You're right, my bad. But I just realized that the bard can cast calm emotions on himself....
D&D 5E Monsters charming PCs during combat
Maxperson
Morkus from Orkus
But why would he? He doesn't realize that he's charmed until the charm is over. There's no reason to just cast it.
I'm pretty sure the player will want to do it, and I'll be the bad guy if I say no, because the group had a bad experience with charm last time they faced a creature with that ability.
Ugh, I'd just skip it altogether if they hadn't said they really wanted to play Curse of Strahd.
Maxperson
Morkus from Orkus
That would be the moment that I reminded the players of that. I wouldn't allow cheating, but then my players wouldn't try it, either.
Sorry man.
Oofta
Legend
I cover this in my session 0. I don't cheat on the side of the monsters, but I do run them as effectively as I can given their abilities and taking into consideration intelligence.
Strahd is a genius level monster. He's going to use every option he has. On the other hand I'd also consider giving people insight checks to realize their friends are being charmed, perception checks for them to notice Strahd and so on. I don't want the bad guys to permanently win (except on very rare occasions) because that's generally not fun. I don't want to softball either.
Other than that just remember that charm is not dominate (although Strahd has that as well).
Yikes, I hadn't even thought about dominate. A quick skim of the ability makes it look like calm emotions would negate that as well, since dominate person applies the charmed condition. It's one thing for a 2nd-level spell to override the 1st-level charm person, but dominate person is 5th-level--does that seem right, or am I missing something?
Oofta
Legend
Well, that's a tough one. But remember, the calm emotions only lasts a minute and it's a concentration spell. As others have noted, you have to have a reason to cast it.
Seems like charming the bard first and then ignoring him might be the best strategy.
billd91
Not your screen monkey (he/him)
Dominate goes well beyond the charmed condition, so I can see an argument that it couldn't completely suppress the Dominate Person/Monster spell. On the other hand, 1st levels spells have been able to do so since at least 2nd edition (protection from evil, I'm looking at you). So this actually imposes a slightly higher cost of a 2nd level spell.
While I largely agree with the folks who suggest that this is what the players signed up for, if charm doesn't work for your table, you should swap it out for something else. I don't know the ins-and-outs of the 5e mechanics for Strahd's abilities, but I would just figure out what the mechanical effect of the ability would be and swap in or design something that has a similar impact. He's the ultimate BBEG, so it would be fitting for him to have some unique abilities (and would keep things especially exciting for players who may know a bit too much about the published Strahd). So if the main thing would be to neutralize some characters, swap in a sleep or paralysis ability. If it would force the party to fight among themselves, maybe he can summon the evil twin of a character or two (same character stats but allied with Strahd); fluff it such that this is the evil side of the character's soul. That sort of thing. You can keep the epic feel of a climactic battle against the vampire lord without adhering to any specific ability.
MostlyHarmless42
Adventurer
It's almost like there are these things that give certain powerful "boss" creatures with legends attached to them extra actions in combat that vastly help make using their action to Charm one PC each round less of an action economy issue. Especially when nothing in the charm ability states that it can only effect one target at a time.
Within two rounds a Vampire should have not only attempted (with reasonable chance of success) charmed what is likely half the party, but also grappled and bitten someone twice and moved it's speed up to 3 times (once without provoking). Anything less is just playing a Vampire poorly. And what self-respecting master of the night doesn't have a vampire spawn or some bats/wolfs/thralls he's already charmed? And if your group is larger than 5 players who says he/she can't have a second vampire bride/husband?
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