Talk:Hostile Mind (3.5e Feat)

Action

Should this be an immediate action? Or just happen automatically? --Ghostwheel (talk) 00:30, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Based on the way you worded it, no. But I would recommend that it has a pre-req tied to it, maybe base save dependent or even requiring the feat Iron Will. This might help with fluff as well as requiring an investment for a very potent (albeit specific) ability. Iron will might be the best way of going about it, but that's just my 2 cents. Gr7mm Bobb (talk) 14:45, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

I like the immediate action idea, as it introduces an element of strategy to using the ability by using up your swift/immediate action for the round. Especially as I feel like melee types with lower will saves would get the most mileage out of this feat, and they tend to need their swift actions for other things. With that limitation to action economy, I don't feel like the feat needs a pre-req. Spanambula (talk) 22:37, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Done and done. --Ghostwheel (talk) 06:18, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

/headtilt... what's done and done? You didn't add the prereq or the immediate action to the feat, and you still get to use it as often as it happens so there's no strategy to it. You didn't do either of the suggestions here.

I also don't agree with the change to activation and exception. If it happens before the spell has even been cast and can happen when you're not even aware of the casting, why do you get to choose to exclude the caster from it? There's a bit of dissonance there. Working more like SR where you have to intentionally lower it might be better if you're not going to have an action associated with its activation. - Tarkisflux ^Talk 07:19, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

How very strange. I was sure that I had added the immediate action.

I think with the action cost, there's no need for the exclusion clause, as you can simply not take the action. --Ghostwheel (talk) 11:36, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, that seems solid. - Tarkisflux ^Talk 16:27, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Unquantifiable?

Why is this listed as unquant anyway? It's a defensive trigger feat that deals H damage once a round. It may come up more or less in different balance games, but it could also come up more or less an a game depending on what you're fighting. Just like most defensive or targeted feats. It doesn't seem like it depends on the balance of other selections that you're supposed to make, and so doesn't really fit there I think. - Tarkisflux ^Talk 16:27, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Mostly because it entirely comes down to DM fiat. If the DM uses primarily mind-affecting spells, it's awesome--potentially VH as it can waste a caster's standard action while bringing damage for the cost of a Immediate action from you. On the other hand, it could feasibly never come up, making it an entirely wasted feat slot. --Ghostwheel (talk) 16:44, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

That's not unquant. Unquant generally means that it could be L, M, H, or VH depending on what you pick to do with it (like leadership) or that it doesn't fit into balance categories at all. Neither of those is the case here. This isn't unquant just because it might not come up, for exactly the same reasons as iron will isn't unquant because you might never make a will save and favored enemy bonuses aren't unquant because you might never fight the ones you pick and fireball isn't unquant because you might only fight things with fire immunity or fire vulnerability. Things have varying degrees of usefulness based on campaign structure, and that's just a thing that we need to average out of the balance categories.

This is a strictly H power that doesn't get to be otherwise, because single target triggered H scaling damage seems like a pretty clearly H thing. That it might not come up doesn't change its balance, it's just part of a more general problem with defensive feats. If you don't like that inherent usefulness variability, you should fix that by giving them something elective to do instead of just reactive. - Tarkisflux ^Talk 19:01, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

No response huh? - Tarkisflux ^Talk 04:10, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

I'm agreeing to disagree, since while I get your point, I don't think you're right. If a feat's power, regardless of how strong it is in the most optimal situation, is still completely up to DM fiat, then I disagree to its power. For example, take a feat that lets you immediately destroy undead as a free action by looking at them, no save. Pretty strong, no? VH, even. But if there are no undead thrown at you, it becomes a waste of a feat. Same thing here. --Ghostwheel (talk) 05:56, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Explain to me how this is different than the Ranger favored enemy case then, or do you accept that it's also an unquant ability because you might waste your selection? Is most of Desert Wind unquant because your DM could throw fire immune creatures at you? Or fire vulnerable creatures? Where are you drawing the line, and is that position supported by the unquant description or the ideal of balance categories as being broadly applicable to different game styles? - Tarkisflux ^Talk 06:28, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I think that the ranger's favored enemy ability specifically is an unquant one, with its actual power at around Moderate level. The more specific an ability is, the more unquant it is. I would say that fire damage isn't unquant, simply because a large swathe of monsters aren't immune to it (did I mention how much I hate straight up immunity?), but mind-affecting abilities originating from monsters are rare enough that it deserves unquant. I draw the line somewhere around the types of monsters and abilities originating from monsters, but I think that elemental-specific abilities and mind-affecting abilities are effective often enough to give them their "actual" balance rating. --Ghostwheel (talk) 09:31, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

