wraithstrike wrote: Tarantula wrote:
And you've still yet failed to identify who the one is. Possible questions you've posed:
I was not trying to identify anything at this point. All of these things must be answered in a certain order, and I told D.Rossi I would give a basic example of how I would go about doing so. I have already refused to write a thesis, but a basic model should be enough to show how a DM can account for player actions. The player only has so many resources.
My point is simply that there is no one-fool proof method to hide the chain-binding. That is why I say it is only a matter of when. If anyone comes up with a method then I will admit I can not do it by the rules. It really does not matter in the long-run because I would not allow chain-binding at my table, and I would simply use an Aeon to handle the situation since they are the guardians of reality. Of course I would allow the player a knowledge check to know about the possible consequences before he started his attempt.
My main issue with the Efreet is coming up with a fair way for them to get access to casters and/or determine how many caster classed Efreet exist without it looking like DM Fiat, but I guess that would depend on the campaign world.
Maybe they just go looking for an Aeon. I don't know if there are any Inevitables that would interfere on their behalf. Depends on what the wishes were used for.
Also, one Inevitable gets miffed if a contract was broken.
Did the caster promise to not kill the Efretti if wishes were granted?
Goth Guru wrote:
Depends on what the wishes were used for.
Also, one Inevitable gets miffed if a contract was broken.
Did the caster promise to not kill the Efretti if wishes were granted?
There never was a contract about granting wishes.
It was either unconditional servitude for caster level / day, or outright Dominate Monster, and then instructing him to use Wish, followed by trapping or killing him.
There might be one Kolyarut with possibly 7 Arbiters serving him(it), working in Golarion. He would regard spellcasters that vanished untraceably as persons of interest. One that used abjurations and summoning as well as violated alignment in the past would become a prime suspect. Assuming they cannot trace the suspects by any means, they will wait for their return, forever. They will continue to try to find a way around the "Blackdoor" forever. If I call this one John Law the 14th, you will have to give ones for other prime material planes different names.
In this case John Law the 14th would not know there was no contract.
Warning, my spelling is very bad and I like puns.
Diego Rossi wrote: thepuregamer wrote:
Also, you guys are wrong about mindblank. If my question does not give information about the mindblanked target, it works just fine.
"Who has killed xx?" fall exactly under mind blank.
As far as any divination go that "who" is invisible, intangible and undetectable.
thepuregamer wrote:
You are also not limited to what the kidnapped efreet knew because you are obtaining information from a deity. Yes commune says that deity's are not "necessarily omniscient" but this phrase has the same meaning as they are possibly omniscient. So once again, you guys are hiding behind the hope that a DM decides things in a manner that is most helpful to you.
So if the DM is on your side when deciding how efreets handle their own being kidnapped/killed(ie they don't care), when determining how little they know about avoiding wish perversion(they have no extra knowledge about wishing), and when determining how much god's know and will give away through commune(god's are always of limited knowledge), then you are probably safe from being found out. But those are quite a few things you need from your dm in order to make it happen.
1. We are not asking who has killed x. Mind blank may only block the question if it would give information about the protected person. Was the killer/kidnapper a human is only giving information about the binder if he is a human. So god job countering nothing.
Quote:
Ok, I pit the protection of omniscient and omnipotent deity against the search power of your omniscient and omnipotent deity, who win?
After all my deity want to keep me alive as a high level believer give him/her prestige and someone to use for his/her scopes.
The norm in any game with multiple deities is that the single good is not omnipotent.
Also, you guys weren't relying on divine protection before to make it out of this safe.
So you have just added one more thing to the list that you have to secure.
And considering that you are likely to be of evil alignment if you are doing this, you shouldn't feel too safe if you are relying on an evil god to keep you hidden. He might just make a deal with the efreets since they have much more to offer.
So still not a foolproof plan.
Also it is ridiculous to call DM fiat when you are pitting yourself against several magical abilities(wish, commune, whether or not god's are omniscient, etc) that all require a DM's arbitration. You expect each and every one of these decisions to go in your favor or all of a sudden the DM is out to get you. Its a load of crap.
If you want to know the outcome ahead of time, pick a task where you know exactly how powerful and capable an enemy can be.
Also in forgotten realms, god's were close to omniscient toward acts related to their portfolios. So there is definitely some precedence toward god's not being limited by mind blank anyway.
Goth Guru wrote: There might be one Kolyarut with possibly 7 Arbiters serving him(it), working in Golarion. He would regard spellcasters that vanished untraceably as persons of interest. One that used abjurations and summoning as well as violated alignment in the past would become a prime suspect. Assuming they cannot trace the suspects by any means, they will wait for their return, forever. They will continue to try to find a way around the "Blackdoor" forever. If I call this one John Law the 14th, you will have to give ones for other prime material planes different names.
In this case John Law the 14th would not know there was no contract.
Warning, my spelling is very bad and I like puns.
Err... what?
thepuregamer wrote: 1. We are not asking who has killed x. Mind blank may only block the question if it would give information about the protected person. Was the killer/kidnapper a human is only giving information about the binder if he is a human. So god job countering nothing. You can repeat it as often as you want, asking whether the killer is an elf and getting a no is information gained by means of a divination spell about the mindblanked killer.
Did you cast a divination spell? Yes. Have you received the information that he is not an elf? Yes. -> Blocked.
Quote:
Also, you guys weren't relying on divine protection before to make it out of this safe.
So you have just added one more thing to the list that you have to secure.
And considering that you are likely to be of evil alignment if you are doing this, you shouldn't feel too safe if you are relying on an evil god to keep you hidden. He might just make a deal with the efreets since they have much more to offer.
So still not a foolproof plan.
The divine intervention was a snark comment about the searcher obviously being omnipotent and omniscient, which is ridiculous. Do make the effort to not only read parts of the thread.
Quote: Also it is ridiculous to call DM fiat when you are pitting yourself against several magical abilities(wish, commune, whether or not god's are omniscient, etc) that all require a DM's arbitration. You expect each and every one of these decisions to go in your favor or all of a sudden the DM is out to get you. Its a load of crap. All these effects have some very clear rules. Any effect BEYOND those rules require arbitration, which can swing in either direction. The entire argument is based on "aside from DM fiat, there is no reliable way on catching the chainbinder by RAW". And "rocks fall, everyone dies" is the worst solution a DM can possibly take - a sure sign of the DM being desperate, or an outright jerk.
If you argue DM fiat as a solution, you have missed the point of the discussion.
Quote: Also in forgotten realms, god's were close to omniscient toward acts related to their portfolios. So there is definitely some precedence toward god's not being limited by mind blank anyway. Gods may not be, but divination spells - like, say, COMMUNE - very much are. So unless you try to champion falling rocks (or divine intervention)... what exactly is your point?
Darkheyr wrote:
Quote: 1. We are not asking who has killed x. Mind blank may only block the question if it would give information about the protected person. Was the killer/kidnapper a human is only giving information about the binder if he is a human. So god job countering nothing. You can repeat it as often as you want, asking whether the killer is an elf and getting a no is information gained by means of a divination spell about the mindblanked killer.
Did you cast a divination spell? Yes. Have you received the information that he is not an elf? Yes. -> Blocked.
or there is another equally valid interpretation. If the killer is not an elf, then I am not getting information about him. I am getting information about every elf(namely that they did not kill/kidnap the missing efreet). It is not information about him. Thus not blocked.
Quote:
All these effects have some very clear rules. Any effect BEYOND those rules require arbitration, which can swing in either direction. The entire argument is based on "aside from DM fiat, there is no reliable way on catching the chainbinder by RAW". And "rocks fall, everyone dies" is the worst solution a DM can possibly take - a sure sign of the DM being desperate, or an outright jerk.
If you argue DM fiat as a solution, you have missed the point of the discussion.
me wrote:
Also in forgotten realms, god's were close to omniscient toward acts related to their portfolios. So there is definitely some precedence toward god's not being limited by mind blank anyway.
Gods may not be, but divination spells - like, say, COMMUNE - very much are. So unless you try to champion falling rocks (or divine intervention)... what exactly is your point?
Point 1, if god's are omniscient, they will be able to give you accurate answers to any questions that are not blocked by mind blank. Furthermore, if mindblank blocks your question, you are still getting information anyway.
point 2, I disagree that it is the same as saying rock's fall everyone dies because these are all things that a DM must decide.
1. He must decide how much an efreeti society can get from their wishes.
2. He must decide how quickly and in what way they will react to your kidnapping their fellow efreets.
3. He must decide how much the god contacted through commune knows.
4. He must decide what efreets have at their disposal in terms of resources and allies(other outsiders for example)
He might even have made these decisions long before you attempted to kidnap the efreets. Gods' might be all knowing in areas related to their portfolios like in forgotten realms. You go kidnapping or killing efreets and they come a calling to the god of death and your activities are definitely in his portfolio. He might have already drawn up an efreeti society that has advanced knowledge of wishes.
You assume he must decide each of these in the way that suits you best which is ridiculous.
Like I said, you are the fool who picks enemies that have access to several powers that are defined specifically by the DM. Your choice of enemy is the real mistake. It is not "rocks fall everybody dies", it is "you press a button that you know has definite consequences but do it anyway".
Furthermore, a DM is not even limited to killing everyone. He could just kill the solo high level caster doing the bad deeds and leave the party intact. He could make this the start of a campaign where you are hounded by more and more efreets until you resolve the situation in some manner. He is not
Darkheyr wrote: Goth Guru wrote: There might be one Kolyarut with possibly 7 Arbiters serving him(it), working in Golarion. He would regard spellcasters that vanished untraceably as persons of interest. One that used abjurations and summoning as well as violated alignment in the past would become a prime suspect. Assuming they cannot trace the suspects by any means, they will wait for their return, forever. They will continue to try to find a way around the "Blackdoor" forever. If I call this one John Law the 14th, you will have to give ones for other prime material planes different names.
In this case John Law the 14th would not know there was no contract.
Warning, my spelling is very bad and I like puns.
Err... what?
... To explain,
1. Someone claimed Inevitables would not be after the wizard. Not specificly, but if a wizard vanished, and was suspicious, there would be an Inevitable waiting should he ever return. Either never return or be ready to prove you did not break a bargain.
2. Blackdoor is my code word for something that is blocked, such as information about a MindBlanked being.
3. The bit at the end is my Sig. I will add Signiture to it from now on.
Signiture
Warning, my spelling is very bad and I like puns.
thepuregamer wrote:
or there is another equally valid interpretation. If the killer is not an elf, then I am not getting information about him. I am getting information about every elf(namely that they did not kill/kidnap the missing efreet). It is not information about him. Thus not blocked.
Except that it is NOT an interpretation. You cast Commune, and the spell tells you its a non-elf, or not an elf. You now have information about the mindblanked caster. Thus, it does not work. And even if it did, it would only work as long as there is no other random elf with mind blank active, so it would still be completely useless to you.
Quote:
Point 1, if god's are omniscient, they will be able to give you accurate answers to any questions that are not blocked by mind blank. Furthermore, if mindblank blocks your question, you are still getting information anyway.
Of course they will. Who said otherwise? The problem is that even if the deity knows, mind blank is going to block your attempt at gathering information about the caster through divination spells or devices, so that doesnt help you.
Plus, Commune doesnt even necessarily put you in contact with the deity itself. And no, you wont. All you will get is "unclear", "I don't know" or similar replies, which helps you... not at all. The deity or outsider just might not know, the killer might be mind-blanked, or you simply formulated a less than perfect question.
