How do you treat a PC who is Charmed?

[RndmNumGen]

The boss for the quest my PCs are currently on has Charm Person as a SLA, 3/day. When I was making him I intended this to be more of a lure/trap for getting unwary victims close so he could him them with his wisdom drain, but now I'm wondering how it would play out in a combat situation. If the PCs attack him and he successfully Charms one of the PCs, how would the PC act? Would he turn against his former allies? Would he stand idly by while the rest of the party and the boss duke it out? I mean, obviously the player would still control his own character, but how should Charm Person influence his actions?

[JadedDM]

Charm Person doesn't change the way a person thinks or acts, it merely alters their perception. The recipient of a Charm Person spell suddenly perceives the caster as their close friend.

So how would a PC act? Depends on the PC. The question to ask their player is, "How would your character react upon seeing two close friends fighting each other?"

[HunterOfJello]

This came up in our gaming session today. An Ogre Mage successfully cast a Charm Person spell on the party Wizard who failed his save even with the +5 bonus for already being attacked.

The way we treated it was by establishing that the Wizard now felt friendly and loyal to both groups that are attacking one another. Since the Ogre Mage didn't yell any instructions at him, the Wizard ended up dismissing his Evard's Black Tentacles that was hurting some of the enemies and then hid himself inside a Resilient Sphere.

One player argued that the Wizard should be immediately casting Dispel Magic on himself, but the player playing the Wizard and I both disagreed with that. However, once the ogre mage was killed and a few other enemies were still nearby, the Wizard felt strange and uncomfortable and cast Dispel Magic on himself at that point.

~

In general, it depends on the character in question. The most common actions after being Charmed, but not convinced to do anything should be to retreat from the fight just watching the fight passively, building up defenses for yourself while avoiding others, healing anyone who looks badly hurt, preventing either side from hurting one another, or other actions that are both nonaggression and show a lack of bias towards one side or another.

[OverdrivePrime]

What I usually do is describe the scene to the charmed character in a different light. "You look around, and are startled to realize that your friends are fighting Olaf the Prince of Ogres! There must be some misunderstanding! You know Olaf to be a kind and charitable being. You can't let them keep fighting - you know that Olaf is on a quest to save the world! If he's slain, things will be very bad!"

I've good good players, so that's usually all it takes for the charmed character to run with the spell effect. (They're hungry for RP experience!)

[Jack_Simth]

The boss for the quest my PCs are currently on has Charm Person as a SLA, 3/day. When I was making him I intended this to be more of a lure/trap for getting unwary victims close so he could him them with his wisdom drain, but now I'm wondering how it would play out in a combat situation. If the PCs attack him and he successfully Charms one of the PCs, how would the PC act? Would he turn against his former allies? Would he stand idly by while the rest of the party and the boss duke it out? I mean, obviously the player would still control his own character, but how should Charm Person influence his actions?
Depends on the players. If you have good players, they'll run with it, and will tell you what they'd do if they had a really good friend that was fighting with their current party members.

It's only when you have bad players that things get messy. See, what will happen varies by personality (which is the character's personality, and under the player's control) - one person will want to talk them both down, another will try to wrestle one party or the other away, a third will attack both with stuff that incapacitates - nonlethal damage, trip, that kind of thing - while another will make a snap judgement on 'he started it' and do the above (but only for the aggressor). And, of course, an Opposed Charisma Check can make the Charmed person do quite a lot....

However, if he's in the middle of a fight with them, then it *probably* won't really come up - "If the creature is currently being threatened or attacked by you or your allies, however, it receives a +5 bonus on its saving throw."

[Gamer Girl]

I generally try to avoid casting Charm Person on players, unless it's with a good player I know well and know can handle the charm. It can be fun for a player to 'act out' being charmed.


In general, I simply replace 'charm person' with another enchantment/charm or illusion spell that is better for the creature. Command works, as does Doom, Distract, Stay the Hand, and Whelm. Or homebrew spells like Goad toad.


Otherwise, the game can drag to a halt over people talking about 'what would happen'. It's often not worth the trouble. After the 10th time of 'I know Ozak the DeathKing is my best friend, but he still owes me a gold coin from our last game of toss, so I power attack him with my sword+5!', you will simply wish that Ozak had just attacked instead of using charm person.

[Moriato]

Generally it turns into a confusing situation for the charmed PC. His friends are fighting his other friend, what's going on here?! Keep in mind that just because that one orc sorcerer is now your friend, that doesn't mean that any of HIS friends are. Were I playing the PC, I would probably just continue attacking the other enemies on the field, or if it's just down to my group and the creature I was charmed by, probably start trying to use diplomacy to stop the fighting. I mean if two of your friends were fighting, stabbing either one of them seems like kind of an odd reaction, unless one of them was never really your friend to begin with...

[RndmNumGen]

Alright. I think I'll just end up going with telling any player who fails the save that they see the guy as an ally now, and seeing what they do with it. We're all fairly new to D&D, so I'm interested in seeing what will happen.

[Warlawk]

It kind of varies a lot from PC to PC and from situation to situation.

If there are other enemies that are still attacking the party, then I would say a good move would be to focus on those targets and then really play up the RP by yelling at your party and your new friend trying hard to convince them to stop fighting.

If the only targets are your party and the charm caster, I would say that depending on class/abilities the right move would be to disarm, grapple, disable, hold, grease, web etc to try and stop anyone from fighting. If the charm caster uses an opportunity the PC created to attack a defenseless PC, that might be call for a new save.

Another thing that could make for a great RP situation is to wait for the BBEG to be almost dead and then jump in with a big non-lethal hit to knock him out. Once he is captured, make a stand and REFUSE to let the party torture or kill him, maybe demand that he be taken to a neutral third party until the mess can be sorted out. That lets you keep the BBEG in custody, but gives everyone some great RP and maybe an opportunity for him to attempt escape.

[Thurbane]

I usually treat a fellow PC under a Charm or Compulsion with copious helpings of non-lethal damage and/or Dispel Magic. :smallbiggrin: