[RPG] Why does Mind Blank stop the Feeblemind spell

dnd-5espells

Jeremy Crawford wrote the following:

The mind blank spell is meant to protect you entirely from the feeblemind spell.

Yet, according to the description of Mind Blank, the spell only protects against these effects:

  • Psychic damage
  • Effect that would sense emotions or read thoughts
  • Divination spells
  • Charmed condition

The Feeblemind spell does the followings:

  • Inflicts 4d6 psychic damage
  • Sets a creature's Intelligence and Charisma scores to 1
  • Prevents spell casting
  • Prevents magic items activation
  • Stops language understanding & communication

Only the first of these effects is explicitly stopped by Mind Blank.

Why would the other effects be nullified by Mind Blank?

Best Answer

From the Mind Blank spell description:

The spell even foils wish spells and spells or effects of similar power used to affect the target’s mind or to gain information about the target.

From the Feeblemind spell description:

You blast the mind of a creature that you can see within range, attempting to shatter its intellect and personality.

(emphasis mine)

Remember that there is no flavour text in 5e spells so Feeblemind really does blast a target's mind.

Feeblemind is of inferior power to Wish (since Wish can recreate Feeblemind and is one level higher) and Feeblemind clearly affects the target's mind, so it seems to me like Mind Blank would cancel all of the Feeblemind effects altogether.

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