Quote: point 2, I disagree that it is the same as saying rock's fall everyone dies because these are all things that a DM must decide. And again: These things have certain clear rules that the DM does not need to decide about. Unless you make up new abilities, creatures, spells or exclude the Efreet from wish perversion or otherwise go beyond RAW, I maintain that its next to impossible to stop the caster from doing this. So far, noone has been able to provide a solution that did not include DM fiat
Quote: Like I said, you are the fool who picks enemies that have access to several powers that are defined specifically by the DM. Spells have specific descriptions. Even Wish. Again, if you go beyond that, you are not following RAW, and the solution is therefore irrelevant to this discussion.
Quote: "you press a button that you know has definite consequences but do it anyway". I can't see any.
For some reason - which, as I suspect, is the fact that you have not read the thread - you seem to believe that you need to adjucate RAI, or this situation in an actual game. You do not. Noone here would allow this sort of cheese in their game. I probably would even limit Mind Blank somewhat - problems with Telepathic Bond or Comprehend Languages come to mind. What started this discussion is my suggestion to the OP to talk about any sort of wish-binding with his DM beforehand, because it is a recipe for disaster - since RAW nothing stops people from chainbinding them if done properly, and breaking or adjusting rules is something a DM needs to be very careful about.
The very fact that 400 posts later people still weren't able to provide one that isn't dependant on interpretation, setting and falling rocks already proves my point that trying this in actual play can lead to nothing but trouble. We merely keep arguing because we are curious whether there IS some obscure way, possibly introduced with the new rules Pathfinder brought to the discussion.
Goth Guru wrote:
To explain,
1. Someone claimed Inevitables would not be after the wizard. Not specificly, but if a wizard vanished, and was suspicious, there would be an Inevitable waiting should he ever return. Either never return or be ready to prove you did not break a bargain.
2. Blackdoor is my code word for something that is blocked, such as information about a MindBlanked being.
3. The bit at the end is my Sig. I will add Signiture to it from now on.
Signiture
Warning, my spelling is very bad and I like puns.
... Why would he be suspicious? Of what? Why would he even vanish? He merely casts mind blank, and whether he did the deed or not, Commune won't get a thing about it.
And even inevitables are utterly unable to divine information about mind blanked targets.
I agree that this type of inevitable that hunts after Wish-misusers would be after the caster if it ever found it. For some reason, I can't find that type in the bestiary however... Did they change or omit that one?
However - an Efreet invasion of the prime would also draw attention from lhaksharut inevitables...
Darkheyr wrote: thepuregamer wrote:
or there is another equally valid interpretation. If the killer is not an elf, then I am not getting information about him. I am getting information about every elf(namely that they did not kill/kidnap the missing efreet). It is not information about him. Thus not blocked.
Except that it is NOT an interpretation. You cast Commune, and the spell tells you its a non-elf, or not an elf. You now have information about the mindblanked caster. Thus, it does not work. And even if it did, it would only work as long as there is no other random elf with mind blank active, so it would still be completely useless to you.
Quote:
I still disagree, you are getting information about people other than the binder. There might be elvish casters that are mind blanked at the time of the casting but that is not definite, meaning there will be some point in the future where you are not safe.
Quote:
Point 1, if god's are omniscient, they will be able to give you accurate answers to any questions that are not blocked by mind blank. Furthermore, if mindblank blocks your question, you are still getting information anyway.
Of course they will. Who said otherwise? The problem is that even if the deity knows, mind blank is going to block your attempt at gathering information about the caster through divination spells or devices, so that doesnt help you.
Plus, Commune doesnt even necessarily put you in contact with the deity itself. And no, you wont. All you will get is "unclear", "I don't know" or similar replies, which helps you... not at all. The deity or outsider just might not know, the killer might be mind-blanked, or you simply formulated a less than perfect question.
Except as you just said, commune doesn't necessarily get you the got and the god doesn't necessarily know the answer to your question. This is equivalent to saying commune might get the efreets the information they need to find you. Thank you for agreeing that you do not have a foolproof plan that keeps you safe all the time.
Quote:
Quote: point 2, I disagree that it is the same as saying rock's fall everyone dies because these are all things that a DM must decide. And again: These things have certain clear rules that the DM does not need to decide about. Unless you make up new abilities, creatures, spells or exclude the Efreet from wish perversion or otherwise go beyond RAW, I maintain that its next to impossible to stop the caster from doing this. So far, noone has been able to provide a solution that did not include DM fiat
No you are wrong again. The RAW for wish say. "does several things plus more at DM's discretion." It is in the RAW that wish might do more. Commune can get you answers from a god and it says that gods might be but are not necessarily omniscient(meaning the DM must decide again RAW). This is not the same as the DM arbitrarily boosting the save dc of fireball by 10 and increasing the damage dice to 100d6. In fact, unlike a random super fireball of death, your caster likely knows all these things ahead of time anyway. They know that wish can do more and some of those who try to get more out of it meet horrible ends.
Inside your own argument you are already assuming certain DM decisions.
1. Minimum effects of wish.
2. Minimum effects of commune(with little access to gods and gods do not likely know the information the efreets want to find out)
3. There are tons of high lvl casters.
4. There are tons of efreets and thus several missing efreets go unnoticed while at the same time resources for finding missing efreets are limited(this would contradict the relative abundance of efreets part)
I repeat, the DM "must" make decisions about those spells, efreet society and material plane society and you can't get around that some of these decisions directly impact the viability of chain-binding.
Quote: Except as you just said, commune doesn't necessarily get you the got and the god doesn't necessarily know the answer to your question. This is equivalent to saying commune might get the efreets the information they need to find you. Thank you for agreeing that you do not have a foolproof plan that keeps you safe all the time. ...I don't even know what you're rambling about now.
Quote: No you are wrong again. The RAW for wish say. "does several things plus more at DM's discretion." Yes. Thus it requires going BEYOND THE NORMAL LIMITS OF THE SPELL, which, even for Efreet, is subject to perversion. And applies for the players, equally.
Going beyond specific spell descriptions also opens a wholly different can of worms, because the player are using the same spells. Chain-casting Commune like some people suggest isn't even necessarily impossible, and it STILL creates issues in game. Especially if it got around mind blank. (Which it doesn't.)
Quote: Commune can get you answers from a god and it says that gods might be but are not necessarily omniscient(meaning the DM must decide again RAW). Except that it doesn't matter, because Commune is still blocked by Mind Blank. Now, if you use Sending, and your deity bothers to reply, go ahead. Just don't be surprised if your party starts using Sending that way, too.
Quote: They know that wish can do more and some of those who try to get more out of it meet horrible ends. Including Efreet.
Are you suggesting to allow wish effects for Efreet which you wouldn't for your players? Hi falling rocks.
Besides - not even Wish breaks Mind Blank. So half of the issues you could create with it don't matter anyway.
I still see nothing that isn't dependant on specific interpretations of RAI, falling rocks, or settings.
Darkheyr wrote: Goth Guru wrote:
To explain,
1. Someone claimed Inevitables would not be after the wizard. Not specificly, but if a wizard vanished, and was suspicious, there would be an Inevitable waiting should he ever return. Either never return or be ready to prove you did not break a bargain.
2. Blackdoor is my code word for something that is blocked, such as information about a MindBlanked being.
3. The bit at the end is my Sig. I will add Signiture to it from now on.
Signiture
Warning, my spelling is very bad and I like puns.
... Why would he be suspicious? Of what? Why would he even vanish? He merely casts mind blank, and whether he did the deed or not, Commune won't get a thing about it.
And even inevitables are utterly unable to divine information about mind blanked targets.
I agree that this type of inevitable that hunts after Wish-misusers would be after the caster if it ever found it. For some reason, I can't find that type in the bestiary however... Did they change or omit that one?
However - an Efreet invasion of the prime would also draw attention from lhaksharut inevitables... The Kolyarut is on page 163 of the Bestiary 2.
John Law the 14th is suspicious of any caster who word of mouth indicates they were well on their way to summoning Dijin, but vanished in a way that does not allow any informational spells to find them.
He will even be suspicious of a dragon which always has Mind Blank up.
(He may have a device that lets him communicate with other Kolyaruts on other planes, so some adventurers may go after him for loot, but that's not very relavent.)
Signiture
Warning, my spelling is very bad and I like puns.
edited some of the confusion out wrote: Except as you just said, commune doesn't necessarily get you the god and the god doesn't necessarily know the answer to your question. This is equivalent to saying commune might get the efreets the information they need to find you. Thank you for agreeing that you do not have a foolproof plan that keeps you safe all the time. Quote:
...I don't even know what you're rambling about now.
I had mistakes in that sentence. If you can't undestand now well thats too bad.
Quote:
Quote: No you are wrong again. The RAW for wish say. "does several things plus more at DM's discretion." Yes. Thus it requires going BEYOND THE NORMAL LIMITS OF THE SPELL, which, even for Efreet, is subject to perversion. And applies for the players, equally.
Well actually the spell isn't limited so that is a false statement. I never said that Efreets were exempt from wish perversion. Just that a DM can determine what additional powers a wish has since RAW, that is what wish says anyway. So if the DM adds new powers to wish, then the efreets are in a better position to have knowledge of those powers.
If the player's wizard came from a society of 2 million wizards who were all capable of casting wish and every new member of that community also achieved this, then I could see them also knowing about wish's other powers and how to use them without reaping deadly ammounts of wish perversion.
Quote:
Except that it doesn't matter, because Commune is still blocked by Mind Blank. Now, if you use Sending, and your deity bothers to reply, go ahead. Just don't be surprised if your party starts using Sending that way, too.
this disagreement is already noted and thus discussing it further is irrelevant. You assume the most limited effects for what hinders you(enemy wish access, commune, etc) and the widest effects for what helps you(mind blank), sounds like you are barely achieving your goal.
Quote:
Quote: They know that wish can do more and some of those who try to get more out of it meet horrible ends. Including Efreet.
Are you suggesting to allow wish effects for Efreet which you wouldn't for your players? Hi falling rocks.
I never said that only efreets have access to expanded wish powers. Just that expanded wish powers are dangerous and that efreets could have figured some of them out through trial and error over time.
If player's obtained knowledge of the correct way to word the wishes to avoid deadly perversion they could do it too. Or they could experiment and take some risks.
You call this falling rocks, well you I guess in your games all the rocks float.
Quote:
Besides - not even Wish breaks Mind Blank. So half of the issues you could create with it don't matter anyway.
Well if it is used like a divination spell then mind blank works but wish could be able to do more as we have already discussed.
REGARDING QUESTIONING FOR RACE:
[This chain assumes a Mindblanked Dwarven caster, answers following questions are the questions I would receive to create the next question in the line].
Is Bob the Efreeti dead? [Yes [If the answer is No we go into kidnapped/imprisoned etc]
Was Bob killed by a human [No]
Was Bob killed by a dragon [No]
Was Bob killed by a Elf [No]
Was Bob killed by a demon [No]
Was Bob killed by a dwarf [No Answer]
Therefore I know that Bob was killed by a dwarf.......
I am asking these questions about the Efreet and not about the mage. Mindblanking the Efreet does stop this line of targeting.
Some of those in this thread believe that the answer to all of those questions will be No Answer, that is because of their interpretation of the Mind Blank spell.
REGARDING MIND-BLANK PROTECTING GEAR:
Non-Detection says: If cast on a creature, nondetection wards the creature's gear as well as the creature itself.
