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Ciretose. I get it. You don't like charm effects working this way. That's fine, house rule it.
But you are now attempting to argue that a direct quote from the lead designer is not representative of the intent for the spell. Drop it already.
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Yeah. Both the spoiler I posted and Jason's quote point to the clear potential and use of charm person to kill someone, even close family and loved ones. However, how you respond to that order is up to you. Sounds like you can either do something to prevent yourself from doing it or carry it out. But, barring the former, you're going to carry it out.
The difference it seems is that in dominate you're explicitly barred from doing anything but your issued command. With charm, you've got some interpretive ability.
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What astounds me is that most people I've seen already consider the entirety of the enchantment school to be rather weak. It's no wonder why really after reading this thread. You've got a school that entirely (or nearly entirely) is useless against a rather wide assortment of creatures (virtually all mindless creatures, constructs, undead, etc) that are resisted or simply shut down by lots of wards (protection from spells, spell immunity, (lesser) globe of invulnerability, mind blank, spell turning, etc), and then on top of it people intentionally ignore what quintessential enchantment spell actually says it does.
People lament "oh noes, charm person is a 1st level spell and is too powerful!" while ignoring that it is basically one of the poorer spells to have as a 1st level spell option. It has a low save DC (being 1st level), affects only 1 creature type (humanoid), grants a +5 bonus to the save if used in combat, allows an opposed Charisma check to ignore anything that the subject isn't keen on doing with no further attempts allowed, and grants an extra saving throw if you try to push them too far. And that's on top of it being single target, save-negates, and allowing spell-resistance. And is also subject to dispel magic to simply end the effect immediately.
There is no other spell in the game with that many hurdles to jump through to exercise its power. One might think that all those hurdles are to curb the otherwise awesome power that the spell could potentially have (and they do very well).
Example
Let's say we have an enchanter in D&D. We're 1st level and human. We take Spell Focus and Greater Spell Focus {Enchantment} as our starting feats, have an 18 Intelligence and a 10 Charisma, and our spell loadout looks like charm person, sleep, and colorspray.
During out adventure we encounter...
1) Some dire rats (charm is useless)
2) Some giant spiders (charm is useless)
3) A skeleton with some broken armor (charm is useless)
4) A pack of hobgoblins (hot damn, we have a target!)
...
So during our encounter with the hobgoblins our mage decides to cast charm person. The hobgoblin is in combat with our mage and so he rolls 1d20+1 and gets an additional +5 on the check. Uh-oh, even our weak-willed hobby has a 50% chance of simply negating the spell outright even with a prime-casting stat and dual-focuses. Assuming the hobgoblin misses it he turns and begins defending the caster.
Later the caster insists to the hobgoblin that he should reveal betray information concerning his warband's route through the forest. The hobgoblin's not keen on giving up such secret information so then there is a roll-off Charisma style. The hobgoblin has a -1 and you have a +0, so you have roughly a 55% chance of beating him on the check, though it's pretty swingy. If you fail then the hobgoblin simply refuses entirely.
Later you insist the hobgoblin poison the food supply of his warband to kill or severely cripple the other hobgoblins. Being violently opposed to this idea he gets both another 45% chance to ignore the order outright and another saving throw to break the spell on top of that (likely resuming hostilities or pretending to go along with the plan before ratting you out to the other hobgoblins).
This is overpowered...how exactly?
If we're talking about in non-adventuring scenarios, do you not think society would not adapt to these sorts of things? I mean, in one AP by Paizo a noble NPC is wearing a necklace that negates attempts to detect the NPC's alignment. Just 'cause they can. Do you really think that nobility or people in power wouldn't safeguard against charm effects? It's not like the Aristocrat NPC class isn't sporting surprisingly good Will saves for no apparent reason.
It's like people who insist that fly ruins campaigns and makes PCs impossibly powerful because fly + fireball with protection from arrows optional = burns down all cities. All it does is show they haven't actually given any real thought to how their world interacts with the magic within it (even without those spells a bag of holding, some alchemist fire, and a flying mount such as a pegasus, griffon, or giant eagle accomplishes the same things). It just shows how incredibly fragile and ill prepared your world is when simple spells like these can lay waste to them.
