AMIA ARCHIVE • View topic

I just want to confirm something since the source material doesn't really specify.

If memories are altered VIA Mindrape they can only be restored using a Wish or Miracle, but what if the person in question had something like True Resurrection cast on them? Ie. cause the body was eaten up or something.
I'm thinking the altered memories would still remain intact cause True Resurrection only restores a person physically, but in retrospect True Resurrection is a somewhat more difficult spell to cast then Wish.

Gut reaction: It's a bad spell so it fixes it just to encourage you to be more creative in the future rather than using broken overpowered PnP magic to solve every problem in existence and ding tings that REALLY should just be in the realm of DMship (redefining characters)

Thought out answer: I would say it fixes it beause it is a complete restoration of mind, soul, and body to normalcy, to the point where a spellcaster even comes back with all o their spells still memorized. So any tampering would be fixed.

Hmm, the personality/alignment changes can actually be undone easily enough with the Break Enchantment spell (5 Clr/Soc/Wiz 4 Brd/Pal), and is easy enough to notice.
It's only the memory alterations, removing old ones and adding new ones that require Wish/Miracle and is difficult to notice depending on how subtle it is.

Something about the spells but tho, Resurrection does restore prepared spells but not spells that have already been used no? So doesn't that actually mean that the character is restored as he was at the time of death (aside from physically), rather then going through a "reset" of some sort?

EDIT: More accurately it says "no loss of prepared spells".

We are discussing True Res, not normal Res. Do not present wrong information to try to bolster your case.

On the subject of Mindrape, remember kids: No means-Flargleragle*drool*.

I agree with Tormak. If a spell can completely reconstruct your brain back from being a pile of pudding on the bottom of an orc's shoe, it can reverse you being a little screwed up in the head, I'm sure.

Also, yes, only prepared spells:

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Upon completion of the spell, the creature is immediately restored to full hit points, vigor, and health, with no loss of level (or Constitution points) or prepared spells.

As well, I imagine Greater Restoration could fix it, too.

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Greater restoration also dispels all magical effects penalizing the creature’s abilities, cures all temporary ability damage, and restores all points permanently drained from all ability scores. It also eliminates fatigue and exhaustion, and removes all forms of insanity, confusion, and similar mental effects. Greater restoration does not restore levels or Constitution points lost due to death.

Specific overrides the general. GR provides a general overview of what it can cure, Mindrape specifically says that it can only be fixed by Wish or Miracle.

Which is why it's a badly done spell and should only be in the hands of DMs: It has no cost and can be repeatedly cast on the subject until it works and the only cure is a deific intercession and hoping the god itself is OK with it, as well a spaying 5k XP, or trying to word a wish so you don't undo reality, and also paying 5k XP.

And then the next day they can be caught and mindraped again with absolutely no penalty whatsoever, forcing another lengthy curing. It's not a well balanced spell, just like pretty much everything in BoEd and BoVD.

TormakSaber wrote:

We are discussing True Res, not normal Res. Do not present wrong information to try to bolster your case.

Well it's no different for True Resurrection either:

Upon completion of the spell, the creature is immediately restored to full hit points, vigor, and health, with no loss of level (or Constitution points) or prepared spells.

No loss of prepared spells, also only the memory alteration portion of Mindrape needs Wish and Miracle as I said. Break Enchantment and I assume Greater Restoration would work for the Personality/Alignment change as well as cure the possible Insanity effect.

Incidentally I'm on the receiving end of this spell, so if it was cured by True Resurrection it would actually help me, I'm just trying to get my facts straight.
My main issue is that even if the brain is reduced to mush and restored as you say I'm not sure if the memories count as part of the physical aspect. You end up in the Fuge plane when you die after all and as far as memories go it's still all with you, right? So there's nothing to really "restore" is there?
I know memories of being in the Fuge plane is wiped, but that's a slightly different matter.

I gave my answer. It appears to not be the one you want though, so you've dismissed it. What else do you want me to say?

Err beats me?

I was hoping to start a discussion on the matter to find out if there was already a clear answer in place, or some sort of middle line I would find acceptable. Namely the former tho since I figured this would have been addressed before.

So I guess it comes down to "whatever works for you" then? Guess it may be better that way actually.

SLS wrote:

So I guess it comes down to "whatever works for you" then? Guess it may be better that way actually.

