The obvious example would be waking someone from sleep.
Possessed by a haunt and you have a weapon that can deal damage only to the haunt.
I don't think that counts.
Attacking a confused ally so they are forced to attack you next turn rather than having a possibility of rolling and killing the squishy caster.
Ally has the Confused condition and the ability to obliterate virtually any party member.... except mine which isn't overly offensive but it very defensive, with a massive temporary hit point pool. I won't gamble "might act normally" against "might kill a party member"... focus the confusion on me.
Same general thing applies to trip attempts... if a party member isn't entirely sane, stopping them in their tracks as an AoO is an attack.
There are also a few abilities that only apply when below X hit points. There will be edge conditions where knocking an ally below that number to activate their ability might be for the best.
Then there's vampiric touch which in the right circumstances might be the difference between life and death for the caster, but not for the target, even if the only available target is an ally.
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Nearly every Call of Cthulhu game I've ever seen or played in has had someone attack a fellow PC. Usually, the attacker was insane or on his way but once in awhile attacking your ally to rescue them from suffering a horrible fate is almost necessary.
Our Magus and Slayer both failed their save against Confusion and started attacking each other, so my Guntank/Warpriest smacked them both defensively, swift-cast something to buff his AC (which was already in the 'barely hittable' range), and soaked up the attacks until the wizard and cleric could do something about the Confusion.
I've seen a monk hit a confused barbarian and then kite him. It was hilarious.
I had a wizard fail against a confusion effect. She then proceeded to swipe at allies with her sword. So, it was a good thing in that she was trying to attack using her sword instead of spells.
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In Rise of the Runelords,
So I decided that the most expedient course of action was for me to kill the PC, in order to remove the threat, so we could escape. We of course resurrected her later.
At 1st level, I cast sleep on the party Paladin, when 3 stirges attacked him. Probably saved him as the stirges all fell asleep too.
In the final fight of a recent low-level PFS scenario, the enemy cleric used cause fear on the party's main bruiser. Rather than wait potentially several rounds for him to run away then come back, one of the PCs successfully tripped him as he fled. That halved his movement next turn, which meant he stayed in range of the witch PC, who slumber hexed him. (Both attacks were done with the player's full permission, due to the PVP rules.) A round or two later, another PC woke him up. The fear had expired during his nap, which meant he was able to participate in the final round of the fight.
In one of my home campaigns, the party's main melee character fell prey to an aboleth's dominate because of her rotten Will save. This would have gone very badly for the other PCs, except one of them blinded her with glitterdust before her next turn. For the rest of the fight, she failed all her Will saves to end either effect, and whiffed on almost every single attack.
I had a wizard fail against a confusion effect. She then proceeded to swipe at allies with her sword. So, it was a good thing in that she was trying to attack using her sword instead of spells.
Wow. That was allowed at your table?
For us, that'd pretty strongly violate the intention of the spell. I mean, it doesn't say "attack nearest, unless you don't want to, in which case go ahead and find a way to 'attack' them that stands no chance of actually doing anything significant to them".
I had a wizard fail against a confusion effect. She then proceeded to swipe at allies with her sword. So, it was a good thing in that she was trying to attack using her sword instead of spells.
Wow. That was allowed at your table?
For us, that'd pretty strongly violate the intention of the spell. I mean, it doesn't say "attack nearest, unless you don't want to, in which case go ahead and find a way to 'attack' them that stands no chance of actually doing anything significant to them".
Well, confusion states
Attacks nearest creature (for this purpose, a familiar counts as part of the subject’s self)
There is a creature adjacent to my gnome fire wizard. I have a bastard sword in hand (its my arcane bond) which my character crafted themselves (meaning they are proficient with it thanks to my gnome racial trait master tinker).
If I'm being forced to attack the nearest creature I'm not sure that it makes sense to do anything but attack with my sword.
As the DM what would you have the character do instead in that scenario?
The player turned a complete 180 and sided with the big bad at the climax of the story arc.
