Why would a 17th level Wizard go to all the trouble to chain bind efreeti when he could just cast Wish himself?
I see I am going to have to cover several scenarios. This thing keeps getting longer, and longer.
One will cover those who make their wishes hastily creating wishwarps. Such beings are most likely easy to find. I think wishing for the genie who created the wishwarp can get him back to me. Yes I am trying to make this as short as possible.
The other one which I am sure will have to be written in detail covers those who cast kidnap and steal wishes over a period of time<--the hard one.
For the sake of the write up I am assuming I have access to 1 20 level wizard and 2 17th level clerics and 5 11 to 13th level wizards.
Note they don't have to be actual clerics, but they do need to be able to cast as such. Other outsiders will do if there are not enough mortals to fill the need.
I think I can get these through classed Efreets or mortals who are willing to trade their services for a wish though.
The writeup is still being written. If this is not fair Rossi explain why. If it is fair I will proceed from there.
I think it is also fair to say the Efreet can determine an approximate timeline down to the month, assuming it has been months, to determine when the chain-binding started. Once again give me a yeah or nay.
I think we are also working with the assumption that if I ask has anyone been binding that is from New City(made up name) the line will go static if the binder(who is mind blanked) is from new city. Yeah or nay?
If I ask a question such as "have any kobolds been born in New City in the past that are binder?" and the binder is a kobold does the line go static? Yeah or nay.
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I see I am going to have to cover several scenarios. This thing keeps getting longer, and longer.
One will cover those who make their wishes hastily creating wishwarps. Such beings are most likely easy to find.
Granted, it has been my position for several pages.
I think wishing for the genie who created the wishwarp can get him back to me. Yes I am trying to make this as short as possible.
Barring very extreme measures, something that a guy not caring about wishwarps probably will not bother with, again perfectly acceptable.
The other one which I am sure will have to be written in detail covers those who cast kidnap and steal wishes over a period of time<--the hard one.For the sake of the write up I am assuming I have access to 1 20 level wizard and 2 17th level clerics and 5 11 to 13th level wizards.
Note they don't have to be actual clerics, but they do need to be able to cast as such. Other outsiders will do if there are not enough mortals to fill the need.
I think I can get these through classed Efreets or mortals who are willing to trade their services for a wish though.
In "City of Brass" Paizo say that the highest Efreeti wizard is level 19 and highest sorcerer level 17 or 18, but I think we can easily say they have several level 20 casters in a city of 6 millions with almost 2 million efreeti.
So we can take for accepted the access to the required spellcaster if the disapparence are numerous enogh or of people important enough. .
I think it is also fair to say the Efreet can determine an approximate timeline down to the month, assuming it has been months, to determine when the chain-binding started. Once again give me a yeah or nay.
I think that this one is our major point of discordance. For me a guy chain binding can be the guy summoning 2 efreeti today to get a +5 inherent bonus plus 1 extra wish and then waiting a year or even more.
I get the impression you are thinking of way more frequent kidnapping.
With some reasonable magical and mundane inquiry the casters will find the days when 2 or more efreeti have been kidnapped.
Determining if they were taken by the same caster fall in the Mind blank protection situation. Still a good stating point.
I think we are also working with the assumption that if I ask has anyone been binding that is from New City(made up name) the line will go static if the binder(who is mind blanked) is from new city. Yeah or nay?
Here start the problems.
The line will not go static (that is a automatic yes).If someone unprotected has been binding from there the reply will be yes.
If no one unprotected (but there could be form 0 to an infinite number of protected guys in that city) the reply will be unknown/improbable or something similar.
A better question would be "has some efreeti been bound in new City in the month of march during the year of the frog?"
The question would be only about the efreeti and it will work.
Even more simple: "Where was bound Curly the efreeti?" as the question is only about the efreeti.
Unless it was done in some very special location (Plane of Shadows, MMM, a protected demiplane, a enemy edeity realm on the outer planes and so on) it should pinpoint the location in a couple of questions.