Mind-Blank does not say the same thing. Mind Blank literally blanks the casters mind to avoid divination spells which target that mind.
I wish the designers had specified that Mind Blank does or doesn't cover gear. But I feel that right now it doesn't.
I also wish the designers had expanded the example list of effects that Mind Blank stops beyond the obvious ones.
Thepuregamer, thank you for proving my point. Because thats all that last post did. You speak of adding new powers to Wish, of Efreet knowing more about a spell than wizards despite their average skill ranks and INT scores suggesting nothing even close of the sort, and of your own, personal interpretations, when all we are using is the spell description as written.
I don't interprete. If I did, I'd do many things differently, because I don't think talking about Frank the Mind-blanked wizard over Telepathic Bond should be blocked by Mind Blank. I'm not even perfectly happy about Commune or Contact Other Plane not working.
But by RAW, its a blanket immunity. If the spell gets you information of any sort(including whether he is or is not an elf) and belongs to the divination school, it does not work.
I don't assume anything beyond what the core rules say. Your argument remains based on assumptions and interpretations.
Sleep-Walker wrote: Some of those in this thread believe that the answer to all of those questions will be No Answer, that is because of their interpretation of the Mind Blank spell. It won't be no answer, it will be "unclear". And even if we assume that asking about the wrong race doesn't constitute information (why is beyond me) it would still be of very little help. "Unclear" could be due to numerous reasons, and even if Mind Blank WOULD be the only possible reason... That only means that there is at least one member of that race having Mind Blank up. If you use the questions to sweep areas, it would mean one guy with Mind Blank in that area. And this entire line of thought already needs so many assumptions...
Considering the usefullness of that spell, there will be many casters having Mind Blank up. Especially everyone wanting to hide their doings from other casters. Such as... evil wizards, dragons, sorcerers, or possibly even rival efreet.
Darkheyr wrote: Thepuregamer, thank you for proving my point. Because thats all that last post did. You speak of adding new powers to Wish, of Efreet knowing more about a spell than wizards despite their average skill ranks and INT scores suggesting nothing even close of the sort, and of your own, personal interpretations, when all we are using is the spell description as written.
well it is not my fault if you come to illogical conclusions and incorrectly interpret what I write. I will lay down the comparison.
You believe that 1 person with 1 single lifetime with a slightly superior starting intellect(20vs 12) is going to be able to figure more out about a spell than an entire nation of immortal creatures who basically start with 17 int(with their free wishes) and free wishes.
If that sounds remotely accurate to you then there is no rational discourse with you.
Quote:
I don't interprete. If I did, I'd do many things differently, because I don't think talking about Frank the Mind-blanked wizard over Telepathic Bond should be blocked by Mind Blank. I'm not even perfectly happy about Commune or Contact Other Plane not working.
But by RAW, its a blanket immunity. If the spell gets you information of any sort(including whether he is or is not an elf) and belongs to the divination school, it does not work.
I don't assume anything beyond what the core rules say. Your argument remains based on assumptions and interpretations.
No you do interpret. In many places in the discussion. All your interpretations/assumptions exist to help your argument. I already pointed this out in previous posts.
It is not my fault that RAW wish, commune, and other aspects of the game specifically state that they require DM arbitration.
You do not even realize that you are assuming DM arbitration in your own argument. You assume that the DM decides that wish can do no more than raise stats and copy lower level spells. That is one way a DM can rule wish but he can rule it many other ways and wish requires a DM decision.
See right in the spell RAW, people may try to use wish for greater effects and its fulfillment is at GM discretion. Apparently your imaginary GM is saying zero greater wish fulfillment. But that is only one of many campaign circumstances.
thepuregamer wrote:
well it is not my fault if you come to illogical conclusions and incorrectly interpret what I write. I will lay down the comparison.
You believe that 1 person with 1 single lifetime with a slightly superior starting intellect(20vs 12) is going to be able to figure more out about a spell than an entire nation of immortal creatures who basically start with 17 int(with their free wishes) and free wishes.
If that sounds remotely accurate to you then there is no rational discourse with you.
If you insist, I can give you quite a few things you haven't considered in your "logical" view of the world, but the truth is: It doesn't matter.
Let me illustrate: A new elven fighter starts at level 1 and is roughly 120 years old. In 120 years, he has gained a skill point of ride, and a skill point of swim. A 16 years old human sorcerer meanwhile has eight skill points. Over the course of one month and some serious combat-heavy wilderness adventure, both gain 7 levels and many additional skill points and feats, including profession (cook), knowledge (nobility) and the assorted skill foci.
Illogical. Highly so. But thats the game system.
I agree with you that it doesn't make sense. But then, this entire idea having a chance at working doesn't make sense already - if it was possible to chainbind Efreet like this, SOMEONE would have done it already - and the Efreet would probably either be extinct, or would have found ways to defend themselves against it.
In game terms however, Bob the Average Efreeti has zero ranks of Knowledge (Arcana), and a spellcraft modifier of +12. Even if he rearranges his skill points, he needs seven more levels to be even in terms of RANKS with his wizard counterpart, and he probably still has less INT. Bob the Average Efreeti also only has 14 INT, despite his Wish ability. Why? I have no idea. By all rights, all their stats should increase by at LEAST 3, possibly 5 for those with friends.
But thats not what their bestiary entry says, and thats what defines an average Efreeti. Of course a DM can make up superpowered Efreeti with 17 wizard levels themselves that know more or at least as much as the wizard about magic including Wishes, but if you need to employ CR26 creatures using Wish beyond its safe limits to stop this wizard, my point is made.
We are cheesily abusing the system, and we know it. Don't try to bring logic into the discussion ;)
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No you do interpret. In many places in the discussion. All your interpretations/assumptions exist to help your argument. I already pointed this out in previous posts.
It is not my fault that RAW wish, commune, and other aspects of the game specifically state that they require DM arbitration.
You do not even realize that you are assuming DM arbitration in your own argument. You assume that the DM decides that wish can do no more than raise stats and copy lower level spells. That is one way a DM can rule wish but he can rule it many other ways and wish requires a DM decision.
See right in the spell RAW, people may try to use wish for greater effects and its fulfillment is at GM discretion. Apparently your imaginary GM is saying zero greater wish fulfillment. But that is only one of many campaign circumstances.
I neither assume nor interprete. These spells have several clear rules that do NOT need DM arbitration, including wish. There are also detailed stats for Bob the Average Efreeti.
The DM may always go beyond those rules of course - but that door swings both ways. If he allows normal Efreet greater wishing knowledge, players are only one Dominate Monster away from securing such knowledge for themselves, which makes even low amount of enslaved wishers or just paying the material costs as normal VERY desireable. If only specific Efreet know more, they can easily employ many spells of their own to find, call, and enslave them. And to be blunt, barring super-efreet with a CR in the upper twenties, they will have MORE and MORE POWERFUL spells at easy access than Efreet, despite their "grant three wishes per day" ability.
Going beyond the rules is often a Pandora's Box that doesn't turn out like you planned. And if Efreet use different rules than players, we are back to falling rocks at the latest.
To repeat myself, stop bringing interpretation and setting dependent arguments into this. We are discussing things that are clearly or clearly not possible within the rules.
Working on the questions. I have to make sure I don't ask an illegal one. Just popping in so you know I did not forget.
wraithstrike wrote: Working on the questions. I have to make sure I don't ask an illegal one. Just popping in so you know I did not forget. I was wondering. Thanks for the heads up... I admit I'm curious :)
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IT... STILL.... LIVES?
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Can a kind someone please give a relatively unbiased summary of the debate so far?
Both sides of the argument/who's representing what and how etc.
(..for us folks that may have tuned out a dozen or so pages back.)
Hailing your praises in advance,
Our Glorious Leader
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*shakes fist*
BenignFacist wrote: .
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O_o
IT... STILL.... LIVES?
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Can a kind someone please give a relatively unbiased summary of the debate so far?
Both sides of the argument/who's representing what and how etc.
(..for us folks that may have tuned out a dozen or so pages back.)
Hailing your praises in advance,
Our Glorious Leader
::
*shakes fist*
In short.
Side A:Mind blanked people can never be found.
Side B:You can use divination spells to block out the other options by asking general questions. By process of elimination and the fact there are so many ways to hide you will be found. It is only a matter of how long it takes, not if you get found.
It is more complicated than that, but that is the general idea.
edit:I am arguing for side B.
Side C: The persuers will never give up, the guy that summoned and killed the Effrettis can never go home again, and things have been made worse for everyone.
Darkheyr wrote:
Illogical. Highly so. But thats the game system.
In game terms however, Bob the Average Efreeti has zero ranks of Knowledge (Arcana), and a spellcraft modifier of +12. Even if he rearranges his skill points, he needs seven more levels to be even in terms of RANKS with his wizard counterpart, and he probably still has less INT. Bob the Average Efreeti also only has 14 INT, despite his Wish ability. Why? I have no idea. By all rights, all their stats should increase by at LEAST 3, possibly 5 for those with friends.
not sure where "bob the efreeti" is statted out but the generic efreeti has a +14 spellcraft and 12 int and an ability that can increase his int by 3(5 with a friend). He also has access from birth to moment of prescience, greater heroism, and multiple other skill boosting spells due to his wishing ability. So he has quite a headstart and competitive check. So I have trouble seeing how you have any point saying all this. The other problem that the lone wizard ultimately has, is that he has to test out his theory and see if he actually successfully figured out a new power of wish(ie was his spellcraft,knowledge, or intelligence check high enough to yield correct information.) If he fell short, then he alone bears the consequences of failure. An entire efreeti society can reap the rewards of sucessful and sustain some failures since there are more than enough test subjects. A noble efreet could easily see losing a few commoners as a fair trade.
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But thats not what their bestiary entry says, and thats what defines an average Efreeti. Of course a DM can make up superpowered Efreeti with 17 wizard levels themselves that know more or at least as much as the wizard about magic including Wishes, but if you need to employ CR26 creatures using Wish beyond its safe limits to stop this wizard, my point is made.
the average efreet has access to wish and thus the average efreet can atleast have all his stats 5 points higher plus other possible benefits. Also, he could easily use his wish for even more tricks. Create a shadow, have it commanded for 11 days at a time, put it in a bag of holding(paid with only his allotted treasure for his CR), then when you planar bind him over, he opens his bag to let out the shadow as a move action, uses a free action to tell the shadow to make 3 wishes of his specification and bam in 1 round 3 wishes go off(his spell like ability is grant 3 wishes, so it only takes 1 standard action to grant all 3). This is the sort of thing that a generic efreet can do with his treasure and wish ability
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I neither assume nor interprete. These spells have several clear rules that do NOT need DM arbitration, including wish. There are also detailed stats for Bob the Average Efreeti.
There are many spells that have clear rules that do not require DM arbitration. Wish and commune are not one of them.
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The DM may always go beyond those rules of course - but that door swings both ways. If he allows normal Efreet greater wishing knowledge, players are only one Dominate Monster away from securing such knowledge for themselves, which makes even low amount of enslaved wishers or just paying the material costs as normal VERY desireable. If only specific Efreet know more, they can easily employ many spells of their own to find, call, and enslave them. And to be blunt, barring super-efreet with a CR in the upper twenties, they will have MORE and MORE POWERFUL spells at easy access than Efreet, despite their "grant three wishes per day" ability.
If he allows efreets greater wishing knowledge, efreets will be high CR creatures in general. They won't need to be over 14 or 15 and they can easily be safe from domination if they spend 5k on a wayfinder and clear spindle ioun stone.
