My friend and I are currently having a conflict with how Charm Person works. The spell description states that the charmed creature regards the caster as a friendly acquaintance. Since the spell description also says that the spell ends if you or your companions do anything harmful to it, my friend believes that the creature under the effect of Charm Person regards the whole party as friendly acquaintances. But I see it as it only regards the caster as a friendly acquaintance and will attack the rest of the party since the rest of the party did not cast Charm Person on the target.
Well, if one of your new "friend"'s friends tries to kill you, you're probably not going to be very happy with him. On the other hand, you're probably not going to try to kill your "friend"'s friends, because that wouldn't be very friendly.
To summarize, I think that the right answer is somewhere in between your and your friend's answers.
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"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both" -- allegedly Benjamin Franklin
You hear the doorbell. You get up to open the door, and it's a good friend of yours (imagine an actual friend), along with a few people you don't know. What do you do?
:p
That's usually how I describe the relationship between a Charmed person, his charmer, and the charmer's party. I've found that I don't often need to expand - people extrapolate just fine what happens if your friend asks to come in with his friends and introduces them, what happens if they're pleasant or even cordial, what happens if one of them is an *******, what happens if a couple of them start breaking things, what happens if one of them takes out a knife and comes at you...
A person isn't necessarily automatically friendly towards their friend's friends, but they also aren't necessarily going to be as hostile towards them as they would be to completely unassociated strangers.
By which I mean to say that the target of a charm spell isn't going to immediately treat all of the charmer's friends as also being their own friends, but they are probably going to be looking for a cease-fire because they'd rather not hurt their friend by killing their friend's friends, and would likely believe that "Hey, get these guys to stop trying to kill me!" is a thing that their (new and magically created) friendship with the charmer would afford them.
The clause that the spell can end if the charmer's friends harm the target of the charm is really just saying that the magic isn't strong enough to overpower the natural instinct that if a person stands by and watches as their friend does harm to you, then that person is not your friend.
I tend to agree with most of the comments here of the transitive effect of how Charmed is handled. But I think it is also a matter of context.
Example 1: A NPC who is normally hostile to you and your party is charmed. He might see the caster as a friend, but the others are still known enemies. Maybe the caster needs rescuing from the "Bad players." Start fast talking to convince your charmed friend, that your pals aren't trying to kill him
Example 2: A NPC guard is who is neutral to all of you but is blocking a door. The caster charms him, to avoid combat. All the players act gracious and with a little roleplay, can go past the door.
Example 3: An NPC is guarding an object that they have been ordered to by their superior under no uncertain dire terms will result in harsh punishment if it falls into the clutches of someone else. You might be their best friend now, but they still aren't going to let you or your friends walk away with the object without some roleplay / skill checks.
Example 4: You (a dwarven mage) find and capture an orc attacking your clan, and charm them. Can you overcome the innate hatred between your two peoples to find out where the orc's warband's camp is? Assuming he does, and your elven friend wanders into the room, which he hates more than dwarves, does he become violent towards them.
At the end of it all Charm Person is an opportunity to change the status quo; not a guarantee. I see it as an opportunity to roleplay something interesting.
I see it as it only regards the caster as a friendly acquaintance and will attack the rest of the party
The rest of the party would (by definition) be friends of a friend. And if a friend told me that his other friends were not the Dudes I was looking for, I'd probably believe him and let them go about their business.
Nope you target someone and the spell is clear it only affects the target and its also clear that the spell says the target only see you. The caster as a friend.
Now it is also clear that if you tell the target that your group is not a threat. He would take it very likely to believe you.
Congratulation to your friend he just realised charm person is not a combat spell.
Last thing. There actual npc behavior dcs to beat to gain trust of an npc. Charm person only puts you directly at friendly for that person. It also gives you advantage on asking the thing.
If pc is friendly a dc 20 will make him risk danger to help
If indifferent dc will help if a little dangerous.
If hostile dc 20 will help only if no risk is involved.
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Nope you target someone and the spell is clear it only affects the target and its also clear that the spell says the target only see you. The caster as a friend.
