Can you conquer real world with Charm person and Quest/Geass?

[Sordahon]

The rule is that dice rolls exist and every being has 5% chance to resist these powers.

[Gallade]

Be a pumped-up caster capable of Extending a spell (7th-level slot or Metamagic Rod)
Geas will last twice your Caster Level in days.
Bluff or Diplomance your way to the head of a country, charm your way to their office
Geas them to attack another country, it will last at least 22 days or until they get impeached/killed
Do the same with anyone with the authority to handle military matters in that country.
If they get killed, move to another country (diplomance your way across the border) and do the same

Repeat until the world is on the brink of destruction
Use your Charms to found an apocalypse cult and gather a small number of thralls
Have your Charmed thralls proselytize until you get a big legit following, then undo the charm and have them brainwashed in return
Take over a small country, keep doing your thing to destabilize others so you can have their desperate populations flocking to you

[Khedrac]

Be a pumped-up caster capable of Extending a spell (7th-level slot or Metamagic Rod)
Geas will last twice your Caster Level in days.
Bluff or Diplomance your way to the head of a country, charm your way to their office
Geas them to attack another country, it will last at least 22 days or until they get impeached/killed
Do the same with anyone with the authority to handle military matters in that country.
If they get killed, move to another country (diplomance your way across the border) and do the same

Repeat until the world is on the brink of destruction
Use your Charms to found an apocalypse cult and gather a small number of thralls
Have your Charmed thralls proselytize until you get a big legit following, then undo the charm and have them brainwashed in return
Take over a small country, keep doing your thing to destabilize others so you can have their desperate populations flocking to you

Dicover the hard way that the security forces for the people you charm send reports to the same organisations, someone collates those reports and at some point (probably after you have done a lot of damage) decides to throw their career away to save the world - you receive a bullet to the brain from someone over a mile away.

Seriously I think you will find that if major political figures show significant personality changes after your visits, it won't take long for them to work out it is your visits that cause it, even if they have no idea how.

The old adage applies: "once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action".

[lord_khaine]

There also seems to be a persistant misunderstanding that charm person makes someone your "Thrall".
It does not. It makes the target treat you like a trustet friend or ally. Thats all.

It means a charmed person will, and i quote the SRD "Wishes you well" as well as "Chat, advise, offer limited help, advocate"

A charmed person will NOT "Will take risks to help you" or "Protect, back up, heal, aid"

So the answer is likely going to be no, you cant do that.

[King of Nowhere]

It depends on how much abuse the DM lets you use for it, because it is not at all clear how much a charmed person will obey you. But a charmed person will generally not throw away matters of national security for you, so probably not, unless you also invested in a lot of other tools.

[Gallade]

I guess even small doses of Reality Ensues do spoil even a well thought out plan.

[Jack_Simth]

The rule is that dice rolls exist and every being has 5% chance to resist these powers.

Potentially yes, but it would NOT be quick. Charm Person means you can make anyone you're friend... while they're in your presence and for some number of hours thereafter. With enough work, that could be leveraged into getting your (regularly Geas'd) candidate into a suitable office, rinse and repeat. After you have enough patsies pulling strings on your behalf, you can conquer the planet mostly-quietly... but it would take a LONG time. And you'd have to be very careful to avoid the wrong people putting the pieces together.

[3WhiteFox3]

There also seems to be a persistant misunderstanding that charm person makes someone your "Thrall".
It does not. It makes the target treat you like a trustet friend or ally. Thats all.

It means a charmed person will, and i quote the SRD "Wishes you well" as well as "Chat, advise, offer limited help, advocate"

A charmed person will NOT "Will take risks to help you" or "Protect, back up, heal, aid"

So the answer is likely going to be no, you cant do that.
I don't know what you're quoting, but it's not the spell description.

So, I'll actually quote the SRD, rather than just claim I am without explaining what I'm quoting.


This charm makes a humanoid creature regard you as its trusted friend and ally (treat the target’s attitude as friendly). If the creature is currently being threatened or attacked by you or your allies, however, it receives a +5 bonus on its saving throw.