....

I think it comes down to "this spell is broken and we'd strongly prefer you to give a DM a heads-up before you ever try to RP it, in which case we'll let you know."

Mite late for that.

Wait, scratch the lock, I just thought of something. While Mindrape may alter memories there's nothing that actually prevents the victim from rediscovering the truth is there?
So in the end the memory manipulation aspect of it is really no worse then having been manipulated by someone into believing a lie, just on a larger scale. There's no actual need to remove the effect and restore the original memory if you can just rediscover it right?

Experiencing something first hand is not equal to having been told about it.

One has a far larger impact on the development of a personals personality and psyche.

Its one of the few PnP spells that I will not touch with a 9 yard pole. I'm completely with Tormak on this, it's something that is normally DM purview only. Though this is one reasons why the PnP concession rule is something I am happy of.

@ SLS Um, no. Mindrape is letting you taper with actual memories themselves, not just suggesting some or shuffling them around.

What you describe is like me telling you that you owned a pink bicycle when you were 5. That's completely up to you to believe or disbelieve or just not care about. Mindrape makes you have memories of riding the damned thing down the street. Or at least allows you to implant such, from what I remember.

But no, there isn't anything actively preventing it, but the thing is would the character realize it? If you metaphysically erase my memory of ever having interacted with my best friend, all occasions and instances, what's there to remind me? You're not just blurring the lines or making it hard to remember, there's just nothing there to remember. So the person you erase just seems like a stranger making wild claims that he knowns me. And even if he shows me pictures of us together its like "how the hell did you get those/that can't be me."

Last edited by SLS on Fri, May 06 2011, 21:55 PM, edited 2 times in total.

Dwagin wrote:

Experiencing something first hand is not equal to having been told about it.

One has a far larger impact on the development of a personals personality and psyche.

Its one of the few PnP spells that I will not touch with a 9 yard pole. I'm completely with Tormak on this, it's something that is normally DM purview only. Though this is one reasons why the PnP concession rule is something I am happy of.

Mm point, but whatever development that would have come from the experience would have already taken place, or would be taking place.
At most the spell would allow the caster to halt that development midway, you can't actually rewrite his/her past, just the memories of it. So you can't actually change what has already happened in terms of development, right?

Rediscovering the memories would simply be a matter of uncovering the truth. It's not like people's memories are 100% accurate to begin with, so unless those memories had some emotional value, which is something there really would be no way of getting back unless you remove the spell's effect, there would be no real loss right?

@Dark

Well of course in an instance like you described with your friend, those are memories with an emotional attachment to them. Even if you were shown pictures, even if you were to be retold your experiences with them it would not bring back the emotional aspect of it. You could rekindle your friendship but you'd never get back what you lost.

On the other hand, on the matter of the bike, wouldn't just showing you a picture of yourself as a child riding a say, blue bike, make you question your memories?
You wouldn't believe them outright sure, but it would likely be enough for you to ask around, or even go into storage and dig up your old bike. In which case the truth would come out and you'd just chalk it up to bad memory on your part, nothing would actually be lost from that would it?

Also, creating a perfect memory to fill in the removed ones, not an easy task, it would take allot of planning and time to construct such a perfect lie.

Dark Immolation wrote:

@ SLS Um, no. Mindrape is letting you taper with actual memories themselves, not just suggesting some or shuffling them around.

What you describe is like me telling you that you owned a pink bicycle when you were 5. That's completely up to you to believe or disbelieve or just not care about. Mindrape makes you have memories of riding the damned thing down the street. Or at least allows you to implant such, from what I remember.

But no, there isn't anything actively preventing it, but the thing is would the character realize it? If you metaphysically erase my memory of ever having interacted with my best friend, all occasions and instances, what's there to remind me? You're not just blurring the lines or making it hard to remember, there's just nothing there to remember. So the person you erase just seems like a stranger making wild claims that he knowns me. And even if he shows me pictures of us together its like "how the hell did you get those/that can't be me."

Correct.

I must be one of the only people here who doesn't have a problem with spells that powerful (this isn't to say that me as a player doesn't have a problem with the spell Mindrape, because... ew). Specifically, I think spells like Mindrape should be the purview of Psions since they focus on the mind, but it's really all about the power scale. Spells like Heal exist to deal with spells like Harm, etc. There's solutions in game for stuff that does overwhelming amounts of damage in infinitesimally small amounts of time, the gods empower you, you find that power for yourself, etc etc.

