Would Friends be better if it instead worked only for improving attitude?

[Segev]

I mean "better" in a "for the game" and "to achieve its narrative fantasy function" sense, not necessarily "more powerful" or anything of the sort. (Though I also am not opposed to that, as long as it's not overpowered for a cantrip.)

The big problem with it is it gives advantage on social interaction checks, and then makes them hostile. What if, instead, it made initial meetings with new characters that would otherwise have hostile attitudes instead have indifferent ones? Alternatively, it give Advantage only on rolls to improve attitude of the target, rather than on all social rolls. Either way, it loses the "and then they become hostile" clause (which is both dumb and overpowered, as well as being very counter to the narrative fantasy of it).

Or maybe it just raises the attitude level of the target by 1 (maximum of Friendly), no matter what, and their attitude goes back to normal at the end of the spell.

For usefulness, make it have only a material component, so it can be done "subtly" by nature.

Which of these, if any, would be wildly out of line for a social cantrip? Any other ideas for improving it without making it too strong? With an eye towards remembering that what friends did waaaaay back in 1e was give you a Charisma of 18 for purposes of the "initial reactions" table that gave NPCs randomly-generated attitudes towards the players.

[KorvinStarmast]

Friends would be better if it just gave you a +1d4 or a +1d6 on your next persuasion check.

[Segev]

Friends would be better if it just gave you a +1d4 or a +1d6 on your next persuasion check.

Eh, then it basically is guidance, but more narrow.

[RSP]

Eh, then it basically is guidance, but more narrow.

Make it +1d4 or +1d6 on a single target, with a duration of a minute or an hour, no Concentration. (I’d probably say +1d4 for an Hour, without having thought about it too much.)

Now it’s better at what it does than Guidance, without being a huge advantage.

[Angelalex242]

Ya know, it's only a cantrip.

I'd say you fix this by having the creature become hostile to anyone that looks reasonably like the person who influenced it. A cantrip should not give the influenced person unerring tracking abilities to someone who's invisible or disguised or mask of many faces or whatever.

Thus, clever charisma casters can use it to gain advantage and frame some other poor sod nearby.

Alternatively, use the spell if you want to be attacked 'unprovoked.' The ultimate result of this spell is making enemies, not friends.

[Segev]

Ya know, it's only a cantrip.

I'd say you fix this by having the creature become hostile to anyone that looks reasonably like the person who influenced it. A cantrip should not give the influenced person unerring tracking abilities to someone who's invisible or disguised or mask of many faces or whatever.

Thus, clever charisma casters can use it to gain advantage and frame some other poor sod nearby.

Alternatively, use the spell if you want to be attacked 'unprovoked.' The ultimate result of this spell is making enemies, not friends.

See, to me, the "becomes hostile" part is honestly overpowered.

If it does make somebody have unerring tracking, that's ridiculous on its face. If it doesn't, then it instead means you can impersonate somebody's closest friend or lover and turn them murderous against them.

[PhoenixPhyre]

See, to me, the "becomes hostile" part is honestly overpowered.

If it does make somebody have unerring tracking, that's ridiculous on its face. If it doesn't, then it instead means you can impersonate somebody's closest friend or lover and turn them murderous against them.

Hostile doesn't mean murderous. It just means "A hostile creature opposes the adventurers and their goals but doesn’t necessarily attack them on sight." (quoting from the DMG). Just like friendly (aka charm) doesn't mean "does whatever you say", it just means "A friendly creature wants to help the adventurers and wishes for them to succeed. For tasks or actions that require no particular risk, effort, or cost, friendly creatures usually help without question. If an element of personal risk is involved, a successful Charisma check might be required to convince a friendly creature to take that risk."

[Angelalex242]

So, you might not convince a previously loving couple to kill each other, but you could easily convince them to head to divorce court.

[Elysiume]

It's just a weird spell overall; a mishmash of Glibness and Charm Person. RAW, you don't even need to interact with the creature of your choice for them to become hostile: you cast the spell on yourself, but the creature knows you "used magic to influence its mood." There's no save or ability to not be influenced; it just happens and they know it happened. It'd be absurd to argue that's how it was intended to work; it seems like a poorly-thought-out downside to balance out what they thought would be a too-strong cantrip. It's also weird that Friends can target any creature while Charm Person is only humanoids.

