
MeanMutton |

Hey there!
If a Lich / Vampire / Ghost spellcaster casts Protection from Evil on him/herself does that protect against the spells Command Undead, Control Undead, and the feat Command Undead cast / used by an evil necromancer?
Is there anything that a particularly powerful Lich / Vampire / Ghost spellcaster can do to protect from control by evil necromancers other than (in addition to) having a very high will save?

shadowkras |

It will grant a bonus to his Will save, but command undead (the feat) and control undead (7th wizard spell) are not mind-affecting spells.
Same goes for command undead (2nd wizard spell), but it works more like charm person and less like dominate person.
If this character is a cleric, he should probably have a few of these prepared.
If we are talking about the average lich, he has channel resistance +4 and a total of +15 will against the command undead feat. Against the 2nd level spell, he can simply dispel magic on it, as being an intelligent undead, he knows what happened and can actually react agaisnt it.
The ghost and vampire also have this +4 channel resistance.

Claxon |

Second, the subject immediately receives another saving throw (if one was allowed to begin with) against any spells or effects that possess or exercise mental control over the creature (including enchantment [charm] effects and enchantment [compulsion] effects, such as charm person, command, and dominate person.
Protection from Evil isn't limited to mind affecting charms or compulsions, they are simply listed to explicitly let you know anything from those sub-schools is included.
I believe this would allow you to safely resist Command Undead or Control Undead cast by an evil individual (arcane or divine casters doesn't matter as long as they're evil).
Command Undead feat should also be included since PfE says "or effects".

Claxon |

No, I think it would make him immune. It's mind control, not unlike Dominate Monster.
The difference is that they don't fall under the charms or compulsion school, but don't need to since the spell doesn't only protect against those.
Protection from Evil would protect against Magic Jar or the updated version Possession which are both necromancy spells. The spells he asked about are also necromancy spells, so it's not as though the school of magic is excluded from the PfE.
Are the spells Command Undead or Control Undead spells which exercise mental control over the creature? Yes. Are the from an evil source? If the caster is evil. Then protection from evil should qualify to protect the creature from those spells.
There is no compelling reason why it doesn't, because its not a requirement that the spell be a mind-affecting charm or compulsion.

![]() |

If the lich is an evil cleric, he won't be able to prepare that spell.
Yeah, and many Lichs are Clerics (sometimes Undead Lords). So that's one case where it simply would not work at all. They'd have to rely on their Will Saves, high Charisma, Spell Resistance (if it has it), and high HD (likely since Lichs are usually boss monsters).

MeanMutton |

Yeah, I feel like a smart lich will have scrolls, potions, or a magical item.
You know, like a clear spindle ioun stone in a wayfinder.
WOW... I didn't realize that was a thing. Wait, why doesn't basically EVERYONE have one of these? 4,500 gp for complete and total immunity to Dominate, Charm, etc.?

MeanMutton |

Claxon wrote:Along with Protection from Good, etc.Yeah, I feel like a smart lich will have scrolls, potions, or a magical item.
You know, like a clear spindle ioun stone in a wayfinder.
The clear splindle ioun stone in a wayfinder would be even better than protection from good, evil, law, and chaos together because it would catch even true neutral casters.

Claxon |

Claxon wrote:WOW... I didn't realize that was a thing. Wait, why doesn't basically EVERYONE have one of these? 4,500 gp for complete and total immunity to Dominate, Charm, etc.?Yeah, I feel like a smart lich will have scrolls, potions, or a magical item.
You know, like a clear spindle ioun stone in a wayfinder.
Every character I have has one, and so do most characters in most campaigns that I play in. Only reason I've seen people not take it is because they want the resonant power of something else.
The clear splindle ioun stone in a wayfinder would be even better than protection from good, evil, law, and chaos together because it would catch even true neutral casters.
Nope, it doesn't work like that.
The clear spindle resonant power works like Protection from Evil, which will only protect you from evil sources of mind control, which is pretty much only evil people casting the spell. Technically a spell with the evil descriptor that controlled the targets actions would qualify too, but to my knowledge no mind control spells have the evil descriptor.