I gotta step in and say that that's a rather bad definition. For one, literally almost anything falls into that, from a rogue's sneak attack to anything with a descriptor tag. Clearly half the game is not unquantifiable, for it it was we've failed at making balance levels. No, it can't be defined if the ability is situational or not. You have to judge it if the power of the ability changes wildly based on a choice. The choice is key here, you don't choose if you fight skeletons today or not, that's the environment, that's the DM. You do, however, choose if you pick a level 5 fighter cohort or a wizard cohort. You do choose your wild shape forms, or polymorph, or what happens with a wish spell. But you don't choose if you fight golems, thus justifying or negating the presence of your favored enemy. The choice is the defining factor of unquantifiability. -- Eiji-kun (talk) 10:22, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Looks like once more I am alone in my opinion, and outnumbered at that. Whelp, if you feel strongly about it, feel free to go through the official process of changing it. --Ghostwheel (talk) 10:46, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Have you considered that you may be alone in your opinion here because your opinion is demonstrably false? --Undead_Knave (talk) 13:19, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Two points: First, just because my design principles are different from others does not make them wrong. Second, just because others disagree with me doesn't make me wrong either. In fact, I think it's because I actually consider the effects of things upon the game from a holistic, system-design perspective, that others disagree with me and resort to shallow groupthink. That's not the case with this specific article, but is becoming more and more prevalent in other ones. And thank you for joining the bandwagon and ganging up on me. Your contribution is duly noted and has been recorded for posterity. --Ghostwheel (talk) 14:48, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

I do feel strongly about it, as I'm sure you do when you feel that people are using a balance category inappropriately. And I will be resorting to the process if I can't convince you that your position is unhelpful, but I'm not ready to do so just yet. Since your specific complaint in this case was that the DM could just not make you fight any monsters with mind-affecting powers (regardless of how rare those are on non-spellcasting foes), you don't get to dismiss the fire immunity case as easily as you want to. And the immunity complaint is pretty irrelevant, since it could be replaced with any arbitrary resistance that you like to make the same point. It's an external factor that greatly diminishes the utility of your selected power. Maybe your game takes place on the elemental plane of fire, where creatures with immunity are both common and plentiful. Sure, that's not a common scenario, but neither are the outlier cases where you never or always fight creatures with [mind-affecting] powers.

You seem to be saying that a feat that let me destroy the multiverse once per decade whenever I was fighting the tarrasque on a tuesday would be unquant because it's so restricted and depends on the DM actually letting you fight the tarrasque, and I just want to call it poorly designed above VH trash. Similarly, even if this feat only comes up once a month or week I'm not going to call it an L feat because it out competes all of the other L options. I don't disagree that the feat will see different levels of utility in different games depending on external factors. I just don't agree that it's our place to correct for that sort of thing, or that it's even possible. There are external factors that cause pretty much every option to be worth more or less, and trying to account for them would make pretty much everything unquantifiable by that definition. I know you don't support using the system for political games or murder mysteries, but it's not wrong to do so and that makes the vast majority of combat options much lower balance. You're also more likely to see [mind-affecting] spells or effects in such a campaign, boosting the utility of this feat. Excluding that from your calculations by fiat is an untenable position because it's based on design goals, which you've just said aren't wrong because they're different. About the best that we can do is average over game states weighting them by likelihood and comparing this against other options that you could have taken instead, and on that calculation this is not unquant. - Tarkisflux ^Talk 16:43, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

I can see your point, and it is a relevant one. I don't have an absolute point of when something becomes "too specific" to be "worth" it's balance range, but I feel that there's still some merit in how often any particular ability might come up in relation to its level of power. That said, because I don't have any specific point, and thus need to think on it more, and since there is merit in your point, I'll change the balance level for now until I can think a bit more about at what point the usability of any given thing comes up compared to its balance range. --Ghostwheel (talk) 13:06, 26 September 2014 (UTC)