Talk:Tholan's Painful Transfer (3.5e Spell)

Ratings

	Foxwarrior is neutral on this article and rated it 2 of 4.
	It's a lot of rolls, that'll all average out in the end except in certain action movie-style situations where every round matters. The effect isn't that unreasonable though.

Comments

The duration is a lot long probably, as it allows you to mind punch people into unconsciousness and then heal them back up to full many times during its run. If it gives commune style answers, it probably shouldn't last longer than commune itself. One round per level is one question per level, and plenty of time to get what you need and knock them into unconsciousness. Otherwise it's a targeted and painful form of detect thoughts that requires a willing (hahaha) or helpless target, which seems ok. You can already get similar results with thoughtful questioning and detect thoughts, this is just slightly mroe direct. I'd tune the damage a bit though, letting you deal up to your CL in non-lethal damage with each attempt, so you could go easy on people or keep them around for more questions. And I'd probably give half damage on a successful save as well.

I dislike the speak with dead portion of it. A lot. Aside from being flat better than speak with dead (which is a level high), it doesn't seem at all within the purview of arcane magic (which makes it being better and lower level more annoying to me). I'd honestly like to see that portion just removed. - Tarkisflux ^Talk 19:06, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

It was really the dead speaking part that pushed me over the edge.

If a failed save explicitly just forced them to answer a question truthfully, and didn't somehow let the caster know whether the save had been failed or not, and the duration wasn't so long you could ask every question a hundred times, I wouldn't be at all as annoyed. --Foxwarrior 19:21, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

I would suggest to make this a little different. Instead of using commune as a basis, use discern lies or something similar. - MisterSinister 23:01, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

I left these suggestions on chat, but we'll put them down here for transparency sake or whatever. Note that Cid wants this to be a "search through memories looking for something" style spell.

• Spell lasts for CL rounds. Spell deals 1 or 2 points of non-lethal per round. Spell can only be cast on willing or helpless creatures.
• On cast, a CL check is made to determine how many rounds it takes to find a specific memory and how many rounds until you get a "memory not found" confirmation. I don't know how this check scales right now, but it can be fine tuned. Note that this means you might have to cast multiple times to finish out a search time, and a second casting should probably not get an additional CL check (though new searches could).
• Each round, the target can elect to make a save. If they succeed on a save, no progress is made for the round. If they delay so that the total of unsuccessful rounds + successful rounds is greater than the "memory not found" confirmation time, the memory has been successfully hidden and the spell returns that result in error.

That gives you a spell where you get better at stripping memories as you level and against people with poor will saves, but doesn't last for too long or give you lots of answers to questions. It could probably be streamlined though. - Tarkisflux ^Talk 07:39, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

It took a while, but I've made changes to accommodate these suggestions. - TG Cid (talk) 04:03, 23 September 2012 (UTC)