Seriously, all an efreet needs is access to an instant friendly minion and they can drop 3 wishes on their enemy in 1 round. If the caster is dumb enough to attack the efreet alone perhaps this could be 2 attack wishes and an antimagic field. Then the efreet can walk over to the wizard and beat him to death since many lvl 20 wizards won't outmelee a even a generic efreeti.
If the efreeti is afraid his 3 wishes can go toward helping him escape. I think you underestimate even plain wish and overestimate higher lvl wizards.
Sleep-Walker wrote: REGARDING QUESTIONING FOR RACE:
[This chain assumes a Mindblanked Dwarven caster, answers following questions are the questions I would receive to create the next question in the line].
Is Bob the Efreeti dead? [Yes [If the answer is No we go into kidnapped/imprisoned etc]
Was Bob killed by a human [No]
Was Bob killed by a dragon [No]
Was Bob killed by a Elf [No]
Was Bob killed by a demon [No]
Was Bob killed by a dwarf [No Answer]
Therefore I know that Bob was killed by a dwarf.......
I am asking these questions about the Efreet and not about the mage. Mindblanking the Efreet does stop this line of targeting.
Some of those in this thread believe that the answer to all of those questions will be No Answer, that is because of their interpretation of the Mind Blank spell.
REGARDING MIND-BLANK PROTECTING GEAR:
Non-Detection says: If cast on a creature, nondetection wards the creature's gear as well as the creature itself.
Mind-Blank does not say the same thing. Mind Blank literally blanks the casters mind to avoid divination spells which target that mind.
I wish the designers had specified that Mind Blank does or doesn't cover gear. But I feel that right now it doesn't.
I also wish the designers had expanded the example list of effects that Mind Blank stops beyond the obvious ones.
The problem is that you assume that it appearing as a dwarf mean something.
The deity (unless you assume that in a polytheistic system all deities are omniscient) can't "see" the mind blanked creature.
He or she can "look" in the efreeti mind to see what he has seen.
The efreeti has seen a dwarf. Good. And then? He could have been a dwarf, a polymorphous drow, a human wizard or Asmodeus.
As the deity can't be sure the best reply ins unclear or at best probable.
Same thing if you are going for exclusion.
"Was Bob was killed by a human?"
- deity know that the killer had the aspect of a dwarf;
- deity check all the unprotected humans, no one has killed Bob
- deity know that there are humans with mind blank but can't check their location or what they have done.
so unknown or improbable.
Any affirmative reply to that kind of question require to check the actual culprit, but the actual culprit can't be checked.
If you assume that deities are omniscient mind blank don't apply, but then you have already broken Commune making it the strongest divination spell of the game, with no counter.
Another "solution" widely proposed is to have the efreeti cast wish for themselves (through servants as they can't cast wishes for genies).
Very well, to stop a potential abuse of wishes you go and abuse the wishes. A GM abusing the rules is even more destructive than a player doing that.
BenignFacist wrote: .
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O_o
IT... STILL.... LIVES?
::
Can a kind someone please give a relatively unbiased summary of the debate so far?
Both sides of the argument/who's representing what and how etc.
(..for us folks that may have tuned out a dozen or so pages back.)
Hailing your praises in advance,
Our Glorious Leader
::
*shakes fist*
wraithstrike wrote:
In short.
Side A:Mind blanked people can never be found.
Side B:You can use divination spells to block out the other options by asking general questions. By process of elimination and the fact there are so many ways to hide you will be found. It is only a matter of how long it takes, not if you get found.
It is more complicated than that, but that is the general idea.
edit:I am arguing for side B.
A slightly biased summary.
Side A: Mind blanked people can never be found.
Side B: Mind blanked people can never be found by direct use of divination magic. You can use it indirectly and/or use of mundane investigation skills. There are ways to make this more difficult.
down to
Side X: playing the 20 question game with Commune or Contact other planes will find the target even if the target is protected by mind blank.
If 20 questions aren't sufficient we will chain casting Commune with an infinite number of question asked.
Side Y: deities are omniscient, Commune will never fail, independently from the protection the target has.
Side Z: DM fiat. Caster caught and quartered as soon as he start thinking about abducting a efreeti.
Add a lot of confusion about doing it once, chain binding efreeti, efreeti using wishes freely for their interest, efreeti SWAT teams on instant reaction duty and so on.
Add people replying to position B as it was A, mixing several posts without trying to sort them and so on.
A glorious confusion.
Goth Guru wrote: Side C: The persuers will never give up, the guy that summoned and killed the Effrettis can never go home again, and things have been made worse for everyone. I would put that as side W.
Side C is "even immortal creatures have limited resources in time, money and manpower".
If the culprit is sufficiently well protected against detection and canny enough they will say "the case is still open and we will try again if we get some lead, but the disappearance of Curly and Moe today is more important that Bob disappearance 10 years ago"
Same as RL police.
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The deity (unless you assume that in a polytheistic system all deities are omniscient) can't "see" the mind blanked creature.
exactly you guys being safe with only mind blank assumes a specific campaign setting meaning you will not always be safe with just disguises and mindblank. Thus it is not a foolproof plan.
Also, breaking commune requires quite a few casters and quite a large expenditure of resources. It will only be broken in those situations.
It will be much less likely to be broken in the hands of a player or in the hands of many secretive/cultish bbegs.
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Another "solution" widely proposed is to have the efreeti cast wish for themselves (through servants as they can't cast wishes for genies).
Very well, to stop a potential abuse of wishes you go and abuse the wishes. A GM abusing the rules is even more destructive than a player doing that.
just to clear up a misunderstanding, I am not against players using/abusing wishes. Just that one can expect consequences for how you get those wishes.
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The deity (unless you assume that in a polytheistic system all deities are omniscient) can't "see" the mind blanked creature.
thepuregamer wrote:
exactly you guys being safe with only mind blank assumes a specific campaign setting meaning you will not always be safe with just disguises and mindblank. Thus it is not a foolproof plan.
Also, breaking commune requires quite a few casters and quite a large expenditure of resources. It will only be broken in those situations.
It will be much less likely to be broken in the hands of a player or in the hands of many secretive/cultish bbegs.
1) the standard D&D game is polytheistic and the gods are far from omniscient and omnipotent.
2) Commune is a 5th level spells, available to plenty of player and NPC. If you make it "invincible", you , as a GM, are breaking the game.
Get to level 9 and every time you have a problem you can't resolve call daddy deity to resolve it.
If it work that way only for NPC we return to the GM fiat.
It is your game and you can play that way, but it is not how it is supposed to work.
Diego Rossi wrote:
1) the standard D&D game is polytheistic and the gods are far from omniscient and omnipotent.
well actually a lot of dnd took place in forgotten realms and each deity was very close to omniscient in regards to their own portfolios.
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2) Commune is a 5th level spells, available to plenty of player and NPC. If you make it "invincible", you , as a GM, are breaking the game.
Get to level 9 and every time you have a problem you can't resolve call daddy deity to resolve it.
except if you have no clue as to who or what you are looking for, it takes a larger number of castings to narrow things down which will use up a lot more time. But if the group has access to large numbers of mid to high level casters, they could actually make good use of commune. Because as you guys said, if we start looking without any information, we basically have to start with a wide sweep. Check all the planes, check all the races, confirm the information obtained, etc.
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If it work that way only for NPC we return to the GM fiat.
It is your game and you can play that way, but it is not how it is supposed to work.
Once again, I never said these things only worked for npcs. If players could amass the resources necessary to have 20+ mid to high level casters just for divination, then they could go about asking and double checking their large number of questions.
For wish, parties are too small and often player's who have finally gotten to lvl 17 do not want to take a chance on making greater uses of wish. Which is why it is harder for them to do this.
I apologize if you feel this is in poor taste, but I believe it describes my position quite well on this and why I do not think I will be continuing discussions on the topic.
http://unrforliberty.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Our-Discussion.jpg
Tarantula wrote: I apologize if you feel this is in poor taste, but I believe it describes my position quite well on this and why I do not think I will be continuing discussions on the topic.
http://unrforliberty.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Our-Discussion.jpg
You are entitled to that position, and it's well presented.
Personally, I am ok with competeing in a nice way, for the hearts and minds of the undecided. There are complications, such as, did the definition of what happens when a bag of holding ruptures since the Core Rulebook came out? If somewhere it says dieties can contact beings irretrievably lost, I will change my position on that.
thepuregamer wrote: not sure where "bob the efreeti" is statted out but the generic efreeti has a +14 spellcraft and 12 int and an ability that can increase his int by 3(5 with a friend).
*blinks* My mistake. Apparently I took the stats off the Djinn on that one. But that actually serves my case better - the average Efreeti has NO Knowledge skills at all, and lower INT. While he theoretically COULD increase his stats, the average Efreeti obviously doesn't (or possibly, its included already - who knows). We are back to where you try to support your argument with setting logic.
And even if they did - after two Efreet bound this way, a wizard will have +5 as well without paying.
Quote: He also has access from birth to moment of prescience, greater heroism, and multiple other skill boosting spells due to his wishing ability. So he has quite a headstart and competitive check. So I have trouble seeing how you have any point saying all this. No, he has access to THREE of them per day, and at a pretty lousy caster level at that. Singular Efreet do not have the limitless resources you assume. And any spell available to Efreet is, by definition, available to the high level wizard as well.
Quote: The other problem that the lone wizard ultimately has, is that he has to test out his theory and see if he actually successfully figured out a new power of wish(ie was his spellcraft,knowledge, or intelligence check high enough to yield correct information.) If he fell short, then he alone bears the consequences of failure. An entire efreeti society can reap the rewards of sucessful and sustain some failures since there are more than enough test subjects. A noble efreet could easily see losing a few commoners as a fair trade. No, he doesn't have to 'test' his theory, because mortals have long traditions of spellcraft and arcane knowledge themselves, and others failed at it before as well. So in the end, all that matters, is that Frank the Wizard 17+ has more skill ranks, pure arcane might and INT than Bob the Efreet. Now, you could add 17 levels of wizard to an Efreet I guess... Sound familiar yet?
I also think its funny that commoners are apparently sacrificed so readily, but somehow, the same society spends extreme resources on investigating their deaths...
Quote: the average efreet has access to wish and thus the average efreet can atleast have all his stats 5 points higher plus other possible benefits. Also, he could easily use his wish for even more tricks. Create a shadow, have it commanded for 11 days at a time, put it in a bag of holding(paid with only his allotted treasure for his CR), then when you planar bind him over, he opens his bag to let out the shadow as a move action, uses a free action to tell the shadow to make 3 wishes of his specification and bam in 1 round 3 wishes go off(his spell like ability is grant 3 wishes, so it only takes 1 standard action to grant all 3). This is the sort of thing that a generic efreet can do with his treasure and wish ability He can. According to the bestiary stats, he obviously doesn't. The shadow trick (or any other minion inside that bag) is actually pretty good. It doesn't work if the Binding is done in a Mage's Magnificent Mansion however, and a simple case of loosing initiative can already kill the idea. And of course, we are back at Efreeti INSTANTLY reacting to bind attempts and spending their wishes before they know the details of what is about to happen. And even if he escapes... Eh, so what? Try again next day. Not like he can take a 17th level wizard (and whatever that wizard happens to have a long) even with a shadow and three wishes.
On a sidenote: Can shadows speak? They couldn't in 3.5, but the PFSRD doesn't say. Not that it matters, you can use other minions instead.
