Proper Reaction to Charm Person.

[Segev]

Yes. It overrides the victim's choice how to treat this poor attempt at moving the goalpost.

So, "moving the goal posts" means, to you, "trying to make a point?"

I mean, all I've done here is remove magic from the equation. The mechanics are (nearly) identical ("nearly" in that I left the Charmed condition off, so you can make a case that the fact he could still attack the Socialite makes it entirely different, I suppose).

In this case, I would disagree (the phrasing of the question is a bit of a trap).

Well, yes, I'm trying to make a specific point about what is being modeled. Answered incisively, there are ways to answer my question that support the "Charm Person is still evil" position, though they serve my purpose in isolating the specifics of why in a way that, while articulated by those who disagree with me, wind up being ignored in favor of blurring lines and avoiding the points I'm trying to get at. OFten by accusing me of being a would-be rapist.

The theoretical Socialite class might as well be called the Ad Agent, but it is not the same as a spell that magically makes a choice on the target's behalf. The other trick is the word 'power', as in "one of its powers," that is followed by "the ability to study..." In this case, as in some previous examples, the class is an effect that improves the character in their ability to persuade, seduce, intimidate, etc., which is different than an inserted judgement that the target did not make of their own will.

Ah, and here you come close to hitting on the difference, but then blow right past it into the flaw I am trying to attack: Either both make a choice on the target's behalf, or neither do.

Charm person uses magic to make the spellcaster likable to a particular person. The Socialite uses observation skill to make himself likable to a particular person.

Where I was actually going with this was to ask, if you were to develop a Divination version of charm person which strictly gave the spellcaster insight into knowing exactly how to be so perfectly intriguing to the target that he makes the target unable to attack him, gets Advantage on his Charisma rolls against the target, and instantly ingratiates himself to the target like a friendly acquaintance, would that be evil and deserving of hatred when the target realized an hour later that the spellcaster was reading him like a book?

Well, that would mean the spell can totally be used for rape.

Certainly. Suggestion actually is mind control, in the sense that it can compel behaviors the target wouldn't otherwise do. (That's its whole purpose; if it can't, you wouldn't need a spell, because you could just use Charisma(Persuasion).)

If you can use it to get someone to jump it into a pool of acid by making them believe it is water, you can also make them have sex with someone by making them believe he's handsome, female, infertile and/or free of diseases when he is none of those things.

I get the impression the "sound reasonable" requirement is only there so that people actually make decent attempts at roleplaying, not to prevent the spell from bending someone's free will. After all, it is only "sound reasonable" not "be reasonable".

I agree, mostly. I just have to quibble: what is the difference between "sound reasonable" and "be reasonable" assuming the target is aware of the same generally applicable facts as the caster?

"We should camp here, in this defensible clearing" sounds reasonable, and would be reasonable except for the fact that there are fire ants lurking just below the surface, but we don't know that. "You should give away your car to the next homeless person you see begging on the side of the road" doesn't sound reasonable to me, but is exactly analogous to a knight being told to do similar with his horse.

But I do agree that it's probably there to try to get some amount of RP to make the suggestion sound like a Jedi Mind Trick rather than just a command. Even if both examples we see in fiction and some Jedi Mind Trick stunts look more like commands than suggestions.

Why are knights universally honorable? What does honor have to do with giving away your horse? And why are knights automatically rich enough to give away their horses?

Yeah, that's why I think suggestion needs to "sound reasonable" only in the sense that it doesn't require ignoring factors that hit the "can't make him do this" clauses. The spell probably MAKES objections go away other than those.

[Imbalance]

Charm person uses magic to make the spellcaster likable to a particular person. The Socialite uses observation skill to make himself likable to a particular person.

This is the error you keep making, though. The Socialite, indeed, makes himself more likeable. Charm person has no effect whatsoever on the caster, but instead changes the target's view.

[Segev]

This is the error you keep making, though. The Socialite, indeed, makes himself more likeable. Charm person has no effect whatsoever on the caster, but instead changes the target's view.

The Socialite also changes the target's view.

[Imbalance]

The Socialite also changes the target's view.

The target may change their own view based on the Socialite's presentation, but is not changed by the Socialite. The target's will remains their own.

[Segev]

The target may change their own view based on the Socialite's presentation, but is not changed by the Socialite. The target's will remains their own.

Mechanically, they're identical. The target has no more freedom not to have his opinion changed when he fails the Charisma save vs. the Socialite's ability than when he fails it against the spell.

Flavor-wise, one is using magic that targets the person, and the other is using social skills that target the person. In neither case, flavor- or mechanics-wise, can the target be forced to do something he wouldn't do for a friendly acquaintance. In neither case is he decieved about who the character is (save, perhaps, not knowing the Socialite is a Socialite). He just likes them perhaps more than is justified. It doesn't even prevent him from being angry at them! It just remains the anger one might have at a friendly acquaintance, rather than a deadly, hated enemy.