The spell does not enable you to control the charmed person as if it were an automaton, but it perceives your words and actions in the most favorable way. You can try to give the subject orders, but you must win an opposed Charisma check to convince it to do anything it wouldn’t ordinarily do. (Retries are not allowed.) An affected creature never obeys suicidal or obviously harmful orders, but it might be convinced that something very dangerous is worth doing. Any act by you or your apparent allies that threatens the charmed person breaks the spell. You must speak the person’s language to communicate your commands, or else be good at pantomiming.


So, according to the spell, they will treat you like a trusted ally. Trusted allies will "protect, backup, heal and aid". We know this because the average adventuring party treats each other as trusted allies and does those exact things. Not only that, but anything that you do or say will be percieved in the most favorable way. That means that even irrational or unlikely interpretations will be accepted (otherwise they wouldn't be the most favorable, only somewhat favorable because there are people IRL who will always interpret someone's words in a favorable way, just look at how people justify the actions and words of celebrities and politicians.) They can also be convinced to to do something very dangerous, and since the Charisma check is only necessary to make someone do something out of the ordinary, you can just charm bodyguards and they will gladly jump in front of bullets for you (because that's perfectly ordinary behavior for them).

[Khedrac]

So, according to the spell, they will treat you like a trusted ally. Trusted allies will "protect, backup, heal and aid". We know this because the average adventuring party treats each other as trusted allies and does those exact things. Not only that, but anything that you do or say will be percieved in the most favorable way. That means that even irrational or unlikely interpretations will be accepted (otherwise they wouldn't be the most favorable, only somewhat favorable because there are people IRL who will always interpret someone's words in a favorable way, just look at how people justify the actions and words of celebrities and politicians.) They can also be convinced to to do something very dangerous, and since the Charisma check is only necessary to make someone do something out of the ordinary, you can just charm bodyguards and they will gladly jump in front of bullets for you (because that's perfectly ordinary behavior for them).
Yes - and again no.
Just about anyone who is a security professional will not let their friends walk into a location they are guarding. Yes, it's their friend, yes they trust their friend, but no, if their friend is not currently allowed to be in there they are not going in. Admittedly their "friend" is quite likely to be able to use that trust to try to sneak in (lifting keys or passes or something) but they won't simply be let in because they are a trusted friend. To do that will take the aforementioned charisma check.
I cannot speak to whether they would take a bullet for their friend, but I suspect that you will find that such bodyguards are a small subset of bodyguards (and if in private sector, much higher paid) - what they will do is try to get you out of any line of fire.
Note, having such people as friends can be a drawback - if you have hired the shooter and know who is the target, your friend is likely to ignore your requests to "let you up" because he is making sure that his "friend" is safe... They do not do what you ask without thinking, they act according to their knowledge and skills precisely because they view you so favorably.

[theblasblas]

They can also be convinced to to do something very dangerous, and since the Charisma check is only necessary to make someone do something out of the ordinary, you can just charm bodyguards and they will gladly jump in front of bullets for you (because that's perfectly ordinary behavior for them).

Note that "An affected creature never obeys suicidal or obviously harmful orders" means that even with a successful charisma check you still can't convince someone to do something suicidal like taking a bullet for you. What you can convince them to do is to go first into the dangerous looking cave or pick up the dangerous looking artifact.

Another thing note is that there are many kinds of allies, anyone aware of global politics or has played Civilization should know this, and since it's not a term defined by DnD rules it cannot be something that can be used to argue from a rules perspective. What IS well defined by the rules is the "friendly" attitude and since charm person states "This charm makes a humanoid creature regard you as its trusted friend and ally (treat the target’s attitude as friendly)." The normal limit of their aid should simply be "Chat, advise, offer limited help, advocate"

[King of Nowhere]

it should also be noted that after the spell expires, the affected person goes back to thinking with his head. and there's a good chance he'll realize something was wrong.