To keep it more like its original version, I'd opt for a mix of these:


Or maybe it just raises the attitude level of the target by 1 (maximum of Friendly), no matter what, and their attitude goes back to normal at the end of the spell.

Friends would be better if it just gave you a +1d4 or a +1d6 on your next persuasion check.


Friends
Enchantment cantrip
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: 30 feet
Target: A non-hostile creature you can see within range
Components: M (a small amount of makeup applied to the face as this spell is cast)
Duration: Concentration, up to 1 minute

For the duration, the creature treats you as a friendly acquaintance. On your next Charisma check during the duration, you may roll a 1d4 and add the number rolled to your ability check. When the spell ends, the target returns to its initial attitude towards you.

This makes more mechanical sense to me (none of the weirdness about no-save, no-target, no-contact attitude changing) and avoids needing a significant downside (that can be swung to an upside) to balance out how strong it is. Ultimately it's still functionally some degree of mind control, though, and I think that's just an awkward thing to put as a cantrip — people will (rightfully) be mad if you mess with their mind. So maybe something like a Lesser Glibness, albeit somewhat stepping on the toes of (high-level) bards and warlocks due to Friends being more accessible:


Friends
Enchantment cantrip
Casting Time: 1 action
Target: Self
Components: M (a small amount of makeup applied to the face as this spell is cast)
Duration: Concentration, up to 1 minute

For the duration, non-hostile creatures are more friendly towards you. Until the spell ends, when you make a Charisma check against a non-hostile creature, you can replace the number you rolled with a 10.

You're just friendly for the duration! People give you the benefit of the doubt (aka you can't beef the roll). Helps you make a good first impression, and hopefully you can parley that into a successful interaction.

[Kurt Kurageous]

Here's some useless possibly misremembered history.

One of the many things that got cut last minute (between when HotDQ was published and final edition of PHB), there was some mechanics about social that kept it basic but unfortunatey made things more complex than a roll of a d20. I think it was called Attitude. An NPC could be hostile, neutral, or friendly. Friends was designed to shift the NPC Attitude one notch, but it would automatically go to hostile at the end of the spell.

The lingering vestigial term "hostile" and that bit in the DMG is all that remains now. And you've wasted precious seconds of your life reading this.

[Sigreid]

Ok, this is more off the rails and definitely in DM ruling territory, but what if friends had the DM give you a clue on how to approach someone? Something along the lines of "He's a drinker", "She values hard work", "He pays attention to how animals react to people" so the player gets and advantage known how to kick off the interraction.

[Kurt Kurageous]

Ok, this is more off the rails and definitely in DM ruling territory, but what if friends had the DM give you a clue on how to approach someone? Something along the lines of "He's a drinker", "She values hard work", "He pays attention to how animals react to people" so the player gets and advantage known how to kick off the interraction.

This might work, much like a passive insight comparison. Reading someones emotional state accurately when they re not obviously in distress is probably a DC15, allowing a 1st level with a 16 wis and proficiency to automatically read it. Casting friends might make this automatic, even if the target is trying to be deceptive.

[Segev]

The ones where you get bonuses or fixed rolls based on knowledge of their emotional state sound more like divination than enchantment. Maybe it could be made such, but the spell's theoretical nature is such that it makes you more likable. In 5e, to a specific target.


Maybe it should go all the way to only working on somebody who hasn't met you before, causing initial reaction attitude to be Friendly (it's called "friends," after all), and after the spell is done, the target's attitude becomes whatever it would be based on how you interacted with them. Could go to hostile if you didn't manage to do something to make them remain friendly or indifferent, or if you did something offensive. Might require concentration, just so it's harder to spam, as you focus on being likable to this one specific guy.

[Sigreid]

The ones where you get bonuses or fixed rolls based on knowledge of their emotional state sound more like divination than enchantment. Maybe it could be made such, but the spell's theoretical nature is such that it makes you more likable. In 5e, to a specific target.


Maybe it should go all the way to only working on somebody who hasn't met you before, causing initial reaction attitude to be Friendly (it's called "friends," after all), and after the spell is done, the target's attitude becomes whatever it would be based on how you interacted with them. Could go to hostile if you didn't manage to do something to make them remain friendly or indifferent, or if you did something offensive. Might require concentration, just so it's harder to spam, as you focus on being likable to this one specific guy.

