D&D 5E Does the "Friends" cantrip need a fix?

[Unwise]

Just a tip for PCs that want to use spells in a social situation without alerting NPCs with the vocal component. I have had good luck with the following.

When you walk up to them, talk in a thick accent and act as if you have some difficulty with the language, or don't know some nouns. Ask them if they speak "Tevellian", look a little disappointed when they say no. Ask about something, but stumble over the noun, e.g. Pick up a vase and say, "this is very, how you say, abracadabra?" or "You look very familiar, have you ever been to abracadabra?"

Gesticulate wildly throughout all conversations, like an over the top Mediterranean stereotype. Later on, if you need to use some hand waving to cast, nobody will think too much of it. I also like to pretend to be superstitious, every time somebody mentions magic, I play with one of my many "talismans" and spit over my left shoulder, or something similar. This helps if you later have to use a focus item.

As a DM, every city in my worlds has the death penalty for using magic to interfere with commerce. Making copper coins look like gold, or duping a merchant has to be punishable by death and utterly taboo, or else commerce and civilization would not function. You can imagine the length the kings spies and assassins will go to to stop anybody devaluing the royal currency.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

People check hundred dollar bills fairly often. And for any amount of money that would using Friends on for Bartering, it'd be enough gold for a merchant to both check for illusions and take at least one minute.

You've seen people in this thread advocate for using Friends on minor transactions (a few gold IIRC). I've seen people "check" twenties for counterfeiting, but they're not really checking--they just swipe with a magic marker and peer at it for a second. They don't devote a full minute to examining the bills. Hundreds may be different (I've only spent one once) but there's certainly a lot more that sales clerks could do to prevent counterfeiting, if they expected it to be common. And that's the point: anti-magic measures will depend largely upon how common magic is in your setting.

Of course you already know that.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

As a DM, every city in my worlds has the death penalty for using magic to interfere with commerce. Making copper coins look like gold, or duping a merchant has to be punishable by death and utterly taboo, or else commerce and civilization would not function. You can imagine the length the kings spies and assassins will go to to stop anybody devaluing the royal currency.

Excellent point.

 

[Minigiant]

Just a tip for PCs that want to use spells in a social situation without alerting NPCs with the vocal component. I have had good luck with the following.

When you walk up to them, talk in a thick accent and act as if you have some difficulty with the language, or don't know some nouns. Ask them if they speak "Tevellian", look a little disappointed when they say no. Ask about something, but stumble over the noun, e.g. Pick up a vase and say, "this is very, how you say, abracadabra?" or "You look very familiar, have you ever been to abracadabra?"

Gesticulate wildly throughout all conversations, like an over the top Mediterranean stereotype. Later on, if you need to use some hand waving to cast, nobody will think too much of it. I also like to pretend to be superstitious, every time somebody mentions magic, I play with one of my many "talismans" and spit over my left shoulder, or something similar. This helps if you later have to use a focus item.

As a DM, every city in my worlds has the death penalty for using magic to interfere with commerce. Making copper coins look like gold, or duping a merchant has to be punishable by death and utterly taboo, or else commerce and civilization would not function. You can imagine the length the kings spies and assassins will go to to stop anybody devaluing the royal currency.

You do hands-talking, accented foreigner act too? I used Giant or Dwarven for my accent in the act?

The thing is friends is a cantrip. It's not supposed to used on major or significant NPCs and actions.

If you want to charm a shopkeeper into giving you discounts, you use charm person.

If you want to get the shopkeeper to walk over to a shelf and turn his back so your pal can plan a listening device, use friends.

 

[keterys]

If you want to get the shopkeeper to walk over to a shelf and turn his back so your pal can plan a listening device, use friends.

And by use friends, you mean literally use a friend. Who takes the Help action. To give you advantage.

With no drawbacks, like the shopkeeper thinking that exchange was suspicious and wondering why. If you're planting something, stealing something, etc you don't want attention.

Unless you're using Friends explicitly for its "drawback" in which case it is _wonderful_ for implanting suspicion and hostility. Better than many higher level spells, even.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

And by use friends, you mean literally use a friend. Who takes the Help action. To give you advantage.

With no drawbacks, like the shopkeeper thinking that exchange was suspicious and wondering why. If you're planting something, stealing something, etc you don't want attention.

Unless you're using Friends explicitly for its "drawback" in which case it is _wonderful_ for implanting suspicion and hostility. Better than many higher level spells, even.

Yeah, Friends as written, is pretty bad, as this illustrates, since its debatably worse than something easily granted by another party member. Though I have totally used it as Mephista mentioned to start fights between two NPC's with a disguise.

Extending the duration to at least 5 - 10 minutes would probably help, as it would avoid scenarios where its debatable whether or not you could even complete the conversation you want to gain advantage on.

 

[seebs]

I don't like it as-is, and I've been thinking about why, and the answer is: I can't think of a realistic scenario where I'd use friends and expect it to be beneficial, where I couldn't get that benefit some other way that was cheaper. And in many cases, it would overall be a strong net loss to use the cantrip.

Cantrips are a sort of weird case, because they're effectively free to cast, but they're very expensive to acquire, consuming a narrowly-restricted resource that you can't swap out in future. Which means that any cantrip ought to be something you'll actually get some kind of use out of. Basically, it should be as good as or better than a reasonably good non-magical action. Eldritch Blast is better than a crossbow, mostly.

Friends, however, isn't better than reasonably normal social interaction for most purposes, and that's because it doesn't just wear off quickly, it makes people hostile. Every time. No matter what. You can cast friends on someone, give them a million gold pieces and an artifact, and at the end of the minute they're not just a little unfriendly, but hostile to you.

Dungeons The Dragoning has a charm effect which wears off, but if you treated the target well, they may remain friendly. So it's useful for getting over that initial difficulty of making contact, and after that, you get the results of your actions. Which gets you basically what charm person does. I think friends might be adequately balanced by "the creature becomes aware that you used magic to influence it, and may become hostile to you, depending on how you treated it". That would allow friendly behaviors to work, while leaving room for guards to be suspicious about why you used magic to make them do you a favor.

 

[Mephista]

You know what I think most people don't think about?

Using Charm Person most likely makes someone hostile once its course has run. Here's the thing - people are aware that you enchanted them, as per the spell. Just about anyone who's aware that you just mind-twisted them will be angry and upset with you (and thus 'hostile'), as well as on their guard for tricks. Its important for Friends, likely specifically so you can't spam the cantrip every minute, but less so for Charm Person, that doesn't care what you were before. However, after both spells end, they'll both be highly upset with you, probably equally so.

From this perspective, Charm Person's advantage is that its non-concentration and lasts longer, giving you time for more distance before things got to hell in a handbasket. But I really think that both will have equally upset people.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I think at the very least, the spell needs to specify that the target will be there for me when the rain starts to pour, like it's been there before, 'cuz the caster is there for it, too.

*fountaindance*

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[seebs]

You know what I think most people don't think about?

Using Charm Person most likely makes someone hostile once its course has run. Here's the thing - people are aware that you enchanted them, as per the spell. Just about anyone who's aware that you just mind-twisted them will be angry and upset with you (and thus 'hostile'), as well as on their guard for tricks. Its important for Friends, likely specifically so you can't spam the cantrip every minute, but less so for Charm Person, that doesn't care what you were before. However, after both spells end, they'll both be highly upset with you, probably equally so.

From this perspective, Charm Person's advantage is that its non-concentration and lasts longer, giving you time for more distance before things got to hell in a handbasket. But I really think that both will have equally upset people.

No. Charm Person specifies that they are aware, and leaves it up to them to decide how to react. They might feel that it was totally reasonable for you to use the spell to calm them down so they'd listen when you passed on vitally important information, they might not, but it is possible for them to not be angry at you.

Friends guarantees that they will be angry at you. They become hostile, period. Doesn't matter what their prior opinion was, doesn't matter how you treated them, they become hostile.