[3WhiteFox3]

nother thing note is that there are many kinds of allies, anyone aware of global politics or has played Civilization should know this, and since it's not a term defined by DnD rules it cannot be something that can be used to argue from a rules perspective. What IS well defined by the rules is the "friendly" attitude and since charm person states "This charm makes a humanoid creature regard you as its trusted friend and ally (treat the target’s attitude as friendly)." The normal limit of their aid should simply be "Chat, advise, offer limited help, advocate"
Except, the spell explicitly allows you to order the charmed target to do things, which they will obey; which is a clear expansion of what Friendly normally means in D&D terms. Ordering a bodyguard to protect you isn't obviously harmful (as there is no guarantee that they will have to be harmed in order to obey that command) and is something it would normally do, so the check succeeds automatically. I was, admittedly being a bit glib about the 'gladly jump in front of bullets for you', but charm is still quite powerful according to the rules text.

[lord_khaine]

I don't know what you're quoting, but it's not the spell description.

So, I'll actually quote the SRD, rather than just claim I am without explaining what I'm quoting.


This charm makes a humanoid creature regard you as its trusted friend and ally (treat the target’s attitude as friendly). If the creature is currently being threatened or attacked by you or your allies, however, it receives a +5 bonus on its saving throw.

The spell does not enable you to control the charmed person as if it were an automaton, but it perceives your words and actions in the most favorable way. You can try to give the subject orders, but you must win an opposed Charisma check to convince it to do anything it wouldn’t ordinarily do. (Retries are not allowed.) An affected creature never obeys suicidal or obviously harmful orders, but it might be convinced that something very dangerous is worth doing. Any act by you or your apparent allies that threatens the charmed person breaks the spell. You must speak the person’s language to communicate your commands, or else be good at pantomiming.

It seems you bolded the wrong part though. it is right -there- treat the targets attitude as friendly.
Friendly is a status described under Diplomacy
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/diplomacy.htm
That sets the limits for what the subject would normally do and not do.

[Jowgen]

To resolve the whole rule discussion, Charm actually has a rather detailed entry in the rules compendium that clears stuff rather nicely.

A charmed creature doesn’t gain any magical ability to
understand its new friend’s language.
• A charmed creature retains its original alignment and
allegiances, with the exception that it now regards the
charming creature as a friend and gives great weight to
that creature’s suggestions and directions.
• A charmed creature fi ghts former allies only if those
allies threaten the charming creature. Even then, the
charmed creature uses the least lethal means as long
as such tactics show any possibility of success, just as
the charmed creature would do in a fight between two
actual friends.
• A charmed creature is entitled to an opposed Charisma
check against the charming creature to resist
requests to do something it wouldn’t normally do
even for a friend. If successful, the charmed creature
decides not to go along with that particular request
but remains charmed.
• A charmed creature never submits to a request that is
obviously suicidal or grievously harmful.
• If the charming creature requests that the charmed
creature do something that the charmed creature is
violently opposed to, the charmed creature can make a
new saving throw to break free of the charming effect’s
infl uence altogether.
• A charmed creature is freed of the charming effect if it
is openly attacked by the charming creature or by that
creature’s apparent allies.

On the topic of the thread, one very important consideration is that A LOT of things can mess with an ongoing charm or other compulsion, even if no one is providing any protection or doing any checks (which at a certain level of authority should really just be protocol).

Entering a Hallowed temple or anything that provides Protection from Alignment type benefits will suppress the charm and/or Geass. If someone else applies their own mental control effect, or if the target is already under one, you get to have opposed charisma checks. And the apparent ally clause can also hit you when you least expect it.

TL;DR: Some well placed charms can really help a world domination plan with some luck, but they are far from reliable.

[Xar Zarath]

It can help but Mindrape is a better option.

Charm spells are strong but you have to take it very slowly for the power play to build up.

As for Geas, as stated the spell takes some time and has to be spoken out of strong voice, so it may look weird for you to be chanting for a long time and loudly you may attract attention.