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Charm Person 5e vs Older
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<blockquote data-quote="Man in the Funny Hat" data-source="post: 7811072" data-attributes="member: 32740"><p>The issue with 1E-era misunderstanding/abuse of Charm Person was twofold. First, people wanted it to be Domination - which it decidedly isn't and even goes out of its way to try to establish that it isn't. Second is that people want it to apply to not just the caster but also <em>all the casters friends</em>. But that isn't even close to what the spell describes. The end result is that people want it to be a combat spell that completely neutralizes a successfully charmed opponent, turning them into a totally submissive puppet. What it actually is written to be able to do is overwhelmingly a matter of out-of-combat circumstances. Unless you cast Charm Person on someone who is currently attacking you or intent on attacking you very soon, charming them doesn't actually benefit you much - and never did. It won't make the charmed victim change how they feel about THEIR current friends and allies, nor how they feel about YOUR current friends and allies. It only makes YOU into a trusted friend. That obviously has only marginal benefits in combat and won't change their personality and world views regarding others. A charmed attacker won't attack the caster, but it would take a HEAP of additional instantaneous pleading and convincing to get them to not just very simply change targets and continue to attack other PC's. It is only the rampant and willful misreading (or more accurately, NOT reading) the spell description that makes Charm Person as powerful as it often seemed.</p><p></p><p>What enabled monsters in 1E and other editions to do what PC's can't with that same effect is that monsters get it <em>at will</em>, with a gaze or simple proximity to them or the like. Unless the victim has blanket immunity they can just keep charming by staring at them or hanging around them until it finally takes hold. By contrast PC's have to cast a new spell on every victim they want to charm (which may or may not succeed) and they don't have a bottomless supply. But then the charm effect lasts for weeks typically, assuming average human-ish intelligences.</p><p></p><p>5th Edition is only significantly changing the effectiveness of it for monsters by reducing the duration compared to 1E. They're still mostly getting it as an unlimited-use effect I believe so 5E monsters wanting to maintain charmed victims long-term have to keep them very close for daily re-establishment of the effect.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Man in the Funny Hat, post: 7811072, member: 32740"] The issue with 1E-era misunderstanding/abuse of Charm Person was twofold. First, people wanted it to be Domination - which it decidedly isn't and even goes out of its way to try to establish that it isn't. Second is that people want it to apply to not just the caster but also [I]all the casters friends[/I]. But that isn't even close to what the spell describes. The end result is that people want it to be a combat spell that completely neutralizes a successfully charmed opponent, turning them into a totally submissive puppet. What it actually is written to be able to do is overwhelmingly a matter of out-of-combat circumstances. Unless you cast Charm Person on someone who is currently attacking you or intent on attacking you very soon, charming them doesn't actually benefit you much - and never did. It won't make the charmed victim change how they feel about THEIR current friends and allies, nor how they feel about YOUR current friends and allies. It only makes YOU into a trusted friend. That obviously has only marginal benefits in combat and won't change their personality and world views regarding others. A charmed attacker won't attack the caster, but it would take a HEAP of additional instantaneous pleading and convincing to get them to not just very simply change targets and continue to attack other PC's. It is only the rampant and willful misreading (or more accurately, NOT reading) the spell description that makes Charm Person as powerful as it often seemed. What enabled monsters in 1E and other editions to do what PC's can't with that same effect is that monsters get it [I]at will[/I], with a gaze or simple proximity to them or the like. Unless the victim has blanket immunity they can just keep charming by staring at them or hanging around them until it finally takes hold. By contrast PC's have to cast a new spell on every victim they want to charm (which may or may not succeed) and they don't have a bottomless supply. But then the charm effect lasts for weeks typically, assuming average human-ish intelligences. 5th Edition is only significantly changing the effectiveness of it for monsters by reducing the duration compared to 1E. They're still mostly getting it as an unlimited-use effect I believe so 5E monsters wanting to maintain charmed victims long-term have to keep them very close for daily re-establishment of the effect. [/QUOTE]
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