[RPG] Break Enchantment v. Feeblemind

pathfinder-1espells

Break enchantment's description contains the following:

This spell frees victims from enchantments, transmutations, and curses. Break enchantment can reverse even an instantaneous effect. […] If the spell is one that cannot be dispelled by dispel magic or stone to flesh, break enchantment works only if that spell is 5th level or lower.

Feeblemind's description contains the following:

The subject remains in this state until a heal, limited wish, miracle, or wish spell is used to cancel the effect of the feeblemind.

Feeblemind is an enchantment of 5th level or lower that cannot be dispelled by dispel magic. Can it be dispelled by break enchantment, or must one use one of the listed spells?

Best Answer

Whether a break enchantment spell can remove the effects of a feeblemind spell has been discussed at length with no clear resolution.1 For example, on the Paizo messageboards there's a 2010 thread on the topic that has been marked as a FAQ candidate 10 times, a 2012 thread and a 2013 thread, and a 2015 thread on the topic that has been marked as a FAQ candidate 33 times. Yet, so far as I'm aware, no developer has put forth a formal ruling one way or another.

Both sides have ardent and vocal supporters. To this reader, it seems that extremely general consensus would have a feeblemind effect unaffected by a break enchantment effect, the specific list of effects that can remove a feeblemind effect overriding the general list of effects that a break enchantment effect can remove. In other words, you really should ask the GM.

Even the one instance that creative director James Jacobs (who's usually pretty good on the rules but claims not to be a rules guy) mentions both effects obliquely in the same virtual breath—in this 2015 messageboard post—the results are inconclusive. I mean, sure, his sentence's parallelism has death cured by raise dead, petrification by break enchantment, and feeblemind by heal, but that's a far cry from conclusive proof that break enchantment does not also cure feeblemind.

(While I'm certain the sadly gone Wizards of the Coast forums discussed this at length also—this is a 3.5 issue as well as a Pathfinder one—I suspect this Giant in the Playground forum thread from 2007 probably summarizes the general positions for that game quite well.)


1 Everyone agrees, though, that the break enchantment spell can totally reverse the effects of the reincarnate spell, which is hilarious.

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