Yeah. Both the spoiler I posted and Jason's quote point to the clear potential and use of charm person to kill someone, even close family and loved ones. However, how you respond to that order is up to you. Sounds like you can either do something to prevent yourself from doing it or carry it out. But, barring the former, you're going to carry it out.
The difference it seems is that in dominate you're explicitly barred from doing anything but your issued command. With charm, you've got some interpretive ability.
Exactly! Dominate actually makes you their absolute puppet. Dominate is baaaad. There is no wiggle room with dominate. That's why vampires are terrible. Especially since their level draining powers make you more susceptible to their power. Vampire slaps you once and you get -2 to future saves vs their dominates. Vampire slaps you twice and we're at -4. Before too long you're their mindless minion who can do little beyond hope someone can free you from this mental prison.
Except that's not at all how it works.Alignment is about your intentions and motives and desires and how you chose to implement them, not about the effects that they happen to have. If you're scheming to murder a party member, and attempt to do so by channeling negative energy at them at a crucial moment in a battle, but only then discover that they were hiding from the party that they where a dhampir and your attack ends up healing them instead, that doesn't become a "good" act because of "the effects on the subject afterward". It's an evil act, regardless of the fact that it happened, luckily, to have positive effects.
In the same way, if use a mind-affecting spell to twist someone's mind into a state where they'll give you sex, that is a reprehensibly evil action even if you find out later that they "get turned on by domination".
The only possible way it can be not an evil action is if you and the other person both explicitly agreed to the spell's use beforehand, as part of a... magical S&M play, I guess. Otherwise, no, using mind-affecting spells in an attempt to obtain sex is entirely evil from the word "go".
See, I disagree with that. To me, alignment is all about how each character affects the world around them through their choices. It is those choices which dictate our actions. Bear in mind that you misinterpreted what I was writing, in that it is the INTENT that determines Good or Evil. Did you genuinely try to help this person be happy on their own terms, even if it didn't work out well? Then that is a fundamentally Good viewpoint. Did you know that what you were doing was harmful to others around you, and still not care because you wanted something for yourself? Then that's Evil. I can go on into Law and Chaos if you like.
In my games, you don't CHOOSE your alignment. Instead, it's given to you through the DM watching your actions, primarily through interaction with NPC's since I enforce treating other PC's as if you were LG to keep from PvP. Certain classes have prohibited alignments, in which case warnings are given to players who stray too close to them.
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Ciretose. I get it. You don't like charm effects working this way. That's fine, house rule it.
But you are now attempting to argue that a direct quote from the lead designer is not representative of the intent for the spell. Drop it already.
I'm not arguing with the lead designer. I actually quoted him. I'm arguing against ignoring most of what the lead designer said to cherry pick things so that the spell becomes overpowered when, and I quote the lead designer.
"The spell makes the target your friend. It will treat you kindly (although maybe not your allies) and will generally help you as long as your interests align. This is mostly in the purview of the GM."
If in your game, your GMs Purview is friends kill family if you ask them, and that GM is your friend, I would ask the GM to give me all the money in the GMs bank account, because they have an amazingly inclusive definition of what friends do for each other.
If, on the other hand, your GM goes "He's not doing that." you can attempt a charisma check to convince them to do it...like you generally could for most situations with NPCs, with all of the difficulty modifiers that a GM would see fit to add...like they would with any check...and maybe you can convince them their family needs to die for the greater good...or maybe they would kill themselves before killing their family, even if you succeed in convincing them it is a good idea.
Because they aren't puppets.
But if you like making spells really powerful in your game, in spite of the text and clarification, great. Enjoy your game. Have a wonderful time.
But you are then never, ever, going to be able to be taken seriously when you say "X is overpowered" or "X is broken" because you have provided clear evidence that you allowed this to happen in your game, which is what broke it.
My buddy just posted on Facebook he wrecked his car doing 120...for the second time. I have pretty much no pity for my buddy, as it is his own fault.
I feel the same way for anyone who runs charm as dominate. And it isn't a coincidence it is the same group of people who claim various things are underpowered...
For out of initiative and combat uses of charm or in society where you are seen and heard you people all forget something rather important about spells.
Unless you don´t have a still and silent metamagicked charm at hand that might even be quickened, you will be seen and heard, by the victim and others. So if there is one person present that can cast spells or has spellcraft and cares to watch what you are doing there, what is pretty likely, there will be immediate consequences. Bards could overgo that by spending at least one round of performance and having the feat that let´s them hide spells in performance. This is a major reason why charm is a combat spell, because it just plain sucks out of combat.