I was just trying to think of a way it could be really useful, without being overpowered and lose that kickback side effect that makes it awful for anyone who isn't disguised as someone else.

[Angelalex242]

Pretty much everyone who would have this spell has an easy way of disguising themselves, and if you're choosing this cantrip to begin with, you're probably designed to disguise with the actor feat besides.

[Segev]

Pretty much everyone who would have this spell has an easy way of disguising themselves, and if you're choosing this cantrip to begin with, you're probably designed to disguise with the actor feat besides.

While true, this is actually part of what I see as the problem: the spell is used more to abuse its "drawback" as a social weapon than to do what its ostensible purpose is.

And we have history toell us that it was not ironically named. It is meant to enable you to make friends more easily.

Causing a specific target who has not prior established attitude towards you to have his initial attitude towards you be "friendly" for up to a minute and then become whatever it would be without magic based on the interactions you've had and his natural disposition would be potent but maybe not too potent?

[Telok]

While true, this is actually part of what I see as the problem: the spell is used more to abuse its "drawback" as a social weapon than to do what its ostensible purpose is.

And we have history to tell us that it was not ironically named. It is meant to enable you to make friends more easily.

I would totally cheer on anyone who did a fanfic about how the first wizard to develop Friends managed to seriously muff it up somehow and people just use it anyways to abuse the drawback because its so dang overpowered for a cantrip. It has happened IRL on occasion after all, so it just makes stuff in general seem more believable.

[Psyren]

Hostile doesn't mean murderous. It just means "A hostile creature opposes the adventurers and their goals but doesn’t necessarily attack them on sight." (quoting from the DMG). Just like friendly (aka charm) doesn't mean "does whatever you say", it just means "A friendly creature wants to help the adventurers and wishes for them to succeed. For tasks or actions that require no particular risk, effort, or cost, friendly creatures usually help without question. If an element of personal risk is involved, a successful Charisma check might be required to convince a friendly creature to take that risk."

This. Lots of spells become overpowered if you let them do more than they say, and this is a great example.

As for the "disguise yourself as someone else and direct the target's ire to that person," you're firmly in DM territory there because as written the spell makes them hostile to you. It doesn't say anything about being hostile to who you appear to be. A DM might even rule this lets them defeat your disguise, as the target gets inexplicable/magically-induced feelings of hostility towards you but not the person you're otherwise perfectly impersonating, even when you're standing side by side, because magic.

[Segev]

This. Lots of spells become overpowered if you let them do more than they say, and this is a great example.

As for the "disguise yourself as someone else and direct the target's ire to that person," you're firmly in DM territory there because as written the spell makes them hostile to you. It doesn't say anything about being hostile to who you appear to be. A DM might even rule this lets them defeat your disguise, as the target gets inexplicable/magically-induced feelings of hostility towards you but not the person you're otherwise perfectly impersonating, even when you're standing side by side, because magic.

You're firmly in DM territory anyway, since it requires DM adjudication to determine whether the spell magically informs the target of exactly who did it, no matter if he ever sees them, ever interacts with them, or has any means of knowing anything about them. After all, they get hostile because they know you used magic to manipulate them. If they don't know who you are... well, like I said, you're in DM territory no matter HOW the DM rules this works. Because he MUST rule. The spell doesn't say how to resolve it.

It's part of why it's a badly-written spell as-is.

And yes, "murderous" was perhaps a bad choice of hyperbole. Read it as hyperbole and you get the point I was trying to make, though.

Impersonate a man and cast this spell on his business partner, and watch that business crumble as one partner becomes hostile to the other. At the very least, watch things go badly until they patch things up.

On the other hand, if the target knows you, specifically, are the one who did it, but doesn't know anything else, then impersonating somebody else and casting the spell on them (for the first time) will still likely get them to do what you wanted. After all, the King is hostile to Edna the Enchantress (whoever she is), not his advisor Melissa that Magnificent, who just gave him some advice he thought very excellent (and who definitely isn't Edna the Enchantress; she told him so!). The fact that Melissa the Magnificent had Advantage on those social rolls to persuade the King that she was, in fact, Melissa and not Edna, as well as that this was spectacularly good advice, is not known to the King, since he only knows Edna the Enchantress used magic to manipulate him. And that was Melissa, not Edna.

