Charm variation - "Helpful" attitude

[lothos]

Hi,
a friend of mine was DMing a game which involved an NPC villian who was an enchanter. This guy kept a lot of local nobles charmed, made heavy use of Suggestion and similar, even Mindrape'd a lot of people. I didn't play in the campaign (not enough time), but he was relating something to me the other day about a bit of home brew he added.

For context, this was a 3.5 edition game (not pathfinder) with quite a bit of player optimization, so he wanted to give the NPCs some strong advantages to challenge the players.

This enchanter had quite a few custom mind affecting spells. One was an Enchantment version of the Psionic Power "Mind Seed". I actually posted a question about that a long time ago here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?480542-Converting-Psionic-Powers-to-Arcane-Spells-quot-Mind-Seed-quot&highlight=mind+seed). For the record, the DM decided to keep the 3000xp component and make it 8th level. It was a big part of the campaign that eventually some of his "seeded" "mind clones" were persuaded to turn against him by the party. It sounds like it was a fun campaign.

But what I wanted to ask about was that this guy had some custom versions of Charm Person, Charm Monster and Mass Charm Monster. Instead of making the victim "Friendly", they made them "Helpful". I have seen a fair amount of discussion on if you can use diplomacy to alter someone's attitude from Friendly to Helpful after a charm, or combos involving using Charm Person and then Hypnotism. This isn't about that.

The DM decided that these variants should all be 1 level higher than the original version. I don't know what he called them, but let's call them "superior charm person" etc. So the levels were:

Superior Charm Person - level 2
Superior Charm Monster - level 5
Superior Mass Charm Monster - Level 9.

I was surprised. I'd have thought they might be higher level than this. But he had thought about it. He looked at Suggestion at level 3, Mass Suggestion at level 6 and Dominate Person at Level 5. He said that the target being "Helpful" was still less powerful than a suggestion, even though it potentially allows many separate requests to be made during the duration (1h/level - the same for Charm Person and for Suggestion). Certainly it's less controlling than someone being Dominated (though harder to detect with sense motive).

He is the DM for his campaign and can of course do whatever he likes, but I was wondering what other people in this forum thought. If you had versions of those 3 spells that were identical to the originals in duration, range, scope etc... but made the target "Helpful", how much more useful is that than just "Friendly" ? How much higher level should they be ? Is +1 spell level enough ?

This NPC Enchanter went around casting "Superior Mass Charm Monster" over lots of nobles and influential people all the time his 9th level spell slots weren't full of Mind Rape Spells, basically "remodeling" society as much as he could. Yes, he probably should have just Mind Raped everyone, but for the story, it was more interesting to have some of the NPCs just "super charmed" to be Helpful to him.

So any thoughts ? I'm really interested to hear opinions.

[Fouredged Sword]

Helpful means people will listen to you and consider what you say. Suggestion forces people to listen to you and accept what you say as truth. A helpful guard will apologize that he cannot let you in and direct you to the guard captain for you to make your case to someone who can make the decision to let you in without an invite to the party. A suggested guard will accept your are a VIP he failed to recognize and let you in quietly to save himself embarrassment. A helpful merchant will cut into his profit margin with a friend and family discount. A suggested merchant will sell to you at a loss to hook such a obviously valuable customer.

Helpful people consider what would make you happy and what your desires are and try to think of you in a positive light. Suggested people do what you tell them to. Making spells that are one level lower than the suggestion versions makes sense. Suggestion is a much more powerful ability that can push people further out of their normal behavior than altering them to helpful.

Now to consider the difference between friendly and helpful

Friendly people act nice. Helpful people act in your interests. A friendly guard will chat with you and offer friendly advice if prompted. A helpful guard will realize you want something and try to think up a way to get it without breaking his duty. A friendly merchant won't cheat you. A helpful merchant will actively try to make sure you can afford his prices.

Again, helpful is significantly more powerful than friendly. Friendly people do what they think is expected of them. A helpful person will seek to aid you out of their own initiative. A single spell level bump seems appropriate.

NOW - Consider the following. Imagine a spell that for a very short duration made someone fanatic, say rounds per level. How would you place that spell? I would think charm level +3 as it is pretty close to a short duration dominate.