The recent article on acquiring minions through Dreambinding produced some fairly long responses, which called for a fairly long answer – far too long for a comment. So here it is!
I actually had this same thought a while back, and spent way more time on it than I should have. There are some pretty cheap constructs out there, (effigies in particular), although I don’t know whether they’d be allowed under Eclipse rules, but once you start getting reasonably expensive a summoning item becomes much cheaper.
In terms of non-construct creatures, in theory you could summon a creature with Gate and order it to not resist when you cast Mindrape on it, and give a specific description of where it was when you summoned it. Then when the creature returns to its home plane you Plane Shift to that plane, Greater Teleport to the creature, and then Plane Shift back with it. In theory, that would let you price any creature based on its HD (the CL of Gate would need to be at least the creature’s HD in order to control it).
Of course, purchasing a casting of Gate would cost a minimum of 6,530 gp, and that’s above the 3,000 gp threshold for what’s generally available. To get around that you’d need to make do with Planar Binding and just keep on casting Mindrape until the creature fails its save, and it was at this point I decided not to work out the cost based on the creature’s SR and Will save and whatnot, particularly if you factor in spells like Assay Spell Resistance. But in theory that’s how much it would cost to hire someone to enslave any given creature.
-Kalkra
If I was in the party with someone who did the gate->mindrape trick and seemingly got it to work, I would be getting the hell out of there. Most anything you can call through a gate is going to be reporting to someone else in the planes that is even more powerful and isn’t likely to take very kindly to this sort of thing happening to one of their subordinates. At a minimum anyone else who gates something in from the same “region” and makes a bargain for a service is going to be tasked with either finding out more about you, be asked to make your life a living hell, or be tasked to bring in something even bigger through to make a point in exchange for a big boon.
This doesn’t even need to be large scale stuff. Think of Needful Things level of interfering with your life where someone is asked to impersonate you while murdering someone in front of the guards, make it seem like other party members are stealing your things, having a shop owner sabotage scrolls and potions sold to you, and a variety of other things that are going to be rather difficult to track back to a single source. And this sort of thing is likely to continue and spread as word spreads amongst the mage community that demons/devils/celestials/elementals are offering substantial boons in exchange for small favors against someone who is clearly asking for it. And it will keep happening until the one who did it was dead or brought to the appropriate plane to be “punished”.
And that isn’t even getting into the mess if you catch the attention of whatever deity happens to be relevant.
Regardless of alignment, I imagine most characters wouldn’t want to be anywhere near someone who was willing to poke that hornets nest.
-Spellweaver
Slavery is (almost) always a bit of a risky proposition. I certainly wasn’t thinking of this as something a player might want to do. I was just proposing this as a method of determining the market value of any particular slave, or at least the highest possible price such a slave would have.
That being said, there are certainly safer ways to go about it if you did want to do it yourself. Mind Blank does a lot if you’re trying to hide what you’re doing, but you could also get creative with faking the creature’s death (with its help), seeking refuge with the enemies of whatever creatures you’re enslaving, or generally doing anything you would do if you had to kill such a creature for whatever reason.
Alternately, you could just summoning things which won’t be missed. If you’re just focusing on combat, you could summon some extraplanar animals or whatnot. Low-level elementals in particular are usually a pretty safe bet, as the elemental lords don’t care about them.
That being said, there are much easier ways to get loyal minions. You would only need to be Gating things in if you wanted something specific, rather than just anything to perform some task.
-Kalkra
Well, there are several topics there!
The basic problem with Effigies is that it is specifically noted to be an Acquired Template. From the SRD…
Acquired Templates:
This kind of template is added to a creature well after its birth or creation.
Some templates, like the lich, are the results of a creature’s choice and desire to transform. Others, like the ghost template, are the result of an external force acting upon a creature (for example, when a tormented person dies and becomes a ghost). Yet in both cases, the template changed a creature well after its birth or creation—these types are called “acquired templates,” and can be added to a creature at any time during its existence.
