Charm Person, Suggestion how do you playit?

[shilsen]

Charm keeps you as the same person you are, but makes you think a person is a friend.

Suggestion keeps you as the same person you are, but makes you think a particular course of action is the best thing to do right now.

In either case, it's still up to you how you treat the friend/idea.

That sums it up perfectly. Both spells are very dependent on the attitudes of the specific individual being affected. To use a personal example, I know a couple of people who'll do just about anything for their best friends. Where I'm concerned, I treat my best friends better than other people but I don't regard their opinions as necessarily better just because they are my friends.

 

[NewJeffCT]

Now how about this use of charm person? PC charms orc scout (as above), but then PC says that the many of the orcs are going to betray the orc warlord (maybe those from a different tribe) and that she needed to know the battle plans so they could best counteract this betrayel?

 

[Delemental]

Now how about this use of charm person? PC charms orc scout (as above), but then PC says that the many of the orcs are going to betray the orc warlord (maybe those from a different tribe) and that she needed to know the battle plans so they could best counteract this betrayel?

It probably depends on your own viepoint of orcish society, but I'd say that the charmed orc would be more likely to thank his 'friend' for the warning, decline to share the battle plans (because they're a friend, but they're not a member of the tribe), and then would run off to warn the warlord of the impending betrayal. Or even if the orc did share the plans with his 'friend', he'd still probably warn the warlord. Of course, if the orc in question really is planning on betraying the warlord, it might go differently; the orc might then deny there's any such consipracy, or feed the 'friend' false information, or try to convince his 'friend' to join the rebellion.

As far as the issue of how does a charmed creature respond to the charmer's allies, I think of it like this; we all probably know people who we really like, but we think the people they hang out with are jerks, right? You might be willing to give them the benefit of the doubt for the sake of your friend, but your trust would be very limited and easily broken. In a combat scenario, the most I think a charm spell would do is keep the charmed creature from attacking the charmer (focusing on his friends instead), but realistically I think it would break the spell (think about how you'd feel if your friend brought a bunch of people over to your house who suddenly jumped you and tried to beat you up or kill you - they're probably not getting invited over for nachos anytime in the near future).