Quote: There are many spells that have clear rules that do not require DM arbitration. Wish and commune are not one of them. Both have clear rules. Wish has dangerous greater effects that don't, but the safe effects are all clearly defined. And the only thing a DM has to define with Commune is what specific outsiders know about the questions asked. What he DOESN'T need to define is whether Mind Blank works against it or not - because it does.
Quote: If he allows efreets greater wishing knowledge, efreets will be high CR creatures in general. They won't need to be over 14 or 15 and they can easily be safe from domination if they spend 5k on a wayfinder and clear spindle ioun stone. They aren't, however. What does that tell you?
As to the items... why a creature that doesn't need food or water would want an item that sustains it without food or water eludes me.
Quote: Seriously, all an efreet needs is access to an instant friendly minion and they can drop 3 wishes on their enemy in 1 round. If the caster is dumb enough to attack the efreet alone perhaps this could be 2 attack wishes and an antimagic field. Then the efreet can walk over to the wizard and beat him to death since many lvl 20 wizards won't outmelee a even a generic efreeti. Do the Binding in a MMM, as said before. No Bag of Holding for you. He also has to win initiative - not an easy feat considering spellcasters generally prefer to have high initiatives, especially at this level. He also has to do it RIGHT NOW, and not pause to figure out what exactly is going on. In the situation we described so far, including things such as supernatural darkness, fog, silence, invisibility and disguises, he might also not instantly see the wizard, or recognize him as the threat he is.
If he does this, and wins initiative, this also leaves at least one round of action for the wizard, who will NOT be within melee range. For example, a simple teleport to safety, or Wall of Force - the latter being unaffected by Antimagic Field. Antimagic Field will also release the shadow from his control if within the area of effect, who suddenly becomes a very real danger to its former master.
Another idea would be to simply have the place of binding be surrounded by a trench, which makes the AMF idea immensively less useful.
Thats just a brief idea I came up with without the many minion options that wont care about antimagic field. Party members of course, zombies, summoned creatures with spell resistance... and skeleton archers or bound erinyes lining the trench!
Quote: If the efreeti is afraid his 3 wishes can go toward helping him escape. I think you underestimate even plain wish and overestimate higher lvl wizards. Or the other way around.
Quote: exactly you guys being safe with only mind blank assumes a specific campaign setting meaning you will not always be safe with just disguises and mindblank. Thus it is not a foolproof plan. No, it assumes the core rules. If you deviate from that, its no longer relevant to the discussion.
Quote: Also, breaking commune requires quite a few casters and quite a large expenditure of resources. It will only be broken in those situations. Less casters merely means more time. And not always are the players under pressure. Especially not in a game where a wizard would go around chainbinding.
Quote: It will be much less likely to be broken in the hands of a player or in the hands of many secretive/cultish bbegs. Only if you don't bother to do it.
Quote: just to clear up a misunderstanding, I am not against players using/abusing wishes. Just that one can expect consequences for how you get those wishes. As said before, we agree that there should be consequences. We're merely arguing what strictly RAW consequences are possible without setting, interpretation or falling rocks providing them.
Quote: well actually a lot of dnd took place in forgotten realms and each deity was very close to omniscient in regards to their own portfolios. Karsus, Mystryl. And if she couldn't see THAT ONE coming...
Quote: except if you have no clue as to who or what you are looking for, it takes a larger number of castings to narrow things down which will use up a lot more time. But if the group has access to large numbers of mid to high level casters, they could actually make good use of commune. Because as you guys said, if we start looking without any information, we basically have to start with a wide sweep. Check all the planes, check all the races, confirm the information obtained, etc.
It only needs more time. And unlike Efreet searching the multiverse for Bob, players usually start off with significantly more information or grounds for reasonable assumptions.
Quote: Once again, I never said these things only worked for npcs. If players could amass the resources necessary to have 20+ mid to high level casters just for divination, then they could go about asking and double checking their large number of questions. Except they don't need it. Just more time.
Quote: For wish, parties are too small and often player's who have finally gotten to lvl 17 do not want to take a chance on making greater uses of wish. Which is why it is harder for them to do this.
Don't try and fail - dominate an Efreeti!
ugg... I accidentally killed my last post attempt by google searching in the wrong tab.
Darkheyr wrote:
No, he has access to THREE of them per day, and at a pretty lousy caster level at that. Singular Efreet do not have the limitless resources you assume. And any spell available to Efreet is, by definition, available to the high level wizard as well.
I see, you have now imposed another requirement on chain-binding. You must now find completely isolated and alone efreets.
Quote:
No, he doesn't have to 'test' his theory, because mortals have long traditions of spellcraft and arcane knowledge themselves, and others failed at it before as well. So in the end, all that matters, is that Frank the Wizard 17+ has more skill ranks, pure arcane might and INT than Bob the Efreet. Now, you could add 17 levels of wizard to an Efreet I guess... Sound familiar yet?
well actually in order to know his theory is correct, he does eventually have to cast wish and see if it gets perverted or not. If he found the notes of other wish researching spellcasters, they might provide useful to him but he would still need to cast wish to make sure these notes were correct.
Quote:
I also think its funny that commoners are apparently sacrificed so readily, but somehow, the same society spends extreme resources on investigating their deaths...
Efreeti are lawful evil and their society is also lawful evil. The ruler of a lawful evil society would have zero problem with having some small percentage of their commoners perform dangerous wish tests.
Efreeti are still lawful evil and thus they do not track down chain binders due to any warm or fuzzy feelings they have about their missing efreeti commoner. They are lawful evil and know that if this act goes unpunished, they will be eventually drowning in efreeti kidnappings and killings. This is called deterence. You have to nuke somebody once so everybody else knows you have it and are willing to use it.
me wrote:
the average efreet has access to wish and thus the average efreet can atleast have all his stats 5 points higher plus other possible benefits. Also, he could easily use his wish for even more tricks. Create a shadow, have it commanded for 11 days at a time, put it in a bag of holding(paid with only his allotted treasure for his CR), then when you planar bind him over, he opens his bag to let out the shadow as a move action, uses a free action to tell the shadow to make 3 wishes of his specification and bam in 1 round 3 wishes go off(his spell like ability is grant 3 wishes, so it only takes 1 standard action to grant all 3). This is the sort of thing that a generic efreet can do with his treasure and wish ability
dark wrote:
He can. According to the bestiary stats, he obviously doesn't.
Well bestiary stats just give you the absolute base creature. If a creature has a free ability that improves them permanently, the creature obviously does use it. When you talk like that it sounds like you are advocating for DMfiat(the kind where he suddenly goes extra easy on you at the cost of realism because he doesn't want you to die).
Quote:
The shadow trick (or any other minion inside that bag) is actually pretty good. It doesn't work if the Binding is done in a Mage's Magnificent Mansion however, and a simple case of loosing initiative can already kill the idea. And of course, we are back at Efreeti INSTANTLY reacting to bind attempts and spending their wishes before they know the details of what is about to happen. And even if he escapes... Eh, so what? Try again next day. Not like he can take a 17th level wizard (and whatever that wizard happens to have a long) even with a shadow and three wishes.
1. does bag of holding not work in the mansion? The last line might communicate that but if the bag doesn't work, how can you force an efreeti into a mansion with planar binding if one can only enter the mansion through the front door?
2. How does losing initiative ruin it for the efreet? You guys were talking about spending multiple rounds debuffing the efreet to make him easier to dominate/charm/etc. He only needs to make it to his turn to drop 3 wishes in 1 round.
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There are many spells that have clear rules that do not require DM arbitration. Wish and commune are not one of them.
Both have clear rules. Wish has dangerous greater effects that don't, but the safe effects are all clearly defined. And the only thing a DM has to define with Commune is what specific outsiders know about the questions asked.
Both do have clear rules, they clearly specify that their effect is related to DM interpretation. Thus what they do is setting/campaign specific. You think chainbinding with mindblank can be achieved in any setting but there are clearly assumptions about the settings in your argument. For your argument to work you assume
1. Wishes do the minimum of what they can RAW.
2. Efreeti do not use their wishes on themselves.
3. Efreeti do not buy themselves equipment with their allotted treasure.
4. Gods are not omniscient even in their areas on interest(death, murder,etc).
5. Efreeti do not use their wishes to deter chain-binding kidnappers.
You assume a setting and DM that has most benefits your argument. All I am saying is that this is not always how it is. Thus this is not always a foolproof plan(which is what you claim it to be).
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What he DOESN'T need to define is whether Mind Blank works against it or not - because it does.
This disagreement is already answered in other posts. There is no point in reposting.
dark wrote:
As to the items... why a creature that doesn't need food or water would want an item that sustains it without food or water eludes me.
A clear spindle ioun stone inside a wayfinder grants the extra ability of being protected from mental control similar to how protection from evil works. Thus no dominating the efreeti anymore and all it costs is 5k or so(source is seekers of secrets).
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Do the Binding in a MMM, as said before. No Bag of Holding for you. He also has to win initiative - not an easy feat considering spellcasters generally prefer to have high initiatives, especially at this level. He also has to do it RIGHT NOW, and not pause to figure out what exactly is going on. In the situation we described so far, including things such as supernatural darkness, fog, silence, invisibility and disguises, he might also not instantly see the wizard, or recognize him as the threat he is.
If he does this, and wins initiative, this also leaves at least one round of action for the wizard, who will NOT be within melee range. For example, a simple teleport to safety, or Wall of Force - the latter being unaffected by Antimagic Field. Antimagic Field will also release the shadow from his control if within the area of effect, who suddenly becomes a very real danger to its former master.
Another idea would be to simply have the place of binding be surrounded by a trench, which makes the AMF idea immensively less useful.
Thats just a brief idea I came up with without the many minion options that wont care about antimagic field. Party members of course, zombies, summoned creatures with spell resistance... and skeleton archers or bound erinyes lining the trench!
Like I said, if MMM prevents bag of holding then it prevents the efreeti entering through planar binding. Also, planar binding is not planar ally. This efreeti has been brought somewhere against his will. He is not going to wait to see if you are friendly(especially if it is dark/foggy/etc).
Toward antimagic field. summoned and incorporeal creatures wink out inside of it so those won't be an issue. SR might apply with summoned creatures, but it will only work if they are inside its range at casting(I am also not casting it). If you bind other creatures and use dominate on them, you can expect them to turn on you the second my antimagic field overlaps on them. Also, if I use antimagic field inside an MMM, I might just pop outside your mansion instantly since my field subdues it.
Also, now that you are thinking of bringing your party and bound outsiders into this, doesn't that mean there are more loose ends that eventually lead back to you? How many people are you going to mind blank for the rest of eternity to keep yourself safer?
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Also, breaking commune requires quite a few casters and quite a large expenditure of resources. It will only be broken in those situations.
Less casters merely means more time. And not always are the players under pressure. Especially not in a game where a wizard would go around chainbinding.
Well, I do not see the problem then. It taking more time to accomplish is a balancing factor. If your party is not under pressure to finish things fast, then slowly using commune to figure things out is fine by me. This hardly seems to be game breaking then. Also you just laid down a contradictory argument. Chain binding does not function well in a world where you can be found at some point over time through commune. Thus your wizard is not going around chainbinding in the same game that he is using commune to find out important things. Remember, more powerful commune means that you are going to eventually be found by efreets.
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Karsus, Mystryl. And if she couldn't see THAT ONE coming...
perhaps Kelemvor the god of death saw it coming but didn't make the effort to warn mystryl.
*sigh*
I don't even know where to start.
