Lluks4's page

Lluks4 wrote:

]He wouldn't have to bring it up. It's off topic, and you're forgetting one of the quintessential rules of any rpg--you can attempt anything. This is the one of the number one reasons cited for playing a tabletop game as opposed to a video game--you can try anything, and most of the time the GM tells you to roll some dice and tells you the result.

Sadly, that is NOT true with Pathfinder :( It's really my number one reason for still prefering 2E with it's vague DM inspired rules vs. pathfinders nitpicking and quantifying EVERY possiblilty...

Here in Pathfinder.. many VERY awesome things require Feats or talents or whatever other class option there is.

If you don't have that option... you CAN'T try it.... at least not RAW. Gunslinger is REALLY bad at that... You want to shoot a lock? Use a hot barrel to stop bleeding? That's a Deed you can't use till 3rd level.

You want to use a whip to grab a small item and yank it to you? Your profient in whip?? Too bad. You need Weapon focus whip, Whip mastery and improved whip mastery before you can attempt THAT...

YOu want to just 'grapple' someone with the whip? NOPE!!! That's GREATER whip mastery... Sooooo basically 'mastering' a weapon doesn't mean all it should ;)

But yeah... this is NOT the game where you can shoot from the hip and 'try anything'...

Actually, if that's really not the case, then I understand where my error was completely. I mostly played with DND 3.5, and assumed that the "you can try anything" rule was still sacred.

Lluks4 wrote:

Nothing you said is mutually exclusive to what I said. Who on earth do you think sets the DC for this check? Besides, the rules say that the GM can, at their sole discretion, rule a check is so difficult as to automatically fail. It also says they can situationally adjust the DC of any check at their sole discretion.

He wouldn't have to bring it up. It's off...

Are you trying to bait me or is this supposed to be serious?

Well, clearly you disagree strongly. If that's truly how you feel, then I don't really know what else to say, so how about this:

I've been playing tabletop for 9 years. I've GM'ed now for about 8, mostly DND. If you genuinely feel, based on your interpretation of the wording of Charm Person, that the players should be able to use the spell and a Charisma check of some low, set level, to be able to make anyone do anything they want, then I think your interpretation of the spell eclipses the other 1st level spells' functionality by a lot and is not fair by a long shot. Besides a million other effects that could be employed, you're basically arguing that with a will save on their part and a Cha check on your part, you can make them kill themselves. This is a more powerful version of Phantasmal Killer, which allows them to make two saves to avoid dying, and doesn't have alternate functionality. Note how that spell is 3 levels higher than Charm Person.

I am not trying to bait you at all. I can understand your point, I just don't agree with it. If you think I am trolling, then I don't think you understand my point.

Lluks4 wrote:

I don't think they need to say it outright, though I'm pretty sure they've delineated the rules for convincing people of things somewhere. But really, it's a no-brainer: you want to convince an NPC to do something. You ask the DM. He's almost guaranteed to ask you to make a Diplomacy check or Charisma check.
That's the same thing here. If you want mr. mcMinion to do something, you try to convince him as one would try to convince a friend to do something THEY wouldn't normally do. The DM can, and should, set the DC as high as he feels is necessary for this action. So yes, you charm an assassin and ask him, as his friend (Cha-check) if he can sign away his home to you, but the GM can and should make that a check so high that it's probably...

Nope

Perhaps you glossed over where I quoted Piazo lead designer earlier; you are unequivocally wrong. When clarifying the faq someone asked him what happens if he charmed a person and told them to kill their family. Jason Bulman said "killing loved ones is probably always going to require a check, and might not even work (the creature might take its own life instead, its not your puppet after all)." Nowhere does he, or anything printed by Piazo talking about this spell, say that their is some scaling DC or that it is the same type of DC as convincing a friend. Outside of charm, what kind of diplomacy do you think you would have to have to convince someone they needed to kill their family or they must kill themselves to prevent themselves from killing their family? Probably it would be high enough for Jason to have not brought it up.

Nothing you said is mutually exclusive to what I said. Who on earth do you think sets the DC for this check? Besides, the rules say that the GM can, at their sole discretion, rule a check is so difficult as to automatically fail. It also says they can situationally adjust the DC of any check at their sole discretion.

He wouldn't have to bring it up. It's off topic, and you're forgetting one of the quintessential rules of any rpg--you can attempt anything. This is the one of the number one reasons cited for playing a tabletop game as opposed to a video game--you can try anything, and most of the time the GM tells you to roll some dice and tells you the result.

So you CAN try a Dip. check to convince someone to kill their family--it just likely won't work unless your modifier is obscene. It's spelled out in the DMG that at epic skill levels, skills approach magic. It even sites the example of a rogue squeezing through a space much smaller than their physical mass with really a really high escape skill, because their ability has transcended the realm of understanding of most people playing the game. It's also why a stupid person can play a smart character, even though they know less than their character does.

