We all know its downside, the spell tattles on you as the target knows who charmed them and that they were charmed when the spell ends.
But what if I told you, it doesn't behave properly.
Normally when you use charm person, the person who realizes they were charmed by you at least saw your face or heard you talk or knows your name.
But what if none of those came into play?
The build is rather simple. We have a level 2 sorcerer, any race. They have subtle spell (no verbal & no somantic component) and distant spell (double the range of a spell).
Our target is a shopkeeper who has not seen our sorcerer, nor spoke with them, nor even knows their name, nor heard talk by others of them.
We spend our two sorcery points to make charm person be both subtle and distant.
The shopkeeper fails their saving throw.
The shopkeeper is now affected and treats the sorcerer they know nothing of as a friendly acquaintance.
Our sorcerer does not interact with the shopkeeper and lets the spell eventually end after 1 hour.
The shopkeeper comes to their senses and knows they were charmed. More importantly they know that our sorcerer, who they knew nothing of, did it.
Yet due to the vagueness of the wording, its not implied how they would know our sorcerer did it, just that they do.
If a Sorcerer caused this repeatedly to each citizen of a town or city, how would the citizens react if they saw our sorcerer?
There is nothing in the spells description that the target needs to perceive you casting the spell. It just says, very clearly
When the spell ends, the creature knows it was charmed by you.
You can distance and subtle spell, put on a disguise, close your eyes and spin around three times. No matter what you do, when the spell ends, the creature will know exactly who charmed them, you!
There is nothing in the spells description that the target needs to perceive you casting the spell. It just says, very clearly
When the spell ends, the creature knows it was charmed by you.
You can distance and subtle spell, put on a disguise, close your eyes and spin around three times. No matter what you do, when the spell ends, the creature will know exactly who charmed them, you!
Ah but go back and read what I am saying. The spell may state they know you did it, but that implies the spell is giving information of exactly who did it. If they don't have that information beforehand, how does that play out? Are they sent the equivalent of a business card mental image in their head? Do they know it as a gut feeling?
EDIT: What if we take this a step more?
Our sorcerer has no name, never speaks, and is of an average-looking appearence. And the spell tries to tattle on the sorcerer to the shopkeeper with that information.
There is nothing in the spells description that the target needs to perceive you casting the spell. It just says, very clearly
When the spell ends, the creature knows it was charmed by you.
You can distance and subtle spell, put on a disguise, close your eyes and spin around three times. No matter what you do, when the spell ends, the creature will know exactly who charmed them, you!
Ah but go back and read what I am saying. The spell may state they know you did it, but that implies the spell is giving information of exactly who did it. If they don't have that information beforehand, how does that play out? Are they sent the equivalent of a business card mental image in their head? Do they know it as a gut feeling?
EDIT: What if we take this a step more?
Our sorcerer has no name, never speaks, and is of an average-looking appearence. And the spell tries to tattle on the sorcerer to the shopkeeper with that information.
It is exactly as the rules says, nothing more, nothing less. There is no name, voice, nor appearance involved. The spell tells them you did it. It does not tell them your name, appearance, nor voice. They just know you did it. It does not matter if you change your name, voice, or appearance, they can pick you out as the person who charmed them.
Side note: A spell cannot be both Subtle and Distant. Our theoretical sorcerer would have to pick one, the Metamagic feature states that only one Metamagic option can apply to a spell unless the specific option decrees otherwise. Neither Subtle Spell nor Distant Spell do. So you have to deal with either the spell's range limitations or the spell's components.
A DM could rule that if a sorcerer can successfully obscure their identity, Charm Person alerts the target simply that they were charmed as the spell fades but with no clear idea by whom or why. A DM could also rule that mind-affecting magic such as Charm Person is a high crime against the land and that anyone caught practicing such magic without royal dispensation for a specific task, such as a government-licensed interrogator when performing their interrogations, is subject to the harshest of penalties. Proof of such allegations would be difficult to come by, but in the case of some DM's specific worlds, simple possession of the spell could be argued as unlawful.
When one casts a spell such as Charm Person, they are reaching their fingers into the other person's head and stirring their target's brain around. They are robbing their victim of their volition and freedom to choose as they see fit, using their magic to outright force the victim to choose as the caster sees fit instead - and once the spell has elapsed, the victim knows they were duped but has no proof beyond the conviction that they were wronged. No divination spell can discern the residue of an elapsed Charm Person, and so it comes down to the word of the shopkeep, or the guard, or the tavern doxie, or whoever else the PC mickeyed against a powerful, lethal mercenary who often has status as a Hero of the Town/Land/Realm/World, to boot.
