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Message: <blockquote data-quote="redrick" data-source="post: 6614825" data-attributes="member: 6777696">I am confused as to why the primary metric for evaluating Friends is how effectively it can be used in a bartering situation. That is far from the only circumstance in which charisma checks come up in my game! In fact, it almost never comes up in my game, and if it did, I wouldn't want Friends to give an automatic discount on everything.Friends should be for pulling off some sort of short-term con, where the caster is gone the moment the spell wears off. This sort of stuff happens in movies all the time.The question then becomes, in what situations is Friends more useful than another character just taking the "aid another" action? And that is a good question. Here are my thoughts at the moment:* The caster is either alone, or the other characters are busy while the caster is chatting up the target. For instance, if Friends is being used to create a distraction so that the rest of the party can do something else.* The other available characters are not proficient in the required charisma skill.* As a GM, I would probably allow a slightly greater latitude on possible outcomes when a character is being magically suggested. This isn't exactly RAW, but it's not exactly not RAW either. It's entirely my discretion as the DM to determine what can be attempted with a check and what the DC would be, and I like it that way.And, again, I think the word "hostile" is being misinterpreted and overblown here. Nobody is getting murdered for an innocuous use of friends, and there are plenty of uses of the spell that could cause hostility that is non-violent and not a major impediment. I live in a city. I encounter people who are hostile to me all the time.Same with the duration of a minute. If somebody pulls out a pen and paper and works out that, actually, from the time of casting this spell, to approaching the target, to attempting to persuade the target, a total of 103 seconds would have elapsed, I will throw a die at that person. It's a ball-park duration, folks. Just like the actual duration of actions that can be taken in a combat round of 6 seconds varies from one action to the other. It gives us a general sense of how much time is available, but it's not to handcuff us to some sort of imaginary in-game clock that none of us can actually see. The next level up, 10 minutes, is a long time, allowing for multiple extremely complex interactions. With a duration of that long, I could con a guard and then run 2 miles. Or, well, I couldn't anymore because I'm a fat old man, but my character could. His background is high school athlete.</blockquote>

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