[Witty Username]

[Edit: I'm still looking for a decent response to these questions from anyone who thinks that Charm Person is an acceptable spell. They apply just as much to Bart the Bard and Gary the Glamour Bard as they do to anyone else.

1. What gives the caster the right to cast any spell on an unwilling target?
2. What gives the caster the right to determine that the target should view the caster as a friendly acquaintance for an hour?]

1. If it promotes well being, happiness or both. Making for more enjoyable evenings, informing powerful individuals of the plights of others, going about unnoticed in public to avoid unnecessary drama.

2. What gives a caster the right to sway a target to a position? Say I want to inform the princess of an impending emergency and time is of the essence. I could be persuasive and convince the guards of the plight, but that could take time proving who I am, proving that I am not dangerous(which I can't, I am a powerful wizard after all), proving that the emergency is real and we are out of time.
Or I could charm person, say I need in and that it is important, and be killed in an hour for my trouble.

[Kyutaru]

The target may change their own view based on the Socialite's presentation, but is not changed by the Socialite. The target's will remains their own.

I don't agree that implanting a suggestion is seizing control of the target's will. The spell does not say you take over their mind and force them to do your bidding. It acts entirely as a non-magical suggestion implant would, just quicker as all forms of magic tend to be. Heck, perhaps the spell itself merely converses with the target's subconscious and convinces it in the same way Persuasion works. I've witnessed plenty of examples in the world we live in where a person can be led to believe something that is not their own free will. Brainwashing is an extreme form of this and requires not a single spell.

[Segev]

[Edit: I'm still looking for a decent response to these questions from anyone who thinks that Charm Person is an acceptable spell. They apply just as much to Bart the Bard and Gary the Glamour Bard as they do to anyone else.

1. What gives the caster the right to cast any spell on an unwilling target?
2. What gives the caster the right to determine that the target should view the caster as a friendly acquaintance for an hour?]

1. What gives anybody the right to walk up to an unwilling stranger and try to make them willing to chat?
2. What gives anybody the right to act in a way that breaks the indifference or hostility the target started off with so they can make the target view them as a friendly acquaintance for an indefinite period of time?

[MadBear]

Maybe I can help this discussion in a small way.

Even with advantage on charisma checks, the caster is still 100% bound to what the DM thinks the other person would reasonably do anyway. So if using it for sex, it still a scenario where the DM goes "yeah, that's definitely something they'd do", compared to "they'd never do that, but since you've taken their free will, they're compelled to".

I have a wife that I love for instance. Bound by what the spell says, even if a person had a charisma of 20, and successfully cast charm person on, and rolled a natural 20, they still wouldn't get me to cheat on my wife. That is not within the realm of possibility of something I'd ever do, whether it was a friend or not.

So in this regard, I wonder, is the bigger problem that if the DM just lets the players roll to do something outside the bounds of the spell, how is that anything but the fault of the DM. The moment the DM let's the player roll the dice they've decided that this is something the character could in fact agree to.

A roll shouldn't ever be allowed unless there is the chance of success, in which case, the wizard is tipping the odds in their favor, but not really mind controlling them to the same degree.

Maybe we can make this make more sense if we compare it to the divination Portent ability. If a wizard waits till they have 2 20's, they could walk up to any NPC work towards making themselves friendly (using the 1st 20), and then using the 2nd could "convince them to have sex". Except, I don't know any DM's who'd let it play that way. If the DM is doesn't believe it's something that is possible, they wouldn't allow the roll, and thereby could skip portents ability.

[jh12]

Zone of Truth is a violation of the mind as much as charm person is, or are you zoning in on zone doesn't actually force you to tell the truth it simply makes lying impossible? I kinda doubt plead the 5th will work in your setting.

Pleading the 5th is perfectly fine. The beauty of Zone of Truth with a Charm Person spell is that you don't have to use it on the caster. If the victim voluntarily enters the Zone of Truth and says that the caster charmed him, you know it's true.

I mean, all I've done here is remove magic from the equation. The mechanics are (nearly) identical ("nearly" in that I left the Charmed condition off, so you can make a case that the fact he could still attack the Socialite makes it entirely different, I suppose).

No you haven't. The Socialite is vastly different, and much less powerful. Lets say Dastardly was a Socialite instead of a magician. Leaving aside the inability to attack, do you really think Alice would have still viewed him as a friendly acquaintance while he was raping and murdering her sister if he was just a Socialite and not controlling her mind? Of course not, because there is a profound difference between a magical effect that forces you to do something and ordinary human interaction. Do you really think Dastardly would still have the advantage on persuasion checks if he was just a Socialite? Again, there's no way.

Fluff matters, not just the mechanics. Just because two different things are modeled in a similar way doesn't make them the same thing. I can't hit someone with my sword from 40 feet away just because the attack roll is the same whether you are making a ranged or melee attack.