Far more than necromancy, mind-affecting magic is what should terrify the common man. The thought that a magic-user can simply reach into your head and make you not only do their bidding to your own detriment, but to do so willingly and even joyfully, is where you get the old Sword and Sorcery grimdark low-magic tale of a land where the common man hates and ostracizes weavers of the dark arts. Raising the corpses of the dead is gross, taboo-adjacent, and feels like a violation of one's volition. Charm Person is an actual for-real violation of one's volition.
Perhaps one should be prepared for it when a DM opts not to vouchsafe the PCs' violently vicious and voracious violation of volition. A PC should be prepared when the courts of the land offer a verdict of vengeance, instead.
I have set pretty hefty limitations of how much Charm Person can alter someone, since it can be a low level game breaker in an intrigue-heavy campaign - that we usually run.
I run into more issues (in my intrigue campaign) with the fact that Charm Person is not concentration. Multiple times, my players have charmed cultists in the middle of combat and earned themselves disposable trap-checkers and information sources, then killed said cultists before the spell could wear off. Without additional chances to save, and since it doesn't require concentration, it's kind of a combat killer in the right circumstances.
It seems people think that a "friendly acquaintance" means "willing to do anything for you."
If you are walking down the street and someone you met at a party last night asks you do something, would you automatically just do it? Sure, the spell gives advantage on charisma checks, but that doesn't mean that the DC to convince someone you barely know to let you just walk through their house, steal their things, and kill their dog would be low enough to even be possible.
I have set pretty hefty limitations of how much Charm Person can alter someone, since it can be a low level game breaker in an intrigue-heavy campaign - that we usually run.
Yeah. Charm person does two things.
1. Charms the target. A charmed creature can't attack the charmer or target them with harmful abilities or magical effects. And the charmer has advantage on ability checks to interact socially with the creature.
2. It makes them view you as a friendly acquaintance. Not someone they're willing to die for, or trust completely etc.
Neither of those IMO are enough to make them turn coat mid combat unless they were already on shaky grounds loyalty wise to the other side. They won't be able to attack YOU and will see YOU as friendly, but that won't apply to your allies. Charm person is not dominate person, it doesn't mean you can make them do anything you want. You have advantage on social rolls but it's still up to the DM if something you try is within the realm of feasibility for a roll. Like the old 'get the king to hand over his crown' example, you'll need more than a charm person for that to be feasible.
I would personally rule that if you manage to cast it without them seeing or hearing you, the victim would know they were charmed but couldn't put a name or face to it. But if they then later see you, they would intuitively know that it was you.
Oh, calamity -- a 2nd level PC who's specifically trained for it can... Become friends with a shopkeep for a little while! Terrifying.
Put yourself in the mind of that shopkeep - you learn a little less than an hour after that splendid adventuring fellow left your store with your most prized stock at a ruinous price because their dashing air and winsome smile were so strangely irresistible...was not, in fact, a splendid adventuring fellow after all. Their Dashing Air and Winsome Smile were all magic fakery, and you just took a sharp loss on nigh-irreplaceable goods due to the effects of mind-altering magic. Your reputation as a merchant is about to take a huge hit, and the gamble you took on acquiring such pricey and difficult-to-move goods just exploded in your face.
How're you going to feel?
Or, turn it around - let's imagine the shopkeep is a sorcerer with Subtle Spell, and they use Charm Person on the PC. The Dm passes the PC a note stating that they find this particular fellow oddly likeable, with a dashing air and a winsome smile, and as the merchant makes some rolls behind the DM screen, the DM announces "you just don't feel like haggling for the last copper piece - this is a splendid mercantile fellow, it feels like it would be your honor to pay his full asking price and a generous tip besides, simply for beautifying your day." And then, a little under an hour of game time later while you're defending your odd spending habits to your confused/bemused teammates who've been ribbing you about it relentlessly, the DM informs you that the Charm Person spell fades and you bcome aware that the shopkeep used mind-altering magic to get you to overpay for his goods.
Tell me - in how many situations would a typical adventuring party not immediately turn around and make with the murder to get their money back? Would they not be incensed, outraged, and absolutely livid that the DM tricked, bamboozled, and hornswoggled them, positively stealing their hard-earned coins and probably making noises about agency, railroading, and other Bad DM Things?
