Jabborwacky
First Post
I'm more fond of "reverse clown" given the makeup component.
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D&D 5E Does the "Friends" cantrip need a fix?
- Thread starter ShadowSeeker
- Start date
I'm more fond of "reverse clown" given the makeup component.
ChrisCarlson
First Post
The thing about friends that slightly irritates me, is that I have trouble getting the narrative of it all. I mean, you don't even cast it on the other person, you cast it on yourself. Yet you have to designate one person to which the spell "works" on. And the spell goes on to say the spell influences the other person's mood. But really, it was you the spell really influenced. Somehow.
Maybe the magic tweaks your voice, inflection and personality markers to match what the other, specific individual would otherwise pick up as appealing? Maybe you exude pheromones tailored to the other person? I dunno. It all seems a bit disjointed and ill conceived.
Maybe the magic tweaks your voice, inflection and personality markers to match what the other, specific individual would otherwise pick up as appealing? Maybe you exude pheromones tailored to the other person? I dunno. It all seems a bit disjointed and ill conceived.
Saeviomagy
Adventurer
Mime?
Iry
Hero
To further kick Friends while it is already down, the existence of spells inform the game world.
Unless you are playing in a low magic setting, or dealing with a very small village with no exposure to magic, many people are going to have traditions based around mitigating supernatural persuasion. Those guild merchants probably have a tradition of waiting at least 1 minute before agreeing to any barter with someone they do not know, and calling in another merchant in the shop to double check any BIG purchases being made. That merchant may not even be familiar with the spells in question -- it is just a merchant guild tradition passed down from masters to apprentices because mental shenanigans are a thing.
The same thing Might be true for big city guards, and other organizations who might suffer critical failure because of the existence of mental shenanigans.
I am definitely not saying this to encourage shutting down your players. That would suck. But it is also important to remember that the more a spell is available to the public, the more people would have traditions to make those situations easier to deal with.
Unless you are playing in a low magic setting, or dealing with a very small village with no exposure to magic, many people are going to have traditions based around mitigating supernatural persuasion. Those guild merchants probably have a tradition of waiting at least 1 minute before agreeing to any barter with someone they do not know, and calling in another merchant in the shop to double check any BIG purchases being made. That merchant may not even be familiar with the spells in question -- it is just a merchant guild tradition passed down from masters to apprentices because mental shenanigans are a thing.
The same thing Might be true for big city guards, and other organizations who might suffer critical failure because of the existence of mental shenanigans.
I am definitely not saying this to encourage shutting down your players. That would suck. But it is also important to remember that the more a spell is available to the public, the more people would have traditions to make those situations easier to deal with.
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Pandaemoni
First Post
I've used it myself to get information as well as buy items. While the DMs involved did cut me some slack (*see below") a number of the uses would have worked perfectly well without it. One example, we were in a small town looking for a a famous thief who we suspected had retired there. With a good insight check we gathered that a stable boy we were questioning might know something, but was withholding it. I cast Friends and went back to him and learned the alias the thief was using. The second use that really didn;t need leeway was when I was buying items at a local bazaar. I got a better price than I might have, and just had to be sure to slip away quickly after I had the items.
The leeway that did exist, though, is that, first the DM's judged "hostile" to mean "angry at being manipulated" but not more. That means that, in the case of the stable boy, the fact that I paid him some silver for the information mitigated the anger, even if it didn't eliminate it. Second, "hostile" doesn't automatically mean ready to have you killed or arrested, so much as ready to throw you out (unless the circumstances warrant otherwise). I think that is more realistic, as it is rather the reaction you get when anyone learns they have been manipulated. The third bit of leeway is that the DMs treated the spell as if it were subtle, the application of makeup not being seen as "casting a spell." Those all help, but they were not strictly speaking needed in every case I used the spell.
Pandaemoni
First Post
I cast Friends on my friends and convince them to let me cast Friends.
elarson13
Villager
I'm with OP on this one. The Friends spell is total garbage.
The number of situations in which you can make your check and get all the way out of Dodge without danger of pursuit/reprisal is almost none. Go through your day (even without having to lie to cops, do combat against demonic cultists, etc.) and think about when you would use friends RAW. Use it at the drive-thru to get free fries? They call the cops a minute later. Use it to talk your way out of a ticket? The cop wises up 30 seconds later and arrests your ass. Seriously, I need to know the situations in which people are pulling this off (without the DM just handwaving and saying, "He's really mad now, but he just stands there fuming without doing anything about it").
The problem is that it's only a cantrip in the first place. It would much better if there were a different spell (maybe greater friends or something) that was a leveled spell without the hostility penalty, which would avoid the OP hand-wringing: level 1-3 with a duration of 1 check-1 minute. Then it would be acually useful without danger of abuse.
The number of situations in which you can make your check and get all the way out of Dodge without danger of pursuit/reprisal is almost none. Go through your day (even without having to lie to cops, do combat against demonic cultists, etc.) and think about when you would use friends RAW. Use it at the drive-thru to get free fries? They call the cops a minute later. Use it to talk your way out of a ticket? The cop wises up 30 seconds later and arrests your ass. Seriously, I need to know the situations in which people are pulling this off (without the DM just handwaving and saying, "He's really mad now, but he just stands there fuming without doing anything about it").
The problem is that it's only a cantrip in the first place. It would much better if there were a different spell (maybe greater friends or something) that was a leveled spell without the hostility penalty, which would avoid the OP hand-wringing: level 1-3 with a duration of 1 check-1 minute. Then it would be acually useful without danger of abuse.
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