Lluks4 wrote:

"You can try to give the subject orders, but you must win an opposed Charisma check to CONVINCE it to do anything it wouldn't ordinarily do."
People act like this line turns your Charisma checks into magical compulsion effects. But notice the word "convince." As any other friend, you can try to convince someone to do something, and that involves a Charisma check. It doesn't mean you make a Charisma check of 16 and suddenly the Assassin is in a tutu explaining how to find their boss and giving over all of their gear.

I have never seen anything that says you can make an opposed charisma check to get someone to do something they wouldn't normally do. If you look up the charm school of magic, it is described like a compulsion in that everything is so distorted they follow your desired course of action, like attacking their old friends. It describes them being able to make an opposed charisma check to resist their master's commands, this doesn't sound anything like what happens during a friend's conversation. It also goes on to clarify obviously harmful acts that are autofails as "grievously harmful". Granted this does open the door for some interpretation, but not as much as what "charm haters" would like.

I don't think they need to say it outright, though I'm pretty sure they've delineated the rules for convincing people of things somewhere. But really, it's a no-brainer: you want to convince an NPC to do something. You ask the DM. He's almost guaranteed to ask you to make a Diplomacy check or Charisma check.

If you roll a nat. 20? Depending on the GM's style, he may make that enough for it to happen. Generally my group respects nat. 20s to a large extent, because it makes for interesting stories.

You can't take the summary description of the Charm school and try to extrapolate that as the rules for every Charm spell. Yes, certain lines apply. But remember the rules for conflicting rules: Whenever the description of an effect and another, more detailed description of the effect seem to be in conflict, the more specific version applies. So, where Charm Person conflicts with the description of the Charm School, the text of Charm Person supercedes that of the Charm school.

Charm Person:

This charm makes a humanoid creature regard you as its trusted friend and ally (treat the target’s attitude as friendly). If the creature is currently being threatened or attacked by you or your allies, however, it receives a +5 bonus on its saving throw.

The spell does not enable you to control the charmed person as if it were an automaton, but it perceives your words and actions in the most favorable way. You can try to give the subject orders, but you must win an opposed Charisma check to convince it to do anything it wouldn’t ordinarily do. (Retries are not allowed.) An affected creature never obeys suicidal or obviously harmful orders, but it might be convinced that something very dangerous is worth doing. Any act by you or your apparent allies that threatens the charmed person breaks the spell. You must speak the person’s language to communicate your commands, or else be good at pantomiming.
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Reread that "or obviously harmful orders." So, even if they think they can try to avoid the boss killing them, there is no question the act is harmful to their career, their reputation, and their ability to operate normally under their boss.

"it might be convinced that something very dangerous is worth doing."
Nowhere does this say the target WILL do the act, only that it strikes them as worth doing. People don't do a lot of things that they think are worth doing. It's worth learning to speaking Spanish, but I don't.

"You can try to give the subject orders, but you must win an opposed Charisma check to CONVINCE it to do anything it wouldn't ordinarily do."
People act like this line turns your Charisma checks into magical compulsion effects. But notice the word "convince." As any other friend, you can try to convince someone to do something, and that involves a Charisma check. It doesn't mean you make a Charisma check of 16 and suddenly the Assassin is in a tutu explaining how to find their boss and giving over all of their gear.

Okay, for those that think torture isn't impinging on your will:

From Wikipedia:
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The consequences of torture reach far beyond immediate pain. Many victims suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which includes symptoms such as flashbacks (or intrusive thoughts), severe anxiety, insomnia, nightmares, depression and memory lapses. Torture victims often feel guilt and shame, triggered by the humiliation they have endured. Many feel that they have betrayed themselves or their friends and family. All such symptoms are normal human responses to abnormal and inhuman treatment.
...
Physical problems can be wide-ranging, e.g. sexually transmitted diseases, musculo-skeletal problems, brain injury, post-traumatic epilepsy and dementia or chronic pain syndromes.

Mental health problems are equally wide-ranging; common are post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and anxiety disorder. Psychic deadness, erasure of intersubjectivity, refusal of meaning-making, perversion of agency, and an inability to bear desire constitute the core features of the post-traumatic psychic landscape of torture.[120]

The most terrible, intractable, legacy of torture is the killing of desire - that is , of curiosity, of the impulse for connection and meaning-making, of the capacity for mutuality, of the tolerance for ambiguity and ambivalence. For these patients, to know another mind is unbearable. To connect with another is irrelevant. They are entrapped in what was born(e) during their trauma, as they perpetuate the erasure of meaning, re-enact the dynamics of annihilation through sadomasochistic, narcissistic, paranoid, or self-deadening modes of relating, and mobilize their agency toward warding off mutuality, goodness, hope and connection. In brief, they live to prove death. And it is this perversion of agency and desire that constitutes the deepest post-traumatic injury, and the most invisible and pernicious of human-rights violations.
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Seriously. Torture has gotten results time and again in history--it can be defeated with training (that's what high Will Saves are for) but even the waterboarding in America revealed the location of several pipe bombs and saved many lives (not justifying it, just stating the facts).