And yet, players think absolutely nothing of using mind-altering magic on NPCs, and furthermore expect the world to think nothing of it themselves. They figure they're special, that the rules don't apply to them, and they can use their powerful spells to simply turn problems off for free without repercussion.
Heh. Nah. Not at my table. If players want to muck with NPC brains and do the NPCs' deciding for them, then A.) the NPCs can muck with player brains right back, should the NPC have the knowledge, arcane power, and lack of scruple required to do so B.) the world is gonna have Opinions about people who freely and cavalierly twist the minds of others to their own ends, no matter how petty or illegal those ends are.
Oh, calamity -- a 2nd level PC who's specifically trained for it can... Become friends with a shopkeep for a little while! Terrifying.
Put yourself in the mind of that shopkeep - you learn a little less than an hour after that splendid adventuring fellow left your store with your most prized stock at a ruinous price because their dashing air and winsome smile were so strangely irresistible...was not, in fact, a splendid adventuring fellow after all. Their Dashing Air and Winsome Smile were all magic fakery, and you just took a sharp loss on nigh-irreplaceable goods due to the effects of mind-altering magic. Your reputation as a merchant is about to take a huge hit, and the gamble you took on acquiring such pricey and difficult-to-move goods just exploded in your face.
How're you going to feel?
Or, turn it around - let's imagine the shopkeep is a sorcerer with Subtle Spell, and they use Charm Person on the PC. The Dm passes the PC a note stating that they find this particular fellow oddly likeable, with a dashing air and a winsome smile, and as the merchant makes some rolls behind the DM screen, the DM announces "you just don't feel like haggling for the last copper piece - this is a splendid mercantile fellow, it feels like it would be your honor to pay his full asking price and a generous tip besides, simply for beautifying your day." And then, a little under an hour of game time later while you're defending your odd spending habits to your confused/bemused teammates who've been ribbing you about it relentlessly, the DM informs you that the Charm Person spell fades and you bcome aware that the shopkeep used mind-altering magic to get you to overpay for his goods.
Tell me - in how many situations would a typical adventuring party not immediately turn around and make with the murder to get their money back? Would they not be incensed, outraged, and absolutely livid that the DM tricked, bamboozled, and hornswoggled them, positively stealing their hard-earned coins and probably making noises about agency, railroading, and other Bad DM Things?
And yet, players think absolutely nothing of using mind-altering magic on NPCs, and furthermore expect the world to think nothing of it themselves. They figure they're special, that the rules don't apply to them, and they can use their powerful spells to simply turn problems off for free without repercussion.
Heh. Nah. Not at my table. If players want to muck with NPC brains and do the NPCs' deciding for them, then A.) the NPCs can muck with player brains right back, should the NPC have the knowledge, arcane power, and lack of scruple required to do so B.) the world is gonna have Opinions about people who freely and cavalierly twist the minds of others to their own ends, no matter how petty or illegal those ends are.
I mean, all I'm saying is I don't see how it's broken. If your NPC is carrying goods that you don't think should be obtainable with low level magic, such as magic items, then there's a couple of ways around that:
1. You should not expect average Joe NPCs to be able to hold such objects. Put them in the hands of tougher, trickier, or more politically powerful NPCs instead, because those are the people who would really end up with them. If a random guy has one, it's only temporary. The first PC, lord, or brigand he meets is gonna take it off his hands one way or another, and be able to keep it.
2. You should not expect average Joe NPCs to be able to hold such objects. The fact that an NPC has an object like a magic item is evidence enough that he is more than he seems. He's probably pretty tough, well connected, or both, though it might not be obvious to a newcomer like a PC.
Look at the shopkeep in Critical Role season 1. The PCs break into his store to steal magic items... And he puts them in a Forcecage. That's really high level magic. That's not a guy who's going to fall victim to Charm Person. He's probably got a Contingency set up to Dispel Magic on himself the moment he's affected by enchantment magic, at the very least.
If it's just mundane goods like food or even horses you're worried about... Well, I hate to break it to you, but PCs can pretty easily steal such things even without using magic. That is, if they don't just buy them -- nothing's very expensive after your first treasure haul.
I think I've misinterpreted OP's point though. I thought they were saying, "I've discovered how to make this spell totally overpowered," but I think what they're really saying is "I've discovered how to make this spell into nonsense." That's a different subject.