So we beat him down, reincarnated him into a boar, drove him mad then worked a load of permanent enchantments (trollish fortitude was OP in 2nd edition) then charged peasants coppers to beat him to death with a stick
I had several occasions of creating trips with my reach monkey trip dude (30' weapon reach, 15' unarmed reach, 4+ AoOs, etc.). Easy to break up confusion fights when you can't get next to me due to Ki Throw. Similarly, I could pull allies out of bad positions once I got the Quaking Amulet of Mighty Fists. It looks like this:
"Standard action: I kick the ground at 15', creating a 20' line of trip (so reaching 35'). I ki throw my ally behind me 15' into our backline (that's 60' because I was enlarged). Any enemies I hit are going into this very inconvenient corner I happen to reach."
It felt busted.
Well, confusion states
Attacks nearest creature (for this purpose, a familiar counts as part of the subject’s self)There is a creature adjacent to my gnome fire wizard. I have a bastard sword in hand (its my arcane bond) which my character crafted themselves (meaning they are proficient with it thanks to my gnome racial trait master tinker).
If I'm being forced to attack the nearest creature I'm not sure that it makes sense to do anything but attack with my sword.
What you apparently fail to consider is that in the contect of spells, "attack" doesn't mean physical combat. "All offensive combat actions, even those that don’t damage opponents, are considered attacks. (...) All spells that opponents resist with saving throws, that deal damage, or that otherwise harm or hamper subjects are attacks." CRB pg. 208
Confusion means the target thinks the nearest creature to was an enemy, and it makes no sense that a Wizard would use a sword against an enemy when spells as discribed above are aviable.
Well, confusion states
Attacks nearest creature (for this purpose, a familiar counts as part of the subject’s self)There is a creature adjacent to my gnome fire wizard. I have a bastard sword in hand (its my arcane bond) which my character crafted themselves (meaning they are proficient with it thanks to my gnome racial trait master tinker).
If I'm being forced to attack the nearest creature I'm not sure that it makes sense to do anything but attack with my sword.
As the DM what would you have the character do instead in that scenario?
I would expect you to take a 5 foot step and annihilate the creature (likely with a spell), regardless of if it was previously an ally. If an open space wasn't available, I'd expect you to cast defensively.
Confusion means the target thinks the nearest creature to was an enemy, and it makes no sense that a Wizard would use a sword against an enemy when spells as discribed above are aviable.
Interesting. I always assumed that it meant you had to take the attack action against the nearest creature. In this way it means it also negatively impacts martial characters who are near creatures that are actual enemies, as it would prevent them from taking the full attack action.
I guess it depends on the DMs interpretation of "attack" and how much control the character has over how much effort they put into said attack.
Are you expected to burn limited resources on the attack?
If I'm a magus using a spell storing weapon should I use spell combat with my highest level spell and expend the spell out of my weapon?
confusion doesn't state that you believe that your target is your enemy just that you have to attack the nearest creature. Which I always imagined as having a literal irresistible urge to attack.
I would expect you to take a 5 foot step and annihilate the creature (likely with a spell), regardless of if it was previously an ally. If an open space wasn't available, I'd expect you to cast defensively.
Which spell and/or ability?
Ones that I use all the time? ones that are my strongest? or My most efficient offensive ability?
IIRC in that moment I had all of the following available to me and had used all of them recently (i'm excluding spells I'd cast that wouldn't break invisibility as they clearly are not "attack" spells).
Fire Jet (school ability)
Produce Flame (racial ability)
Snap Dragon Fireworks
Fireball
Intensified Fireball
Flame Strike
Intensified Flame Strike
Fire Snake
Terrible Remorse
Dispel Magic
Destruction
Arcane Surge (mythic ability to cast any wizard spell)
Recently my go to spells with the character have been Intensified Flame Strike, Fire Jet and Destruction. Based purely on if we are facing multiple targets, how quickly I think the arcane archer in our group will drop things and how much of a threat it is to the party. For longer combats I'll cast snap dragon fireworks since I can fire them off in addition to casting spells.
