Charm and Restraint

[moritheil]

I noticed that no part of the Charm Person rules require you to be visible to the charmee or to communicate with them if you do not wish to. This means that you can charm someone at a convenient time (say, while they're staggering home from the tavern, or while they're asleep) and they will simply be very friendly to you whenever they meet you within the next X hours. It seems an ideal use of the spell if you don't need their aid for the full duration (perhaps you just need some info that they have and need to be sure they're willing to cough it up. Perhaps you know they are part of the town guard and want insurance for when your barbarian wrecks said tavern while brawling.)

Since they behave no differently at all, do I understand properly that their friends get no Sense Motive check to notice anything is amiss until you "call in" the charm and ask them to do something?

You can tell that someone’s behavior is being influenced by an enchantment effect (by definition, a mind-affecting effect), even if that person isn’t aware of it. The usual DC is 25, but if the target is dominated (see dominate person), the DC is only 15 because of the limited range of the target’s activities.

Emphasis mine.

 

[jaelis]

I agree. If you aren't actually influencing their behavior, then there's nothing for Sense Motive to detect.