[Sigreid]

You're firmly in DM territory anyway, since it requires DM adjudication to determine whether the spell magically informs the target of exactly who did it, no matter if he ever sees them, ever interacts with them, or has any means of knowing anything about them. After all, they get hostile because they know you used magic to manipulate them. If they don't know who you are... well, like I said, you're in DM territory no matter HOW the DM rules this works. Because he MUST rule. The spell doesn't say how to resolve it.

It's part of why it's a badly-written spell as-is.

And yes, "murderous" was perhaps a bad choice of hyperbole. Read it as hyperbole and you get the point I was trying to make, though.

Impersonate a man and cast this spell on his business partner, and watch that business crumble as one partner becomes hostile to the other. At the very least, watch things go badly until they patch things up.

On the other hand, if the target knows you, specifically, are the one who did it, but doesn't know anything else, then impersonating somebody else and casting the spell on them (for the first time) will still likely get them to do what you wanted. After all, the King is hostile to Edna the Enchantress (whoever she is), not his advisor Melissa that Magnificent, who just gave him some advice he thought very excellent (and who definitely isn't Edna the Enchantress; she told him so!). The fact that Melissa the Magnificent had Advantage on those social rolls to persuade the King that she was, in fact, Melissa and not Edna, as well as that this was spectacularly good advice, is not known to the King, since he only knows Edna the Enchantress used magic to manipulate him. And that was Melissa, not Edna.

First, it would be reasonable to rule that the partner knows his partner well enough to know that's beyond his partner's abilities. Second, it could be interpreted not as the person knows it was you, but either the cantrip leaves kind of a magical stink, or the target subconsciously gets a creepy feeling from you next time you meet. Not saying either of these is the right way to rule, but if a DM is just wanting to shut down Disguise + Friends shenanigans, that could be a way to view it.

Personally, I've never taken friends because the way it works just makes it not worth it. There are plenty of other ways to go that don't run the risk of that kind of a drawback.

[Segev]

First, it would be reasonable to rule that the partner knows his partner well enough to know that's beyond his partner's abilities. Second, it could be interpreted not as the person knows it was you, but either the cantrip leaves kind of a magical stink, or the target subconsciously gets a creepy feeling from you next time you meet. Not saying either of these is the right way to rule, but if a DM is just wanting to shut down Disguise + Friends shenanigans, that could be a way to view it.

Personally, I've never taken friends because the way it works just makes it not worth it. There are plenty of other ways to go that don't run the risk of that kind of a drawback.

My point being that it requires DM adjudication no matter how you want to work it. And, unless the DM is being inconsistent just to make sure the downside is 100% downside, there's ALWAYS a way to make it work to your favor/advantage once you know how the DM has ruled it works. And few, if any, of those ways actually align with the narrative intent of the spell.



This is why I started a thread asking about alternate ways to make the spell work. I'm focused on "improving attitude" because it aligns with the social system in a somewhat unique way and with the name of the spell and its historical use in D&D's earlier editions.

1 minute of magically-enforced Friendly on somebody who'd never gotten an impression of you in person before, followed by an attitude set by a combination of his baseline reaction to "someone like you" and how you used the minute of Friendliness to try to interact with him. (e.g. if you tried to win him over, he might override his natural hostile reaction by deciding he was right and you're "one of the good ones" or something, if you succeeded in your social rolls and the like; if you instead tried to wheedle and manipulate him, he'd feel taken advantage of and be hostile after all.) It still being single target means you're not charming a pair of naturally-hostile dwarven guards as a hated elf, but you might smarm a solitary one. Or get one to convince the other to at least let him hear you out.

It becomes more a spell about getting your foot in the door and maybe, if you're good enough, making a lasting positive impression, than it does a spell about tricking people into doing something for you really quickly before they turn hostile automatically - or worse, about turning people hostile against innocent people you're impersonating.

[Psyren]

You're firmly in DM territory anyway, since it requires DM adjudication to determine whether the spell magically informs the target of exactly who did it, no matter if he ever sees them, ever interacts with them, or has any means of knowing anything about them. After all, they get hostile because they know you used magic to manipulate them. If they don't know who you are... well, like I said, you're in DM territory no matter HOW the DM rules this works. Because he MUST rule. The spell doesn't say how to resolve it.

