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I've thoroughly given up on using any enchantment magic on players that's along the lines of charm person or suggestion, or even dominate.
As soon as a save against these spells gets failed, some flip gets switched in a players brain that activates every latent brain cell for the express purpose of qualifying for the Olympic Mental Gymnastics team.
Even the most innocuous of requests, such as prioritizing the wizards bodyguard instead of the wizard will be met with some variant of 'Oh, well actually the wizard looks just like my deadbeat father who I hate with every fiber of my soul. Yes I know my father was a celestial orc and this is a gnome, what's your point?' or 'I know he just said to attack my allies, but really these are just work acquaintances that I've known for 20 years, they're not REALLY allies!'
It's aggravating to the extreme, but I never try to push the issue past poking a couple of holes in their arguments, so I just treat it as a turn wasted for the bad guy and make a mental note never to bother with such spells again.
What've your experiences been with this situation?
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ahh, the problem is you have the spell cast against the players, which are immune to it (via being a real world person where magic is not a real thing). maybe you should have it cast at the characters?
joke aside, the thing is you need to keep players metagaming and player vs character knowledge at minimum.
when i was teaching 3rd edition d&d to young students it was done via rocks from the sky that increased in size (from 1d4 for the 1st offense up to 1d100 if it keeps up).
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Kill their characters, raise them as undead. No more interpretation there.
If that doesn't work (or even if it does), kill the players, raise them as undead.
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I have a small house rule for players being affected by enchantments and social skills. Basically, since you can't (or shouldn't) tell the players what to do, I instead like to impose penalties for doing something in opposition. This maintains free will, but still allows such actions and spells to still have an effect on a player.
Player's already operate on different rules, so it is not so far afield and certainly more interesting than blanket immunity.
My group is pretty mature, and we roleplay weaknesses. This is because we've had the experience of the invulnerable party, and it's less fun. Even for the roll-players - overcoming the challenge when it's stacked against you is way more fun.
The one time we don't embrace it 100% is when we have to kill other PCs. It's not that we don't want to embrace the game, it's that one PC killing another PC is more divisive than th GM killing a PC.
This doesn't mean we don't do it, but I had my Bloodrager fight defensively when he was confused (which wasn't out of character for him). Having our characters die later in the combat to a monster is fine, even if 90% of their HP was taken by another PC. Having a PC land the killing blow often leaves a bad taste in everyone's mouth though, so I try to avoid that.
Besides that, a Dominate effect shouod turn the PC into aj NPC though, so there isn't much wiggle room there. I think you're within your rights to take the character sheet and play them as an NPC (which also helps prevent the resentment of a PvP death).
I remember one time that my character was charmed in combat. I spent the rest of the combat trying to convince the enemies to run away before my allies killed them.
The OP's situation is ridiculous, and my heart goes out to any GM who's had to deal with such nonsense.
Charm Person makes you view the target "as your trusted friend and ally" and makes you "view their words and actions in the most favorable way". There's no getting around that.
Now, as to whether or not enchantments like this are an interesting part of the game that add to an entertaining and compelling experience, that's a whole different thing. Personally, I don't buy into the "removing player agency is always automatically bad" concept. A fireball or a sword to the gut removes agency, too. Or is a step towards it, at least.
But the yes/no consequences like most traps, paralysis, finger of death, etc. --I don't think those are very strong aspects of this system, and that they usually result in a less interesting/enjoyable encounter than something with mounting stakes and such (like losing hp or spell slots). And I think the charm and dominate spell families are at least closer to insta-death in their effect on the game's design than they are like an axe to the face or a ray of acid.
The only difference is there's at least some room for other outcomes besides complete success or utter failure. Charm Person makes you friendly to an enemy, but it doesn't make you an enemy to your old friends. So there's room for some skills and cool scenes there. And Dominate Person allows you a chance to resist actions that go against your nature, and telegraphs pretty clearly that you're acting weird, which--again--opens up the potential for something interesting to happen.
I'd hate to be the player who used the "not allies, just coworkers" defense next time they needed a flanking bonus or want to be targeted by an allies only spell or ability. Charmed in combat and want to ignore it? Guess whose running back to town to by some healing kits for when their buddies are done rough housing.