So you take a living creature – a corporeal aberration, animal, dragon, giant, humanoid, magical beast, monstrous humanoid, or vermin – and rebuild it into a construct, rather than it gaining the Augmented subtype. As written, you have to start with the creature you want to rebuild.
That, of course, is “rules as written”, and might not be as intended – but there was no correction in the errata after publication that I can find (there’s only one page of it) and we’re not likely to get any further answers now. So, having to start with the creature you’re building an effigy of, rebuilding it into an automaton powered by an elemental spirit, and animating it with an elemental spirit, is more than a bit dark. Hopefully the original creature gets to die along the way, since being trapped in a body being run by something else at the command of your killer sounds sort of hellish.
Still, reading it as written WOULD explain why powerful effigies have low construction prices (they really can’t be truly sold, since the creator can always take them over again if he or she comes near them). Sure, building the Dragon Effigy is fairly cheap. The hard part is catching and restraining the dragon you need to start with.
As for the call-and-bind magical route, there are a number of problems.
Planar Binding allows a will save not to come at all and is limited to twelve hit dice. It allows escape via Spell Resistance, by Dimensional Travel, or with a successful Charisma check, each once per day. Dimensional Anchor and a Magic Circle are STRONGLY advised. Even then… the spell only binds a particular individual, if the creature thinks your demands are unreasonable it can bever be forced to agree, and since it breaks free if you roll a “1″ you never know when your chances at obtaining an agreement will run out. The spell doesn’t say what happens if you attack the creature; but I’d say that resorting to violence – such a casting that Mindrape spell on it – counts as rolling a “1″ on your charisma check, allowing it to automatically break free.
- The Gate spell is, of course, more powerful. Still, it cannot compel any deity or other unique being to answer and it offers no control if they do. You can, however, call and control up to (caster level) hit dice worth of entities or call a single creature with any number of hit dice but have no control if that total is above (Caster Level x 2). In any case, this costs 1000 XP,
- A controlled being can be commanded to perform an immediate task taking no longer than one round per caster level. You may bargain with the creature for longer services, but this requires a “fair trade” as defined by the GM, which will be enforced by greater powers.
So far, so good – although most beings that grant free Wishes and such note that they cannot be compelled to grant them and/or this may (will) result in them twisting the Wish in various ways. This isn’t a good way around the costs of Wishes.
It’s also worth nothing that both Planar Binding and Gate are calling effects. Per the SRD…
Calling:
A calling spell transports a creature from another plane to the plane you are on. The spell grants the creature the one-time ability to return to its plane of origin, although the spell may limit the circumstances under which this is possible. Creatures who are called actually die when they are killed; they do not disappear and reform, as do those brought by a summoning spell (see below). The duration of a calling spell is instantaneous, which means that the called creature can’t be dispelled.
Gate says nothing about restraining creatures other than asking for an immediate service. So anything you call in with Gate or Planar Binding has the option to leave at any time unless you ask for an immediate service before it gets to take an action or use Dimensional Anchor.
An inward-facing magic circle is quite helpful – although the creature can immediately test it upon arrival with it’s Spell Resistance (if any) and can throw ranged effects out of it. Note that Assay Spell Resistance will not help here – it must be cast before you cast the spells it applies to, and the targeted opponent must be present when it is case. It won’t work in advance. Still, one can use a Diagram to prevent the use of Spell Resistance and to ensure that none of the creatures abilities or attacks can cross the diagram. Of course, this version only affects a single, specified, creature.