Put yourself in the mind of that shopkeep - you learn a little less than an hour after that splendid adventuring fellow left your store with your most prized stock at a ruinous price because their dashing air and winsome smile were so strangely irresistible...
To be fair, this sounds pretty out of scope for Charm Person. A shopkeeper isn't going to take such a loss on premium goods for a friendly acquaintance.
I find that the best way to prevent Charm Person from ruining your campaign is to run the spell as written.
We spend our two sorcery points to make charm person be both subtle and distant.
No you don't, since you can't use those two metamagic options on the same spell. You can only do one or the other
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We spend our two sorcery points to make charm person be both subtle and distant.
No you don't, since you can't use those two metamagic options on the same spell. You can only do one or the other
Correct. It's also not necessary at all, nor does it accomplish anything to use both. Subtle is enough. If you can see him, he can see you. The distance doesn't do anything here. You could hide or use Invisibility or disguise yourself and then we'd be back to #2. No point chasing this around forever -- if this is one of those "recreational debate" threads where we all know the real answer but we're having fun picking at the rules, then post #2 puts this section to rest. If, instead, we're actually concerned with making a ruling, then it seems clear to me that the spell is saying "people don't appreciate being charmed," not "this creates a mystical tracking beacon to your identity or something." If you dress up convincingly as the king before you do it, they get mad at the king.
The spell does what it says, so you get the blame no matter what you do.
But let's say you didn't in this particular scenario - is that really broken? Subtle spell - which is what this is really hinging on, not Charm Person - takes resources and has a particularly expensive opportunity cost. This is one of a very small number of abilities that make up the entirety of the sorcerer's class features. Shouldn't it allow for things that other classes couldn't easily achieve? Shouldn't it occasionally let you do something that makes you think, "man, I wish I didn't choose to be a wizard instead!"
Yes, it avoids Counterspell. But that's extremely niche for the investment cost. Let it do stuff! We shouldn't have to compensate for poor class design, but we can.
Thank you all for the commentary so far. It probably got drowned out originally, but I will repost the question from my initial post: If a Sorcerer caused this repeatedly to each citizen of a town or city, how would the citizens react if they saw our sorcerer?
And this is under the assumption that the only way they know of our sorcerer is through charm person. Nothing bad has happened to the charmed person except made to feel a specific way of treating the sorcerer as a friendly acquaintance and that they know they were charmed by them.
Thank you all for the commentary so far. It probably got drowned out originally, but I will repost the question from my initial post: If a Sorcerer caused this repeatedly to each citizen of a town or city, how would the citizens react if they saw our sorcerer?
And this is under the assumption that the only way they know of our sorcerer is through charm person. Nothing bad has happened to the charmed person except made to feel a specific way of treating the sorcerer as a friendly acquaintance and that they know they were charmed by them.
By RAW, they would know your sorcerer was the one who did it. The spell says "they know they were charmed by you." The target knows it was charmed and it knows who did the charming. How that happens is up to the DM, the spell doesn't say. There is no single 'right' interpretation, because the spell does what it says it does and any ambiguities, vagueness, or inderterminate space is left to the DM to fill as they deem fit.
If your table finds that ridiculous, obnoxious, or otherwise harmful to your fun? Change it. D&D lets you do that. If you want to swindle merchants with Charm person for free without invoking the spell's downside by disguising the cast? Have at it. See what the DM says. How it works for your table will be different than how it is for mine, or Choir's, or anyone else's.
Thank you all for the commentary so far. It probably got drowned out originally, but I will repost the question from my initial post: If a Sorcerer caused this repeatedly to each citizen of a town or city, how would the citizens react if they saw our sorcerer?
And this is under the assumption that the only way they know of our sorcerer is through charm person. Nothing bad has happened to the charmed person except made to feel a specific way of treating the sorcerer as a friendly acquaintance and that they know they were charmed by them.
By RAW, they would know your sorcerer was the one who did it. The spell says "they know they were charmed by you." The target knows it was charmed and it knows who did the charming. How that happens is up to the DM, the spell doesn't say. There is no single 'right' interpretation, because the spell does what it says it does and any ambiguities, vagueness, or inderterminate space is left to the DM to fill as they deem fit.