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I think the intention of Charm is very clear. It makes someone your friend.
The spell says this, the devs say this, that is what it does.
The problem comes with how different people define friend. If you want to say that you friend is going to kill his family for you, because that is what friendship means to that person, that is a possible outcome of the spell.
All social interactions in the game get fuzzy at a certain point because they are going to fall to the purview of the GM. That is what makes RPGs different from computer games. The GM can pass the Turing test when deciding on the actions of NPC characters.
Jason isn't ever going to come on the boards and say "The way you play is Wrongbadfun." Because no way that anyone plays that the table enjoys is ever "Wrongbadfun."
If in your game, people kill loved ones while charmed, that is fine. There is precedence for such things in fairy tales and stories galore, and if that is a world you want to play in, fine.
But when he was asked what the spell does, he said
"The spell makes the target your friend. It will treat you kindly (although maybe not your allies) and will generally help you as long as your interests align. This is mostly in the purview of the GM."
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The ultimate problem that has risen is the whole Charisma Check ordeal.
If you look at things from a mechanical point, there doesn't seem to actually be a difference between convincing someone to do something through charisma or diplomacy and being convinced to do something through the use of a spell. Now in "world" game terms the difference would be being forced by the use of a spell or actually being manipulated through the use of words.
Cultists have convinced people to kill for them, even the person's loved ones but that takes a long time through brain washing and coercion.
We all need to remember that Charm Person is a 1st level spell and the designers intended for DM's to control how far the spell can go. You can't convince a friend right away to do something out of their nature. You might be able to convince your friend to steal that apple with a Charisma check but you will not convince them to kill their mother, themselves, or another innocent person unless their alignment is evil and they would do it anyway.
Making a Charisma check doesn't enable you to make them do what you want, period.
Well you still can take someone out of combat at least.
Charm is and was always a thing of creativity too.
There is a difference if you tell a person you just charmed in combat:
a. "Kill those other person there we are fighting"
b. "Wow look, your other friends are evil, they betrayed you and want to kill me and my friends here!"
A. would be a case for dominance and the person would go and fight.
B. Doesn´t necessarily have the person to fight the others, but here also comes the CHA check into play, to see how much you can influence their perception. This can range from standing there and doing nothing, getting in harms way for you, aid another or attacking the others in some way (your allies or the victims former allies). It all depends on the situation and the roleplay as well as who you are dealing with. If you charm a priest of some evil cult or a goblin following someone else is a big difference.
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Well you still can take someone out of combat at least.
Charm is and was always a thing of creativity too.
There is a difference if you tell a person you just charmed in combat:
a. "Kill those other person there we are fighting"
b. "Wow look, your other friends are evil, they betrayed you and want to kill me and my friends here!"A. would be a case for dominance and the person would go and fight.
B. Doesn´t necessarily have the person to fight the others, but here also comes the CHA check into play, to see how much you can influence their perception. This can range from standing there and doing nothing, getting in harms way for you, aid another or attacking the others in some way (your allies or the victims former allies). It all depends on the situation and the roleplay as well as who you are dealing with. If you charm a priest of some evil cult or a goblin following someone else is a big difference.
Oh most definitely.
It also depends on who you are charming. Let's say you Charm an orc and he walks up to his buddies and tells them to stop, well orcs being orcs they may just gut him and move on but hey, at least he's out of the fight.
I guess we should be glad that Pathfinder has not updated the Thrall spell from Tome and Blood.
"Subjects resist this control, and any subject forced to take actions against its nature receives a new saving throw with a +2 bonus. Obviously self-destructive orders are not carried out.".
Exactly! Dominate actually makes you their absolute puppet.
Yes, however, should you fail you MUST comply with the order and can't deviate from it. With charm, if you fail you can do other things such as call for help, kill yourself, etc to otherwise prevent you from performing the command.
Ashiel, just for my own curiosity, what exactly will "dominate" allow you to have a targeted creature who fails all saves do that "charm" will NOT allow you to have a targeted creature who has failed the save and lost the opposed charisma check do?