But all this assumes that these ancient and highly experienced creatures, when called in their real bodies and with access to their equipment and (in the case of Gate) with an open gate that any minions of theirs can come through with them, have taken no precautions. Perhaps, the creature brings a big gust of wind with it when it comes through the gate (automatically destroying the circle/trap), or has an item that provides Spell Immunity to relevant Magic Circles, or wears a Ring of Freedom Of Movement (or can cast or otherwise access that spell) since it protects against magic meant to restrain it’s movement, or has a Spellblade weapon (6000 GP for immunity to any one spell), or bought the ability to make saves against effects that normally do not offer one, or has an item that triggers a dispelling, antimagic, or destructive effect when the user is entrapped in such a circle (the creature is not taking the action to disrupt the circle, the item is). or has an Anklet Of Translocation (Magic Item Compendium, 1400 GP and – as with any item – bypasses restrictions on the user’s personal abilities) and so on and so on. The circle blocks the creatures abilities – not those of any items that it may be carrying or of any creatures that IT summons since the circle affects a specific CALLED creature – not summoned ones. The creature cannot order such minions to break the circle, but it can call them and let them do whatever they do or send them to attack the pests who did the summoning. For that matter… an intelligent item. construct, or servant creature will not be trapped, and can take actions to destroy the circle. An item with basic intelligence and the ability to cast Unseen Servant (and perhaps Magic Missle just to be a pest) is pretty cheap (Use a Pearl Of Power or cheap Relic for that handy caster level 19-20!). So are Imps. So you bound that pit fiend. The three Imps it has in it’s pouch are NOT bound, and may act to wreck your diagram.
A preset Dimensional Anchor can be applied to keep creatures capable of things like Plane Shift or Teleport (most of the more useful ones have at least some such ability if only the default one that comes with being Called – and may have a limited use item on them, as noted above). But most of the countermeasures noted above apply here too.
Now Mindrape is only useful if the GM is allowing 3.0 spells from the Book Of Vile Darkness – but unless you’re playing Pathfinder, you can probably get away with it. There’s no need to travel to the plane the creature lives on though since the creature is really present. I’d probably want to be cautious about “learning everything the creature knows” in the case of ancient demons and such – but it is a high level spell, so it probably filters things somehow. It probably also pisses off the creatures divine patron, but that’s a GM’s decision thing.
Of course, in Eclipse… NPC’s and Monsters usually get Quick Conversions, as listed on page 194. That gets them 6 CP per Hit Die to spend. So a Pit Field gets (18 HD x 6 CP) = 108 CP to spend. Being called and ambushed or commanded to do things is a fairly major problem for such creatures – as are save-or-die/suck effects and several other things. So…
- Luck with +8 (Or, with GM permission, twice an attribute modifier that seems relevant) Bonus Uses, Specialized in Saving Throws (9 CP)
- Witchcraft II, with The Adamant Will (and a few other powers) (12 CP).
- Immunity/Mystic Circles or Dimensional Anchor (Uncommon, Major, Major = 3 CP).
Sure, that’s 24 CP – almost a quarter of their supply – but both Luck for Saves and Witchcraft can be consistently useful in an enormous number of situations. The Adamant Will ability will easily block a Mindrape spell or any other form of mind control at a cost of 2 Power. And most creatures will have enough power even if they only have the base that comes with Witchcraft to resist being Mindraped a dozen times in a row. Trading one of your ninth level spell slots, and an action, for 2 power (and no actions) from an enemy is a losing proposition.
Classical demonology that summoned demons into the world focused on 1) researching the demon you wanted to summon, including it’s name, sigil, what it could do, and the bargains it was willing to accept to do those things, 2) preparing your ritual, invoking the authority of God, whom such creatures were already bound to obey by his divine edict, to hold them and make them listen. 3) performing the summoning via God’s authority, 4) making an immediate offering, and 5) offering a contract the demon was known to accept or asking for some simple and immediate service.
Pretty much all demons were willing to consider contracts and minor services, and many could not be otherwise compelled. But that’s why the d20 version of such protective bindings only affects specific creatures.
But why do demons and such answer? They COULD use various ways of getting out of it.
It was because any long term service paid well. Sure, the summoner could want something quick that didn’t really pay – but it was worth putting up with dozens of two-minute jobs – basically advertising your services – to get paid for a single long-term one. In Eclipse, of course, the NPC’s learn, and can buy special powers of their own – so Demonology is mostly classical. You do some research, you pick out a demon that does what you want, you summon it, and you either ask it for a quick service or bargain for a long-term one.
