by Kurgan » Thursday October 28th, 2021 6:12pm
I hadn't thought about it enough, really and I see what you're saying now. "...defend against other attacks using only 1 Defend Die." Thanks for clarifying. He gets to roll more dice (for each Mind Point) to resist the spell, but against other attacks he gets only one defend die.
To remove Mind Lock requires they roll 3 skulls, meaning reducing them to one die for recovery would make it impossible, unless you're giving them just a 50% chance to recover (using the one die).
But using the above info, it would seem that Mind Lock reduces their defense for regular attacks (as opposed to mental attacks or magic that interacts with Mind Points). If it said he was reduced to 1 Mind Point I'd agree with the maximalist interpretation. If that was what was intended they didn't make it very clear after all, but you play how you think is best!
The bad guy freezes the hero with his mind, it's the victim's mind that is frozen, leaving his body weak and barely able to do anything. Normally defend dice are not based on Mind Points. But you're right up until now I had only considered Mind Blast as a subtracter of Mind Points. Something to consider before playing these quests for sure.
I see what you mean about the "trap" though! That would be pretty powerful and weaken the heroes significantly.
Reading more I see that Dominate is explicitly stronger than Command in one respect (it says you can use spells, not just move and attack other heroes).
Back to Mind Lock, if the Chaos Sorcerer isn't just going for the quick kill/conversion... does this mean a Mind Locked Hero could defend with more against mental attacks by the effect of other spells used on him? Potions aren't considered an action (or are a "free action") so could also temporarily affect the "1 die" condition that otherwise just requires time to cure.
Now the real question... if three of the Heroes are turned evil, and yet the Sorcerer is destroyed, does the survivor have to slay his enslaved friends in the bitter climax? The text doesn't really say, but perhaps destroying the ring would release them, then again if the Pit itself is the cause of the control, how could they be freed? (does the Pit get destroyed with the Ring?) Speaking of pits, even under the NA rules I imagine drinking a potion won't save you from falling into a bottomless pit (the other kind of pit)... unless of course it was a stashed Potion of Airwalk (from another quest pack, but still).
So many unanswered questions but a lot of room to use one's imagination. The lone survivor crawls through the last two quests alone... or does he return later (losing his remaining "big potions" but with a new team?