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It depends where the table is comfortable. If your players have more fun with encounters ending due to damage rather than save-or-out spells and they avoid those spells themselves, I think it's fair for the GM to leave them out as well.
On the other hand, if the players use save-or-out effects and hate it when the GM uses them back... I'm less sympathetic.
Personally, out table tends towards the former. I use those effects sparingly, mostly in horror scenarios.
But if people want to fight dirty, all I need to do is build my monsters slightly differently.
It really just comes down to, as a GM, being aware of what you and your group want.
Cheers!
Landon
Grey, why would he kill someone when he is charmed?
Generally we play charmed as "everyone is my friend and I want them to stop fighting" Lots of Disarms and trips and such come out
It's when Charm bumps into other things like "I'm trying to save you, your friends got replaced by Dopplegangers. Your real friends are back at my place." - Roll opposed Charisma test
or worse when Charm gets followed up with Suggestion or Illusion spells.
Mean but great stuff, Greylurker!
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No, enchantment spells are not bad form.
Between this and the sunder thread, I'm wondering if this time next year GMs will be expected to have bad guys charge directly at the party armed only with a wet loaf of bread.
Focusing in on any one tactic is bad form. There are a lot of reasons for this, but primarily:
1. After numerous fights against monotonous tactics, PC's are going to (and definitely should) start adjusting their tactics against it. Frankly, if the PC's are doing the same thing, NPC's should start making adjustments as well.
2. When a DM's tactics start to fail, there is no real cost of time or other expense to radically change tactics. As a matter of fact, a DM can always target a party's weaknesses no matter what adjustments the PC's make.
2a. The party however, cannot change easily. Even with rebuild rules, that requires lots of downtime and in-game expense. For many or most, it requires gaining additional levels, lots of new equipment, or rolling a new character.
3. It's boring, predictable, unchallenging, and smacks of a DM vs PC's mindset.
The short answer: Mix up your tactics. Throw everything at the PC's. Sometimes they'll be prepared, sometimes they'll be surprised. Sometimes they'll surprise you.
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Generally we play charmed as "everyone is my friend and I want them to stop fighting" Lots of Disarms and trips and such come out
This is basically how I do it in my games. The charmed character jumps in the middle and calls to everyone "whoa, wait guys I know this guy he's okay!" Being charmed makes the caster your "best friend" but does not mean your other friends are no longer your friends. It also does not mean that a dutiful guard will desert his duties just because his "friend" wants him to.
To be fair though I generally assume that evil beings make less loyal friends than good ones. If the bad guys are a band of recently thrown together mercenaries then they may not really be friends; it's just a job.
Casting charm person doesn't make an enemy obey you. You are friends, but in your "relationship" the spellcaster is not automatically "the boss." The charmed NPC may just as well expect the caster to go along with what he wants.
Casting charm person doesn't turn an evil NPC good, either.
Imagine that a Dwarf fighter (we'll call him "Dwarg") and an elven wizard (she'll be called "Eleiar") encounter a couple of orcs. Dwarg dispatches one and then strikes the other for several points of damage. Then Eleiar casts charm person on the remaining orc (we'll call him "Orak"). Suddenly Orak realizes that Eleiar is his long-lost best friend; he can't recall her name or where they met but he is sure of it. On the other hand, Dwarg is still clearly an enemy who has drawn Orak's blood, and it takes some intense persuasion by Eleiar to get Orak to back down. Orak is constantly trying to take Eleiar aside to explain that "we need to get rid of the dwarf" and despite Eleiar's insistence that Orak leave Dwarg alone, Orak may take it on himself to see that Dwarg has an "accident" when Eleiar is not looking. Orak thinks to himself that deep down he is doing Eleiar a "favor" by doing this because "Eleiar doesn't know dwarves the way I do. They are scum and she will be better off without him."
Think of Gollum if you want inspiration. He was willing to work with Frodo, but never liked Sam and tried to drive a wedge between them.
Peet
Changing of tactics is important especially in a rping game. WOW and other games are not designed the same way so tactics are not supposed to change.