Using Dominate Person against Party

[Seems]

So my group is about to go up against some vampire spawn, and I'm relishing the shock on their faces when I use Dominate Person against them. (They have big egos and need to be cut down to size occasionally - I don't actually want them dead!)

I've read other Dominate Person threads but I'm unclear on a couple of things. So the barbarian fails his save. I'm assuming the vampire spawn can immediately give a command (as a swift action?) for the barbarian to attack his allies, instead of waiting to the next round?

Since I would judge this against the barbarian's nature, does that immediately give him a second roll to save, or is the initial command considered part of the first save? Would he get a roll each round?

How well does he have to fight - would he have to use full attack, if possible, or would a single attack suffice? Just trying to judge the level of "resistance" he can put up or does he have to fulfill the command to the best of his ability?

Thanks in advance!

[Matthew Downie]

Seems wrote:

I'm assuming the vampire spawn can immediately give a command (as a swift action?) for the barbarian to attack his allies, instead of waiting to the next round?

Dominate Person says: "Changing your orders or giving a dominated creature a new command is a move action." I suppose you might get a free command when casting the spell?

Seems wrote:

Since I would judge this against the barbarian's nature, does that immediately give him a second roll to save, or is the initial command considered part of the first save? Would he get a roll each round?

"...any subject forced to take actions against its nature receives a new saving throw with a +2 bonus."

There's no exception for an initial command, so this should happen immediately. I'd suggest it only happens once per command given.

Seems wrote:

How well does he have to fight - would he have to use full attack, if possible, or would a single attack suffice?

If there's a common language, the dominator can force the target to do whatever he says. So unless the command is worded poorly, he will attack to the best of his ability, raging and full-attacking.

(Also: don't forget the power of Protection From Evil.)

[LordKailas]

I had a spellcaster "pretend" that he hadn't noticed that the fighter had been dominated, walked up to him and proceeded to "buff him" with Irresistible Dance. This gave us a few rounds to deal with the dominator without having to worry about the fighter murdering us. Since he had no reason to resist my "buff".

[Meirril]

Just throwing the Red Flag out there. This is an incredibly frustrating thing you're about to do to your group. Unless they have very good emotional maturity they will take this personally and they will be very upset. Dominate Person is basically taking their character from them.

Doing this once is painful, but most people will excuse it. Having an entire group get dominated is basically a game over. As in the players will more than likely want to end the game right there. Be careful with what you've got planned or this could end it on a really bad note.

[blahpers]

It's a more than valid tactic, and one of the reasons that vampires and other such creatures have the CR that they do.

[Meirril]

Just because something is valid doesn't mean its a good idea. Look outside of the game. This is a social function where you're trying to entertain a group of people that most would consider friends. Sure, you want them to feel a challenge, a thrill, to struggle. There is no sense of accomplishment if they just walk over everything.

But there are certain things that just hit below the belt. Anytime you say the worlds 'setting up the party' you really need to examine why you are doing it. While you might have plans to make it all work out later, that doesn't mean the players won't feel betrayed.

Its like the whole 'stranded on a deserted island after a shipwreck and we lost all of our equipment' trope. This fundamentally alters your character in a way that you had no input on. This isn't a consequence of your own decisions. This is the GM tearing you down. The same sort of feeling can come from any mind control.

Some players are cool with it, but its a person to person thing. Some players are very much not cool with it, even a little. And this has the potential to be 'very bad'. So I suggest moderation.

It is kind of like fireballs. Its fine if one enemy throws them around. That changes if 12 enemies start throwing fireballs and they can do it every round. Moderation is important!

[Seems]

Meirril wrote:

Just throwing the Red Flag out there. This is an incredibly frustrating thing you're about to do to your group. Unless they have very good emotional maturity they will take this personally and they will be very upset. Dominate Person is basically taking their character from them.

Doing this once is painful, but most people will excuse it. Having an entire group get dominated is basically a game over. As in the players will more than likely want to end the game right there. Be careful with what you've got planned or this could end it on a really bad note.

This is just a little wake up call, and I'll make sure no more than 1 PC is dominated for the combat. They haven't fought vampire-type creatures before but will know what they're facing beforehand, and will encounter them in their lair so they'll be able to finish them off.

[merpius]

If the encounter is approriate to thier CR, then it probably won't be nearly as frustrating as implied; they still get a save, and if it is CR appropriate, they'll have some chance (decent or not, depending on the target) to succeed at that save.

Yeah, being mind controlled can suck... and for the player it happens to it can be incredibly boring (if the GM actually takes full cotnrol) or kinda devilishly fun (if the GM just gives them orders, but they get to impliment them), or, for some, truly frustrating, but all that is reading the players and trying to make sure that it is something that they'll enjoy.

As the GM, unless the game is a purely tactical type game, I would suggest a) targetting someone who is not going to wipe the entire party and b) targetting someone who would have some fun beating up on their fellow party members.

