More on mesmerism

The Illusionist like class is taken over by either mesmerism or a specialized form of Kabbalism (letter/symbol magic).

Assume illusions don’t cause physical damage – save for insanity (Bart Simpson: “Cool, I broke his brain.”) or death from a heart attack (the horse in the dean’s office in “Animal House”) at a high TN.

Mesmerism takes care of everything inside the mind: Sleep, Stun, Blindness, etc...., one caveat, no spell can preclude the target's free will; that puts Charm, Suggest, and the like out of the running. Spells can trick but not control a target's mind.

The free standing, outside the mind, illusions are made with symbols of varying complexities, so most will need special rules to be combat ready.

Mesmerism is more controlled hallucinations than anything else. In this milieu, magic is powered down but more accessible, more flexible; I was shooting for finesse over force to take a break from rote magic. Oddly enough I've run across the same complexity problem.

I solved the problem by getting rid of mesmerism. And I'm having second thoughts.

Mesmerism's strengths are that it is combat ready - even the more complex hallucinations, although higher on a difficulty level, are thrown as fast as the simpler hallucinations, and the whammy is flexible. (a mesmerist can cloak a anvil from the mind of an Orc, so that he runs full tilt into it. Think Bugs Bunny bull fighting)

Its weaknesses are that it's usually Mano-a-Mano, (mass hallucinations, as well as induced psychoses are post-grad level) so the mesmerist had better have a plan; and that lower level hallucinations are easy to shake. (if you whammy Orc A with a Mask hallucination to believe Orc B is a sneaky human - Orc A unleashes one shot, then gets to make a saving throw. Only a critical failure means the Mask is still in place)

Mesmerism is incredibly useful in concert actions, if the situations allow, though if a mesmerist succeeds in enthralling a non-sentient beast, the mesmerist can't perform any other action.