Now it is also clear that if you tell the target that your group is not a threat. He would take it very likely to believe you.
Congratulation to your friend he just realised charm person is not a combat spell.
It can be...its just a poor mechanical choice for a combat spell because of the disadvantage. On the otherhand it may be the best choice handy.
But again as you point out; its context. The question is "Why would a charmed monster know who your friends are?" In combat, its already stacked against the caster. In non-combat, hostility can be based on a lot of different things socially and you telling the target about your friends will certainly help here.
Edit: Thanks DnDPaladin for finding the codified rules of context on that stuff. Risk and context both have a big part here to making use of Charm.
Edited previous post with link to social interactions in the dmg which clearly explains how npc reacts to perssuasions and the likes.
Remember your target is either friendly. Indifferent or hostile. Charm person only puts that target to friendly to you and gives you advantage on perssuasion checks. But you still need a perssuasion of 20+ to convincer her that your hostile friends are not hostiles.
Thats all in the section described above.
Keyword in those... Risk !
If its losing its job by helping you. Its not risk. Its a guarantee thus he will not help.
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I felt the need to add something a couple years later. The target regards you as a friendly acquaintance, not as a friend. This is a major difference. A friendly acquaintance is someone I appreciate, but not to the point of full on trust. And even less so regarding this acquaintance's friends. The relation toward the acquaintance's friends would really depend on the context and the charm person spell would have a bare minimum effect on that dynamic.
You hear the doorbell. You get up to open the door, and it's a good friend of yours (imagine an actual friend), along with a few people you don't know. What do you do?
:p
It would be pretty funny if the caster neglects to tell a charmed monster the rest of the party are friends. :)
A mage is charmed - their familiar is attacked - I’m assuming they snap out of it?
A party member is charmed - one their trusted companions, or perhaps all of them, are attacked by the charmer - nothing a friend would do- logic and love says they would snap out of it right? They are not personally getting attacked - maybe give them a saving throw? It is a low level spell and I might rule on that basis that if the charmer betrayed their trust by attacking those dear to them the spell would be broken - if it was a higher level spell it would be a lot more powerful.
A mage is charmed - their familiar is attacked - I’m assuming they snap out of it?
A party member is charmed - one their trusted companions, or perhaps all of them, are attacked by the charmer - nothing a friend would do- logic and love says they would snap out of it right? They are not personally getting attacked - maybe give them a saving throw? It is a low level spell and I might rule on that basis that if the charmer betrayed their trust by attacking those dear to them the spell would be broken - if it was a higher level spell it would be a lot more powerful.
Charmed is a condition, and the condition does not list anything that snaps you out of it. What snaps you out of a charmed condition is therefore reliant on the delivery. In the case of Charm Person, which is what the thread you performed thread necro on was about, you'll have to ask your GM to define what constitutes being harmful to the mage - the PHB is rife with uses of the word "harmful" which have varying levels of guidance for the GM (the worst I've seen is the Suggestion spell, which says you can't make a harmful suggestion, and then lists as an example valid suggestion one which is financially harmful).
What do you mean, logic and love? The spell is magically altering the target's mind. Charm Person is weak enough without you nerfing it; what you should be thinking about is whether or not harm to companions constitutes harm to you. As with Suggestion above, I would expect the RAI to be radically different from the RAW - for example, in every country on Earth, harming a child is legally considered also harming their parents, which is why parents can sue for wrongful death if their child is killed. In DnD 5E, that logic is very strained, due to the weird precedent Suggestion sets of harmful having some strict, unintuitive definition never provided in the ruleset.
A mage is charmed - their familiar is attacked - I’m assuming they snap out of it?
A party member is charmed - one their trusted companions, or perhaps all of them, are attacked by the charmer - nothing a friend would do- logic and love says they would snap out of it right? They are not personally getting attacked - maybe give them a saving throw? It is a low level spell and I might rule on that basis that if the charmer betrayed their trust by attacking those dear to them the spell would be broken - if it was a higher level spell it would be a lot more powerful.