"a" is probably the more important one; some players will have more tactically oriented/optimized characters than others; if you pick that one, then it could really mess stuff up. A good bet is to figure out which melee character is going to pose less of a problem to the group, and dominate that one. "b" is more about avoiding a single player's feelings being hurt.

As for the actual rules questions; I think it has been covered above quite well, with one exception. Unless the spell itself is "harmless" people know it is a harmful spell; pretending you didn't realize the character is dominated and telling them "here, I'll bufff you" won't work, unless you use one fo the special spells for that (introduced in the Intruigue book, I believe).

[blahpers]

It's Pathfinder. Most players know what sorts of things are possible within it. If the party kicks down the door into a sorcerer cult's lair, they should expect a half dozen fireballs as a result.

I'm not saying to plan to kill your party. I'm saying that domination isn't any more or less of a concern relative to its CR contribution than other abilities. Creatures that can dominate are generally higher CR to compensate--the ability is the equivalent of a 5th-level wizard spell, after all. Do what you (hopefully) always do--start with whatever CR you're aiming for, construct the encounter, playtest it yourself a couple of times to find the pain points, adjust CR if it seems less or more dangerous than a "standard" encounter of that CR, and most importantly play to the perspective and mindset of the NPCs.

Anyway, that's all outside of Rules Questions. The barbarian, barring a successful saving throw, must follow the vampire's commands to the best of his ability, with a single-minded focus on the task. Domination is a powerful effect--hence the 5th-level spell equivalence.

[blahpers]

merpius wrote:

Unless the spell itself is "harmless" people know it is a harmful spell

I'm unfamiliar with this rule. Do you have a citation?

[Decimus Drake]

A number of years back I dominated the party's sorceress and gave her the instruction to destroy the others (it was the final fight of the campaign). She didn't initially get a second save as she considered her action to be in line with her nature. I was anticipating that she's blast them a few times before targeting the one other player character she was attached to and getting making her will save. Instead of blasting them with lightning she proceeded to gleefully polymorph her teammates into ferrets which very much turned the fight in favour of the demons they were up against. She was eventually successful in making a will save; she mentally enslaved the one PC she liked before escaping through a portal to an inter-dimensional city to live out the rest of her days with her new pet. My point is you can't always anticipate how a player will put your commands into action; Dominate should definitely be about giving commands for PCs to implement and not taking direct control.

As for you questions I'd say that the initially command is given when you cast the spell, if the first command you give is against the barbarians nature then they'ed get a second saving throw and finally considering that they solely focus on performing your commands to the exclusion to all others (except for day to day tasks necessary for survival) then I would say they do so to the best of their abilities so be careful what commands you give if you don't want them killing other players.

[Seems]

Wow, thanks for all the excellent advice. The encounter, from CotCT, is 4 vampire spawn with a CR of 8. The Party happens to be 6 x 8th level characters, or APL 9. So it SHOULD be a reasonably easy encounter, although all it takes is one dominated character to wreak some damage. I'll avoid the heavy hitters. I would expect the dominated character to roleplay the domination - they're all mature enough to handle it.

Thanks again for all the help.

[thorin001]

CR is not always a good indicator of how things will go. Anything with a save or lose effect can radically change the game on a couple of bad die rolls, especially when it involves switching sides.

[merpius]

blahpers wrote:

merpius wrote:

Unless the spell itself is "harmless" people know it is a harmful spell

I'm unfamiliar with this rule. Do you have a citation?

I guess, technically, you can claim that it is harmless, and the target can believe you. But why would you take a hated enemy at their word, even if they seemed to think you were their friend? This theoretical dominated character should get both a detect motive (to tell that the caster is bluffing) and a Spellcraft (to tell what spell is being cast) check, to determine the attempt at a ruse. Additionally any onlookers would get such a chance as well, perhaps at a penalty for distance. Speaking of ruse; here's the descriptor that makes a spell into one meant for this tactic;

Quote:

Ruse: The “ruse” descriptor applies to spells that appear to be other, usually more harmless spells in order for the caster to fool her opponents. Spells with the ruse descriptor are easily mistaken for other spells and are intended to confuse even onlookers trained in Spellcraft or Knowledge (arcana). Attempts to identify a ruse spell by its effects, its aura, its components, or other attributes with a skill check treat the spell as though it were a different spell, as indicated in the spell’s description. The one attempting the check can correctly identify the spell only by exceeding the DC by 10. The false spell is typically a level lower than the ruse spell, so skill checks use the DC for the lower-level spell. Even detect magic and most similar spells don’t prevent the caster from being fooled by a ruse spell. Analyze dweomer, greater arcane sight, and similar spells of the same or higher spell level that automatically identify spells reveal a ruse spell for what it is. Ruse spells that mimic harmless spells still list harmless on their saving throw or spell resistance lines; a creature that knows or suspects the true nature of the spell typically chooses to attempt the save. Source: PZO1134.