Lesser Geas/Charm Monster as a bard

[Spore]

Hi guys,

I am playing an Arcane Duelist Bard and I am unsure whether I should pick Displacement (boring but safe pick) or Lesser Geas as my 3rd level spell. The others are Haste, Good Hope and Charm Monster.

I would use Geas for things I need done from people I cannot accompany and ask nicely (Diplo check) to do things for me. I would use Charm Monster for the occasional fighting buddy.

My concerns are the following:
When it comes to mind affecting spells and general spell rulings my DM can become incredibly nitpicky to the point of outright ignoring a spell's fluff descriptions making the intended use of the spell relatively useless or scale it back a few steps.

1) With the Geas spell he has played his PC Paladin (back in another campaign) in the way that the Geas told him never to come close to a steel reinforced door but his character would thump on the door for days until his Intelligence dropped to 4. I fully expect similar things from his NPCs.

2) Charm spells were never really used by our groups but I can see him either having the NPC unwilling to fight or be extremely loyal to its current masters so they will open doors for us but not betray their masters' trust by actively attacking allies. I know Charm Person is not Dominate Person. The classical target, the dumb brutes that are ogres or trolls only appeared once in the campaign. One time as a friendly NPC the other time as corpses of killed working slaves.

Can you guide me in the right directions for the use of those two spells? Would you pick Lesser Geas or is it too situational? Is Lesser Geas even too risky because people don't like being forced to do something so a classic Diplomacy/Intimidate check would be more beneficial?

[charcoalninja]

As an arcane duelist your main shtick is fighting so I'd get either Haste (if your party has a good swath of other melee) or displacement if not. After these key spells you have more freedom to take flavourful and chancy magic since if your DM does screw with the magic you've got enough oomph in your skillset to just flip out and kill it if push comes to shove.

Displacement is just such a potent defense it's hard to not take it.

[Segev]

Yeah. This DM makes mind-affecting magic useless, so don't use it. There are plenty of other powerful tricks you can pull. Some DMs simply ruin this field of magic.

He was cheating with his Paladin, for the record. Despite what many thing, the geas spells don't let you violate them if you're willing to suffer the consequences. They compel obedience: "The geased creature must follow the given instructions until the geas is completed." (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/g/geas-quest)

The consequences befall them if something prevents them from being able to do so. If, for instance, somebody had physically wrestled the paladin up against that door, he'd have suffered the consequences. But of his own volition, he could not willingly pound on that door, nor even go near it. His body wouldn't obey him any more than it would if he were under dominate person and trying to attack the guy who dominated him while said guy was forcing him to play bodyguard.

[Spore]

After trying to redo my spells I stumbled upon Suggestion and Charm Person as other Enchantment spells on my sheet. I simply don't have any decent options to replace them. And persuading the enemy to ally with me instead of being rolled over by an overpowered adventuring group is actually part of my concept so....I want to keep them.

In another instance that DM has accepted Suggestion as a subtle approach to charm spells so I don't really want to loose them. But I should trim down the "fat" a bit.

Charm Person, Suggestion, Charm Monster AND Geas seems to go a bit overboard with that idea. Maybe Honeyed Tongue works just as well (with my dice luck it might give me the difference from one attitude shift to two shifts).

So my idea is as follows: Charm Person for the occasional easy-out as well as flavor, Suggestion switched with Honeyed Tongue, Glibness and Daylight for Charm Person and Geas (we don't really enforce the rules for darkness but only one character remaining has darkvision). Or should I go for Dispel Magic instead of Daylight because not even our full casters have it yet. Two oracles and no one has it...