Are there guidelines on the limits to charm person?

[huttj509]

Context: Curse of Strahd book and DC 17 wisdom saves being failed causing combat to shut down whenever Strahd shows up (even if he's jsut observing us fighting a 3rd party...well, and sucking our blood).

I just...I want to write a long post explaining what I'm looking for, but i'm having trouble finding the words...

Just, is there a good resource for what Charm Person does and does not actually do?

[Greeniron]

charmed is an actual condition in the Players handbook, and it is pretty much advantage on all charisma checks and something else, I do not remember off the top of my head. It does not make you obey them or anything similar.

[SharkForce]

charmed is an actual condition in the Players handbook, and it is pretty much advantage on all charisma checks and something else, I do not remember off the top of my head. It does not make you obey them or anything similar.

the other thing is that the charmed individual cannot attack the charming individual.

that said, vampire charm does a bit more than just inflict the charmed condition. or at least, normal vampire charm does, and i'd be pretty disappointed if strahd had a worse version, being the archetypical vampire after all (i wouldn't know if he does, because i don't own CoS).

i'm not 100% sure, but iirc vampire charm mentions something along the lines of the charmed individual treating the vampire like a friend, and seeing everything they say in the most positive light. that said, if a friend told you that you should not defend yourself against a bear that was trying to kill you and you had an elephant gun, you'd still probably try and shoot the bear. just because your friend says something doesn't mean you're going to do it, even if they are really good at persuading you to do things; they might get you to take a stupid dare, but there's no chance you're going to let a bear rip your throat out.

anyways, if you have reason to expect him to interfere in advance, you may find that the protection from evil spell is quite useful.

[Ashrym]

The charmed person is treated as a friendly acquaintance, which matters on the DC chart for favors and sometimes overlooked. Charm person does enable moderate risk favors from hostile NPC's if they fit within the duration of the spell, whereas the skill (even with advantage) will only allow for small risk favors from neutral NPC's or no risk favors from hostile NPC's.

The charmed person treating the caster as friendly is more useful than the advantage on the check.

The check is made with advantage as a CHA check and DC 10 for friendly is a minor risk or sacrifice while DC 20 is a moderate risk or sacrifice. That's a bit subjective on what would be a minor, moderate, or major risk but it is pretty clear that something that can be considered more than a moderate risk would be off limits and charmed individuals can request. I tell players, "think about what you might risk for a hottie (when the consequences might be important and assuming you are responsible) you like and start ball parking from there". What one might be reasonably or realistically be talked into in such a circumstance fits under that.

This is vampire charm instead of the charm person spell.


The charmed target regards the vampire as a trusted friend to be heeded and protected. Although the target isn't under the vampire's control, it takes the vampire's requests or actions in the most favorable way it can, and it is a willing target for the vampire's bite attack.

This is the charmed condition.



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.


The general idea is what your close and trusted friends might talk you into so keeping that in mind, it's easily for a DM or player to role-play the restrictions out of what might be too extreme.

[SharkForce]

note that the spell doesn't say the target becomes friendly as defined in the DMG for social interaction purposes, merely that they become like a friendly acquaintance... which could mean they're like the shopkeeper you know the name of, or your neighbour. you'd probably mow their lawn and check their mail while they're on vacation for a week, but you're not gonna help them commit a crime or take a bullet for them unless you'd do that for most anyone. obviously, that's still much better than hostile, i'm just pointing out that it isn't necessarily all the way to being actively helpful.