Well, confusion states
Attacks nearest creature (for this purpose, a familiar counts as part of the subject’s self)There is a creature adjacent to my gnome fire wizard. I have a bastard sword in hand (its my arcane bond) which my character crafted themselves (meaning they are proficient with it thanks to my gnome racial trait master tinker).
If I'm being forced to attack the nearest creature I'm not sure that it makes sense to do anything but attack with my sword.
As the DM what would you have the character do instead in that scenario?
I only allow characters to perform basic weapon attacks while confused. It feels wrong to me to let someone cast complicated spells when they're too confused to tell friend from foe.
I guess it depends on the DMs interpretation of "attack" and how much control the character has over how much effort they put into said attack.
When in doubt, invisibility. <Grin> There's some circular logic, but that spell is famous for mind-reading. It just knows when someone is "attacking", in order to stop.
Are you expected to burn limited resources on the attack?
If I'm a magus using a spell storing weapon should I use spell combat with my highest level spell and expend the spell out of my weapon?
I'll expand on this in the next post, but the answer is probably.
confusion doesn't state that you believe that your target is your enemy just that you have to attack the nearest creature. Which I always imagined as having a literal irresistible urge to attack.
That's splitting hairs. The irresistible urge to attack is because your confusion prevents you from properly determining friend or foe (which some of the rest of the condition mentions). The irresistible urge to attack should (IMHO) be viewed as an intent to make that attack purposeful. It shouldn't (again, IMHO) be watered-down by using massively sub-optimal abilities or choices. If you're a fighter type, you're likely going to Power Attack or rage or do whatever it is you do to make your "attacks" worth doing.
Said another way... you may not believe the target is your enemy, but you do believe that you need to attack them... which works out to the exact same result.
Which spell and/or ability?
Ones that I use all the time? ones that are my strongest? or My most efficient offensive ability?
It depends. Sorry. I know. Cop-out.
We don't play such that confusion is mind-obliterating. It's already taken away some player-agency, so we leave freedom to apply some tactical sense. As in, we boil it down to "you got confused about WHY you're doing what you're doing, but not WHAT you're doing." So, you can still recognize an undead target as being a good candidate for positive energy, and you can still recognize that a heavily armored opponent isn't a good candidate for hitting with a stick. A target who is standing beside a cliff might be tempting to push off it, and a target who is standing in a flammable place is tempting to light on fire. An ally who is known to be vulnerable to fear would suggest using those spells on them.
You're out to defeat your target. Attack them in some way that serves that goal. That's what I meant by "honesty" in an earlier post.
IIRC in that moment I had all of the following available to me and had used all of them recently (i'm excluding spells I'd cast that wouldn't break invisibility as they clearly are not "attack" spells).
Fire Jet (school ability)
Produce Flame (racial ability)
Snap Dragon Fireworks
Fireball
Intensified Fireball
Flame Strike
Intensified Flame Strike
Fire Snake
Terrible Remorse
Dispel Magic
Destruction
Arcane Surge (mythic ability to cast any wizard spell)
Well, (as we play it) you're compelled to try to defeat your target. So yeah, the arcane surge is going to come into play. Maybe use it for disintegrate? But really, I'd accept/expect save-or-die spells as well, so if you could pull of something like deeper slumber I'd be okay with that too. flesh to stone would be good.
Recently my go to spells with the character have been Intensified Flame Strike, Fire Jet and Destruction. Based purely on if we are facing multiple targets, how quickly I think the arcane archer in our group will drop things and how much of a threat it is to the party. For longer combats I'll cast snap dragon fireworks since I can fire them off in addition to casting spells.
That blasty, and fine. I absolutely wouldn't have a problem with a player using spells that they commonly use, especially if they're prepared. I just would have to spock an eyebrow when magic missile is selected over harm or wish. If it's obvious you're not trying to harm the target, then (to us) it's obvious you're not acting in the spirit of the condition.