If I ask a question such as "have any kobolds been born in New City in the past that are binder?" and the binder is a kobold does the line go static? Yeah or nay.
Usual problem, no static.
Part one of the question: if the kobold has got/used planar binding before getting mind blank or even once used planar binding while not under the protection of mind blank or with enough unprotected winesses "Yes" (always limited by the non omniscence of the god).
If not but the god know that there was some powerful kobold sorcerer in that city "possible".
Par two: direct question about the caster. Unless the god can check every kobold in the multiuniverse (and for sure some of them will escape his detection as they are in a area barred from that god, like another god realm) the reply will be unknown.
The problems always revolve around two things:
- are the gods omniscient and the guy that replies to commune is always the god?
I see them as similar to the Greek gods, so hardly omniscient. They could be beaten by mere humans (as the poor Arachne can attest).
Beside that I easily see Cayden (or practically every other good) say "He is again archbishop Grundy, it is his 3rd commune this month. Dear cherubim thake the calling ans try rplying to him."
- how far Mind blank protection extend?
I think that it can crate plenty of false positive and false negative.
I.e. the probable existence of several elf under Mind Blank create a false positive: "He was an elf?" "I can't assure you that he wasn't an elf." "Ah, so he is a elf under Mind Blank."
If you use the "static" method you will get static as there are elves under mind blank and you are asking a question about them.
Are you saying that if the the binding is done unprotected, but then mind blank is cast later, that the info is not guarded.
If so we may need to agree on what information mind blank guards before anything else can be done.
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Are you saying that if the the binding is done unprotected, but then mind blank is cast later, that the info is not guarded.
If so we may need to agree on what information mind blank guards before anything else can be done.
It is a bit more complex than that.
If the binding was not done under Mind blank and the deity had reason to check the information before MB was cast, or there were witnesses not protected by Mind blank the deity can give the information to the caster of Commune, limited to what the witnesses saw and know (that is my reading of the spell).
If not the deity is limited to what clues he can get indirectly (the afore mentioned memory of the efreeti if he can be found and so on).
But those are clues, not hard facts, so my "probable", "possible", ecc. replies. The (apparently) human wizard under mind blank cold easily be a elf sorcerer.
As my opinion as a DM is that the deities aren't omniscient and aren't checking everything that happen every minute in the world, if the caster is currently under MB and hasn't boasted about his actions to plenty of people the deity is limited to clues and his replyes will reflect that.
My opinion is that Mind Blank block the gathering of information on the target of the spell and it is very powerful in doing that, to the point that a general query like "This (whatever action) was done by an elf?" would get a reply of "unknown" if there is at least 1 elf under MB and the guy doing this is under MB even if the guy that did this is not an elf.
On the other side of the coin if this was done before several witnesses the information "was done by someone with the aspect of a member of race X" is available.
All the above are opinion based on 30 years of D&D, with the stratification and incrustations from the old D&D, 1rst, 2nd, 3rd, 3.5 and Pathfuinders, and that stratification has its good and bad sides, that is the reason for all the "my opinion".
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The subject is protected from all devices and spells that gather information about the target through divination magic (such as detect evil, locate creature, scry, and see invisible). This spell also grants a +8 resistance bonus on saving throws against all mind-affecting spells and effects. Mind blank even foils limited wish, miracle, and wish spells when they are used in such a way as to gain information about the target. In the case of scrying that scans an area the creature is in, such as arcane eye, the spell works but the creature simply isn't detected. Scrying attempts that are targeted specifically at the subject do not work at all.
As Mind blank has got a buff in protection against divinations (before this version it was possible to use "line of sight" divinations like see invisible against a MB target) and some rewording my interpretation can even bee too favourable for the guys using Commune to get informations, but generally I feel that knowledge that will fall under "widely know" could be gathered with Commune even against a MB target.
If that was not the case we risk to have the spell doing the opposite of what was intended. "Was XX the guy doing this?" "fzzzzt ... static ..." "Ah, XX has Mind Blank, that push him up on the list of suspects".