If you want to keep discussing, make an effort to read the spells involved, the parts about extradimensional spaces and the very posts in this thread before commenting about "multiple rounds of debuffing" and drawing many other comments out of context.
I'd also advise you to actually check the Karsus-Mystryl story and how Kelemvor relates to it, because you claiming omniscience for FR gods and not even being familiar with that one before dismissing it isn't exactly the most convincing argument you could make.
Finally:
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/wondrous-items-non-core/ wayfinder-standard
Aside from the fact that it is very much non-core, that entry doesn't list mental control immunity of any kind. Not to mention how grossly, ridiculously overpowered mental immunity for 5kgp would be.
In fact, the Inner Sea World Guide lists any additional powers as DM-dependant. Back to falling rocks, and if you go the "mental control immunity" route, also completely skewering any seeming of balanced magical items. I'd bind Efreet only to get one of those.
Darkheyr wrote:
If you want to keep discussing, make an effort to read the spells involved, the parts about extradimensional spaces and the very posts in this thread before commenting about "multiple rounds of debuffing" and drawing many other comments out of context.
ah I read the spell several times, I just had not seen the text about extradimensional spaces that I just saw at the top of wondrous items in the prd. I thought you were saying that the bag of holding did not work due to some line inside of the MMM spell.
Quick question though, can someone be called into an MMM? the spell says you can only enter through the door.
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I'd also advise you to actually check the Karsus-Mystryl story and how Kelemvor relates to it, because you claiming omniscience for FR gods and not even being familiar with that one before dismissing it isn't exactly the most convincing argument you could make.
I have not read the story and I was not dismissing it. I have read several old dnd 3.0 and 3.5 books in the past that discussed the idea that deity's know everything pertaining to their divine portfolio. IE, the god of smithing knows about every powerful weapon or armor that gets created. Before I just mentioned kelemvor because he was the god of death and because mystryl apparently dies while karsus is stealing her power(I had googled it but wasn't about to order the book and read the whole thing).
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Finally:
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/wondrous-items-non-core/ wayfinder-standard
Aside from the fact that it is very much non-core, that entry doesn't list mental control immunity of any kind. Not to mention how grossly, ridiculously overpowered mental immunity for 5kgp would be.
the d20pfsrd does not have the all the rules for wayfinders and ioun stones in it. Those are in Seekers of Secrets. Anyway, I was not saying it was super balanced but I was showing an answer that existed from a pathfinder source.
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In fact, the Inner Sea World Guide lists any additional powers as DM-dependant. Back to falling rocks, and if you go the "mental control immunity" route, also completely skewering any seeming of balanced magical items. I'd bind Efreet only to get one of those.
you would bind an efreet to get a 5k item? If I were you I would just make it myself but to each his own I guess. Anyway, if the DM allows the item in the game it is hardly rocks falling. It is just one more aspect of the game that anyone can make use of. This is not an example of what will always happen but of what can happen. Dominate will not always seal the deal.
apparently everything is considered rocks falling to you. Efreets using abilities they have for themselves, certain gods knowing about powerful and dangerous casters, etc. I bet when you play, if you are attacked by gnolls wielding anything other than spears(I was going to say great axes but apparently they start with spears these days) you claim dm fiat.
The fact is, that you have not addressed and continue to ignore that even your argument requires specific dm determinations about the setting and the game rules. I have already laid it out pretty clearly point by point.
My job in this discussion is not to show you how you will be found every time but that you will be found some of the time.
Your claim supposedly was that the chainbinder was not going to be findable ever/anytime.
That claim is easily dispatched.
Diego Rossi wrote: perhaps Kelemvor the god of death saw it coming but didn't make the effort to warn mystryl. Possibly because by that point he had long ceased to care. One of Mr. Major Evil Dude's prior success HAD been totally destroying the love between those two. As god of Death, he'd long come to the opinion that Death comes to everyone, even Death itself, when the time comes.
LazarX wrote: Diego Rossi wrote: perhaps Kelemvor the god of death saw it coming but didn't make the effort to warn mystryl. Possibly because by that point he had long ceased to care. One of Mr. Major Evil Dude's prior success HAD been totally destroying the love between those two. As god of Death, he'd long come to the opinion that Death comes to everyone, even Death itself, when the time comes. She lives on under a different name in the Shining Jewel setting.
Hasbro had demolished Forgotten Realms long before 4th edition was released(Or excaped). Elminister died in hundreds of home games years ago, and it meant nothing.
Signature
Warning, my spelling is very bad and I like puns.
I'm going to try to correct your misconceptions pure, if you still hold onto them, I won't bother trying again.
thepuregamer wrote: I see, you have now imposed another requirement on chain-binding. You must now find completely isolated and alone efreets. In my original scenario, the wizard is already scrying on and picked his targets. Verifies they haven't used their wishes for the day up yet (so they haven't buffed themselves) and so on. Please, take into account this when replying.
thepuregamer wrote: well actually in order to know his theory is correct, he does eventually have to cast wish and see if it gets perverted or not. If he found the notes of other wish researching spellcasters, they might provide useful to him but he would still need to cast wish to make sure these notes were correct. In my example, the wizard is not going outside the defined limits of wish, so this point is moot.
thepuregamer wrote: Efreeti are lawful evil and their society is also lawful evil. The ruler of a lawful evil society would have zero problem with having some small percentage of their commoners perform dangerous wish tests.
Efreeti are still lawful evil and thus they do not track down chain binders due to any warm or fuzzy feelings they have about their missing efreeti commoner. They are lawful evil and know that if this act goes unpunished, they will be eventually drowning in efreeti kidnappings and killings. This is called deterence. You have to nuke somebody once so everybody else knows you have it and are willing to use it.
What if the wizard picks one of the "commoners slated for wish testing"? Oh look, Tester #35 has disappeared, guess his last wish has some nasty backlash, cross it off the list....
thepuregamer wrote: me wrote:
the average efreet has access to wish and thus the average efreet can atleast have all his stats 5 points higher plus other possible benefits. Also, he could easily use his wish for even more tricks. Create a shadow, have it commanded for 11 days at a time, put it in a bag of holding(paid with only his allotted treasure for his CR), then when you planar bind him over, he opens his bag to let out the shadow as a move action, uses a free action to tell the shadow to make 3 wishes of his specification and bam in 1 round 3 wishes go off(his spell like ability is grant 3 wishes, so it only takes 1 standard action to grant all 3). This is the sort of thing that a generic efreet can do with his treasure and wish ability
Well bestiary stats just give you the absolute base creature. If a creature has a free ability that improves them permanently, the creature obviously does use it. When you talk like that it sounds like you are advocating for DMfiat(the kind where he suddenly goes extra easy on you at the cost of realism because he doesn't want you to die).
By the Beastiary, efreeti cannot use wish on themselves. Period. So yes, he can use scorching ray and the like all he wants, and that is RAW. It is DM fiat to assume that efreeti have bound slaves and use them to grant themselves wishes. By the book, efreeti cannot.
thepuregamer wrote: 1. does bag of holding not work in the mansion? The last line might communicate that but if the bag doesn't work, how can you force an efreeti into a mansion with planar binding if one can only enter the mansion through the front door?
2. How does losing initiative ruin it for the efreet? You guys were talking about spending multiple rounds debuffing the efreet to make him easier to dominate/charm/etc. He only needs to make it to his turn to drop 3 wishes in 1 round.
Bags of holding are extradimensional. So is MMM. Extradimensional spaces are inaccessible inside of other extardimensional spaces.
The example I gave did not involve any debuffing of the efreet. It was to call the efreet, make the offer for planar binding of "3 wishes for this sympathetic trigger object" with a MoP to ensure you win the CHA check. And bada-boom, you have a deal. If the efreeti does do something, its easy enough to just planeshift/teleport out yourself, scratch his name off your list, and go on your merry way. No reason for him to fight. Also, he can't do anything to the circle. Period.
thepuregamer wrote:
Both do have clear rules, they clearly specify that their effect is related to DM interpretation. Thus what they do is setting/campaign specific. You think chainbinding with mindblank can be achieved in any setting but there are clearly assumptions about the settings in your argument. For your argument to work you assume
1. Wishes do the minimum of what they can RAW.
2. Efreeti do not use their wishes on themselves.
3. Efreeti do not buy themselves equipment with their allotted treasure.
4. Gods are not omniscient even in their areas on interest(death, murder,etc).
5. Efreeti do not use their wishes to deter chain-binding kidnappers.
You assume a setting and DM that has most benefits your argument. All I am saying is that this is not always how it is. Thus this is not always a foolproof plan(which is what you claim it to be).
This discussion is happening in the context of RAW, not RAI or "how I would do it".
1. Wishes by RAW can do their listed effects, or more at DM discretion. You can use DM discretion to say "the efreets can find the wizard by wishing it." This is countered by the wizard using DM discretion to use one of his wishes to be "unable to be found by the efreet for the rest of his existence." This renders any DM discretion points moot.
2. The beastiary list says they cannot use it on themselves, that is RAW.
3. This is fine.
4. No death or murder has happened. I didn't know there was a god of trapping people's souls in gems that would know about all gem trapped souls. If there is one, please point them out to me with a rules quote.
5. No they don't. They cannot use them on themselves or other efreet.
thepuregamer wrote:
This disagreement is already answered in other posts. There is no point in reposting.
No, it isn't. Commune is a divination spell, information gather from it is blocked by mind blank. No one has posted something that fixes this, other than "deity's aren't blocked" without any rules quote. Provide a quote to support your position.
thepuregamer wrote: A clear spindle ioun stone inside a wayfinder grants the extra ability of being protected from mental control similar to how protection from evil works. Thus no dominating the efreeti anymore and all it costs is 5k or so(source is seekers of secrets). My example had no mental control, so it doesn't matter.
thepuregamer wrote: Like I said, if MMM prevents bag of holding then it prevents the efreeti entering through planar binding. Also, planar binding is not planar ally. This efreeti has been brought somewhere against his will. He is not going to wait to see if you are friendly(especially if it is dark/foggy/etc). MMM prevents by being an extradimensional space. The efreeti still can be planar binding'ed into the MMM. Planar binding allows for you to compel services out of the called creature. That is the point of the spell.
thepuregamer wrote:
Toward antimagic field. summoned and incorporeal creatures wink out inside of it so those won't be an issue. SR might apply with summoned creatures, but it will only work if they are inside its range at casting(I am also not casting it). If you bind other creatures and use dominate on them, you can expect them to turn on you the second my antimagic field overlaps on them. Also, if I use antimagic field inside an MMM, I might just pop outside your mansion instantly since my field subdues it.
Actually, anything the efreeti does (including any of its wishes) cannot affect the circle or extend outside of it. Core, 308, "A creature cannot use its spell resistance against a magic circle prepared with a diagram, and none of its abilities or attacks can cross the diagram."
thepuregamer wrote:
Also, now that you are thinking of bringing your party and bound outsiders into this, doesn't that mean there are more loose ends that eventually lead back to you? How many people are you going to mind blank for the rest of eternity to keep yourself safer?
This is exactly why the party is not involved. If the wizard is in trouble, he can banishment the efreet away, pretty easily too.
thepuregamer wrote: Well, I do not see the problem then. It taking more time to accomplish is a balancing factor. If your party is not under pressure to finish things fast, then slowly using commune to figure things out is fine by me. This hardly seems to be game breaking then. Also you just laid down a contradictory argument. Chain binding does not function well in a world where you can be found at some point over time through commune. Thus your wizard is not going around chainbinding in the same game that he is using commune to find out important things. Remember, more powerful commune means that you are going to eventually be found by efreets. This is the reason you do not want to use DM fiat to solve the efreet problem. Okay, the wizard is caught, now the players all take leadership and pick up a bunch of pocket clerics to commune out all the riddles to your questions. You've already ruled that commune > mind blank, so you now cannot prevent your players from using it this way without being hypocritical. Still, outside the bounds of the example.