I'm with most others here. Mindrape is a stupidly powerful spell and can apparently only be cured with wish or miracle. To my knowledge all such tamperings of the mind don't persist after somebody dies. Geas and similar spells don't at least. Though I could be wrong since Mindrape actually alters the person, not just tampering.

If you want to have this sort of RP, don't go with Mindrape.. 1. It's stupidly overpowered. 2. It's lame and unoriginal. Go with Programmed Amnesia.

CouncilofAutumn wrote:

I must be one of the only people here who doesn't have a problem with spells that powerful (this isn't to say that me as a player doesn't have a problem with the spell Mindrape, because... ew). Specifically, I think spells like Mindrape should be the purview of Psions since they focus on the mind, but it's really all about the power scale. Spells like Heal exist to deal with spells like Harm, etc. There's solutions in game for stuff that does overwhelming amounts of damage in infinitesimally small amounts of time, the gods empower you, you find that power for yourself, etc etc.

The problem isn't with the spell itself but it spower level to scale with other spells and its supposed cure.

The spell Mindrape has a Medium (100 + 10 ft caster level) range, offers spell resitance and a will save and takes one standard action to cast but otherwise has no large penalties or hindrances associated with casting the spell. Its effects happen instantaneously. You can cast the spell over and over on someone until they roll a 1 and you get to do whatever you feel like to them.

To fix this, your ONLY option is a Miracle , or a Wish. Either you must beg your deity to find this person important enough to be worth expending direct godly intervention miracle power on (and burn 5k XP in the process) or you must define a Wish well enough to not SUNDER REALITY while accomplishing the cure (while also paying 5k XP to do so).

And then the next day the baddy sits 300 feet away, snaps his fingers, and does it again, with no penalty, loss, or issues involved. Hope you've got another 5000 XP to spend!

And that's before you even get into th sheer ridiculousness that the spell lets you do at the snap of a finger. BoVD was largely designed for a DM to have options to give to his NPCs, not fo a persistent world full of level 30 PCs who can crack open sourcebooks and say "I want to cast that" without having to research the damn magic..

Another thing to keep in mind is that much like Wish, a spell like Mindrape is all in the wording. And also like Wish, if you screw up that wording, you might not have an opportunity to fix it later before the heavy repercussions come in. All it takes is one mistake to tip off someone's allies, one Heal spell later and one incredibly pissed individual who remembers their memory has been messed with (and likely by whom, since they remember the spell being cast).

And yeah, BoVD is pretty ridiculous. But so is Heart's Ease! Again, balance.

TormakSaber wrote:

CouncilofAutumn wrote:

I must be one of the only people here who doesn't have a problem with spells that powerful (this isn't to say that me as a player doesn't have a problem with the spell Mindrape, because... ew). Specifically, I think spells like Mindrape should be the purview of Psions since they focus on the mind, but it's really all about the power scale. Spells like Heal exist to deal with spells like Harm, etc. There's solutions in game for stuff that does overwhelming amounts of damage in infinitesimally small amounts of time, the gods empower you, you find that power for yourself, etc etc.

The problem isn't with the spell itself but it spower level to scale with other spells and its supposed cure.

The spell Mindrape has a Medium (100 + 10 ft caster level) range, offers spell resitance and a will save and takes one standard action to cast but otherwise has no large penalties or hindrances associated with casting the spell. Its effects happen instantaneously. You can cast the spell over and over on someone until they roll a 1 and you get to do whatever you feel like to them.

To fix this, your ONLY option is a Miracle , or a Wish. Either you must beg your deity to find this person important enough to be worth expending direct godly intervention miracle power on (and burn 5k XP in the process) or you must define a Wish well enough to not SUNDER REALITY while accomplishing the cure (while also paying 5k XP to do so).

And then the next day the baddy sits 300 feet away, snaps his fingers, and does it again, with no penalty, loss, or issues involved. Hope you've got another 5000 XP to spend!

And that's before you even get into th sheer ridiculousness that the spell lets you do at the snap of a finger. BoVD was largely designed for a DM to have options to give to his NPCs, not fo a persistent world full of level 30 PCs who can crack open sourcebooks and say "I want to cast that" without having to research the damn magic..