It's part of why it's a badly-written spell as-is.

And yes, "murderous" was perhaps a bad choice of hyperbole. Read it as hyperbole and you get the point I was trying to make, though.

Impersonate a man and cast this spell on his business partner, and watch that business crumble as one partner becomes hostile to the other. At the very least, watch things go badly until they patch things up.

On the other hand, if the target knows you, specifically, are the one who did it, but doesn't know anything else, then impersonating somebody else and casting the spell on them (for the first time) will still likely get them to do what you wanted. After all, the King is hostile to Edna the Enchantress (whoever she is), not his advisor Melissa that Magnificent, who just gave him some advice he thought very excellent (and who definitely isn't Edna the Enchantress; she told him so!). The fact that Melissa the Magnificent had Advantage on those social rolls to persuade the King that she was, in fact, Melissa and not Edna, as well as that this was spectacularly good advice, is not known to the King, since he only knows Edna the Enchantress used magic to manipulate him. And that was Melissa, not Edna.

It's true that adjudicating it is going to vary from DM to DM, but as Angelaex242 mentioned, at the end of the day it's a cantrip. If I can interpret it one way to collapse an entire business empire with a single casting and another way to make that unlikely, I'm probably going with the latter, because cantrip.

To wit: I'd have the victim experience some confusion, because he has magically induced feelings of hostility towards you that don't exist when he's faced with his actual business partner, and probably give him a middling Insight check to figure out something is up and that there might be two of you running around. You might screw up a business deal or three and create some friction between them that can be exploited. But if you try to do anything too long-term with the spell then your chances of discovery are going to skyrocket.

[Sigreid]

My point being that it requires DM adjudication no matter how you want to work it. And, unless the DM is being inconsistent just to make sure the downside is 100% downside, there's ALWAYS a way to make it work to your favor/advantage once you know how the DM has ruled it works. And few, if any, of those ways actually align with the narrative intent of the spell.



This is why I started a thread asking about alternate ways to make the spell work. I'm focused on "improving attitude" because it aligns with the social system in a somewhat unique way and with the name of the spell and its historical use in D&D's earlier editions.

1 minute of magically-enforced Friendly on somebody who'd never gotten an impression of you in person before, followed by an attitude set by a combination of his baseline reaction to "someone like you" and how you used the minute of Friendliness to try to interact with him. (e.g. if you tried to win him over, he might override his natural hostile reaction by deciding he was right and you're "one of the good ones" or something, if you succeeded in your social rolls and the like; if you instead tried to wheedle and manipulate him, he'd feel taken advantage of and be hostile after all.) It still being single target means you're not charming a pair of naturally-hostile dwarven guards as a hated elf, but you might smarm a solitary one. Or get one to convince the other to at least let him hear you out.

It becomes more a spell about getting your foot in the door and maybe, if you're good enough, making a lasting positive impression, than it does a spell about tricking people into doing something for you really quickly before they turn hostile automatically - or worse, about turning people hostile against innocent people you're impersonating.

Absolutely it's a DM ruling and once you know how your DM rules you can make better use. But isn't that why we aren't playing a computer game?

But yeah, I'd like it to be something that actually sees some use now and then.

[Segev]

It's true that adjudicating it is going to vary from DM to DM, but as Angelaex242 mentioned, at the end of the day it's a cantrip. If I can interpret it one way to collapse an entire business empire with a single casting and another way to make that unlikely, I'm probably going with the latter, because cantrip.

To wit: I'd have the victim experience some confusion, because he has magically induced feelings of hostility towards you that don't exist when he's faced with his actual business partner, and probably give him a middling Insight check to figure out something is up and that there might be two of you running around. You might screw up a business deal or three and create some friction between them that can be exploited. But if you try to do anything too long-term with the spell then your chances of discovery are going to skyrocket.

At the end of the day, it's a cantrip, and it shouldn't override more powerful magics, either, by giving somebody unerring insight into the fact that Mary the Magnificent - his advisor - and "Mary the Magnificent" - who is totally not Edna the Enchantress in a high level magical disguise, why do you ask - are two different people.

Heck, even ruling how long he remains hostile is an open question. The spell says he becomes so. It doesn't say he remains so.