If your table finds that ridiculous, obnoxious, or otherwise harmful to your fun? Change it. D&D lets you do that. If you want to swindle merchants with Charm person for free without invoking the spell's downside by disguising the cast? Have at it. See what the DM says. How it works for your table will be different than how it is for mine, or Choir's, or anyone else's.
I see you didn't read my question.
If a sorcerer affected an entire city in this manner where the information given is only through charm person, how does the city react?
To keep the discussion going, lets say it always gives the casters appearence and name. But they have never seen this sorcerer in person.
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Preface: Thought Experiment.
We all know its downside, the spell tattles on you as the target knows who charmed them and that they were charmed when the spell ends.
But what if I told you, it doesn't behave properly.
Normally when you use charm person, the person who realizes they were charmed by you at least saw your face or heard you talk or knows your name.
But what if none of those came into play?
The build is rather simple. We have a level 2 sorcerer, any race. They have subtle spell (no verbal & no somantic component) and distant spell (double the range of a spell).
Our target is a shopkeeper who has not seen our sorcerer, nor spoke with them, nor even knows their name, nor heard talk by others of them.
We spend our two sorcery points to make charm person be both subtle and distant.
The shopkeeper fails their saving throw.
The shopkeeper is now affected and treats the sorcerer they know nothing of as a friendly acquaintance.
Our sorcerer does not interact with the shopkeeper and lets the spell eventually end after 1 hour.
The shopkeeper comes to their senses and knows they were charmed. More importantly they know that our sorcerer, who they knew nothing of, did it.
Yet due to the vagueness of the wording, its not implied how they would know our sorcerer did it, just that they do.
If a Sorcerer caused this repeatedly to each citizen of a town or city, how would the citizens react if they saw our sorcerer?
There is nothing in the spells description that the target needs to perceive you casting the spell. It just says, very clearly
You can distance and subtle spell, put on a disguise, close your eyes and spin around three times. No matter what you do, when the spell ends, the creature will know exactly who charmed them, you!
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Ah but go back and read what I am saying. The spell may state they know you did it, but that implies the spell is giving information of exactly who did it. If they don't have that information beforehand, how does that play out? Are they sent the equivalent of a business card mental image in their head? Do they know it as a gut feeling?
EDIT: What if we take this a step more?
Our sorcerer has no name, never speaks, and is of an average-looking appearence. And the spell tries to tattle on the sorcerer to the shopkeeper with that information.
The spell magically gives them the exact information as to who charmed them. It's literally magic, you can't trick it or outsmart it.
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It is exactly as the rules says, nothing more, nothing less. There is no name, voice, nor appearance involved. The spell tells them you did it. It does not tell them your name, appearance, nor voice. They just know you did it. It does not matter if you change your name, voice, or appearance, they can pick you out as the person who charmed them.
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Side note: A spell cannot be both Subtle and Distant. Our theoretical sorcerer would have to pick one, the Metamagic feature states that only one Metamagic option can apply to a spell unless the specific option decrees otherwise. Neither Subtle Spell nor Distant Spell do. So you have to deal with either the spell's range limitations or the spell's components.
A DM could rule that if a sorcerer can successfully obscure their identity, Charm Person alerts the target simply that they were charmed as the spell fades but with no clear idea by whom or why. A DM could also rule that mind-affecting magic such as Charm Person is a high crime against the land and that anyone caught practicing such magic without royal dispensation for a specific task, such as a government-licensed interrogator when performing their interrogations, is subject to the harshest of penalties. Proof of such allegations would be difficult to come by, but in the case of some DM's specific worlds, simple possession of the spell could be argued as unlawful.
When one casts a spell such as Charm Person, they are reaching their fingers into the other person's head and stirring their target's brain around. They are robbing their victim of their volition and freedom to choose as they see fit, using their magic to outright force the victim to choose as the caster sees fit instead - and once the spell has elapsed, the victim knows they were duped but has no proof beyond the conviction that they were wronged. No divination spell can discern the residue of an elapsed Charm Person, and so it comes down to the word of the shopkeep, or the guard, or the tavern doxie, or whoever else the PC mickeyed against a powerful, lethal mercenary who often has status as a Hero of the Town/Land/Realm/World, to boot.
Far more than necromancy, mind-affecting magic is what should terrify the common man. The thought that a magic-user can simply reach into your head and make you not only do their bidding to your own detriment, but to do so willingly and even joyfully, is where you get the old Sword and Sorcery grimdark low-magic tale of a land where the common man hates and ostracizes weavers of the dark arts. Raising the corpses of the dead is gross, taboo-adjacent, and feels like a violation of one's volition. Charm Person is an actual for-real violation of one's volition.
