If it breaths, we can charm it

[Brocktree]

Early in Avernum 5, you rely on terror, charm foe, and daze, as you don't yet have the nuke spells to output decent damage with your spellcasters. As you acquire the heavy artillery spells, terror, daze and charm foe get neglected. You try using them once or twice against tough opponents, fail, and think "Surely these spells no longer have any use?"

 

Wrong. If it breaths, your priests can charm it (mages terrify it, etc etc). That includes, strangely enough, turrets and shrubs. Or perhaps not strangely enough. Shrubs and turrets *do* respire.

 

Better yet, you can daze, terrify and charm Dorikas/Redmark. That's right, you can wipe the floor with Redmark. The almost impossible endgame battle is made much easier if you hit him with a charm foe spell. He then attacks the nearby defense pylon, resulting in the lowering of his shield. You can also Charm Melanchanawhadda. Now I know how Garzhad tricked Sulfras into her chains.

 

I strongly suspect that in enemies, there is no such thing as 'mental resistance' per se. Unlike your PCs, each monster is not designated a set mental resistance.

 

Instead, chance to resist mental effects is determined by NPC level and the spell level. The exception to this is that some enemy classes are hardcoded to be immune to mental effects (undead and pylons).

 

Ergo. Crank up your spellcraft/magery if you want to charm/terrify anything reliably.

[Harehunter]

Verrry eenterresting. This sounds like it would be worth trying in many such instances.