I don't like removing player agency, but I'm happy to take it away if they were using agency as a defense against game mechanics. I give my players a lot of rope, but when they abuse it for some purpose, I'll take it back just from them.
There's no real wiggling out of a Dominate Person. It's a telepathic link so it's not language dependent. You communicate understanding. It is pretty difficult to avoid them getting the second save however since a good or even mostly neutral party would have a solid argument on why they should get a second save. Even an evil party can have some solid arguments for a 2nd save.
Charm Person and Suggestion however are pretty hard to adjudicate since context is just so damn important.
Charm Person and Suggestion however are pretty hard to adjudicate since context is just so damn important.
Charm Person makes you view the target "as your trusted friend and ally" and makes you "view their words and actions in the most favorable way". I don't see much room for context to change that.
Suggestion, on the other hand, is a very poorly worded spell. Vague as vague can be....I never have to waste 10 minutes of table time on enchantment spells again that campaign.
I take it you're not a fan of such things, then?
One important thing to keep in mind is that enchantments are divided into charms and compulsions. Charms change the targets view of you. Compulsions force you to act in a specific manner.
Charm Person is a charm and simply causes you to view the caster as a trusted ally. But a person can have multiple trusted allies. So the target of a charm person is not going to turn on his party just because they have been charmed. Just telling the charmed person to attack his allies is not going to work too well. More than likely it would cause the target to do nothing. If the caster uses some finesse they may be able to get the target to do what they want. If the caster tells the fighter to attack the party mage more the fighter probably will not obey. On the other hand telling the fighter that the mage is actually a shape shifting imposter could work. That would at least get an opposed CHA check.
Suggestion and Dominate person are compulsions so they can get a lot better results. Suggestion does have to be worded in a manner that seems reasonable, but dominate person has no such restrictions. A character under a dominate person can be forced to attack the party and there is not much the player can do about it, unless he has some ability that allows him a second saving throw.
I feel sorry for the OP and it sounds like immaturity on the side of the players. I would have an OOC conversation with the players and point out that if they wish to interpret the rules are certain way then you can too. You can then explain that you have infinitely more resources at your disposal than the characters and could screw them over anytime you wished. But that you would rather play a game where everyone had a good time, yourself included. So could you please play receiving an enchantment spell the same way you would expect one you cast to be played. Alternatively, you're the next round of beer pong at a balor frat party...
That's legit.
I think with a succubus-type opponent, though, it's like...that's the majority of the encounter. So when you plan for the encounter, you plan for the enchantments and stuff.
The vampire, though. I get that. Here's a foe with a jillion abilities. They're fast and tough and can deal a ton of damage and are super smart...and they can also toss out some enchantments.
Once you get to the point that an antagonist has so many combat options, it can be hard to budget for an encounter with them in a session. Like, is the Balor going to charge in and murder everyone, or will they blast everyone from a mountaintop, or will they send some lesser demons in as assassins, or will they try to corrupt the government of the nation the PC's currently reside in and defeat them with bureaucracy?
I don't think there's anything wrong with favoring certain options over others for the sake of the game's pacing. A vampire may try to dominate a lone foe it doesn't want to destroy, but against a group of opponents? I think it's reasonable to focus on more direct forms of attack, or even forms that are less all-or-nothing; if I was a vampire and was faced with a group of good-doers confident enough to square off with me, I'd probably assume that spending a whole turn targeting one of them with a pass/fail sort of attack would be a dangerous gambit.
And...what does that mean, Artificial 20? Or is that the full extent of your addition to the conversation?
Once again, I cry for balance. OP's player's are being intentionally obtuse and obstinate, and that stinks for everyone. On the other hand, loss of control suck, and as I've shared on other threads, I HATE mind control (especially with no or minimal chance to resist). I'm all for players finding creative ways to try and fight compulsions. On the other hand, while you struggle, if you failed the save and the spell has you, you do also need to play in good faith to the rules.
"Play in good faith"
This is the most important aspect. If your players aren't playing in good faith there are more problems than mind-control spells.
Some groups might have different ideas about how to handle mind-control, role-playing or a host of other aspects of the game. The important thing is that the group is on the same page. In this case they most certainly weren't and the players don't sound like they were acting "in good faith".