ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Here's the situation: I have a character with spell save of 45 and mental save of 40. Nothing to write home about, but still decent. However, he got hit a number of times by forest wights casting Mind Disruption and getting cross-tiered Brainlocked (!), while these wights have only spell and mental power of 43 and 24 respectively.

I thought they would have a hard time getting the spells through to me, let alone getting a cross-tiered effect.

Aye, the "Confusion" damage type by default uses "combatSpellpower" as the apply power, and the talent "Mind Disruption" doesn't specify apply_power. The "Confused" timed effect is mental and checks the apply_power against your mental save. In other words, this is spell power vs mental save, which explains why your character is getting Brainlocked in this particular case. Confusing? Yeah, you'll get confused.

This isn't necessarily as intended. It could simply be an oversight.

Well, how then a ruin banshee can do the same thing to me, when it got only 20 something for both spell and mental power?