If you instantaneously render somebody Friendly through normal social interaction, they only remain that way until you do something to render them less than friendly. They're not stuck that way forever. Heck, they may not remain that way if you part ways for a while and come back together. If they've gotten a job since then as a security guard and they catch you trying to sneak in, they're likely to be verging on hostile just by default, even if you were friendly two weeks ago after drinking together in the bar, before he got this job.

Likewise, even if you do something to render a guy hostile, wounds heal with time, and even that guy you were in a bar fight with last week might be indifferent when he meets you again later. He was hostile then, but he's indifferent now, and all that's changed is time to let the heated heads cool.

So, then, if there's no magically-induced hostility towards you, it almost certainly doesn't carry over to whoever you look like when he meets you again, if he doesn't know you're the same person. If there IS magically-induced hostility, how long does it last? Once again, there's a DM's call, here. Is it eternal? Does having used the spell once mean that he can forever identify you as somebody who's used the spell on him? After all, the spell explicitly states that the creature "realizes you used magic to influence its mood." Whether you read that as causal to "and becomes hostile to you," or read those as totally independent clauses, both are equally in force. If he is hostile towards you because of the magic, he must also be aware you used magic to influence his mood because the magic tells him so. So, how long does that last? Forever? If Edna the Elven Enchantress, disguised as an old beggar woman for reasons of her own, uses friends on a princeling when he's 7 years old to convince him to go back to his guards when she sees him trying to sneak off to play with some ruffians, and then doesn't see him again until he's a 70-year-old king and meets him in her native elven splendor, does he immediately recognize that she used magic to influence his mood and become/remain hostile towards her, despite never having seen anybody who looks quite like her before? Does he believe she JUST tried to influence his mood, or is the magic precise enough to let him know it was decades ago, when he was 1/10th his current age, even though he saw no elf-ladies that look like this one back then?

If the answer is "no," and he doesn't still have that lingering hostility and knowledge Edna the Elven Enchantress used magic to influence his mood, then when did it wear off?

If the answer is "yes," once again, that's an amazingly powerful cantrip.

[Psyren]

"Unerring," no - but reason to be suspicious, sure.

Ultimately, Friends should be used for lightweight, limited infiltration - preferably against dullards - not to insert yourself seamlessly into a hostile group long-term like you're Tsukishima from Bleach.

And yes, I agree there's a lot of other question marks with the spell like how long the magically-induced hostility lasts etc.

[Segev]

"Unerring," no - but reason to be suspicious, sure.

Ultimately, Friends should be used for lightweight, limited infiltration - preferably against dullards - not to insert yourself seamlessly into a hostile group long-term like you're Tsukishima from Bleach.

And yes, I agree there's a lot of other question marks with the spell like how long the magically-induced hostility lasts etc.

I agree with the use case. Though I'd not limit it to "dullards." I think the use case is primarily meant to be for initial interactions. As written, for throw-away interactions. I imagine the writer pictured walking up to a vendor to haggle with Advantage and then walk away before the minute is up, having gotten the good price he sought. Then the vendor is mad because, after the minute is gone, he realizes the guy just sweet-talked him into a bad decision with magical good-feelings.

Or, if not a vendor, still somebody he wants to get a sweetheart deal of some sort from, and can do so in 1 minute or less. Fast-talk his way past a guard, or sweet talk his way past a nurse to talk to a patient, etc.

The original, 1e use of it was meant to get you a better (the best) result on Reaction Roll Tables. This would have longer-term repercussions and no drawbacks, generally. My proposal is to make it set the initial reaction of a creature who has no personal experience with you in direct personal interaction to Friendly, and hold it there for a minute. Gives you a minute to try to fast-talk into a friendly ongoing attitude at an easy DC if you actually act in a way that might make people like you. Foot in the door, so to speak. Abuse it to ask for the moon while they're friendly, and when the minute ends and they haven't got reason to continue to feel friendly, they'll stop and maybe even feel jilted, cheated, or swindled, worsening the attitude. But use it to just get them to give you a chance to show you're a nice guy, on the up-and-up, etc., and they may well stay Friendly, or at least drop only to Indifferent if they have reasons not to trust their new acquaintance, but haven't gotten specific reason to think you're malignant.

