Instant Friends

[Psikerlord#]

We have skill challenges occur somewhat as natural parts of the ongoing story... slotting one in.. yup more evidence of why you dont care for them - sounds artificial.

But, even if I generally liked skill challenges, I would still feel that a wizard using a daily to "win" one was acceptable - esp given the risk involved. More out of combat spells, I say!

 

[Kerranin]

Instant friends is to weak for a ritual.

It is a straight saving throw, so it is so oldschool that nothing about your ability or the opponents defense can increase/decrease your odds of charming...

So in the end, it is rather something to fall back on if something works not as intended, not something you use as a base strategy...

If this is true, then presumably 'Call of Friendship' as a ritual is also too weak? In fact, in many ways the ritual is weaker than this power.

I can understand they wanted to make an easier to play system when designing essentials, but in my opinion, you cannot mix and match with standard 4e, either you play essentials or 4e.

 

[Zaran]

I think the main problem with this spell is the fact that it's an Auto-Hit. Although I do not believe it should be an attack power, it probably should be a ritual. The problem is they threw out rituals for Essentials.

 

[P1NBACK]

Actually the effect line says explicitly that the target does not remember being charmed. They MAY notice that you tried to charm them if you fail, if they are higher level than you are. Otherwise they remain blithely ignorant. So it is actually a zero risk ploy against anyone of your level or lower. For a higher level orb wizard with a couple items and a jacked up wisdom score it is pretty close to a sure bet against anyone.

Except... In the case I present above where the ruler of a region has a trusted adviser that sits in with him during audiences and can detect the use of such spells.

Using this logic, there's no risk in disguising your entire party as orcs with Phantom Mask and marching past the planned orc encounter the DM had... So much for that "negating" theory you have.

It's totally flavorful and fits in with established sword & sorcery fiction.

Nobody is saying that the spell has UNLIMITED utility.

Yeah. Actually someone did. They said it was a "win button". I don't remember who said that. Go back to page 2 I think.

Just that it is a pain in the arse to adjudicate it, it tends to either preclude or greatly simplify a whole swath of potentially challenging or interesting situations, and is very hard to balance.

The point about balance is actually not that it is so hard to balance...

I think you're a bit confused here.

...it is that it would be UTTERLY UNNECESSARY to carefully balance a ritual. You can make it as weak as you care to, it takes virtually no resources to acquire. So what if it is of very little utility? The one time it will come in handy pays for the trivial gp cost of buying it. Surely even if the DM is a real hard case on ruling against it working in a given situation there will be SOME situations where said ritual will come in very handy nonetheless. If you rule the POWER version that harshly then you're basically screwing the player out of the use of a utility power that the rules say they should legitimately get as much use out of as say Shield, which is a good bit. So I would find the ritual to be a superior implementation on that basis. The DM now has a real choice as to how much to let the players get away with.

I don't see the difference in nerfing a ritual and nerfing a power. The player expects rituals to work the same as they expect powers to work. By minimizing the ritual, like you're doing, you're saying that one part of the system is fine for DMs to muck with, but one part isn't. I don't get that.

I really don't get the big bias against ritual magic. It seems like people are saying basically "I don't want to have to plan ahead at all, I just want my solution to be easy so I can be lazy about it and just whip it out at a moment's notice." Personally I like to make the players think a bit more than that. I feel like this whole trend is just catering to players.

I don't think anyone is biased against ritual magic. Seems more like people are biased against utility magic that's not a ritual.

"I like to be lazy and just use feather fall when I climb really high instead of using my climb skill..." "I like to be lazy about it and just whip out my Disguise Self spell instead of taking the time to use Bluff and come up with fake elf ears..."

...

Really? Lazy? It's just a resource for players. lol...

Even if you are of the opinion that this is a lovely power and all why is it so low level? I never understood why such powerful magics were so low level in AD&D either. I mean fireball is nice and all but it has only very limited uses. Charm Person or its 4e incarnation have a vast array of uses, some of which can produce results all out of proportion to the thought or energy put into using them. It is pretty hard for me to see the logic of where this is a low heroic tier power. It could just as easily be relegated to paragon or even epic, or be a PP utility power that requires you to at least really dedicate your character options to using it. It was a bad move in AD&D 1e for it to be a level 1 spell, why do we need to repeat even THAT obvious mistake?

It's low level because it's not that powerful. Seriously. It's not.

A) You can't use it in combat. So, getting to a position to actually engage with the creature in a non-hostile manner is a challenge in and of itself. Meaning, you can't really use this on creatures who don't like you that well in the first place. Not unless you capture them and restrain them. Hmmm. Sounds like an interesting challenge!

B) It's not automatic. It's not very effective against creatures of higher level. As a DM, you control what level creatures are... Hmmm...

C) It's not a "win button" - so let's assume you capture them, they're not higher level than you, and you FINALLY get to use Instant Friends. So what? They'll give you all the good information that as a DM you should WANT your players to have. They don't do much for you, they won't risk property (like give you anything) and they won't risk their life (like fight for you or do anything that endangers them, like give out something that'll get them killed...).

So, really... This is totally blown out of proportion in my humble opinion. It's not that great of a power. It's just flavorful, interesting, and fun. It gives a little power to players who have that douchebag DM that gives auto-failures on Diplomacy checks.

 

[MrMyth]

Depending on how the DM runs with it, this low-level utility could replace a Skill Challenge at any level. Trying to convince a more powerful creature to let you pass, for instance, might be a low-level challenge. Getting help/cooperation from a local leader is a sample Skill Challenge in the DMG. One character's action, one roll of a die, and *poof* such skill Challenges are gone. (And, frankly, probably failed - I suppose the optimal thing to do would be to keep the spell in your back pocket for when you /failed/ a Skill Challenge like that, then just pop it out and be your own deus ex machina.)