Perhaps one should be prepared for it when a DM opts not to vouchsafe the PCs' violently vicious and voracious violation of volition. A PC should be prepared when the courts of the land offer a verdict of vengeance, instead.
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I have set pretty hefty limitations of how much Charm Person can alter someone, since it can be a low level game breaker in an intrigue-heavy campaign - that we usually run.
I run into more issues (in my intrigue campaign) with the fact that Charm Person is not concentration. Multiple times, my players have charmed cultists in the middle of combat and earned themselves disposable trap-checkers and information sources, then killed said cultists before the spell could wear off. Without additional chances to save, and since it doesn't require concentration, it's kind of a combat killer in the right circumstances.
It seems people think that a "friendly acquaintance" means "willing to do anything for you."
If you are walking down the street and someone you met at a party last night asks you do something, would you automatically just do it? Sure, the spell gives advantage on charisma checks, but that doesn't mean that the DC to convince someone you barely know to let you just walk through their house, steal their things, and kill their dog would be low enough to even be possible.
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Yeah. Charm person does two things.
1. Charms the target. A charmed creature can't attack the charmer or target them with harmful abilities or magical effects. And the charmer has advantage on ability checks to interact socially with the creature.
2. It makes them view you as a friendly acquaintance. Not someone they're willing to die for, or trust completely etc.
Neither of those IMO are enough to make them turn coat mid combat unless they were already on shaky grounds loyalty wise to the other side. They won't be able to attack YOU and will see YOU as friendly, but that won't apply to your allies. Charm person is not dominate person, it doesn't mean you can make them do anything you want. You have advantage on social rolls but it's still up to the DM if something you try is within the realm of feasibility for a roll. Like the old 'get the king to hand over his crown' example, you'll need more than a charm person for that to be feasible.
I would personally rule that if you manage to cast it without them seeing or hearing you, the victim would know they were charmed but couldn't put a name or face to it. But if they then later see you, they would intuitively know that it was you.
Oh, calamity -- a 2nd level PC who's specifically trained for it can... Become friends with a shopkeep for a little while! Terrifying.
Put yourself in the mind of that shopkeep - you learn a little less than an hour after that splendid adventuring fellow left your store with your most prized stock at a ruinous price because their dashing air and winsome smile were so strangely irresistible...was not, in fact, a splendid adventuring fellow after all. Their Dashing Air and Winsome Smile were all magic fakery, and you just took a sharp loss on nigh-irreplaceable goods due to the effects of mind-altering magic. Your reputation as a merchant is about to take a huge hit, and the gamble you took on acquiring such pricey and difficult-to-move goods just exploded in your face.
How're you going to feel?
Or, turn it around - let's imagine the shopkeep is a sorcerer with Subtle Spell, and they use Charm Person on the PC. The Dm passes the PC a note stating that they find this particular fellow oddly likeable, with a dashing air and a winsome smile, and as the merchant makes some rolls behind the DM screen, the DM announces "you just don't feel like haggling for the last copper piece - this is a splendid mercantile fellow, it feels like it would be your honor to pay his full asking price and a generous tip besides, simply for beautifying your day." And then, a little under an hour of game time later while you're defending your odd spending habits to your confused/bemused teammates who've been ribbing you about it relentlessly, the DM informs you that the Charm Person spell fades and you bcome aware that the shopkeep used mind-altering magic to get you to overpay for his goods.
Tell me - in how many situations would a typical adventuring party not immediately turn around and make with the murder to get their money back? Would they not be incensed, outraged, and absolutely livid that the DM tricked, bamboozled, and hornswoggled them, positively stealing their hard-earned coins and probably making noises about agency, railroading, and other Bad DM Things?
And yet, players think absolutely nothing of using mind-altering magic on NPCs, and furthermore expect the world to think nothing of it themselves. They figure they're special, that the rules don't apply to them, and they can use their powerful spells to simply turn problems off for free without repercussion.
Heh. Nah. Not at my table. If players want to muck with NPC brains and do the NPCs' deciding for them, then
A.) the NPCs can muck with player brains right back, should the NPC have the knowledge, arcane power, and lack of scruple required to do so
B.) the world is gonna have Opinions about people who freely and cavalierly twist the minds of others to their own ends, no matter how petty or illegal those ends are.