Charmed is a condition, and the condition does not list anything that snaps you out of it. What snaps you out of a charmed condition is therefore reliant on the delivery. In the case of Charm Person, which is what the thread you performed thread necro on was about, you'll have to ask your GM to define what constitutes being harmful to the mage - the PHB is rife with uses of the word "harmful" which have varying levels of guidance for the GM (the worst I've seen is the Suggestion spell, which says you can't make a harmful suggestion, and then lists as an example valid suggestion one which is financially harmful).
What do you mean, logic and love? The spell is magically altering the target's mind. Charm Person is weak enough without you nerfing it; what you should be thinking about is whether or not harm to companions constitutes harm to you. As with Suggestion above, I would expect the RAI to be radically different from the RAW - for example, in every country on Earth, harming a child is legally considered also harming their parents, which is why parents can sue for wrongful death if their child is killed. In DnD 5E, that logic is very strained, due to the weird precedent Suggestion sets of harmful having some strict, unintuitive definition never provided in the ruleset.
based on your logic of hamfull... then anything asked of you by suggestion and charm person is harmful thus the spells are worthless ! harmful in d&d 5e is strickly about being harmed by damage. if it hurts you physically, you are harmed, thus this and that happens. monetary or elsewise are not harmful to a person. exemple...you suggest to me that i give 5000$ to the first beggar i see... i will be compelled to do just that... heres the catch, nothing tells me to do it in one go. thus i will give what i can to the first beggar i see, then i will another day gives other stuff. magic is not verbose "everyone understand what it wants to understand" it is quite literal because it is magic. how often do my players plays in words of what i am asking.
by your own abuse of harmful, then asking anything of the character is harmful to his mind, becauseyou are forcing him to do what it wouldn'T. so the spell would stop directly. reguardless of what you'd be asking.
now who's nerfing the spell now. again, harmful in d&d 5e means, as described by jeremy crawford years ago... anything physically hurting the character. now one could say that attacking a mage is potentially hurting, and thatswhy thecharacter should think it twice before doing it. now this is where the context of the wording of the demand is important. asking to blatantly attack the mage is next to sucidal to someone who's always thought mages were gods. but it isn't to someone who is a mage himself and think of himself above the other mages.
thats why you should always play on the wording of the person doing the spell. that wording and your knowledge of how one thinks, will gives you your answer as to what it would do and what it wouldn't.
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I think seeing it as "harm by physical damage only" is clarifying.
Also: I would "ask the GM" - but I am the GM, and wanted some useful clarification on my side for what seemed like a pretty powerful spell, pretty cool to get your replies. Thanks. Yeah I have recorded a few sessions trying to word that suggestion spell "just right".
More context: I was running the first ever game for first level players (and everyone had fun) but I did rule that - once the players had charmed the mage they could not outright smash his non aggressive familiar (standing right next to him) without at least letting the mage make a saving throw against the charm condition. This was also under the auspice that the mage had never actually done any physical damage to any of the players. Yes probably nerfed the rules, but then "ask your GM." They ended up smashing the familiar as soon as the condition was lifted an hour later.
Yes we took the "nerfy" approach, but there was no rules lawyering and everyone was fine with it. I think if I had been DM'ing for my veteran players things could have been different (on the other hand they might be less bloodthirsty) In the end I more ore less gave the table a choice "what kind of game do you want to play? Do you want a game where someone can smash your friends and it won't give you a saving throw against the condition? Or do you want a game where friends can be smashed for an hour and you watch helplessly on without saves?" I have played those games too and they usually involve vampires. As long as it's a consistent ruling I think it will be fine - I guess it's a "house rule" for this game now.
Your house rule is perfectly fine - like I said, the rulebook doesn't clarify harm. That said, I'll also point out you're not helpless *at all* against someone who's charmed you attacking your friends, unless you're incapable of actions that don't violate charmed (which could be totally true, with mind control in play). A clear-cut example is you can Help others attack the charmer, but another is that under many GMs (including, I am guessing, you) you can shove and/or grapple the person who charmed you. Comes back to that undefined concept of harm.
