Dominate Person & Self-Destructive Orders

[Time's Memory]

A couple weeks ago, my 8th level fight in Kingmaker was dominated by a vampire. The vampire had me hack down my party's cleric, and then the other four PC's killed me. I was raised, but now I'm wondering about the wording of the spell, for future incidents.

Dominate person says "Obviously self-destructive orders are not carried out." If my character knows that openly attacking the party is a sure-fire way to get killed, would she follow the same command again? I can see covertly trying to fulfill the instruction, but otherwise it seems clearly self-destructive (the party has already shown the outcome once).

When my group played 3.5 Conan, we had a couple near TPKs from dominate--I know the usual interpretation is you do whatever you're told, but I was wondering whether any groups handled it with more nuance than that.

Thanks for any thoughts.

[Isil-zha]

Not quite how I read self-destructive.

But there is definitely a new save with a +2 bonus coming up for an order like this.

[ShadowcatX]

Ya, I wouldn't consider it self destructive. (Unless you give up adventuring as a whole, because adventuring is self destructive.)

[Ravingdork]

To me self-destructive is jumping into a pool of lava, stabbing oneself in the eye, or casting an attack spell with yourself as a target. Otherwise, one could interpret "self-destructive" as being "absolutely anything the dominating spellcaster commands" seeing as it is clearly an enemy telling you to do something (which is unlikely to be anything but detrimental to you well-being).

[Lakesidefantasy]

To avoid those extra bonus saves I use innocuous commands like "go home and crawl in bed." or "go sit in the corner and count to a million."

[MordredofFairy]

i agree. Self-destructive would be an order to coup-de-grace yourself.

Attacking another party member is just an extra save, but otherwise totally valid. Even IF the others then turn on you, you don't know if they'd go after you or the controller, nor if they'd succeed.
And, really, they killed you and raised you?
Nobody even considered using a couple non-lethal attacks?
Or stabilizing you once unconscious and dying?
That should definitely not be the standard procedure...

All in all, it would be too wide up to interpretation.

The main reason this restriction was put in was so no "insta-kill"-yourself commands can be given to dominated targets.

Otherwise it becomes a utility save-or-die with extra mileage("Kill everybody else, then kill yourself if you're still alive").

[Kayerloth]

Yep as everyone is saying that's not a self destructive order and I'd say doubly so since every party I've ever been in would jump through hoops to avoid killing a dominated or otherwise acting odd party member. Non-lethal attacks would become the order of the day.

[Ravingdork]

In scenarios such as this, the only time the other players used non-lethal attacks was when I as the GM-or I as the dominated player character--urged them to. Left to their own bloodthirsty devices, they'd rather not suck up a -4 to hit.

[MordredofFairy]

Ravingdork wrote:

In scenarios such as this, the only time the other players used non-lethal attacks was when I as the GM-or I as the dominated player character--urged them to. Left to their own bloodthirsty devices, they'd rather not suck up a -4 to hit.

Really? It's not like they have to use ONLY non-lethal ones. It's enough if they knock you out.

After all, you only need to have taken enough non-lethal damage to "equal your current hitpoint" and keep a separate tally on them.
Even one or two good hits should be sufficient to ensure you are not "accidently" killed before you get knocked unconscious.

Bloodthirsty group you got ^-^

[Ravingdork]

Yep. Bloodthirsty and lazy and sometimes selfish. Why bother doing the math and looking like an incompetent who can't hit your AC when I can just risk killing you. It's not like your death means I will end up with extra work to do. You have to make the new character, not me.

[Time's Memory]

I appreciate everyone's input -- I tend to agree with you that, by the rules, it isn't self destructive, but with my group, getting charmed or dominated is a sure-fire way to get killed.

I've played with the same basic group for years, and PKing (a couple players love to do it) almost brought the group to an end. There always seems like bad blood and old wounds just under the surface, and players are looking for an excuse to PK "legally". I was once engulfed by a creature (I think it was an enveloper or something like that) and the players took it as a good excuse to kill my character under the premise of stabbing the creature to death.

And, when I was charmed I did point out at the time the party could use subdual damage. I think that would have spoiled the humor of it for them. The GM had a local priest raise me for free, or I probably would have woken up nude with my equipment sold to pay for the raise.

For the record, in my 30 years of roleplaying, I've never PKed anyone (aside from in Paranoia).

[Claxon]

Sounds like you play with some real butholes if they go around killing one another all the time.

[Bizbag]

Claxon wrote:

Sounds like you play with some real butholes if they go around killing one another all the time.

It sounds like they believe they are still playing Paranoia. :P