Well put simply is that in most mild situations it's not going to see much difference in the end result. However the difference is primarily found when you're forcing them to do things that they don't want to do or are against their natures. Dominate allows 2 chances to get off the hook, while charm allows 3. Dominate also comes with a very wide amount of perks that charm simply doesn't which I feel are being outright ignored here.
Yes, charm can get people to do most all of the things dominate does but in a different way, yet it is far less likely to succeed (the charmed character has more layers of opportunities to resist or break free), while dominate simply forces the action with at most two saving throws, grants a telepathic link, isn't language-dependent (charm monster for example is a good way to keep a dinosaur from eating you, but dominate monster is a good way to get a dinosaur to fight for you, unless you've also got some way to speak with animals) and new commands can be issued over any distance as long as you're on the same plane of existence.
I think the mistake here is people are arguing what charm can do that makes it similar to dominate in terms of uses but not what makes dominate dissimilar to charm. It also doesn't help that we're basically talking about the spell from the assumption that it's going to work all the time at its best point which is simply false. It is impossible to expect charm to be exceptionally reliable with up to 2 saves and an opposed ability check. It's just too swingy.
It would be like arguing that Scythes are too strong to be cheap martial weapons because on a successful critical hit they can allow a 1st level character to deal up to 68 damage in a single swing at 1st level, which is true (18 Str, power attack, x4 multiplier, rolls max damage) but it doesn't look at what the effect is normally doing and is by no means a measure of the weapon's typical damage but the upper end of the effects if all the stars are appropriately aligned.
From reading Ashiel's posts, I have coem to the conclusion that I believe he/she is an "armchair gamer". Those are gamers who may have played in a game or two but aren't in a regular group. No group, that I know of, would allow the stuff that he/she comes up with, he/she would be laughed out of the group. I also that he/she tries to use walls of text and statistical analysis to prove it's points instead of actual gameplay. That's why my gut is screaming "armchair gamer".
Actually I'm a player in an ongoing campaign every Saturday right now, and I'm GMing 2 other ongoing campaigns (one is a homebrew kingmaker game that involves the PCs owning a plot of contested lands and overseeing the growth of a thorpe into a metropolis, another is a more traditional sword & sorcery romp with lots of dungeons and such). In the game I'm a player in I'm playing a wizard. And my GM and I have already discussed a lot of these things and are more or less on the same page.
My current GM is not unfamiliar with the mechanics by any means and I believe it makes him a better GM for it. We play charm effects by the book and it's possible that it may come up with other PCs becoming charmed or pseudo-charmed during the game and I'll accept it for what it is (due to circumstances surrounding my character's race I am particularly vulnerable to a version of charm to which I will have difficulty gaining immunity to without mid-level cleric casting). If it happens that I am charmed I will hope that my Will saves and Charisma hold out. Else I may find myself acting in ways I wouldn't have done otherwise (which would be amusing from a RPing standpoint).
My character has just hit wizard 3 and I still need to pick my spells and level up. It's been several sessions and the only reason we've made it to 3rd level is mostly because of some pretty beastly random encounters and in some cases some clever uses of terrain and/or avoidance. Mostly the random encounter that was vastly above us though (we managed to press through with no casualties due to tactics and perhaps a bit of ol' fashioned good luck).
Amusingly, I've considered taking charm person as a wizard spell but between the fact I banned enchantment and charm person is a really bad choice in our campaign (so far we've encountered some legal targets but I can't help but feel that it would be a waste of spells slots in the majority of places we've been). I'm thinking of taking it for downtime purposes like talking to captured prisoners (which combines well with my above-average Charisma and eventual ranks in Diplomacy). I've yet to actually bother spending the 15 gp to learn it from another mage though.
Perhaps you just know too few groups. For me the opposite is true. All the people I've met and/or played with barring one guy who I had no desire to play with due to horrible railroading and GM vs PC shenanigans have no problem with anything I've presented on the boards here. Several of them read these boards. Perhaps broaden your horizons a little bit? I dunno.
On the subject of walls and analytical posts
Look, I get it. There's some really bizarre phenomena of people who hate to read being on a forum where the only form of communication involves reading. I haven't figured it out yet but I've come to accept it. "Wall of text" was a figure of speech that I used to see commonly years ago to note a post that lacked paragraphs and/or spacing, which made it very difficult to read. However today it seems to be a term used to describe any post that is simply long. Meh.