Your house rule is perfectly fine - like I said, the rulebook doesn't clarify harm. That said, I'll also point out you're not helpless *at all* against someone who's charmed you attacking your friends, unless you're incapable of actions that don't violate charmed (which could be totally true, with mind control in play). A clear-cut example is you can Help others attack the charmer, but another is that under many GMs (including, I am guessing, you) you can shove and/or grapple the person who charmed you. Comes back to that undefined concept of harm.
again the problem is "your interpretation" of the word harm. if to you harm is all sort of trouble that can happen to you, then simply saying hi to you is considered harmful. in the case of dungeons and dragons, harm means being hurt physically or mentally. and that is explained in the books by the word themselves. which have no more meaning then what the dictionnary explains them to be.
as an exemple... harm in the dictionnary is anything physical or mental, so by the very definition of the word in dictionnary, then giving away gold could be hurtful mentally sure, but aside form that. i never understood people making their own definition of words. hurt is quite a blatant word for being actually hurt. may it be physically or mentally. and by that it truly means being wounded. but people keep trying to bend the wordings to their advantages because they think interpretation is the only thing that matters. if people knew what words meant, these dillemas wouldn't even be dilemas !
so yeah... there you have it, the word harm means being injured physically or mentally.
PS: no you can't help your friend attack your charmer...
Charmed
A charmed creature can't attack the charmer or target the charmer with harmful abilities or magical effects.
The charmer has advantage on any ability check to interact socially with the creature.
saying you help your friend attack the charmer is exactly the same as hurting him, you just do it indirectly instead and thats just bypassing a clear line made by the charmed condition.
its like my friend who decided to take every of his turn to drink every random potions he had on him,just to avoid attacking his friends because he was dominated but not controlled by the monsters actions. the first time he did, ok... yeah drink that potion of healing that should definitely help you stay alive and kill them... but then 2 turns later drinking philter of love and dragons breath potion just to not hurt his friend... thats a stupid thing to do. that goes against the spell just becausethe player do not want it to happen.
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Quote from DnDPaladin>>again the problem is "your interpretation" of the word harm. if to you harm is all sort of trouble that can happen to you, then simply saying hi to you is considered harmful.
Please... only the clinically paranoid consider 'hi' to be 'harm. Exaggerating to that degree does not make a valid argument. Giving away money you cannot afford to give away, however, is harm. The person loses nothing from hearing 'hi,' but giving away the money, they no longer have the money.
By your logic, theft is just fine since, again, by your logic, it inflicts no harm.
just saying... i had friends to whom just saying hi at the wrong moment,would be hurting them mentally... you never know which condition the person is in. thats why i'm saying that. if you had never any of those problems then fine for you, congratulation the world around you seem to work fine... but i workedwith people who were crying all day at work because they either bipolaror really really easy to affect emotionnally. you never know to whom you are speaking. i could easily just say hi, how are you ? quite the fine sentence to say... but i could as easily get the answer "CAN'T YOU SEE IT, IM CRYING FOR CHRIST SAKE" and yes that is the kinda thing that did happen to me from one of my friend, who by the way wasn't crying ! i had to sit down with her and talk to her for 30 minutes and get late to my job cause of that. that made her day by the way.
so again, everyone interprets things the way they want and by your own definition... if i was one of your players, anything the charmer would say to me would be breaking the spells away because i got harmed by the spell he just casted on me.
so again... going by the definition in the dictionnary... harm means being physically or mentally injured. and no, asking the charmer to steal something from their friends wouldn'T be injuring them at all. so they would do it. but then again...the social interaction chart would ask a persuasion check with a DC pretty much near the 20. as there are risk involved. and even though the charmer would do that persuasion with advantage... it would still require good rolls to do it even to a friend.
i highly encourage people to use the social interaction tables while using the charm person spell. it really changed everything in my games. and this is exactly how it is supposed to be working from the get go.
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My friend and I are currently having a conflict with how Charm Person works. The spell description states that the charmed creature regards the caster as a friendly acquaintance. Since the spell description also says that the spell ends if you or your companions do anything harmful to it, my friend believes that the creature under the effect of Charm Person regards the whole party as friendly acquaintances. But I see it as it only regards the caster as a friendly acquaintance and will attack the rest of the party since the rest of the party did not cast Charm Person on the target.