But the demons are going along with it more or less willingly because it PAYS. If you want to Call and attack them, or try to Mindrape them… they are very likely to call in allies, or use some method to escape, or simply rely on their equipment, immunities, the Adamant Will, and luck for saves to tell you to shove it – before either making a good effort to kill you or leaving to tell the rest of their kind to put you and anyone who helped you on the “screw over if at all possible” list.
In Eclipse, intelligent NPC’s and monsters get options of their own and get to plan intelligently. And many of them will be older and more experienced than any given mortal or once-mortal character. Any of them who were easy to take advantage of will long ago HAVE been taken advantage of – and reprogrammed into unique creatures who can no longer be summoned or gated in. Is that fair? Yes, it is entirely fair. It’s simply treating the setting and it’s creatures as if they were real, rather than treating them as pinatas for players to whack until loot falls out.
So yes. There are MUCH easier ways to get loyal minions. Trying to use Magic Circle, Dimensional Anchor, Planar Binding or Gate. and Mindrape calls for enormous amounts of magic and has a fabulous number of ways that it can go wrong as compared to simply taking Leadership, or the Minions skill, or even the Dreambinding Summoning stuff, and doing it the normal way.
Now, for trying to calculate costs for Dreambinding… that’s kind of hard. Sure, you can price the spellcasting, but how much would it cost to pay some poor archmage to put up with all the dangers and side effects of trying such a thing? And to keep trying until it works? I see no way to calculate it.
Finally, as far as Slaves are concerned… I will admit that several of my characters (Most notably “Dark Lord Kevin” who was “very, VERY, evil! Watch me be evil!” – Causing most Archons and such to facepalm as he made evil excuses for being nice) like to try and shock people by keeping “youthful slaves” (indentured servants) who are actually minions acquired by various methods (Leadership, et al) – who are kept safe, prevented from aging or dying, granted various powers, and given training and equipment, all in service of maintaining a decadent lifestyle and having an occasionally useful entourage that really annoys straitlaced and self-righteous people. This also allows them to recruit people for “slavery” and proclaim – truthfully – that they only keep voluntary slaves.
OK, that’s more of a quirk than anything else, but it certainly sounded evil.
And I hope that helps!
Filed under: Background, d20, Game Rules | Tagged: Background, Classless d20, d20, d20 Point Buy, Game Rules, Magic, Role Playing Game, RPG |
Emergence Campaign Weblog 
Oof. A lot to unpack here. But first of all, why does everybody think “Pit Fiend” when I mention Gate? There are plenty of other, way, way less problematic things you could summon.
Anywho, first of all, the Effigy thing is kinda weird. I looked at similar templates, but most of them don’t specify if they’re inherited or acquired. One that does is the Shadow Simulacrum from Shadowdale, which is an acquired template that explicitly creates a new creature. I suppose you could argue that since the Effigy template doesn’t explicitly say it creates a new creature, it doesn’t, or you could say that because Shadow Simulacrum does say it, that means it’s a thing that templates can do. Similarly, Topiary Guardian from MM3 has pretty specific instructions for how to make one, and it clearly doesn’t involve turning a creature into a plant. Also, Aleax from BoED is meant to hunt down it’s base creature, meaning that it can’t consume the base creature in its creation. Neither specifies whether it’s inherited or acquired, but they do demonstrate that templates can be new creatures.
Looking at the description for Genies, I don’t see anything explicit about them twisting your wishes around, although that’s part of the folklore, so it may be expected. I didn’t check any of the other creatures with Wish as an SLA, but genies are the classic ones.
When I said “Planar Binding”, I meant including Lesser and Greater, so you could summon up to 18 HD of outsiders and elementals. In theory, there’s nothing stopping you from researching a higher-level version of Greater Planar Binding, either.
Gate says “An uncontrolled being may return to its home plane at any time.” Regarding controlling the creature, it says for immediate tasks “The creature departs at the end of the spell.” and for longer tasks “After this is done, the creature is instantly freed to return to its own plane.” All this makes it pretty clear that if you Gate in a creature and control it, it can’t return until it’s done what you tell it to.