But hey, table variance. This is an interesting conversation.
I only allow characters to perform basic weapon attacks while confused. It feels wrong to me to let someone cast complicated spells when they're too confused to tell friend from foe.Well, confusion states
Attacks nearest creature (for this purpose, a familiar counts as part of the subject’s self)There is a creature adjacent to my gnome fire wizard. I have a bastard sword in hand (its my arcane bond) which my character crafted themselves (meaning they are proficient with it thanks to my gnome racial trait master tinker).
If I'm being forced to attack the nearest creature I'm not sure that it makes sense to do anything but attack with my sword.
As the DM what would you have the character do instead in that scenario?
I hear you, and that's (another) interesting take on the condition. Especially a condition we've never really imagined anyone would play differently from the way we do.
Certainly lowers the lethality of the condition.
Only disagreement I'd have is that there's plenty of fiction precedent for complicated actions that are taken out on the wrong person due to "confusion". (Not the condition, just the state.)
Which spell and/or ability?
Ones that I use all the time? ones that are my strongest? or My most efficient offensive ability?
It depends. Sorry. I know. Cop-out.
We don't play such that confusion is mind-obliterating. It's already taken away some player-agency, so we leave freedom to apply some tactical sense. As in, we boil it down to "you got confused about WHY you're doing what you're doing, but not WHAT you're doing." So, you can still recognize an undead target as being a good candidate for positive energy, and you can still recognize that a heavily armored opponent isn't a good candidate for hitting with a stick. A target who is standing beside a cliff might be tempting to push off it, and a target who is standing in a flammable place is tempting to light on fire. An ally who is known to be vulnerable to fear would suggest using those spells on them.
You're out to defeat your target. Attack them in some way that serves that goal. That's what I meant by "honesty" in an earlier post.
I mean, so long as it's being applied consistently that's fine. If a monster gets hit with confusion (and gets that attack result) I would expect it make a single attack against the nearest target, even if it it normally gets 10 attacks per round. On the other hand if you expect it to get all 10 attacks against a nearby mook while expending once per day abilities, then I agree there's no reason the fighter getting hit with it shouldn't be expected to do the same.
IMO getting the "attack nearest creature" result should still be a detriment even if the nearest creature happens to be an actual enemy.
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There was an incident where one of our party members was assassinated by a Doppleganger and replaced him then acted against the party. The player for a period of time took over roleplaying the Doppleganger Assassin NPC.
Scott, did this incident occur in Ian's upstairs room in Brattleboro, Vermont, circa 1988? If so, I was the DM ... If not, then it was another very similar incident.
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@Scott: Got it, Scott. Definitely different incidents. Mine was a Total Party Kill sleeping Coup De Grace by a doppleganger assassin. A player actively played the doppleganger.
When in doubt, invisibility. <Grin>
No need to grin! As far as I can tell, the rules text that I've quoted about the word "attack" in spell descriptions was indeed written to make that part of Invisibility (which dates back to AD&D) a general rule (the 3.5 version of the text even directly references Invisibility).
I'm not sure what Confusion really does, but it's not the attack action, not as written. As a general note, if something doesn't say "attack action", it's not the attack action.
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Had an example in our last session. We are in a pretty espionage heavy campaign, and were infiltrating a noble's masquerade ball. Inevitably things went a bit downhill when one of our party member's cover was blown. In the ensuing fight we were getting our asses kicked badly through a combination of bad rolls and being relatively unoptimized for combat as a group.
I luckily have an extremely good bluff score and some very solid credentials "proving" I belong to an opposing faction. I managed to convince the enemy wizard I was on his side and dutifully knocked out my remaining conscious ally in order to cart the party off to jail and avoid a TPK.
EDIT: Didn't actually take them to jail of course.
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I mean, I had PCs who couldn't stand each other, kicking each other for non-lethal damage to wake up whichever one was sleeping.