So in other words the problem is player abuse, not a problem with the spell itself then?
Cause I really see allot of RP possibilities with it in use, once you get past the "WTF did you do to my character?!" but anyway.

Isn't the BOVD based on 3.5 anyway? And we're 3.0

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All it takes is one mistake to tip off someone's allies, one Heal spell later and one incredibly pissed individual who remembers their memory has been messed with (and likely by whom, since they remember the spell being cast).

No, you can make it so that the victim remembers nothing of the intrusion. This cannot be reversed.

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Isn't the BOVD based on 3.5 anyway? And we're 3.0

Sigh.

Ed: Not to metion: Heal does not fix it. Only Wish or Miracle fix Mindrape, aside from alignment changes which can be corrected by Breal Echantment and then still possibly require an atonement intercession, a.k.a. again, the cure involves beseeching a deity of your friends importance and spending XP when the very next day the bad guy can just go ahead and do it all over.

TormakSaber wrote:

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All it takes is one mistake to tip off someone's allies, one Heal spell later and one incredibly pissed individual who remembers their memory has been messed with (and likely by whom, since they remember the spell being cast).

No, you can make it so that the victim remembers nothing of the intrusion. This cannot be reversed.

Yes, but unless you blindsided the victim it is unlikely he'd have no memory of meeting you and you casting a spell on him. Or maybe you sneaked up on him in his sleep.
On a semi-related note, is a person aware of the events that take place while they are dominated? Or do they remember it later?
I'd think so, cause you're allowed will saves to resist the commands and so on.

SLS wrote:

TormakSaber wrote:

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All it takes is one mistake to tip off someone's allies, one Heal spell later and one incredibly pissed individual who remembers their memory has been messed with (and likely by whom, since they remember the spell being cast).

No, you can make it so that the victim remembers nothing of the intrusion. This cannot be reversed.

Yes, but unless you blindsided the victim it is unlikely he'd have no memory of meeting you and you casting a spell on him. Or maybe you sneaked up on him in his sleep.
On a semi-related note, is a person aware of the events that take place while they are dominated? Or do they remember it later?
I'd think so cause you're allowed will saves to resist the commands and so on.

Doesn't matter.

"I fixed your memory so you don't remember meeting or fighting me today, in fact, you've just woken up from sleep and you've gone on a walk and here you are."

Done.

No, they do not remember because you have metaphysically erased it from their mind's existence. I don't think you're quite "getting it", here. If I program your head to say the sky is green, grass is pink sand your favorite food is pizza, then when you wake up you're going to comment that grass looks an awful lot like cotton candy and call Pizza Hut because you've got a craving. It doesn't compel, it LITERALLY CHANGES. Ther's nothing left to resist or remember or fight against. It just IS.

Oh, and let's not forget that the spell also confers instantaneous knowledge transfer of everything the victim has ever known, to the caster, indelibly and permanently.

TormakSaber wrote:

Doesn't matter.

"I fixed your memory so you don't remember meeting or fighting me today, in fact, you've just woken up from sleep and you've gone on a walk and here you are."

Done.

Err, I mean after the memory has been restored VIA Wish of Miracle of course.

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No, they do not remember because you have metaphysically erased it from their mind's existence. I don't think you're quite "getting it", here. If I program your head to say the sky is green, grass is pink sand your favorite food is pizza, then when you wake up you're going to comment that grass looks an awful lot like cotton candy and call Pizza Hut because you've got a craving. It doesn't compel, it LITERALLY CHANGES. Ther's nothing left to resist or remember or fight against. It just IS.

Was talking about a dominated person, namely the Dominate Person spell.

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Oh, and let's not forget that the spell also confers instantaneous knowledge transfer of everything the victim has ever known, to the caster, indelibly and permanently.

Yeah, makes you wonder what happens if you tried to do it on someone who has lived for several thousand years. Head explodes from information overload? Go utterly insane?

Man, I don't remember Mindrape being that jaw-droppingly potent, I will have to reread it and get back to you.

That's why boobytrapping your mind can theoretically work against mindrape or any other spell that transfers memory or knowledge from one mind to another..

Though sadly, Mindrape is flat out overpowered.. you can completely rewrite a personality, memories.. everything..

