful ability, much more so than a mere Charm.

Dominated is powerful enough that if I managed to dominate a barbarian, I can confidently use him against his party, not waste that success by having him stand in a corner.

[Adahn_Cielo]

Thank you everyone! Looks like I'll have to make a judgement call on that, let's hope things won't get too complicated.

"Drahliana wrote:

Dominated is powerful enough that if I managed to dominate a barbarian, I can confidently use him against his party, not waste that success by having him stand in a corner.

Making him attack the party would give him a save though: I agree that I'll probably go for that and just have a clean and cut "save every time you are attacking your friends".

Just wanted to try to understand what would happen if things happened like in the OP.

[Pizza Lord]

Adahn_Cielo wrote:

Making him attack the party would give him a save though: I agree that I'll probably go for that and just have a clean and cut "save every time you are attacking your friends".

Maybe I am misreading this, but just in case you mean he would get a saving throw every time or round he had to attack a friend:

I don't think a target gets a saving throw for each action it takes that's against its nature but for each command that would contain actions against its nature. I think it only gets a save against the command itself. If it fails (with the +2) then it's already assumed that the command was strong enough to override the resistance and any actions from that command are just the same command. So a command to "Attack your friends" would continue to apply for the entire combat (which could be his friends running away or falling unconscious not necessarily killing them. Surrendering teammates would still likely be attacked.) Certainly a dominator could later command him to kill unconscious allies, but that is a whole other command. Again, if you meant per command and not per action taken for the command, then don't worry about it.

I don't read the line, 'Subjects resist this control, and any subject forced to take actions against its nature receives a new saving throw with a +2 bonus.' as meaning they get a save for every action taken that is out of nature, only against a command that would contain such actions. Otherwise let's say you dominate someone to burn down an orphanage. They would find this abhorrent so they get a save +2. They don't get a save for every round (at +2) that they spend walking down the street, setting up the fire, and igniting the fire. That would be two saves a round assuming two move actions to walk the hour trip to the orphanage at least. Then you might have the player rationalize "I am going to burn it down with oil.' (which is not unreasonable if not ordered to do it otherwise) so he goes looking for a bunch of lamp oil at the market (he wouldn't be allowed to shop around for better prices if he found oil at a fair price) but a player might start taking rational and legal actions that extend the duration of what he's doing just to get multiple saving throws against the command.
"Oh I really, really want to prove I'm not trying to avoid burning this orphanage down, and I know I got 200 extra saving throws from buying all that oil... and then of course the extra time buying a horse and wagon to cart it, cause it too much oil to carry. But I want to make sure I pour oil around the entire building, and then around the perimeter of the yard too because that's part of the orphanage, so that's another hour of work so... 10 rounds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour... 600 rounds with 2 actions that are against my nature per round... 1,200 saving throws at +2 before I light the match. One's bound to be a 20 eventually, so let's just say I never even started and I attacked the caster an hour ago. Okay?"

Similarly, it could mean that a character with 5 attacks might potentially get 5 saves every round (though technically that one full-round attack action) whereas someone else might only get 2. Even if you do go by 'action' a person taking full-round actions would get 1 save per round and someone else could continually try and get twice as many by taking 2 actions, a standard and a move (possibly more if they can pull of a swift action that applies while following a command against their nature.)

So again, if the barbarian is ordered to attack his party, he would do so until they were gone. defeated, or he received a new order that allowed a save and he throws off the effect. Of course, you also have to watch for dominators trying to slip extra commands in as well. A command to "Burn down the orphanage, kill the headmistress (your wife), eat an apple, and then deface the altar to your god in the front yard." would actually be 4 commands, 3 of which probably allow for a saving throw at +2, and if any pass he throws off the dominate and doesn't have to do any of them. He wouldn't burn down the orphanage if he fails then get a save to see if he moves on to the next order in line, it would be all at the time of the order. Of course, you could also rule that only command can be dominant at a time.