Imps in the monster core have charm once a day and invisibility at will.
As a GM, would you rule that casting charm breaks invisibility? Charm is a spell almost defined as “not a spell to use with hostility, and all it does is make the target more friendly.
Also, Charm is a subtle spell, but on a failure the target is supposed to think another spell was cast on them? And it can be identified while casting? It sort of feels like the subtle trait was added to charm after its text was already written and nobody considered how the remastered subtle changes would affect it.
Charm is already a useless spell to cast on PCs so I doubt too many players are worried about invisible imps casting charm every day with no one noticing, but there are cuties in Golarion where this feels like it will lead to trouble.
Well, Charm somehow considers that the caster is perceptible, as you can hardly become friend with no one. The concept of charming someone while undetected is off to me. I'd certainly consider at least that the charmed creature "hears gentle voices".
As for your general question: Do whatever you want with your Imps, as this is mostly out of combat/storytelling stuff they'll be doing. Once in combat, Charm becomes much less of an issue and Invisibility doesn't prevent detection through hearing, so Imps are nowhere as annoying as they used to be.
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Well, what does this allow? It allows an unseen voice to magically convince a weak-willed person that it's their friend. That feels pretty in keeping with an imp, and being able to pull the shoulder devil trick is more interesting. As you said, this isn't something that will work on PCs once they hit third level. It allows for the more interesting scenario that a low-level NPC the party interacts with might have an imp charming them riding around on its shoulder, something that a good perception check might spot signs of. The fact that they have touch telepathy actually means that riding around on somebody's shoulder invisibly is pretty much intended, so I expect Charm to slot in nicely to the whole schtick.
We do actually have a definition for "hostile action". "A hostile action is one that can harm or damage another creature, whether directly or indirectly, but not one that a creature is unaware could cause harm." So, Charm probably shouldn't qualify, otherwise "giving bad advice" would also break invisibility.
And yeah, Subtle interacts weirdly with the Charm text, especially while invisible.
I guess it works on PCs in that a PC that fails or crit succeeds can’t use hostile actions against an imp, but the imp only has one of these spells, so it is never really going to matter much unless an oink is planning on sticking around a party that is trying to kill it, without ever planning on attacking back. It is definitely not as bad as the old 1e imp with the suggestion spell.
I do like the idea that it can be the tempting invisible friend, especially with the ability to communicate telepathically with touch. So after it succeeds at charming someone, it can land on their shoulder and say whatever it wants. I am thankful I am not trying to raise children in Korvosa!
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I guess it works on PCs in that a PC that fails or crit succeeds can’t use hostile actions against an imp, but the imp only has one of these spells, so it is never really going to matter much unless an oink is planning on sticking around a party that is trying to kill it, without ever planning on attacking back. It is definitely not as bad as the old 1e imp with the suggestion spell.
I do like the idea that it can be the tempting invisible friend, especially with the ability to communicate telepathically with touch. So after it succeeds at charming someone, it can land on their shoulder and say whatever it wants. I am thankful I am not trying to raise children in Korvosa!
Korvosan gesture of reprimanding a child: sweeping off both shoulders, implying that an imp led them to mischief and might still be there. Mostly a superstition, but it occasionally catches one- or at least, everybody's heard a friend say their friend caught an imp that way.