I believe your friend has the correct intent of the spell.
Perpetually annoyed that Eldritch Knights can't use Eldritch Blast, Eldritch Smite, and Eldritch Sight.
Well, if one of your new "friend"'s friends tries to kill you, you're probably not going to be very happy with him. On the other hand, you're probably not going to try to kill your "friend"'s friends, because that wouldn't be very friendly.
To summarize, I think that the right answer is somewhere in between your and your friend's answers.
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both" -- allegedly Benjamin Franklin
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You hear the doorbell. You get up to open the door, and it's a good friend of yours (imagine an actual friend), along with a few people you don't know. What do you do?
:p
That's usually how I describe the relationship between a Charmed person, his charmer, and the charmer's party. I've found that I don't often need to expand - people extrapolate just fine what happens if your friend asks to come in with his friends and introduces them, what happens if they're pleasant or even cordial, what happens if one of them is an *******, what happens if a couple of them start breaking things, what happens if one of them takes out a knife and comes at you...
A person isn't necessarily automatically friendly towards their friend's friends, but they also aren't necessarily going to be as hostile towards them as they would be to completely unassociated strangers.
By which I mean to say that the target of a charm spell isn't going to immediately treat all of the charmer's friends as also being their own friends, but they are probably going to be looking for a cease-fire because they'd rather not hurt their friend by killing their friend's friends, and would likely believe that "Hey, get these guys to stop trying to kill me!" is a thing that their (new and magically created) friendship with the charmer would afford them.
The clause that the spell can end if the charmer's friends harm the target of the charm is really just saying that the magic isn't strong enough to overpower the natural instinct that if a person stands by and watches as their friend does harm to you, then that person is not your friend.
I tend to agree with most of the comments here of the transitive effect of how Charmed is handled. But I think it is also a matter of context.
Example 1: A NPC who is normally hostile to you and your party is charmed. He might see the caster as a friend, but the others are still known enemies. Maybe the caster needs rescuing from the "Bad players." Start fast talking to convince your charmed friend, that your pals aren't trying to kill him
Example 2: A NPC guard is who is neutral to all of you but is blocking a door. The caster charms him, to avoid combat. All the players act gracious and with a little roleplay, can go past the door.
Example 3: An NPC is guarding an object that they have been ordered to by their superior under no uncertain dire terms will result in harsh punishment if it falls into the clutches of someone else. You might be their best friend now, but they still aren't going to let you or your friends walk away with the object without some roleplay / skill checks.
Example 4: You (a dwarven mage) find and capture an orc attacking your clan, and charm them. Can you overcome the innate hatred between your two peoples to find out where the orc's warband's camp is? Assuming he does, and your elven friend wanders into the room, which he hates more than dwarves, does he become violent towards them.
At the end of it all Charm Person is an opportunity to change the status quo; not a guarantee. I see it as an opportunity to roleplay something interesting.
Nope you target someone and the spell is clear it only affects the target and its also clear that the spell says the target only see you. The caster as a friend.
Now it is also clear that if you tell the target that your group is not a threat. He would take it very likely to believe you.
Congratulation to your friend he just realised charm person is not a combat spell.
Last thing. There actual npc behavior dcs to beat to gain trust of an npc. Charm person only puts you directly at friendly for that person. It also gives you advantage on asking the thing.
If pc is friendly a dc 20 will make him risk danger to help
If indifferent dc will help if a little dangerous.
If hostile dc 20 will help only if no risk is involved.
Thats in dmg in social interactions.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/compendium/rules/dmg/running-the-game#SocialInteraction
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Edited previous post with link to social interactions in the dmg which clearly explains how npc reacts to perssuasions and the likes.
Remember your target is either friendly. Indifferent or hostile. Charm person only puts that target to friendly to you and gives you advantage on perssuasion checks. But you still need a perssuasion of 20+ to convincer her that your hostile friends are not hostiles.
Thats all in the section described above.
Keyword in those... Risk !