If for some reason you absolutely want to call some sort of creature which is likely to be highly intelligent and have magic items and whatnot, then you’d probably have to do some preliminary divinations to find a specific creature which doesn’t have The Adamant Will or any contingent spells or magic items which will trigger when it’s called or enslaved. And yeah, there are all kinds of things it can do if it’s trapped in a magic circle before you manage to Mindrape it. Incidentally, I was saying that Assay Spell Resistance could be used to help the Mindrape stick, not for the actually calling. But regardless, for something like that I’d rely on Gate, where you can just order it to let you Mindrape it.
The thing about teleporting to the creature’s home plane was because the spell descriptions are a bit unclear if the creature is automatically sent back to its home plane upon completion of the task, or if it’s just assumed that they will. If they don’t have to go back, you can skip that step.
And again, I’m not suggesting that PCs do any of this. Somewhere there will be NPCs stupid enough to try, and some of them will succeed and survive afterwards long enough to sell their slaves. As such, there would be a market price for any given slave, although figuring out what that price is would be pretty tedious.
Other templates are not actually relevant given that it is noted as an Acquired Templates. The general rules for those are in effect unless the specific template indicates otherwise. This one doesn’t, so the general rules apply.
Now Topiary Guardians are even less relevant than another template would be. To quite from the material presented for them…
“ALTERNATIVE TOPIARY GUARDIANS: Creating a topiary guardian that mimics a different animal (of Medium, Large, or Huge size) is possible. Start with the base creature’s normal statistics and make the following changes.”
That is not a template, and is not labeled as such. It also clearly states the base material for creating the construct and describes the methodolgy in the “Construction” section.
I can’t comment directly on Shadow Simulacrum since I don’t happen to have the relevant adventure, and the template is not in my current collection and does not turn up on a Google search – but sadly, it doesn’t really matter. D20 is an exception-based system, and so anything whatsoever could turn up in one template or another – but that really isn’t relevant to other templates and does not affect this one. Still, if we’re looking at other templates… there are Shadow Creatures and Shadow Walkers, but while both are acquired templates they specifically take existing creatures and turn them into something new. Umbral Creature is also an acquired template, but it turns an existing creature into a form of Undead. That still isn’t relevant, but it is interesting.
Unless otherwise stated in the template, acquired templates are applied to an existing creature of an acceptable type. Since the template does not state otherwise, the general rule applies.
When it comes to Wishes, the relevant section is from the Wizards Of The Coast “Save My Game” article series, which provided explanations and context for various troublesome areas in the rules. To quote from the article on “Managing Wishes”…
“The game also includes a variety of wish-granting creatures, such as genies, pit fiends, and a handful of others. These creatures can decide whether or not to grant a wish, and their personalities and natures determine what kinds of wishes they will grant and how they will do so. In determining whether a particular wish will be granted, consider whether it furthers the creature’s ends or pleases it in some way. Even if the creature is bound to grant the wish, how obnoxiously technical, literal, and anal-retentive can it be in twisting the meaning of the request? Maybe such creatures should be using miracle instead of wish anyway, to tie the possible effects more firmly into the nature of the granting creature.”
If we’re going to talk about extending the logic… Requesting any other act of magic, or possibly even any other action, from a “controlled” creature will be subject to the same restrictions.
And yes, you could use other versions of the Planar Binding effect, although there is nothing to say if you’re researching your own; that can introduce any variation that the GM for the game it is being researched in is willing to consider.
Now, as for gate… “A controlled creature can be commanded to perform a service for you. Such services fall into two categories: immediate tasks and contractual service. Fighting for you in a single battle or taking any other actions that can be accomplished within 1 round per caster level counts as an immediate task; you need not make any agreement or pay any reward for the creature’s help. The creature departs at the end of the spell.”
So yes. If you call and control something, you can command it to perform a single service for you. But if you never provide such a command, it doesn’t have to obey you. If it leaves before you issue such a command, then it leaves. That’s not usually a problem since most people know what they want before performing the summoning, and thus are prepared to immediately give instructions when the creature appears – but there can be interruptions, in which case the creature is free to assume that you didn’t want anything and leave.