As to statistical analysis that's because I'd rather actually verify what I've been saying with magical things like mathematics rather than "oh well I totally saw this work in a game once". It's called lending credibility to your claims. Y'know, actually doing your homework and putting up the goods to give people reasons to believe you and learn from you without merely expecting them to believe you on good faith in your word.
Something more people should probably learn to do actually.
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Yes, however, should you fail you MUST comply with the order and can't deviate from it. With charm, if you fail you can do other things such as call for help, kill yourself, etc to otherwise prevent you from performing the command."Subjects resist this control, and any subject forced to take actions against its nature receives a new saving throw with a +2 bonus. Obviously self-destructive orders are not carried out.".
Exactly! Dominate actually makes you their absolute puppet.
What I bolded above wasn't my opinion. It is from the book.
A charmed person is not compelled to obey the caster. They can be convinced to, but they are not compelled to.
But I believe Jason could appear here himself and say "To be clear, I'm not saying he would kill himself, I was giving an example of something he might do because he is not a puppet, like I said in the very next line that keeps getting ignored..." you would still argue it does what you want it to do at places other than your table and your mind.
Then he shouldn't have said it. Say what you mean at all times when communicating to your audience.
Thats... Pretty Dark. I'm not sure if thats the way that was supposed to be used. This spell does go back to 3.0 at least.
Edit: not argueing RAW btw. Just commenting.
ciretose, why would Jason include the charmed person killing themselves if all they had to do was say "no?" This implies they actually feel an urge to go through with it and simply choose another way out instead.
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ciretose, why would Jason include the charmed person killing themselves if all they had to do was say "no?" This implies they actually feel an urge to go through with it and simply choose another way out instead.
He was answering a direct question someone asked about if you could make someone kill a loved one.
The answer isn't "No". Even without a charm spell you could theoretically convince an NPC to kill a loved one. You could convince them the loved one was actually a succubus for example.
So yes, if they view you as a trusted friend and ally and the GM believed that they would kill a loved one for a trusted friend an ally, it could happen if they believed you. Or they could kill themselves rather than do it. Or they could just not do it.
The question asked was "Could this happen" and the answer was "It could happen, but they aren't a puppet."
Go read the thread. He didn't pick that as an example, he was asked to answer a question that involved killing a loved one. If it were as described by the "Charm is control" crowd he would have said "Yes, they would kill a loved one."
He didn't.
But he did include the scenario he was specifically asked about, and his answer was that the charmed person isn't a puppet.
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The answer isn't "No". Even without a charm spell you could theoretically convince an NPC to kill a loved one. You could convince them the loved one was actually a succubus for example.
So yes, if they view you as a trusted friend and ally and the GM believed that they would kill a loved one for a trusted friend an ally, it could happen if they believed you. Or they could kill themselves rather than do it. Or they could just not do it.
THIS is interesting... and kind of goes back to the Chr check being similar to a Diplomacy check.
If the Chr check is the mechanical version of 'Your their freind and you convince them...' Then what's the debate about?
Option one: Mage looks at man and says "KILL your WIFE!!" Fails extra saving throw and chr check... bound to do the command.
OR.....
Option Two: Mage says "KILL HER!!!" Man sees his wife and says, NO that's my WIFE!!!" Mage says "NO It's NOT!!! It's a shapeshifter!! STRIKE TRUE!!!!!"
Rolls a charisma check and the man believes him... Striking at the supposed monster.
In both situations it's the spell forcing him to do something he wouldn't have done without the magic on him... where's the debate? Both interpretations are different roads to standing over the corpse of a loved one.
now it's sounding more like 'roll playing vs. Role playing.' How much is the fluff of conversation' and how much is 'opposed CHR checks'
Same difference in the end.
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I just think if such an OBVIOUS way to get out of killing your wife existed by just saying "no" he would have used that as an example WAY before committing suicide.
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The answer isn't "No". Even without a charm spell you could theoretically convince an NPC to kill a loved one. You could convince them the loved one was actually a succubus for example.
So yes, if they view you as a trusted friend and ally and the GM believed that they would kill a loved one for a trusted friend an ally, it could happen if they believed you. Or they could kill themselves rather than do it. Or they could just not do it.
THIS is interesting... and kind of goes back to the Chr check being similar to a Diplomacy check.
