Mind control effects

[xanrael]

Seems like a fair bit of work to edit every friendly NPC in the module to prevent them from being dominated. Also sometimes you might have a legit reason to dominate a friendly NPC such as when one wanders about and then perma-blocks the only exit to a building and you need to move them to be able to leave.

Adding code to the Dominate spell to see if the target is hostile would be significantly less work.

An interesting way to deal with it, though wouldn't you run into issues refreshing the duration of the spell on an enemy already dominated or charmed?

[NauVaseline]

wouldn't you run into issues refreshing the duration of the spell on an enemy already dominated or charmed?

what's the issue? you spend a spell slot, the timer resets or you steal the creature from another enchanter or you fail and nothing happens

[xanrael]

wouldn't you run into issues refreshing the duration of the spell on an enemy already dominated or charmed?

what's the issue? you spend a spell slot, the timer resets or you steal the creature from another enchanter or you fail and nothing happens

They're not a hostile creature when they're already dominated or charmed.

I guess you could do something like:

if hostile or dominated
- then dominate script fires
- else do nothing

You couldn't add in charmed there as you can charm friendly targets and then circumvent it that way.

I know I've charmed stuff to mark it for dominating so other PCs/summons won't murder the target before.

Edit: Though all this partially defeats the purpose of the VFX change in the first place while blocking legit uses of wanting to control friendly things that I mentioned earlier so I'm not sure it is addressing the issue sufficiently.

[Kalopsia]

wouldn't you run into issues refreshing the duration of the spell on an enemy already dominated or charmed?

what's the issue? you spend a spell slot, the timer resets or you steal the creature from another enchanter or you fail and nothing happens

They're not a hostile creature when they're already dominated or charmed.

I guess you could do something like:

if hostile or dominated
- then dominate script fires
- else do nothing

You couldn't add in charmed there as you can charm friendly targets and then circumvent it that way.

I know I've charmed stuff to mark it for dominating so other PCs/summons won't murder the target before.

Edit: Though all this partially defeats the purpose of the VFX change in the first place while blocking legit uses of wanting to control friendly things that I mentioned earlier so I'm not sure it is addressing the issue sufficiently.

People would most likely circumvent a change like that by attacking said NPCs to hostile before dominating them.

I'd say there should be a hidden (spellcraft?) check when examining dominated creatures. DC20 would be enough, limited to one check per hour - same as disguises.
If people pass the check, they see another paragraph in the creature's description or get a combat log message :)

[CononTheAthenian]

I'll preface my comment by stating that I've never done either of the things the OP described!

I feel as though a flat DC 20 check wouldn't present much of an obstacle to detection. Spellcraft is a very useful skill to begin with so you'll find a majority demographic of players passing that very easily. That's probably along the lines of a solution I'd favor though, doing something like possessing a settlement law enforcement NPC should carry serious IC consequences if discovered -- and there should be "some" mechanism to figure out that it's happening ICly.

Perhaps a slightly less useful skill like Spot? What I'd favor personally would be an opposed skill check or a CL/Focus DC check against the caster, if you went that route you could make it a spot/spellcraft alternative check like the pariah system uses multiple skills to determine success so a larger percentage of characters have a chance of figuring it out.

[Flower Power]

Part of me wants to see this result in an IC attitude shift where people treat enchanters with the same mistrust and fear as necromancers.

I managed to get a large chunk of the Enchantment school outlawed/heavily restricted in usage in Cordor years ago - unfortunately, the vast majority of efforts like this just end up being revoked later by someone just going "lol this dum" without realizing that making things illegal opens up avenues for criminal RP - there's no point in having guards if you don't have criminals, and you can't have criminals if nothing is illegal.

That having been said, my present PC already treats diviners like the scum of the earth because stop scrying me you perverts.

[godhand-]

as one of the players who has been doing the enchanting in this scenario.

I have learned this.

OOC - i agree with everyone who has posted about enchanting being considered equally as bad as necromancers, if not worse. on par with slavery. I would like to see that happen.

Regarding dominating non hostiles npcs, the ruling is clear:
Any hostile action against an NPC requires a dm present.

I don't see an issue with using hostile npcs, its within the rules. It has opened up alot of fun roleplay potential for those who don't immediately see it for what it is mechanics wise, but are willing to play with the role and go with it... I also have to respect other players invoking WYSIWYG so if they want to call dominate then so be it.

I will say there is an unmistakable difference when players see other npcs, even hostiles, coming up friendly and talking, they are immediately magnetized by the situation. I think as long as the rules around it are clear, it should be allowed.

I think if there was a check against it, it should be a spellcraft check against an increasing DC depending on the casters spell focus levels, Perhaps a normal spell DC of the equivalent level spell that was used.

[Diegovog]

There is already an epidemic on Arelith of people peeking behind the curtain with mechanical knowledge to infer a limited range of options available to PCs. What would be great here is to roleplay the scenario thoroughly? If you can't tell, maybe you shouldn't and react accordingly? While I will leave it for the DMs to address the NPC issue, I see zero issues with doing this with hostiles. I don't mean to be pedantic here, but this seems to open a lot more RP possibilities than it closes.

And if someone is being super-stupid, then reporting this is the right way to go. The DMs have the tools to deal with this, including logs, so even pointing them in the right direction is likely enough.

This.