[KorvinStarmast]

One of the many things that got cut last minute (between when HotDQ was published and final edition of PHB), there was some mechanics about social that kept it basic but unfortunately made things more complex than a roll of a d20.
I think it was called Attitude.
An NPC could be hostile, neutral, or friendly. Friends was designed to shift the NPC Attitude one notch, but it would automatically go to hostile at the end of the spell.

The lingering vestigial term "hostile" and that bit in the DMG is all that remains now. reminds me of their failure to clean up the Grappler feat in the original PHB.

Second suggestion:
Just get rid of it. It's part of the pointless spell bloat in this edition.

[Segev]

Here's some useless possibly misremembered history.

One of the many things that got cut last minute (between when HotDQ was published and final edition of PHB), there was some mechanics about social that kept it basic but unfortunatey made things more complex than a roll of a d20. I think it was called Attitude. An NPC could be hostile, neutral, or friendly. Friends was designed to shift the NPC Attitude one notch, but it would automatically go to hostile at the end of the spell.

The lingering vestigial term "hostile" and that bit in the DMG is all that remains now. And you've wasted precious seconds of your life reading this.

I think I meant to reply to this before, and somehow forgot to. Sorry. How is this different from the "attitude" rules we have in the DMG on p. 244-245? This isn't meant to be snarky; I am curious if there's a difference, or if this is something that you just didn't know made it into the final printing, but in the DMG.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I think I meant to reply to this before, and somehow forgot to. Sorry. How is this different from the "attitude" rules we have in the DMG on p. 244-245? This isn't meant to be snarky; I am curious if there's a difference, or if this is something that you just didn't know made it into the final printing, but in the DMG.

The only difference I see is in the behavior of Friends (which currently just sets it to friendly as opposed to up one notch). Other than that, the attitude system (ok, it's called Hostile/Indifferent/Friendly, not Hostile/Neutral/Friendly) is the same from what I can see.

[Sigreid]

What if instead of advantage on cha checks, a failed save against friends caused the NPC attitude to increase by 1, with the limitation that it can't be cast by the same caster on the same target again EVER?

[Psyren]

I agree with the use case. Though I'd not limit it to "dullards." I think the use case is primarily meant to be for initial interactions. As written, for throw-away interactions. I imagine the writer pictured walking up to a vendor to haggle with Advantage and then walk away before the minute is up, having gotten the good price he sought. Then the vendor is mad because, after the minute is gone, he realizes the guy just sweet-talked him into a bad decision with magical good-feelings.

Or, if not a vendor, still somebody he wants to get a sweetheart deal of some sort from, and can do so in 1 minute or less. Fast-talk his way past a guard, or sweet talk his way past a nurse to talk to a patient, etc.

I'm not limiting it either - my use of "preferably against dullards" was meant to imply that a cantrip should generally not be able to bypass higher level challenges. I think your examples are fine, as well as stuff like getting past a stuffy bureaucrat or tricking some dim ogres, whereas something like infiltrating a Drow Noble House or convincing a dragon not to destroy a town should ideally not be the province of such a minor spell.

[Keravath]

So, you might not convince a previously loving couple to kill each other, but you could easily convince them to head to divorce court.

If a single argument led to divorce court, I don't think there would be any married people left.

Friends turns the target "hostile" but as cited above from the DMG this just means opposed to the person who cast the spell. It doesn't mean murderous, attacks on sight, willing to kill the caster or anything else so drastic. I suspect most people have been "hostile" towards someone else at some point in their lives and it doesn't mean "willing to hurt or kill them".

So, if you run into a previously loving couple and impersonate one of them then you are most likely to cause an argument and that is probably about it.

In the case of the Friends cantrip, I suspect bouncers are so used to getting this cast on them that they either just ignore it or they will always have at least two bouncers/doormen preventing entry so that they both won't be affected at the same time (except for the rare sorcerer who could twin the spell ... but then they couldn't cast it subtly so the odds of being noticed are higher).

However, if you want a version of Friends that would be useful without a downside then something like the following:

Add a d4 to deception, intimidation or persuasion checks with the affected creature. The Friends cantrip lasts one minute. The Friends cantrip requires only a material component. Interaction with the material component requires a DC 25 perception check to be noticed.

You could swap the DC25 with the spell being cast subtly so that the interaction with the material component can't be noticed but I'd like to think that particularly perceptive creatures should have a chance to notice that they are being influenced.