If its losing its job by helping you. Its not risk. Its a guarantee thus he will not help.
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I felt the need to add something a couple years later. The target regards you as a friendly acquaintance, not as a friend. This is a major difference. A friendly acquaintance is someone I appreciate, but not to the point of full on trust. And even less so regarding this acquaintance's friends. The relation toward the acquaintance's friends would really depend on the context and the charm person spell would have a bare minimum effect on that dynamic.
It would be pretty funny if the caster neglects to tell a charmed monster the rest of the party are friends. :)
A mage is charmed - their familiar is attacked - I’m assuming they snap out of it?
A party member is charmed - one their trusted companions, or perhaps all of them, are attacked by the charmer - nothing a friend would do- logic and love says they would snap out of it right? They are not personally getting attacked - maybe give them a saving throw? It is a low level spell and I might rule on that basis that if the charmer betrayed their trust by attacking those dear to them the spell would be broken - if it was a higher level spell it would be a lot more powerful.
Charmed is a condition, and the condition does not list anything that snaps you out of it. What snaps you out of a charmed condition is therefore reliant on the delivery. In the case of Charm Person, which is what the thread you performed thread necro on was about, you'll have to ask your GM to define what constitutes being harmful to the mage - the PHB is rife with uses of the word "harmful" which have varying levels of guidance for the GM (the worst I've seen is the Suggestion spell, which says you can't make a harmful suggestion, and then lists as an example valid suggestion one which is financially harmful).
What do you mean, logic and love? The spell is magically altering the target's mind. Charm Person is weak enough without you nerfing it; what you should be thinking about is whether or not harm to companions constitutes harm to you. As with Suggestion above, I would expect the RAI to be radically different from the RAW - for example, in every country on Earth, harming a child is legally considered also harming their parents, which is why parents can sue for wrongful death if their child is killed. In DnD 5E, that logic is very strained, due to the weird precedent Suggestion sets of harmful having some strict, unintuitive definition never provided in the ruleset.
based on your logic of hamfull... then anything asked of you by suggestion and charm person is harmful thus the spells are worthless !
harmful in d&d 5e is strickly about being harmed by damage. if it hurts you physically, you are harmed, thus this and that happens. monetary or elsewise are not harmful to a person.
exemple...you suggest to me that i give 5000$ to the first beggar i see... i will be compelled to do just that... heres the catch, nothing tells me to do it in one go. thus i will give what i can to the first beggar i see, then i will another day gives other stuff. magic is not verbose "everyone understand what it wants to understand" it is quite literal because it is magic. how often do my players plays in words of what i am asking.
by your own abuse of harmful, then asking anything of the character is harmful to his mind, becauseyou are forcing him to do what it wouldn'T. so the spell would stop directly. reguardless of what you'd be asking.
now who's nerfing the spell now.
again, harmful in d&d 5e means, as described by jeremy crawford years ago... anything physically hurting the character.
now one could say that attacking a mage is potentially hurting, and thatswhy thecharacter should think it twice before doing it. now this is where the context of the wording of the demand is important. asking to blatantly attack the mage is next to sucidal to someone who's always thought mages were gods. but it isn't to someone who is a mage himself and think of himself above the other mages.
thats why you should always play on the wording of the person doing the spell.
that wording and your knowledge of how one thinks, will gives you your answer as to what it would do and what it wouldn't.
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I think seeing it as "harm by physical damage only" is clarifying.
Also: I would "ask the GM" - but I am the GM, and wanted some useful clarification on my side for what seemed like a pretty powerful spell, pretty cool to get your replies. Thanks. Yeah I have recorded a few sessions trying to word that suggestion spell "just right".
More context: I was running the first ever game for first level players (and everyone had fun) but I did rule that - once the players had charmed the mage they could not outright smash his non aggressive familiar (standing right next to him) without at least letting the mage make a saving throw against the charm condition. This was also under the auspice that the mage had never actually done any physical damage to any of the players. Yes probably nerfed the rules, but then "ask your GM." They ended up smashing the familiar as soon as the condition was lifted an hour later.
