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Charm Person makes the target YOUR friend, not a friend to your party members. He's going to keep wailing on them until his new friend can talk him into stopping if he can.
He'll look at the sorcerer and his requests in the best light possible but if those guys over there just rammed a 6 ft greatsword into his chest it's going to take a mighty good reason to make him stop trying to rip that guys head off. Especially if his old friend beside him is still trying to kill that guy too.
What they said.
Enchantment spells like charm person, suggestion, and dominate person have to be adjudicated because players might try to abuse them when they cast them on others, but will fight tooth and nail to avoid doing anything to help the enemy if roles are reversed.
I think it helps if you think about things in this manner:
You're in a knife fight...to the death. Your adrenaline is pumping.
Now you're in a knife fight...to the death...with your best friend.
What? How'd a I get in a knife fight to the death with my best friend?
Does it matter? You're in a knife fight...to the death!
There better be a good reason to stop fighting and let your guard down.
Well, in defense of the original placement, the first answer that came to mind is "Stop using so many people" followed by "Use clerics wizards, and druids" and then "iron will".
There is a +4 bonus on the save if the party is hostile, and that definitely applies once combat starts. If your party isn't fighting back yet its a bit of a gray area. Some parties are more willing than others to delay/hold on the fight than others, meaning that the person should, in most combat situations, get the +4 bonus and make the save half of the time even with no bonus. (I don't know what humanoid bonus you're referring to)
I don't like nerfing the spell into uselessness. If my best friend tells me to stop stabbing someone I'm not going to put my knife away, but withdrawing and holding a defensive position is a good possibility.
How should this situtaion resolve?
-Does attacking it's ally count as a threat?
Yes
-How should the situation resolve
The charmed humanoid gets a save with a +4 bonus. If they fail the save the caster becomes their friend. The caster should follow a successful cast (he knows if the spell succeeded in affecting the target) With a free action "Stop, stop, lets talk about this". The DM should prod the player in that direction. "Want to tell your new friend to do anything?" Since its something a caster would definitely know that a player may think is automatic.
The charmed fighter should try to accommodate his friends requests if possible by withdrawing, fighting defensively, or possibly using a non lethal tactic like tripping instead of stabbing.
-Does the charmed humanoid still feel threated by the PC's who did not charm it?
Probably. If any party members swing at the charmed guy the spell breaks. If anyone throws an obviously harmful spell at the charmed guy (ie ball of fire or burning hands) the spell breaks.
The party may have to break off all hostilities against both parties if the two are close, or at least tone them down to non lethal means. I might put up with the friend of my new friend putting my old friend in a headlock, but I'm not going to put up with the friend of my new friend putting a greatsword through my old friends liver.
This came up last night in my game. A succubus charmed the party rogue while he was 20feet ahead of the group and slightly out of sight. She told him to bring his armored friend up. She tried to dominate the armored friend (failed, armored friend was a paladin). She specifically stayed out of obvious combat in order to prevent the rogue from getting a second save.
When that failed she asked the rogue to help her by blocking his other friends from reaching her. She spent an extra round out of combat prepping while the charmed rogue prevented both sides from reaching each other (it was a corridor). That is, until the rogue had PFE cast upon him and made his second save.
Regarding Dominate, it is easy to run. A few levels back the party paladin actually failed a save against dominate person. She started hacking her allies apart as ordered to.
- Gauss
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Yeah, charm person is all but useless in combat, unless you have a very well-coordinated team and have pre-planned tactics for making it work.
Actually it's not;
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.
If you can manage to get the humanoid you're trying to charm to fail his save then you can attempt an opposed Charisma check to give them an order. I've used this spell very successfully in combat (if they fail their save). It just takes a little imagination.
It's superbly useful in a one-on-one situation, or when you're down to a single enemy (especially a single powerful enemy).
As an example of how I've used it in combat:
A mystic theurge of mine was going one-on-one against a kraken at the bottom of the ocean once. She was doing okay, but it was becoming clear that the kraken would likely get her to 0hp before she could do the same to it. So she cast charm monster (a step up from charm person, in that it affects non-humanoids). The kraken failed its save, and thus came to see her as a friend. She immediately requested help with a problem she was having on land, and, since the kraken saw her as a friend, it agreed to help.
She led the kraken onto dry land, far away from the water, and then proceeded to rain death on the monster from far above its reach while it scrambled in an attempt to get back to the water, which it had been led far away from.
Essentially the charm was used to get an enemy out of an environment that was advantageous to them, and into one in which the PC had the advantage before resuming the fight that would inevitably occur when the spell expired.
