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You find yourself in a hallway that seems to stretch forward forever. You make a Will save and realize you're in a Mindscape, and to exit, you need only walk through the door at the other end of the hallway...10 miles straight ahead. The Psychic needed to enter the Mindscape as well, and is...10 miles straight ahead.
It takes you...I don't know, an hour...? to reach the door. When you see the Psychic, he gives you a friendly wave and ends the spell. Your consciousness returns to your body, which is in a gutted and empty magic shop that used to be full of your property. You rush upstairs to make sure your wife and kids are OK, and find them all slaughtered.
Your loved ones, your business, your legacy, all gone. Taken by some guy less than half your level, and his stooges, less than half HIS level. Why did this happen?
BECAUSE CREATE MINDSCAPE IS OP AS F#CK!!
Let's not focus on how the person in my example above could have prevented this from happening, because we all know there are specific circumstances that would have helped him. Create Mindscape isn't an auto-win. But a scenario like the one above is still all too possible, even probable, against a healthy majority of targets the caster of the spell is likely to come across.
First, let's talk about the defenses the target gets against it: to negate it altogether, a creature needs SR, which is moderately common among monsters a 9th level caster would face, and up, but it's certainly something a proper build will still bulldoze past. Plus, it's almost always a stupid idea for a Player to have SR, so that's basically not even a factor if used on a PC. Beyond that, the only defense is when you first enter the Mindscape, you get a Will save to disbelieve the illusion and the way out is made known to you. Great. The caster of the spell can exploit the fact that Mindscapes have no limits on size to make that exit take forever to reach:
"Hey, it's an Ancient Worm Red Dragon. Their fly speed is 250' and they can cast Time Stop 4/day. So they can fly 5000' in a minute, and get as much as 2 free minutes from Time Stop. I want the Dragon out of the picture for...I don't know, a half hour. The way out of the mindscape is to step on a rock 160,000' away. Meanwhile, the rest of my team has assessed his hoard, taken ABSOLUTELY anything they want, and carried my body away. Or, I guess we could try to coup de grace him. Everyone make a free coup de grace. Crap, he saved each one and woke up. That's OK, I'll cast Create Mindscape again. At the end of the day, unless the target of Create Mindscape has the Mindscape Door spell, there's no escape.
OK, so I'm sure plenty of people have already realized how OP this spell is, and the obvious solution should be to just ban it at my table. Unfortunately, I LOVE this spell! At least the flavor of it. So I'm trying to figure out ways to tone it down in its abusiveness. Below are some ideas of mine, but not in any way tested or mathed out for balance.
1 - limit the size of the Mindscape. Maybe make this Create lesser Mindscape, and make a 6th level spell Create Mindscape, and an 8th level spell Create Greater Mindscap (which would be the lmitless size version that the current Create Mindscape spell can utilize), just like the Demiplane spells. Each successive spell gets more options in versatility, size, etc.
2 - Will disbelief (lucid). If you make your Will save, you can manipulate the Mindscape as if you were lucid dreaming. Make a Concentration Check (DC 15+X) where X = the level of the spell you want to "cast". I think it kind of ruins it if you can just use this to cast Mindscape Door, but now you can Fly, Telleport, etc, which makes you much harder to trap. I realize that this means Martials are still at a woeful disadvantage, so maybe something like Perception or Sense Motive in place of a Concentration check for the same effect?
3 - Perception to wake up. You take a -10 on perception checks while asleep. If there is any noise near you, you should be allowed a Perception check -10 to hear it. If you succeed, a Mindscape Door appears next to you wherever you happen to be in the Mindscape.
I'd love some feedback on this so far, as well as other suggestions!
Mindscapes created with create mindscape have the regular magic trait, so point 2 is mostly unnecessary, since you can cast whatever you want whenever you want within the mindscape. If you're using that point to allow people to cast spells they couldn't normally cast, then it makes create mindscape nearly useless since it becomes possible to chain timestops indefinitely or come up with other solutions far too easily.
The first point is perfectly valid though. You can create an infinite plane for free and have the exit point be lightyears away from your hapless foe. This is far too powerful for a 4th level spell, create greater demiplane is limited in size, requires substantial money to expand and is a 9th level spell. Create mindscape should have a size limit.
I'm not sure on whether perception to wake up is needed or not though. I would say absolutely if it is a harmful mindscape, but I'm okay without one for harmless mindscapes (the spell does have a time limit after all). That's moreso a personal thing though and has no say on balance issues.
Create greater mindscape on the other hand should just not be a thing. Create a magic void, infinite size mindscape and then make it permanent. Sac yourself to ensure that the big bad and all his followers are trapped with you forever, or don't make it permanent and just have your allies coup de grace the enemy team at some point over the next week before you dispel the spell. No magic trait = can't fast travel to the extraction point, allowing you to screw over baddies for days on end.
Mindscapes created with create mindscape have the regular magic trait, so point 2 is mostly unnecessary, since you can cast whatever you want whenever you want within the mindscape. If you're using that point to allow people to cast spells they couldn't normally cast, then it makes create mindscape nearly useless since it becomes possible to chain timestops indefinitely or come up with other solutions far too easily.
The first point is perfectly valid though. You can create an infinite plane for free and have the exit point be lightyears away from your hapless foe. This is far too powerful for a 4th level spell, create greater demiplane is limited in size, requires substantial money to expand and is a 9th level spell. Create mindscape should have a size limit.
I'm not sure on whether perception to wake up is needed or not though. I would say absolutely if it is a harmful mindscape, but I'm okay without one for harmless mindscapes (the spell does have a time limit after all). That's moreso a personal thing though and has no say on balance issues.
Create greater mindscape on the other hand should just not be a thing. Create a magic void, infinite size mindscape and then make it permanent. Sac yourself to ensure that the big bad and all his followers are trapped with you forever, or don't make it permanent and just have your allies coup de grace the enemy team at some point over the next week before you dispel the spell. No magic trait = can't fast travel to the extraction point, allowing you to screw over baddies for days on end.
Yes, my intention of 2 was to allow anyone to "cast" any spell - even martials. Do you think a Concentration DC of 33 is easy enough to get to chain Time Stops? Probably for a high level caster - I've never played anything past level 12 or so. Maybe I could put a cap on the spells "castable" to maybe level 5 or 6? Yeah, limitless size is still too much for an 8th or 9th level spell, so Create Greater Mindscape shouldn't allow it.