Yes we took the "nerfy" approach, but there was no rules lawyering and everyone was fine with it. I think if I had been DM'ing for my veteran players things could have been different (on the other hand they might be less bloodthirsty) In the end I more ore less gave the table a choice "what kind of game do you want to play? Do you want a game where someone can smash your friends and it won't give you a saving throw against the condition? Or do you want a game where friends can be smashed for an hour and you watch helplessly on without saves?" I have played those games too and they usually involve vampires. As long as it's a consistent ruling I think it will be fine - I guess it's a "house rule" for this game now.
Your house rule is perfectly fine - like I said, the rulebook doesn't clarify harm. That said, I'll also point out you're not helpless *at all* against someone who's charmed you attacking your friends, unless you're incapable of actions that don't violate charmed (which could be totally true, with mind control in play). A clear-cut example is you can Help others attack the charmer, but another is that under many GMs (including, I am guessing, you) you can shove and/or grapple the person who charmed you. Comes back to that undefined concept of harm.
again the problem is "your interpretation" of the word harm. if to you harm is all sort of trouble that can happen to you, then simply saying hi to you is considered harmful.
in the case of dungeons and dragons, harm means being hurt physically or mentally. and that is explained in the books by the word themselves. which have no more meaning then what the dictionnary explains them to be.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/harm
as an exemple... harm in the dictionnary is anything physical or mental, so by the very definition of the word in dictionnary, then giving away gold could be hurtful mentally sure, but aside form that. i never understood people making their own definition of words. hurt is quite a blatant word for being actually hurt. may it be physically or mentally. and by that it truly means being wounded. but people keep trying to bend the wordings to their advantages because they think interpretation is the only thing that matters. if people knew what words meant, these dillemas wouldn't even be dilemas !
so yeah... there you have it, the word harm means being injured physically or mentally.
PS: no you can't help your friend attack your charmer...
saying you help your friend attack the charmer is exactly the same as hurting him, you just do it indirectly instead and thats just bypassing a clear line made by the charmed condition.
its like my friend who decided to take every of his turn to drink every random potions he had on him,just to avoid attacking his friends because he was dominated but not controlled by the monsters actions. the first time he did, ok... yeah drink that potion of healing that should definitely help you stay alive and kill them... but then 2 turns later drinking philter of love and dragons breath potion just to not hurt his friend... thats a stupid thing to do. that goes against the spell just becausethe player do not want it to happen.
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Congratulation to your friend he just realised charm person is not a combat spell.
just saying... i had friends to whom just saying hi at the wrong moment,would be hurting them mentally...
you never know which condition the person is in. thats why i'm saying that. if you had never any of those problems then fine for you, congratulation the world around you seem to work fine... but i workedwith people who were crying all day at work because they either bipolaror really really easy to affect emotionnally. you never know to whom you are speaking. i could easily just say hi, how are you ? quite the fine sentence to say... but i could as easily get the answer "CAN'T YOU SEE IT, IM CRYING FOR CHRIST SAKE" and yes that is the kinda thing that did happen to me from one of my friend, who by the way wasn't crying ! i had to sit down with her and talk to her for 30 minutes and get late to my job cause of that. that made her day by the way.
so again, everyone interprets things the way they want and by your own definition... if i was one of your players, anything the charmer would say to me would be breaking the spells away because i got harmed by the spell he just casted on me.
so again... going by the definition in the dictionnary... harm means being physically or mentally injured.
and no, asking the charmer to steal something from their friends wouldn'T be injuring them at all. so they would do it. but then again...the social interaction chart would ask a persuasion check with a DC pretty much near the 20. as there are risk involved. and even though the charmer would do that persuasion with advantage... it would still require good rolls to do it even to a friend.
i highly encourage people to use the social interaction tables while using the charm person spell.
it really changed everything in my games. and this is exactly how it is supposed to be working from the get go.
DM of two gaming groups.
Likes to create stuff.
Check out my homebrew --> Monsters --> Magical Items --> Races --> Subclasses
If you like --> Upvote, If you wanna comment --> Comment
Play by Post Games
--> One Shot Adventure - House of Artwood (DM) (Completed)