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Thank you wraithstrike and Diege Rossi for the summary - very helpful!
*shakes fist*
LazarX wrote: Diego Rossi wrote: perhaps Kelemvor the god of death saw it coming but didn't make the effort to warn mystryl. Possibly because by that point he had long ceased to care. One of Mr. Major Evil Dude's prior success HAD been totally destroying the love between those two. As god of Death, he'd long come to the opinion that Death comes to everyone, even Death itself, when the time comes. By that point, Kelemvor wasn't even born yet, and even less was he a god. And by that point, it wasn't even the same Mystryl or Mystra.
BTW: Diego didn't write the part you quoted. Before confusion arises.
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So aye, been thinking:
Assuming Mind Blank does block any direct Divination spells targeted at the would-be-Efreeti killer:
Using the 20+ Commune technique:
(with the assumption that a contacted entity knows who-did-what-and-where)
..we could suggest that, although Mind Blank was cast at Point A on a linear timeline, a suitably powerful entity, one not restricted to a linear temporal perception, could perceive the effect before the cause and relay said information 'before' Mind Blank went into effect.
How about..
..rather than ask 'Who killed X?'
- Which would (going on the assumption of how Mind Blank operates as stated above) be blocked by Mind Blank as it's a Divination spell attempted to divine information about X.
..could you not simply ask 'Where was the Efreeti killed?
Regardless of who/when/why/how the Efreeit is stashed/killed the location is not a protected element. Mind Blank only protects the effected user from magical divinations relating to information on them.
Now you could argue 'Hey, but it's the caster's layer/base/HQ - that's information about them! Therefore, Mind Blank stops such magical divination attempts!
...but really, if this holds true then the caster could claim that the plane he exists upon is 'their plane of existence' and proceed to claim that Mind Blank fails for the same logical reasons ('It's my plane of existence, any iformation about said plane is related to information about me!'
..but really, we could go back to the location of the Efreeti's demise and go from there.
Granted the caster doesn't have to kill the Efreeti in at his base. However, somewhere is still someplace etc
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Anyhoo -- this is all good n' crazy fun!
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POSTING IN THE BATH!
*shakes fist*
thepuregamer wrote:
ah I read the spell several times, I just had not seen the text about extradimensional spaces that I just saw at the top of wondrous items in the prd. I thought you were saying that the bag of holding did not work due to some line inside of the MMM spell.
Quick question though, can someone be called into an MMM? the spell says you can only enter through the door.
Calling, Planeshifting, yes. Teleport is a bit more tricky; probably only within the MMM.
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I have not read the story and I was not dismissing it. I have read several old dnd 3.0 and 3.5 books in the past that discussed the idea that deity's know everything pertaining to their divine portfolio. IE, the god of smithing knows about every powerful weapon or armor that gets created. Before I just mentioned kelemvor because he was the god of death and because mystryl apparently dies while karsus is stealing her power(I had googled it but wasn't about to order the book and read the whole thing).
I wasn't even aware there was an actual book. You can read the thing in numerous FR supplements, and many, many pages on the net.
The gist of it: Karsus developed and cast the only 12th level spell ever, called 'Karsus Avatar'. In essence, he merged with Mystryl, Goddess of the Weave and all Magic. The weave collapsed, and Mystryl died. The greatest magical kingdom in the history of Faerûn collapsed as a result.
After that, her reincarnated successor made the smart move of limiting spells beyond 9th level.
Its a very, very good example of gods not being omniscient nor omnipotent within the FR, not even within their own portfolios.
Though granted, Mystra and her predecessors/successors are the Kennies of the pantheon...
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the d20pfsrd does not have the all the rules for wayfinders and ioun stones in it. Those are in Seekers of Secrets. Anyway, I was not saying it was super balanced but I was showing an answer that existed from a pathfinder source.
It has all core rules, and thats the relevant part that matters. And even then, the Inner Sea World Guide claims such additional powers are at DM's discretion. So, which version do we take?
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you would bind an efreet to get a 5k item? If I were you I would just make it myself but to each his own I guess. Anyway, if the DM allows the item in the game it is hardly rocks falling. It is just one more aspect of the game that anyone can make use of. This is not an example of what will always happen but of what can happen. Dominate will not always seal the deal.
If its 5k and easy to make, hey, go for it. It totally screws enchantment all over the place because of the ridiculously easy access, and deserves honourable mention right next to the Sword of Use-Activated True Striking.
And if its expensive, and Efreet have it, I'm going to bind a batch. Its practically impossible to keep out of player hands.
Quote: apparently everything is considered rocks falling to you. Efreets using abilities they have for themselves, certain gods knowing about powerful and dangerous casters, etc. I bet when you play, if you are attacked by gnolls wielding anything other than spears(I was going to say great axes but apparently they start with spears these days) you claim dm fiat. There is a difference between changing equipment (which is handled by CR appropriate treasure) and inflating the 'common' version of a creature that is supposed to be CR 8. Its not giving falchions to gnolls (I often give axes to orcs instead), but more like giving Hank the Average Gnoll six levels of barbarians.
Quote: The fact is, that you have not addressed and continue to ignore that even your argument requires specific dm determinations about the setting and the game rules. I have already laid it out pretty clearly point by point. Our tactics exist in a void without DM's, and they work. Yours require specific DM calls.
Quote: My job in this discussion is not to show you how you will be found every time but that you will be found some of the time.
Your claim supposedly was that the chainbinder was not going to be findable ever/anytime.
That claim is easily dispatched.
The only thing you have managed to do was, on occasion, minorly annoy the binder. A failed binding or two will not foil this plan. In fact, that possibility existed from the beginning simply due to the low chance of successful saving throws.
For the record: Tarantula has developed a slightly more devious tactic than Dominating. I just stuck to Dominate Monster because its the more simple variant. His has a higher rate of successes over bindings I guess. The end result is the same: Even if a binding fails, Bob the Average Efreeti is no significant threat to Frank the Wizard 17+.
Tarantula wrote: Okay, the wizard is caught, now the players all take leadership and pick up a bunch of pocket clerics to commune out all the riddles to your questions. Different idea: Use a comparably small part of your level 17 WBL, and get yourself a Staff of Limited Wishes! Presto, Commune even for wizards. Once you used it 50 times + base staff costs, the Limited Wish effectively becomes free, and its obnoxiously versatile even if you don't need Commune. Of course, if you go that route, you could eventually get free wishes with a Staff of Wish. If it takes 10 charges, it costs around 130kgp (eyeballed) and gets you one wish every ten days. Not too useful for pushing stats on its own, though. Gets real nasty in groups.
Or, I don't know, your party could just have a cleric. Go count how often he can cast that per day if he really, really needs to.
Benign Facist wrote: ..could you not simply ask 'Where was the Efreeti killed? Doesn't work because its not a simple yes/no question. However, a search like proposed before might work, crossing off parts of the multiverse. It quickly falls apart when it was done within an MMM within the Plane of Shadow, though. Tarantulas variant would need a variant to that question of course.
Still, it doesn't really lead anywhere unless the wizard has a fixed, unmoving and normal place where he always does this, which we specifically excluded.
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Ooh!
Hmm...
How's about:
Q1: Will you answer my next question with 'Yes' where the duration of your articulation of the word 'yes' is equal to the positive X ordinates, where one second of is equal to the 1 mile/meter, and then the answer the question following the second question in a similar manner where the duration of your articulation of the word 'yes is equal to the positive Y coordinates and then, finally, answer the fourth question where the duration of your articulation of the word yes is equal to the positive Z coordinates AND answer 'No' where the duration of your articulation of the word 'yes' is equal to the negative X ordinates, where one second is equal to the 1 mile/meter, and then the answer the question following the second question in a similar manner where the duration of your articulation of the word 'yes is equal to the negative Y coordinates and then, finally, answer the fourth question where the duration of your articulation of the word yes is equal to the negative Z coordinates?
A: Yes
(Caster grabs time piece/hour glass/chronoSquirrel)
Q2: Is this a question?
A2: Yeeeeeeeeeeeee..... etc .....es.
Caste records duration of the articulation of answer in seconds, notes down corresponding positive X coordinates in meters.
etc
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For the plane of shadow they could choose a point, any point and go from there - granted when you start throwing infinity into the mix things get silly. However, if we're doing that than we can throw in non-linear perceptions of time and omniscience, or if we prefer, 'infinite knowledge' which would raise some interesting questions!
Come to think of it, there's nothing stopping a 1st level cleric receiving a dream from his deity detailing the information.
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*shakes fist*
Tarantula wrote: I'm going to try to correct your misconceptions pure, if you still hold onto them, I won't bother trying again.
yeah I thought you were leaving ;)(joking)
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In my original scenario, the wizard is already scrying on and picked his targets. Verifies they haven't used their wishes for the day up yet (so they haven't buffed themselves) and so on. Please, take into account this when replying.
you are just trading yourself one problem for another. Scrying can be detected with a relatively easy perception check meaning you run the risk of outing yourself before you even get to the part where you chainbind creatures. Furthermore, you will have to make more scrying attempts on average as you are attempting to scry targets you only have 2nd hand information on(+5 to their saving throw against the scrying). The more you do this the more chances you give yourself of being found.
Quote: What if the wizard picks one of the "commoners slated for wish testing"? Oh look, Tester #35 has disappeared, guess his last wish has some nasty backlash, cross it off the list.... That could be how it goes, but 1. you are not the dm and he may not have them react that way and 2. you are chainbinding which means you are going to do this multiple times. Which means you are asking the efreets to react in this way multiple times which may not be realistic.
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stuff about mmm
in one of my earlier posts I had not realized that bags of holding and and mmm did not mix well. I later came upon another issue with mmm which is you can only enter the plane through the main portal.
so I have been wondering if you can even be called or summoned into the mmm.
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By the Beastiary, efreeti cannot use wish on themselves. Period. So yes, he can use scorching ray and the like all he wants, and that is RAW. It is DM fiat to assume that efreeti have bound slaves and use them to grant themselves wishes. By the book, efreeti cannot.
I know, you are bringing up a redundant point. also, saying that efreeti having slaves is a form of dm fiat is silly. If a player were roleplaying an efreeti, would he find himself a cheap way to access his wishes? If you answer yes, then this is hardly dm fiat but just your dm doing a good job simulating npcs in the game. That is what DMs are supposed to be doing.
me wrote:
Both do have clear rules, they clearly specify that their effect is related to DM interpretation. Thus what they do is setting/campaign specific. You think chainbinding with mindblank can be achieved in any setting but there are clearly assumptions about the settings in your argument. For your argument to work you assume
1. Wishes do the minimum of what they can RAW.
2. Efreeti do not use their wishes on themselves.
3. Efreeti do not buy themselves equipment with their allotted treasure.
4. Gods are not omniscient even in their areas on interest(death, murder,etc).
5. Efreeti do not use their wishes to deter chain-binding kidnappers.
You assume a setting and DM that has most benefits your argument. All I am saying is that this is not always how it is. Thus this is not always a foolproof plan(which is what you claim it to be).
tar wrote:
This discussion is happening in the context of RAW, not RAI or "how I would do it".