Example: Baddie meets a Paladin and successfully cast mindrape.. the Paladin is now a mass murderer with a hungry craving for infant flesh and exposes himself on a daily basis. With no memory of who completely screwed him up... at all.

Another example: Baddie mindrapes another char and orders him to eliminate the leader of his order, with no memory of the mindrape (or become a faithful and loyal spy for the behalf of the baddie, forced to believe that he loves the caster and/or that his very soul will be destroyed if the caster dies.. Now you got a loyal and willing puppet in any organization, hidden assassin.. etc etc.. without any real work or risk to you as the caster.

I could probably throw out a hundred more ones.. but ... yes. Mindrape is overpowered, and I think people that use the spell (or call you a bad RPer for not consenting to the pnp spell) lack imagination and creativity, just looking for their quick fix. This make them boring.

Sadly not alot of people like to spend hours and hours a week in the shadows with no real conflict or aknowledgement from anyone else.

This is why I suggested programmed amnesia as a replacement for Mindrape. In short, it's the same spell.. except it's not naturally evil and greater restoration does cure it. Also it's got much shorter range, and a 10 min casting time..

Screencapture from the sourcebook in the link below.
Programmed amnesia

That does sound allot more interesting IMO, but doesn't Mindrape also have the same shortcomings in terms of needing the new memories to be well made?
You can't exactly say something like "this is what happened, fill in the blanks yourself and you have no reason to doubt it". The memories and alterations need to be carefully constructed just the same right? So in the end in order to make such a change believable and not raise suspicions, some thought would need to be put into it just the same. Allot of thought actually.

Programmed Amnesia does seem to have the additional ability to set a programmable trigger tho, that would be useful if you wanted it to act like a reset button and make the target forget everything they did.

According to the description of mindrape, it doesn't. I honestly like Programmed Amnesia a lot more because it's a more thought out spell that works the same way, just way more reasonably.

Mindrape apparently works even if it doesn't make sense, because it's what the person knows as the truth. In programmed amnesia, it's different because it tampers with already existing memories that doesn't force you to think it is the truth.. it just tricks you into thinking they are your real memories. The description even says that if the person doesn't believe or trust his memories because they weren't implanted with enough skill and such that it seems like something they'd do or rememeber and so on.. they'll realize they have an amnesia or memory problem of sorts and may go looking for a cure. It's just so much more open ended and easier to RP with than the sort of ...finality that come with Mindrape. I have to agree with Tormak, powers like that crosses a certain line and should only be on hand for DM's to use when it's called for.

To stay on topic, Mindrape becomes the person's truth in a way, and only wish or miracle can undo it. Programmed amnesia on the other hand, becomes the person's memories/knowledge etc.. and if it doesn't make sense to them, it's not meta to know that something's been done or something's up and to seek help for it.

Wait, so you're saying in the case of Mindrape there is just no way the victim can ever figure out that his memories have been altered and would trust it unquestioningly?

Even in the example that a Paladin was turned neutral and lost his divine powers, without any explanation left by the caster as to why. He would just make something up on his own and believe it?

From how the spell works, I'd say yes.. Remember only a miracle or wish can remove it's effects, and one of them is (if the caster so chooses) complete rewrite of somebody's personality. I've read about cases where people have had accidents or brain trauma that's left them a completely different person in most aspects. So to them, the "old" them would seem like someone completely different, because it's not really them anymore.

Just altering memories is very different from altering a personality.

That's somewhat beyond just an altered personality, more like it's completely locked in place.
I dunno, that seems less of an alteration and more of a puppet on a string sort of thing. I mean logically if a person can't question or doubt themselves, they can't change or grow either.
It could as a result, potentially ensure they could never be anyone but the person the caster wants them to be from just a single casting.

I honestly don't see why a spell like that would be available to even a DM, let alone players.

We're the DMs, we can do whatever fits the stry to be perfectly honest.

Players? No.

Well yeah I guess that's true to a point.
Still, seems like I underestimated the potency of the spell at any rate.

If you really did, you'd not touch it with a 10 foot pole. Plenty of other ways to accomplish the same ends rather than evoking an obscure, incredibly cheap spell. It's like Code Geass on steroids.

I don't even have a Mage..

Question about Mindrape.

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