If the Chr check is the mechanical version of 'Your their freind and you convince them...' Then what's the debate about?
Option one: Mage looks at man and says "KILL your WIFE!!" Fails extra saving throw and chr check... bound to do the command.
OR.....
Option Two: Mage says "KILL HER!!!" Man sees his wife and says, NO that's my WIFE!!!" Mage says "NO It's NOT!!! It's a shapeshifter!! STRIKE TRUE!!!!!"
Rolls a charisma check and the man believes him... Striking at the supposed monster.
In both situations it's the spell forcing him to do something he wouldn't have done without the magic on him... where's the debate? Both interpretations are different roads to standing over the corpse of a loved one.
now it's sounding more like 'roll playing vs. Role playing.' How much is the fluff of conversation' and how much is 'opposed CHR checks'
Same difference in the end.
The difference comes down to modifiers being added and such.
I think we would all agree if you rolled a high enough bluff check with the same information, the man might kill his wife, believing you that it was a shapeshifter.
Similarly, if you believe someone is your trusted friend you might believe them. That is how I believe charm works. You charm them to believe you are a trusted friend, and as a result they would treat you as you treat any trusted friend.
An opposed Charisma check could into play quite often (with appropriate circumstance modifiers), but most GM's prefer the "Role" over "Roll" play (and if you are going to go by GM fiat, it goes down smoother if there are no numbers to argue over).
Option 1 is a compulsion that comes with the spell. Option 2 is something anyone could do to a trusted friend, in theory.
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I just think if such an OBVIOUS way to get out of killing your wife existed by just saying "no" he would have used that as an example WAY before committing suicide.
And I think if it was something you could "make" them do, he would have said "Yes" and not had the suicide/puppet comment.
I think he doesn't want to close doors on ways to play, in either direction, if that is what a group wants to do. So he split the difference and said exactly what the spell says.
The person is your trusted friend but not a puppet. You may be able to convince them that they "need" to kill their wife (as in the "She is a shapeshifter example) but they still might not do it, because they aren't a puppet.
Not that my game is every game, but the other night we had a situation where the party got split, half inside a fort and half out. The gate was well guarded, including a really dumb Ogre.
The party inside the gate was wearing the uniforms of the people in the fortress, and it was dark. The people outside attacked, and one of the people inside the gate, wearing a uniform yelled to the Ogre "Open the gate and go get them!" with a bluff check. The Ogre believed him, ran over, opened the gate before anyone could stop him, and the party was no longer split.
The Ogre believed the person yelling the order was a friend (Bluff check), and that the order was reasonable (GM ruling), so he did it.
Charm makes someone think they are your trusted friend. That is pretty powerful in and of itself. The first paragraph describes where that person is on the diplomacy scale for a reason. I treat them like any other ally NPC at that point.
YMMV.
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Because I sense a follow up, let me explain why the distinction between option 1 and option 2 is important.
In Option 1, the character is functionally a puppet. The control is removed from the NPC (or the PC) and given to the caster.
In Option 2, the charcter is unchanged except for the fact that they believe the person who cast it is a trusted friend.
Imagine if you have charm person cast on you, as a player, and the distinction becomes quite clear.
And what of my example?
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A good display how charm person is not just diplomacy is to contrast it with the witch charm hex. The hex works with diplomacy and states this to increase the target's attitude by two steps. Then you can use diplomacy per normal use. Charm does not have this direct tie to diplomacy whatsoever. You can issue orders, even weird ones with a charisma check. If it were meant to be diplomacy+ it would say so like the hex does.
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A good display how charm person is not just diplomacy is to contrast it with the witch charm hex. The hex works with diplomacy and states this to increase the target's attitude by two steps. Then you can use diplomacy per normal use. Charm does not have this direct tie to diplomacy whatsoever. You can issue orders, even weird ones with a charisma check. If it were meant to be diplomacy+ it would say so like the hex does.
Actually it does. The first sentance is
"This charm makes a humanoid creature regard you as its trusted friend and ally (treat the target's attitude as friendly)."
What is "Friendly" as a starting attitude referencing.
You can always make a Charisma check to give an order, as it governs ability to lead. Most people don't like to roll social interactions, but if a general is shouting out for the men to charge into the breach, if there was any debate as to if the NPCs would do it, that would be what would make the most sense to me to roll.