Please do not contact or message me.
I mean, all I'm saying is I don't see how it's broken. If your NPC is carrying goods that you don't think should be obtainable with low level magic, such as magic items, then there's a couple of ways around that:
1. You should not expect average Joe NPCs to be able to hold such objects. Put them in the hands of tougher, trickier, or more politically powerful NPCs instead, because those are the people who would really end up with them. If a random guy has one, it's only temporary. The first PC, lord, or brigand he meets is gonna take it off his hands one way or another, and be able to keep it.
2. You should not expect average Joe NPCs to be able to hold such objects. The fact that an NPC has an object like a magic item is evidence enough that he is more than he seems. He's probably pretty tough, well connected, or both, though it might not be obvious to a newcomer like a PC.
Look at the shopkeep in Critical Role season 1. The PCs break into his store to steal magic items... And he puts them in a Forcecage. That's really high level magic. That's not a guy who's going to fall victim to Charm Person. He's probably got a Contingency set up to Dispel Magic on himself the moment he's affected by enchantment magic, at the very least.
If it's just mundane goods like food or even horses you're worried about... Well, I hate to break it to you, but PCs can pretty easily steal such things even without using magic. That is, if they don't just buy them -- nothing's very expensive after your first treasure haul.
I think I've misinterpreted OP's point though. I thought they were saying, "I've discovered how to make this spell totally overpowered," but I think what they're really saying is "I've discovered how to make this spell into nonsense." That's a different subject.
To be fair, this sounds pretty out of scope for Charm Person. A shopkeeper isn't going to take such a loss on premium goods for a friendly acquaintance.
I find that the best way to prevent Charm Person from ruining your campaign is to run the spell as written.
No you don't, since you can't use those two metamagic options on the same spell. You can only do one or the other
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
Correct. It's also not necessary at all, nor does it accomplish anything to use both. Subtle is enough. If you can see him, he can see you. The distance doesn't do anything here. You could hide or use Invisibility or disguise yourself and then we'd be back to #2. No point chasing this around forever -- if this is one of those "recreational debate" threads where we all know the real answer but we're having fun picking at the rules, then post #2 puts this section to rest. If, instead, we're actually concerned with making a ruling, then it seems clear to me that the spell is saying "people don't appreciate being charmed," not "this creates a mystical tracking beacon to your identity or something." If you dress up convincingly as the king before you do it, they get mad at the king.
The spell does what it says, so you get the blame no matter what you do.
But let's say you didn't in this particular scenario - is that really broken? Subtle spell - which is what this is really hinging on, not Charm Person - takes resources and has a particularly expensive opportunity cost. This is one of a very small number of abilities that make up the entirety of the sorcerer's class features. Shouldn't it allow for things that other classes couldn't easily achieve? Shouldn't it occasionally let you do something that makes you think, "man, I wish I didn't choose to be a wizard instead!"
Yes, it avoids Counterspell. But that's extremely niche for the investment cost. Let it do stuff! We shouldn't have to compensate for poor class design, but we can.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
Thank you all for the commentary so far. It probably got drowned out originally, but I will repost the question from my initial post: If a Sorcerer caused this repeatedly to each citizen of a town or city, how would the citizens react if they saw our sorcerer?
And this is under the assumption that the only way they know of our sorcerer is through charm person. Nothing bad has happened to the charmed person except made to feel a specific way of treating the sorcerer as a friendly acquaintance and that they know they were charmed by them.
By RAW, they would know your sorcerer was the one who did it. The spell says "they know they were charmed by you." The target knows it was charmed and it knows who did the charming. How that happens is up to the DM, the spell doesn't say. There is no single 'right' interpretation, because the spell does what it says it does and any ambiguities, vagueness, or inderterminate space is left to the DM to fill as they deem fit.
If your table finds that ridiculous, obnoxious, or otherwise harmful to your fun? Change it. D&D lets you do that. If you want to swindle merchants with Charm person for free without invoking the spell's downside by disguising the cast? Have at it. See what the DM says. How it works for your table will be different than how it is for mine, or Choir's, or anyone else's.
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I see you didn't read my question.
If a sorcerer affected an entire city in this manner where the information given is only through charm person, how does the city react?
To keep the discussion going, lets say it always gives the casters appearence and name. But they have never seen this sorcerer in person.