Charm Person?

[Philip]

OK, so if the player has prevented the rest of the party from pursuing the caster; thus removing the caster from harm. Then following the caster (he is a trusted friend in trouble after all), how would you rule the situation.....


again thank for the input

Well, since the caster is my dearest friend, I would start a discussion with him why he would do that. If he would come up with a convincing and immediate reasons, yes, I would do it. Alternately I might even fake agreeing to it, trying to postpone the actual shackling (just to prevent from hurting my best friend's feelings). If my best friend continues to act weird, I would suspect him of being charmed (it's a known risk in the adventuring profession) or cursed or somesuch, and would try to arrange a dispel magic or something for him.

I fondly remembering teleporting the BBEG and myself to my very secure stronghold after being charmed (and becoming convinced that my adventuring companions had temporarily gone insane by desiring to attack my new best friend). I told the BBEG to sit it out in my stronghold, and not to tamper with anything inside, because many of them were magically trapped, while I went out to convince my adventuring companions that the BBEG was truly not deserving of such brutal treatment. I was completely confident that my best friend would not start messing around in my trapped stronghold after my sincere warning.... oh well....

 

[Mistwell]

I would treat a charmed person as having an attitude of friendly & helpful, in accordance with the diplomacy skill rules.

Now ask yourself if a merchant with a friendly and helpful attitude would strip and let you shackel them....

 

[Kae'Yoss]

If one of my friends asked me to remove all arms and armor so I could be tied up? Errr... no.

Depends on the friend, and on how she asks it. But if you assume they have sincere intentions, then no

 

[Kae'Yoss]

What if you knew that she's a succubus and that succubi are Chaotic Evil and like to drain energy?
To put it another way, would you let a known dangerous psycho tie you up if she was hot?

BTW, "yes" is a perfectly acceptable answer. I'm just trying to point out that not everyone has the same priorities.

Of course it is. She may be a succubus, a CE energy draining monster, but she's also my friend. She wouldn't drain me... of my life energy.

So the short answer is "yes", the long is "wait, let me get the whipped cream first".

 

[Li Shenron]

I think rvalle has the right of it. The spell makes you think the caster is a trusted friend. If the request is something you wouldn't do for your best friends (I sure as hell would not let my best friend tie me up in real life and have probably never played a PC who would), it won't work.

I don't always like this sort of interpretation, but it can be a good guideline. It's very very variable however, as different persons would do different things for "best friends", and then it's easy to get confused between what a RL person would do and what a D&D character would do (which occasionally leads to some DM ruling that basically you're never going to charm a CE NPC, because he KILLS his friends ).

As a DM, I take my responsibility of adjudicating this case by case, and to tell the truth I am not always consistent... when I am not sure, I usually apply the good-old charisma check rule. The only problems I had were when it was a PC to be charmed...

In your case I'd say that chaining someone up in no way can qualify as an "obviously harmful order", because it doesn't hurt at all by itself. The NPC is charmed and therefore it cannot really think his "best friend" is going to betray/abandon/coupe-de-grace him, even if he's very smart. Otherwise if he can figure out that the caster is not truly his best friend, it's like not being charmed at all.

 

[rvalle]

In your case I'd say that chaining someone up in no way can qualify as an "obviously harmful order", because it doesn't hurt at all by itself. The NPC is charmed and therefore it cannot really think his "best friend" is going to betray/abandon/coupe-de-grace him, even if he's very smart. Otherwise if he can figure out that the caster is not truly his best friend, it's like not being charmed at all.

As someone says above, it does need to be judged on a case by case basis. One possible problem with the way you are looking at it above is that while the caster is your best friend, the rest of HIS friends are still jerks who want to poke you with sharp, pointy things. Maybe... depending on the situation when the spell was cast. But if you didn't trust his companions before the spell was cast you are not going to trust them after either.

It does come down to a judgement call. I still say I would not allow it. While I trust my friends they are not tying me up no matter how good they say their intentions are. There is just nothing they can give as a good reason for it. And that is without swords and spells available.

I suppose it is remotely possible that as an npc I might able to be convinced but it would have to be very, very good.

rv

 

[RigaMortus]

Charm Person isn't really that great of a 'combat' spell anyway. The best use for this spell is out of combat, in roleplay situations. When you want a better deal out of a merchant, or more information from a bar tender.