"There is a guy capable of doing this in city XX?" fzzz. Sign that city as positive, there is at least a guy with MB.
and so on.
I think what I have discovered is that RAW can not account for every situation. Ok I already knew that, but what I mean the attempt to do this by RAW is nigh impossible because judgement calls would have to be made that some will agree with and some will not at least with respect to the mind blank spell among other things. Neither side can prove hiding can be done forever or the counter. Oh well it was interesting to say the least.
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Interesting wraithy?
Interesting?
Really?
...or was it...
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I'm not getting into this whole discussion again, since it's silly, but I wanted to note one thing:
The only problem is that we know that there are at least 70 spellcaster selling spell casting services in the inner sea area alone.
How do you know that? By looking what cities can sell spells of a certain level? I don't know if you've noticed it, but spellcasters have this nifty skill called teleport, as well as a whole BUNCH of abilities to transmit information over vast distances. The frequency of high-level spell trade might very well be quite low, which means only a few high-level spellcasters would be enough to meet the demand, especially if they have apprentices or the like which can transmit messages to them when someone wants to buy that Miracle or Fabricate.
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.....Interesting wraithy?
Interesting?
Really?
...or was it...
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Fireballs are not always the answer.
Yes I am aware that they are fun even when they are not the correct response.|
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I'm not getting into this whole discussion again, since it's silly, but I wanted to note one thing:
The only problem is that we know that there are at least 70 spellcaster selling spell casting services in the inner sea area alone.
How do you know that? By looking what cities can sell spells of a certain level? I don't know if you've noticed it, but spellcasters have this nifty skill called teleport, as well as a whole BUNCH of abilities to transmit information over vast distances. The frequency of high-level spell trade might very well be quite low, which means only a few high-level spellcasters would be enough to meet the demand, especially if they have apprentices or the like which can transmit messages to them when someone wants to buy that Miracle or Fabricate.
What cities sell spellcasting services.
In addition, not every town or village has a spellcaster of sufficient level to cast any spell. In general, you must travel to a small town (or larger settlement) to be reasonably assured of finding a spellcaster capable of casting 1st-level spells, a large town for 2nd-level spells, a small city for 3rd- or 4th-level spells, a large city for 5th- or 6th-level spells, and a metropolis for 7th- or 8th-level spells. Even a metropolis isn't guaranteed to have a local spellcaster able to cast 9th-level spells.
Note how the "spellcasting services" speak of "local spellcasters" and all the quoted part assume that the spellcaster live in the city.
Metropolis is more than 25.000 habitants.
If you think there is a huge network of middle level "apprentices" casting Sending to summon the master caster from somewhere every time a spell is requested it is your version of Golarion and you can do what you want.
I find it less credible than the "local caster" option.
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Fireballs are not always the answer.
You Sir, are asking the wrong questions!
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I think what I have discovered is that RAW can not account for every situation. Ok I already knew that, but what I mean the attempt to do this by RAW is nigh impossible because judgement calls would have to be made that some will agree with and some will not at least with respect to the mind blank spell among other things. Neither side can prove hiding can be done forever or the counter. Oh well it was interesting to say the least.
*nod*It's a b@~~+. Now imagine this thing at an actual game table, and the trouble it could easily lead to.
Brrr.
Less than you think if DM and players are reasonable, a lot if they are unreasonable.
I think what I have discovered is that RAW can not account for every situation. Ok I already knew that, but what I mean the attempt to do this by RAW is nigh impossible because judgement calls would have to be made that some will agree with and some will not at least with respect to the mind blank spell among other things. Neither side can prove hiding can be done forever or the counter. Oh well it was interesting to say the least.*nod*
It's a b%&$+. Now imagine this thing at an actual game table, and the trouble it could easily lead to.
Brrr.
I think any player expecting to pull this off is in for a rude awakening and is more than likely just being given enough rope to hang himself. I think it is better to just tell the player up front that his greed will not bring him any profit instead of let him get himself setup.