Now, if you want to rely on the exact wording of the Gate spell… it says that “If you choose to exact a longer or more involved form of service from a called creature, you must offer some fair trade in return for that service.” – ergo, you are compelled to (“must”) offer an appropriate payment. Being Mindraped into service is definitely a “more involved form of service”, so you need to offer a fair payment for that. Given that that is basically “How much to commit suicide?” that’s going to be expensive.
This is a basic part of how all RPG’s work. if something is incompatible with the setting, with how the GM wants the game to work, or the players would object if someone does it to them, or makes the game less interesting, it is the job of the GM to look at the setting, and the rules,and how things are supposed to be working, and determine why it will not work. Now, in most cases, considering the game rules will provide reasons for it not to work – game designers do make mistakes, but they generally include a lot of failsafes too – but if things have come down to arguing with the GM, the game is failing anyway.
There was a series of mythic adventure modules back in first edition that used a Greek-styled setting – and had a huge table to be rolled on every few days to determine how the Gods were messing with you today. It was amusing for a while, but soon got too annoying to continue playing. Being randomly relocated to another continent by random dice rolls when you wake up lost it’s savor after it interrupted too many adventures. Similarly, if this works… then at any moment the GM may randomly determine that your character, or party, has been summoned by some similar means, and is now the loyal servant of some extradimensional entity a long ways off.
So no. NPC’s will not be succeeding at this at times. Neither will there be an established market even if they could. After all, making the attempt requires that the character(s) involved be 1) very high level (which is very rare), 2) be stupid and/or very VERY unwise (rare for high-level spellcasters), 3) have access to some very specific evil magic and be willing to use it, 4) be lucky enough to get away with it at least once, and 5) be willing to sell off their powerful enslaved entities for cash. Even if the GM thinks that it would work, there might not be anyone in the campaign setting both willing and able to try it.
Now if you just want to establish a price and don’t want to use the ones I calculated for summoning effects… forget all that and just add the costs of a Gate spell to the cost of – say – a years loyal and helpful service. That would easily cover a hundred services, and the general rule from Enchanting is “pay 100 times the special costs of a spell over and above the base costs to make it unlimited use”. It would still be expensive, but at least it wouldn’t call for anyone taking insane risks – and, personally, I would still expect it to be cheaper than attempting the Mindrape route.
And I hope that helps!
Also, Gate doesn’t stay open when you’re using it to call creatures, so no minions.
Not precisely.
“The second effect of the gate spell is to call an extraplanar creature to your aid (a calling effect). By naming a particular being or kind of being as you cast the spell, you cause the gate to open in the immediate vicinity of the desired creature and pull the subject through, willing or unwilling. Deities and unique beings are under no compulsion to come through the gate, although they may choose to do so of their own accord. This use of the spell creates a gate that remains open just long enough to transport the called creatures.”
* The gate is of a specified size. If you happen to call something very large – such as a train-sized Shoggoth – it may remain open for some time since it will take that time for such a creature to pass through it (and various things could easily be carried along).
* If you are using the usual “trap” effects and the creature is too large to fit in, either you will destroy your trap (the usual rule for when a creature is forced against a protective circle) or part of it will remain sticking back through the gate, forcing said gate to remain open.
* Since the gate appears in the vicinity of the target creature, beings who are closer to it might be swept through by the target or they could move through ahead of it if they have readied actions, or Reflex Training, or even the proper a cheap 500 GP Chronocharm.
* If your target simply has a long tail, that may either force the Gate to remain open or allow others through.
* If the target happens to be carrying minions with it (some examples were covered in noxious symbiotic creatures, others (like the Goblin King) used minions for clothing or mobility), they would come with it automatically.
Now, admittedly, there is a healthy dose of “What if?” in many of those – but it is the responsibility of the GM to come up with things that might go wrong and keep things exciting. The problem is that if you want actual powerful and competent minions they will likely have started applying part of that power and competence to making life difficult for anyone who might try to exploit them. If they’re old enough they may have had tens of thousands of years of practice at being a pain.
And, as usual, I hope that that answers you!