Charm Person ??

[Azazu]

I Dm a group of players and we are just starting out in a new campaign in Kalamar. I am quite new to the whole Dm thing and have only been playing D&D for about 3 years. One of my players has a sorcerer character. He has "Charm Person" as one of his 2 first level spells. He even went as far as to pick up spell focus "Enchantment" for such spells. His focus is on being a smooth talker and not one to mass kill in combat with AOE spells.

Well we get into the action and the first time that he gets a chance to use his charm person it works. On a little goblin. He had him succesfully charmed. He talked as best he could and sort of became friends. Or at least were not trying to kill each other. Well the delve continued and his companions started to get into a few little fights with some of the other goblins in the caves. After a few goblins fell i gave the Charmed goblin another saving throw and he ran off and started attacking the Sorcerer's friends.

Was this right??

How far can you take a chram person spell??

What can it do??

Im not sure as to the extent of the charming.

Any stories or suggestions would be great,

thanks

 

[Maitre Du Donjon]

I think you judged it very well. Unless the sorceror made up a story that could convince the goblin that killing his goblin friends might be benefical to him, I don't see how the sorceror's allies killing the other goblins in the cave might be seen positively by the charmed goblin.

One suggestion I might make is to try to establish as clearly as possible what are the limitations of charm person (since the PHB isn't 100% thorough) and explain them to the sorceror. Once this is understood, everyone will be set on what charm person can do, and there should be less problems.

Hope this helps.

maitre D

 

[Azazu]

Well what kind of limitations do you all place on charm person??

Anyone Bueler??

 

[Maitre Du Donjon]

I probably didn't express myself very well.

I was thinking more in the ways of guidelines to rule the charm person spell. The basics guidelines are in the PHB:

- If the creature is threatened by you or your allies, it gets a +5 to its save
- Any act by your or your apparent allies that threatens the charmed person breaks the spell
- You must convince an opposed charisma check to make it do things it wouldn't normally do.

From this you could extrapolate the following guidelines that cover most of the situations you'll encounter:

- If you or your allies attack the charmed person's allies, he gets a new saving throw. If you or your allies attack the charmed person's close friends or loved ones, he gets a saving throw with a +5 bonus (or maybe even the spell effect is broken automatically)
- If you ask the person general information or ask him to do stuff that wouldnt normally get him into trouble, he'll do it.
- If you ask the person some secret information or ask him to do stuff that would get him into trouble (a guard letting you out of your cell, etc.), you need to win an opposed charisma check (i'd even make it a diplomacy check vs a DC of 10 + the person's Charisma modifier)
- If you ask the person to do something that he'd be morally opposed too, maybe the sorceror would have to succeed a diplomacy check vs a DC of 20 + the person's Charisma modifier.
- You could use the bluff skill to make the person do things that could be harmful to its health (drink this, i *swear* its not poison). If the person did survive the experience, tho, the spell would be automatically cancelled.

I think this covers most of what could be asked of a charmed person, but if you can think of another situation, try to decide in advance with what guidelines you could rule the situation...

Hope this helps...

Maitre D

 

[Jaligard]

Another thing to keep in mind is that charm person is subjective. The charmed person treats the caster as a "trusted friend and ally."

With some people, that can take you a long way. Other people wouldn't loan a friend money if both their lives depended on it. Basically, however a charmed person would treat their best friend is how they treat the caster.

 

[Stalker0]

Another thing to keep in mind is that charm person is subjective. The charmed person treats the caster as a "trusted friend and ally."

With some people, that can take you a long way. Other people wouldn't loan a friend money if both their lives depended on it. Basically, however a charmed person would treat their best friend is how they treat the caster.

Very true, but also remember that's the caster, not his allies. So what you did if fine, the goblin might love the sorc like a brother, but hate his friends, especially when they attack his friends.

 

[Azazu]

What did you say??

In the instance that I spoke of the two people (The gnomish Sorcerer PC and the Goblin) There was no shared language so the whole friend thing was through sign languange and body signals and some nice little grunts.

How do you all handle this. What sort of penalaties do you incur by not having a language to tell your new friend what to do etc.

thanks

 

[Zephalon]

Didn't gnomes and goblins hate each other? Gnomes at least have an attack bonus vs. goblins, which means they train to fight them. The goblin should have had a significant bonus to his saving throw to resist a charm person spell against a member of his hated enemy...