Admirale James Stockdale got the freaking medal of honor for refusing to give any information at all under torture. It's extremely rare to not give any info.

The will is compromised, whether the information is obtained or not. No one wills to have that much pain, nor endure such physical or psychological trauma. It is unquestionably against their will.

I guess one standby quick-test is the "Golden Rule" (do unto others as you would have them do unto you, on the off chance you've heard a different one).

If I was in the situation, I would much rather a bard make me think I'm his friend for oh, an hour or so, and give him the information that way, than be beaten and mutilated until I break and give him the information that way or pray he believes my lie.

I think most random bar-goers would agree. If you still feel "charm" is worse, then bear in mind most victims of battery or torture report feeling violated, and have long-term psychological issues. In other words, torture affects your mind anyway. With Charm it's just temporary and doesn't affect your body too.

I may be more suspicious of a mage if I were charmed. But many people who are tortured become scared of EVERYBODY, especially if the person is bigger than them.

NOTE: I am not really asking if its good or evil lawful or chaotic. its not an alignment question... its more of a cultural response question.

The party captures two assassins who just tried to kill them in the middle of a tavern. The rogue takes one to a corner and starts applying 'physical discomfort' in order to find out who sent them. The Bard walks over to the other one whispers a few magic words and the assassin immediately begins to fawn over the bard answering every question, obviously under the effects of some mind effecting spell.

How would you say the other patrons of the tavern and later the rest of the town would view the comparative methods?

The core idea: people are going to view the actions based on predisposition and interpretation of the scene.

Interpretation of the scene: The guys are assassins, and the aggressors. The tavern people are going to think these guys are scum.

The Rogue: The rogue goes and starts torturing them. If he wrenches a guy's arm saying "who do you work for?" then it's probably not going to bother anyone, but it's probably not going to work on quality assassins. If he starts more brutal torture, people are going to start vomiting and cowering or running, because the psychological (and physical) impact of severing a finger or something is horrendous.

The Bard: The people saw a well-dressed man with a banjo whisper to the guy. Keep in mind realistic dialogue: the guy is not going to say "OH, YOU ARE MY FRIEND NOW, I AM A ROBOT OF EXPOSITION," no, he's going to nod and smile or something. The bard puts his hand on the guy's shoulder and says "Tell me, man, who do you work for? It's me, dude." And the assassin is going to either tell him or more likely give him a small clue but not tell him completely. The bard may make a charisma check to convince him to say more, and this may or may not work. The bar's reaction? They might think there was a misunderstanding and they were actually friends, and that no magic was done. Or if they figure on magic, they think that "the assassin just tried to kill him, and the guy mercifully uses magic to try to get information instead of following mister-dismemberment over there."

You gotta think--people "charm" each other all the time. Hell, sex appeal does the same thing a lot of the time. If someone used that to get info, people would just roll their eyes. Magic is something that these people have seen before and adapted to. They're going to think that the assassin threw the gloves off, and "all's fair in war, at least this assassin isn't going to have psychological trauma." The spell doesn't say the person feels "raped" afterward, it says they are aware that it was affecting them. But mister 8-fingers is going to be traumatized.

Either way, it's fair to ask the players to make a Charisma check to see how the crowd reacts to the way they handle it. The rogue might be extremely flamboyant about how "I'LL SHOW THIS DASTARDLY VILLAIN THAT THE PEOPLE WILL NOT STAND FOR THIS!!!" (nat. 20) while the Bard might creep on his victim, claws extended, saying "IT'S MIND-RAPING TIME!!!" (nat. 1).

Predisposition: There's a reason why anti-war activism didn't really happen in the Middle Ages, and it's not just oppression and propaganda. People saw violence all the time. Unlike today, cops didn't show up in most domestic disputes. The guards were questionably competent in some cases, and in most cases weren't enough in number to reach every crime. If the people didn't defend themselves, they would often not be defended, especially since monarchs often knew little of peasants' day-to-day lives. Higher concepts like absolute sacredness of free will are probably laughable to a peasant who has lived extortion much of his life. It's not like it's an era where people went after their "dream-jobs."

The rest of the town later? Probably similar, with the exception that if spellcasting is illegal that could cause more issues. But really, a barfight? Hell, unless it's a tiny town, most people probably wouldn't bat an eye. The brutality of the rogue might make it worth discussing, and the power of the bard perhaps, but I don't think anyone's really going to care beyond gossip. (Hell, the bartender probably prefers his floor not get blood-stained).