A situation came up with a session I ran yesterday and was wondering if in fact there were any rulings in this sort of situation. So to sum up a 5th level ranger had fallen under the sway of a succubus' charm monster compulsion. The sucubus commands the ranger to restrain the wizard as this is all a misunderstading. The party's wizard then cast charm person on the same ranger. The ranger failed his will save. Who has control of the ranger?
My feeling is that charm person is a lower level spell than charm monster and shouldn't take precedent. At the time to keep the game going and to somewhat reward the player for thinking I ruled the ranger was stunned for 1d8 rounds. In hindsight, perhaps I should've just allowed the ranger another save against the succubus and left it at that. But curious as to thoughts of what should've been the proper way to handle this?
The two casters have to make an opposed charisma check.
Multiple Mental Control Effects: Sometimes magical effects that establish mental control render each other irrelevant, such as spells that remove the subject's ability to act. Mental controls that don't remove the recipient's ability to act usually do not interfere with each other. If a creature is under the mental control of two or more creatures, it tends to obey each to the best of its ability, and to the extent of the control each effect allows. If the controlled creature receives conflicting orders simultaneously, the competing controllers must make opposed Charisma checks to determine which one the creature obeys.
Charm spells are not dominate. They just make the person see you as a friend. You still need a convincing argument to make them do something they might consider a bad idea. This is also a charisma check. If the idea is completely against their nature, they won't do it at all.
Thanks Wraithstrike for the clarification, now I know. Though I think my ad hoc ruling certainly helped out the group as well I'm sure the succubus had a lot more cha than the wizard.
As for the charm I don't think that's an unreasonable command to restrain an ally (using non-lethal force such as attempting to grapple) from attacking your 'friend'. If the succubus had asked him to harm his comrade than I'd agree that crosses the line.
Just because one best friend tells you to tie up the other doesn't mean you would. Without a really high Charisma check.
depends on the type of best friends we're talking about here.
but alas that is all I have to say, Charm spells aren't dominate, they just make you friendly, and more willing to act on advice and such.
Now I'm curious... What would be the correct outcome if it were indeed Dominate Person or another similar spell?
Now I'm curious... What would be the correct outcome if it were indeed Dominate Person or another similar spell?
Need a flow chart.
Basically, charm spells rank third, non-demanding Dominate tasks such as 'Watch over this shop' or 'Protect the queen's daughter' rank second, while demanding task such as 'Write this play' or 'Count the grains of sand on this beach' rank first, but immediate magical compulsions such as command or scare trump everything. If a dominated character is charmed, you can make a charisma check against the dominator's charisma check to attempt to sway them into acting, but only if it is a non-demanding task and your sway does not attempt to prevent them from completing or attending to their task. A demanding task is attended to until the duration of dominate person completes or until another task is given, and the character will not abandon that task willingly. A compulsion forces the character to act briefly, but upon completion they will return to their task, non-demanding or otherwise.