Also, those same PCs (both of them Chaotically aligned) gave everyone consent to blast everyone in an AoE if they were surrounded by foes. If one of them had resistance to/protection from the incoming energy, so much the better.
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I ran a one shot where the party killed a Lich who then possessed the party rogue thru a sword the rogue had claimed from the Lich's treasure pile.
After subduing the rogue/lich, the party was trying to figure out how to free him from the possession.
The CN Sorcerer asked: "If he is dead, and resurrected does his soul come back, or the Lich's?"
Me: "The Rogue's."
CN Sorc: Okay. I pull out my dagger and Coup De Grace him. Then ask the cleric to cast Raise Dead."
Organized Play Developer
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We used to use tactics where we'd have a character with improved evasion and good AC (often a monk or ranger) go sneak ahead and intentionally trigger certain combats so we could center fireballs and other AoE spells on them for maximum efficiency once all the enemies ran after them.
We had a fighter get tagged with a slumber hex during an encounter and our zen archer plinked him with one of the arrows from his flurry to wake him up.
We once dropped some conjured dire wolverines into the middle of a goblin camp and then damaged them from hiding to drive them into uncontrollable rages (technically the wolverines were our allies, so I think that counts?)
On more than one occasion while playing a front-liner I have told the party caster to just go ahead and tag me with a spell if it meant that we did more harm to the enemy. Especially if I'm playing something like a Combat Patrol reach fighter where I might just be surrounded by enemies radiating out from me as the central point.
Oh, and once I convinced the party rogue to stab me and throw me off a cliff so that he could convince the BBEG that he'd changed sides.
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I'm playing a level 13 character right now with Evasion and a +19 Reflex Save. He has issued standing instructions to the blaster characters in the party to cast AoE Spells into melee with abandon.I mean, I had PCs who couldn't stand each other, kicking each other for non-lethal damage to wake up whichever one was sleeping.
Also, those same PCs (both of them Chaotically aligned) gave everyone consent to blast everyone in an AoE if they were surrounded by foes. If one of them had resistance to/protection from the incoming energy, so much the better.
Like this [Order of the Stick Episode 200] and this [Order of the Stick Episode 214 & 215].
First instance is just a fireball. Second instance is combined fireball & lightning bolt from two different casters.
Confused min maxed Kineticist playing with some lower level character (to the point that a crit would take them from full to dead
So rather than wait for that 1 in 4 chance, My kitsune swashbuckler whapped him upside the head for some subdual damage and ran around the corner .
Cue song
"Foooox on the run....."
Followed by benny hill for 4 minutes....but we all got our steps in.
Invisible enemy wizard starts casting dominate person
So my invisible friendly kitsune oracle with 9 tails starts casting dominate person
Kineticist with the will save of a lemming gets dominated
Kineticist with the will save of a lemming gets dominated ... twice
The result is an opposed charisma check :)
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I once had players kill my character because I was possessed and in the position I was in, I would have killed at least one other player, if not two (6 attacks per round with 30 str and dragon style/ferocity does a lot of damage). It was far cheaper to pool together a raise dead for one character than two or three.
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The party was sent to retrieve, I think it was a Beholder, with a magical containment thing. It was asleep so half the group was sneaking up on it when the Bard? decided to cast Deeper Darkness to help (somehow).
I took my AoO.
After two more AoOs we successfully captured the still slumbering Beholder.
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I was playing in a 1e game back in the day and my character (and me, for that matter) got tired of another player mouthing off about my character through his (for some reason he didn't like the way I played mine and was being passive-aggressive about it). So my character beat him into unconsciousness and turned him in for the bounty that was on his head. Then I broke him out of jail and told him if I could it once I could do it again. And again. The player was furious and then refused to even acknowledge my character during games. I was fine with that.
Last game a character got possessed. The barbarian full-attacked her for subdual damage.
The rest of the party hit her for lethal damage.