There is some truth to this - but I'm not entirely sure. For one thing, as mentioned, some rituals can already do stuff like this - even if it is more difficult to set up, the outcome would still be the same. More than that, however... any skill challenge this truly would instantly overcome was probably not ideal as a skill challenge in the first place.

It's the same as the one check rule - if one good Diplomacy check to befriend the leader would get the job done, that's not a good encounter to expand into a full skill challenge.

So, presumably, if you are in a skill challenge that involves trying to persuade a leader to aid you, there is likely a reason why it isn't a one check challenge. Say, doing so might involve risk to his authority, or might involve risking his own people - or some other reason why he is hesitant to do it in the first place.

Which means this spell won't win the challenge for you. Sure, you can count it as an automatic success or two, essentially replacing several Diplomacy checks the party would have needed to make - but now you still need to convince him that helping is in the best interests of his people. Which is where the other relevant skill checks would come back into the picture.

That's my real advice for anyone who thinks this power will 'break' some plot element. Just treat it, in those cases, like someone who made an excellent Diplomacy check. The target now likes the person, would love to help them, but that only goes so far.

Or, as mentioned... just make sure PCs keep the consequences in mind. Casting the spell could be a big boost to the success of a challenge... or he could make his save and get upset at them trying to magically manipulate him. Or, if their goal is something the spell will let happen... then it happens, but you'll need to deal with a seperate, new skill challenge 1d4 hours later when it wears off and the angry leader comes after you - or, if he doesn't remember the spell, instead loses his position because of his foolish behavior while under your influence.

I understand people's concerns about this, but like others have said - it seems the most smoothly balanced version of a charm spell out there. The restrictions on it seem to address pretty much every possible 'abuse' that has been suggested. I'm not seeing the problem, myself.

 

[Aspeon]

If we are to go down this route I would rather it was as a development of the skill power system, this should have been a bluff power, not a wizard power. The whole point of limiting class based non-combat abilities was to prevent "must have" classes and I don't want to see those days again.

Personally, I'd like all of the classes to have a minor fluff out of combat feature- the wizard's cantrips, the free ritual castings that a few classes get, the swordmage's "teleport the blade to my hand"... Essentials cleric cantrips are a step in that direction, but it'd be cool to come up with a houserule that gives them to martial classes as well.

 

[Garthanos]

Personally, I'd like all of the classes to have a minor fluff out of combat feature- the wizard's cantrips, the free ritual castings that a few classes get, the swordmage's "teleport the blade to my hand"... Essentials cleric cantrips are a step in that direction, but it'd be cool to come up with a houserule that gives them to martial classes as well.

Yeah neat we have to house rule for martial types to do cool stuff...

 

[Tony Vargas]

There is some truth to this - but I'm not entirely sure. For one thing, as mentioned, some rituals can already do stuff like this - even if it is more difficult to set up, the outcome would still be the same.

I haven't seen every ritual published, so I missed it there was a Charm Person ritual. Rituals that might replace a skill /check/, like Knock, carry not only a cost to buy and use, but even cost a healing surge. That's to replace a skill check. To obviate a Skill Challenge, obviously, a ritual should carry a high price, indeed - just not quite as high as failing the challenge.

More than that, however... any skill challenge this truly would instantly overcome was probably not ideal as a skill challenge in the first place.

Well, it's not /now/, because the spell is there - irrefutable circular logic.

If one good Diplomacy check to befriend the leader would get the job done, that's not a good encounter to expand into a full skill challenge.

Getting a leader to help you out is a sample Skill Challenge in the DMG. Obviously, it's exactly the sort of thing Skill Challenges are meant to be. Maybe someone who follows Dungeon mag or runs official module could chime in with a few more examples of 'befriending' (getting help or information or whatever from) an individual?

That's my real advice for anyone who thinks this power will 'break' some plot element. Just treat it, in those cases, like someone who made an excellent Diplomacy check. The target now likes the person, would love to help them, but that only goes so far.

That's a solid ruling - treat it as a successful diplomacy check, so 1 success on the skill challenge. Not every DM will come up with that ruling, since the spell description is so vague.

Updating the spell to give a modifier Diplomacy or Arcana-as-Diplomacy check instead of a save, or automatic success at Diplomacy with a failed save, would be a good idea for WotC.

I understand people's concerns about this, but like others have said - it seems the most smoothly balanced version of a charm spell out there. The restrictions on it seem to address pretty much every possible 'abuse' that has been suggested. I'm not seeing the problem, myself.

The restrictions on it are almost identical to past versions of Charm Person or Friends. It's problematic for all the same old reasons, because it's fundamentally the same old spell. Which, since Essentials is trying so hard to be retro, is, I suppose, kinda the point. Still, they could have put the retro stuff in flavor text and provided solid mechanics that wouldn't risk misinterpretation spoiling skill challenges or the like.

 

[Truename]

I haven't seen every ritual published, so I missed it there was a Charm Person ritual.

There is no Charm Person ritual in the DDI Compendium, nor anything like it or Instant Friends that I saw. There are some Bard rituals that provide bonuses to bluff or diplomacy checks, but that's it.

 

[AngryMojo]

As a side note, the ritual states that the creature treats you as a close friend for the duration, but says nothing about your allies.

And for that matter, even if you could turn Orcus into your friend, would you really want to?