1. Wishes by RAW can do their listed effects, or more at DM discretion. You can use DM discretion to say "the efreets can find the wizard by wishing it." This is countered by the wizard using DM discretion to use one of his wishes to be "unable to be found by the efreet for the rest of his existence." This renders any DM discretion points moot.
2. The beastiary list says they cannot use it on themselves, that is RAW.
3. This is fine.
4. No death or murder has happened. I didn't know there was a god of trapping people's souls in gems that would know about all gem trapped souls. If there is one, please point them out to me with a rules quote.
5. No they don't. They cannot use them on themselves or other efreet.
In many other scenarios I would agree with some of this but I am not arguing RAI here. I am arguing RAW. RAW wish requires dm discretion.
1. You are confusing things, I have never said that efreeti can do whatever they want with wish. Just that what they can do with wish is dependent on 2 things. What a DM allows wish to do beyond the basic stuff and what a DM determines efreeti society has discovered about wish. Now a player could do these things as well if he can discover how to make these wishes. An entire efreeti society is better equipped to do this than a lone wizard.
2. They can only grant wishes for non-genies. This way around this is RAW and already mentioned.
3. Assuming that creatures do not use their alotted treasure on themselves is silly. This discussion is still supposed to relate to an actual game.
4. You are going very specific because you think it helps you make a point but it doesn't. That would be the general act of kidnapping or enslavement which could fall under the portfolio's of asmodeus and also nethys might know since he has witnessed all things(though his abundance of knowledge apparently drove him crazy). These are 2 major deities of golarion I looked up using the power of the internets.
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No, it isn't. Commune is a divination spell, information gather from it is blocked by mind blank. No one has posted something that fixes this, other than "deity's aren't blocked" without any rules quote. Provide a quote to support your position.
This has already been discussed... really. Mind blank blocks all divination spells that gather information about the target. If the binder is a human and we ask did an elf kidnap the efreeti, we are not using divination to gather information about the binder. We are asking about and receiving information on elves.
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Actually, anything the efreeti does (including any of its wishes) cannot affect the circle or extend outside of it. Core, 308, "A creature cannot use its spell resistance against a magic circle prepared with a diagram, and none of its abilities or attacks can cross the diagram."
except he can still use abilities, so he can still use antimagic field(with a wish) which means that if your in an mmm, he will just use his antimagic field suppressing the mmm spell where he is and pop outside of the mansion. Of course if you scryed yourself a minionless efreeti he is not going to have too many options. But as I said earlier, scrying opens you up to being found out anyway so it might not be your best option.
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This is the reason you do not want to use DM fiat to solve the efreet problem. Okay, the wizard is caught, now the players all take leadership and pick up a bunch of pocket clerics to commune out all the riddles to your questions. You've already ruled that commune > mind blank, so you now cannot prevent your players from using it this way without being hypocritical. Still, outside the bounds of the example.
I will tell you something else, mindblank>everything is likely more unbalancing than what you are imagining. I mean if you need to use leadership to show that commune is broken then you are clearly only proving that leadership is broken. Either way, leadership is only going to net you 4 minions able to cast commune. I personally am going to wait to see the size of wraithstrike's sample question list and how many times he thinks the questions have to be repeated to get trustworthy answers.
BenignFacist wrote:
For the plane of shadow they could choose a point, any point and go from there - granted when you start throwing infinity into the mix things get silly. However, if we're doing that than we can throw in non-linear perceptions of time and omniscience, or if we prefer, 'infinite knowledge' which would raise some interesting questions!
I specifically mentioned the Plane of Shadows because of THIS:
PRD wrote: Parts of the Shadow Plane continually flow onto other planes. As a result, creating a precise map of the plane is next to impossible, despite the presence of landmarks. And technically, it was still within an extradimensional place. Which is no longer there.
Note: I laughed so hard I probably woke up my neighbors. :D
EDIT: Am I blind, or did you miss mentioning what/who you are actually asking about?
Since leadership would not work for an army, you may have more lesser beings working for you because they are following orders, being paid, ect. I believe Dijin use YakMen as servents. They are of the same culture and are looked down opon by many other creatures. A Efretti might only bring out their yakman from a portable hole(With bottle of air and a pistol) if someone tries to force them to obey. Negotiation is fine because they can get promises to not murder them.
In Planescape they touch a magic jewel to be summoned, so they have a round or 2 to drink a potion or something.
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Darkheyr wrote:
EDIT: Am I blind, or did you miss mentioning what/who you are actually asking about?
After that bath, I can barely move, let alone recall what I was asking about! @_@
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I think it's fitting that the Plane of Shadow is the 'best' place to hide out!
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Hmm.. I'd have to go for the 'Pray to deity, hope said deity wants to help out and sends answer in dream. I figure if a deity gets on the case, mundane spells and methods of subterfuge are kinda moot.
Granted, the deity might insist the minion... um, cleric/follower has to do the 'ole 'perform an annoyingly tedious quest in my name' first.
We could even drag in the 'infinite number of Efreeti praying for intervention' into the mix - one of them, gonna get lucky!
DAMNED DEITIES!
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Loving this thread!
*shakes fist*
thepuregamer wrote:
you are just trading yourself one problem for another. Scrying can be detected with a relatively easy perception check meaning you run the risk of outing yourself before you even get to the part where you chainbind creatures. Furthermore, you will have to make more scrying attempts on average as you are attempting to scry targets you only have 2nd hand information on(+5 to their saving throw against the scrying). The more you do this the more chances you give yourself of being found.
So... how do they find him just from being scryed on?
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In many other scenarios I would agree with some of this but I am not arguing RAI here. I am arguing RAW. RAW wish requires dm discretion.
No. PARTS of Wish require it. There are specific safe cases that don't.
Quote: 1. You are confusing things, I have never said that efreeti can do whatever they want with wish. Just that what they can do with wish is dependent on 2 things. What a DM allows wish to do beyond the basic stuff and what a DM determines efreeti society has discovered about wish. Now a player could do these things as well if he can discover how to make these wishes. An entire efreeti society is better equipped to do this than a lone wizard. How does that prevent a player from gaining such knowledge through an Efreeti?
Quote: 3. Assuming that creatures do not use their alotted treasure on themselves is silly. This discussion is still supposed to relate to an actual game. They do. Thats what Tarantula and I said. Your point?
Quote: 4. You are going very specific because you think it helps you make a point but it doesn't. That would be the general act of kidnapping or enslavement which could fall under the portfolio's of asmodeus and also nethys might know since he has witnessed all things(though his abundance of knowledge apparently drove him crazy). These are 2 major deities of golarion I looked up using the power of the internets. And still, Mind Blank prevents that information being gained through Commune.
Quote: This has already been discussed... really. Mind blank blocks all divination spells that gather information about the target. If the binder is a human and we ask did an elf kidnap the efreeti, we are not using divination to gather information about the binder. We are asking about and receiving information on elves. Yes, it has. Its still information gathering about the mind blanked target. Whether you ask "Is Frank a human", "Is Frank an elf/dwarf...(list of all things not human)" or "Is frank anything but a human" makes no difference. You now have information, specifically about Frank, and you gained it by divination.
And even if we follow your interpretation, all you could possibly find out is that the contacted outsider doesn't know, or that there is at least one elf running around with mind blank. Which helps you... how again?
Quote: except he can still use abilities, so he can still use antimagic field(with a wish) which means that if your in an mmm, he will just use his antimagic field suppressing the mmm spell where he is and pop outside of the mansion. To tell you the truth, I'm not sure what happens when you use antimagic field in an extradimensional space. AMF doesn't exactly cross dimensional barriers (or physical barriers at that)
Still, so he escapes. So what? As said before, some escapees are expected.
Quote: I will tell you something else, mindblank>everything is likely more unbalancing than what you are imagining. Why? And even then, its still how the spell works.
Quote: I mean if you need to use leadership to show that commune is broken then you are clearly only proving that leadership is broken. Either way, leadership is only going to net you 4 minions able to cast commune. While I agree about Leadership, I disagree about "only four". Because every cleric is several Efreet's worth of Commune castings if they really need to. Especially when we are talking about 17th level characters or their 15th level cohorts.
Darkheyr wrote: No. PARTS of Wish require it. There are specific safe cases that don't. Didn't know you played in games where you had part of a spell. Part of wish does not require it but Wish as a whole does. This is an unavoidable fact. Wish is not like fireball. Fireball does not require dm interpretation as a part or as a whole. If you cast a fireball and your dm says, the fireball turns around and eats your arm, then he is out to get you and changing the hard rules on fireball. You open up the prd to the section on wish and it will include a part about dm's making choices about the spell. It doesn't get more RAW than that(those are the rules and they are definitely written down).
Darkheyr wrote: Yes, it has. Its still information gathering about the mind blanked target. Whether you ask "Is Frank a human", "Is Frank an elf/dwarf...(list of all things not human)" or "Is frank anything but a human" makes no difference. You now have information, specifically about Frank, and you gained it by divination.
And even if we follow your interpretation, all you could possibly find out is that the contacted outsider doesn't know, or that there is at least one elf running around with mind blank. Which helps you... how again?
Actually if we were to follow my interpretation, in some settings the contacted outsider or god might know and in some they might not know. Also at some points in time, there might be an elf running around with mind blank on which would block a question about all elves. Which means, in some settings and at some point you can be found. I am only trying to show that much. Chain binding is not foolproof. You can make the targets aware of you while scrying for your target and then you can also sometimes be found after the chain binding occurs.
Also I have a more important question to run by you guys. Mind blank does not stop scrying. Thus you can scry a target that is mind blanked and the only repercussion is that you cannot see him(which if you have figured out he is mind blanked, shouldn't be too disconcerting).
Which means, if you employ large numbers of scrying attempts looking for the dude who cast planar binding on your ally, sooner or later he might roll a 1 and fumble his saving throw. Then you will know where he is and be able to plane shift to him.
Let me know what I missed if I have any rules incorrect.
Diego Rossi wrote: perhaps Kelemvor the god of death saw it coming but didn't make the effort to warn mystryl. LazarX wrote:
Possibly because by that point he had long ceased to care. One of Mr. Major Evil Dude's prior success HAD been totally destroying the love between those two. As god of Death, he'd long come to the opinion that Death comes to everyone, even Death itself, when the time comes.
Please, check your quotes, that was said by thepuregamer,
In Forgotten realms 3 and 3.5 (I don't care about 4e) Mystryl choose to die to save the weave several millennia before the birth of Kelemvor.
I suppose you are speaking of the passage from 3.5e and 4e but Kelemvor lover was the 3rd goddes of magic, Midnight.
Tarantula wrote: I apologize if you feel this is in poor taste, but I believe it describes my position quite well on this and why I do not think I will be continuing discussions on the topic.
http://unrforliberty.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Our-Discussion.jpg
Nice. I will look it to see were I fall in it, but now it is 3.00 AM. A bit late.
BenignFacist wrote: .
..could you not simply ask 'Where was the Efreeti killed?
That is perfectly valid.
That why the suggestion were doing it in locations that cease to exist (Magnificent Mansion) or are featureless (Astral plane) or inimical to efreeti (the elemental water plane, in a MMM or a temporary bubble of air).
No solution is foolproof both for the binder or the efreeti searching for him, simply, unless you use DM fiat teh binder goal is to make it too costly and time expensive for the efreeti, so that they would have to chose between capturing several less prepared binders of keeping the search up for him.
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