Where I was actually going with this was to ask, if you were to develop a Divination version of charm person which strictly gave the spellcaster insight into knowing exactly how to be so perfectly intriguing to the target that he makes the target unable to attack him

I wouldn't have any interest in playing a system with such a silly spell. There's nothing Dastardly could do to Alice, short of mind control, that would make Alice not want to attack him. "I should sit here and watch that intriguing guy raping and murdering my beloved sister because he's so super intriguing" is too far outside the bounds of normal human behavior. There's no insight that the caster could have to allow the caster to keep affecting the victim's mind unless the caster continued acting in accordance with that insight. If the caster realizes that the person likes to be flattered, then proceeds to insult the person, the person's perception of the caster would change. That's not true with the Charm Person spell.

1. What gives the caster the right to cast any spell on an unwilling target?
2. What gives the caster the right to determine that the target should view the caster as a friendly acquaintance for an hour?

This is the error you keep making, though. The Socialite, indeed, makes himself more likeable. Charm person has no effect whatsoever on the caster, but instead changes the target's view.

Yup. It's the difference between taking a shot for courage and slipping something in her drink. One you have a right to do. One you don't.

1. If it promotes well being, happiness or both. Making for more enjoyable evenings, informing powerful individuals of the plights of others, going about unnoticed in public to avoid unnecessary drama.

You think wanting a more enjoyable evening gives you the right to cast spells on unwilling people? I think we have a fundamental disagreement that is probably unbridgeable.

2. What gives a caster the right to sway a target to a position? Say I want to inform the princess of an impending emergency and time is of the essence. I could be persuasive and convince the guards of the plight, but that could take time proving who I am, proving that I am not dangerous(which I can't, I am a powerful wizard after all), proving that the emergency is real and we are out of time.
Or I could charm person, say I need in and that it is important, and be killed in an hour for my trouble.

You really think the guards are going to let you cast Charm Person on them? Or that being a friendly acquaintance of a guard would be enough to get you in to see the princess? That seems implausible.

What about nonemergency situations, like the ones that have been disputed throughout most of this thread?

Brainwashing is an extreme form of this and requires not a single spell.

And is generally regarded as universally evil, so that's probably not the comparison that I would go with.

[Imbalance]

Mechanically, they're identical. The target has no more freedom not to have his opinion changed when he fails the Charisma save vs. the Socialite's ability than when he fails it against the spell.

This reveals another inherent disconnect in the discussion. The topic question by the OP is: "what is a reasonable reaction to this from a narration standpoint?"

Flavor-wise, one is using magic that targets the person, and the other is using social skills that target the person. In neither case, flavor- or mechanics-wise, can the target be forced to do something he wouldn't do for a friendly acquaintance. In neither case is he decieved about who the character is (save, perhaps, not knowing the Socialite is a Socialite). He just likes them perhaps more than is justified. It doesn't even prevent him from being angry at them! It just remains the anger one might have at a friendly acquaintance, rather than a deadly, hated enemy.

The first effect of charm person is to change the target's view of the caster, both flavor- and mechanics-wise. Your Socialite has developed skills that the target may find attractive. The net effect in the abstract may be the same result that moves gameplay forward, but the method is narratively, socially different in a way that makes the target's response just as different.

[Segev]

Maybe I can help this discussion in a small way.

I've been trying to make this point; I've been told I'm promoting rape and had the "You're obviously not a woman" card played on me for it. Good luck, though!

Maybe we can make this make more sense if we compare it to the divination Portent ability. If a wizard waits till they have 2 20's, they could walk up to any NPC work towards making themselves friendly (using the 1st 20), and then using the 2nd could "convince them to have sex". Except, I don't know any DM's who'd let it play that way. If the DM is doesn't believe it's something that is possible, they wouldn't allow the roll, and thereby could skip portents ability.

Ooh, good call! I wish I'd thought of Portent. Forcing a natural 20 in your social interactions is even more powerful than giving yourself Advantage.

No you haven't. The Socialite is vastly different, and much less powerful. Lets say Dastardly was a Socialite instead of a magician. Leaving aside the inability to attack, do you really think Alice would have still viewed him as a friendly acquaintance while he was raping and murdering her sister if he was just a Socialite and not controlling her mind? Of course not, because there is a profound difference between a magical effect that forces you to do something and ordinary human interaction. Do you really think Dastardly would still have the advantage on persuasion checks if he was just a Socialite? Again, there's no way.

Dastardly is moving the goalposts; nobody is agruing what he does is okay.

The Socialite manipulating Alice until she believes Lucy is betraying her and Alice abandons her quest would also be reprehensible, as Dastardly the Socialite then proceeds to do all previously described to the Lucy who's been abandoned by Alice. But you still, I'm sure, won't claim that Socialites using their abilities are inherently wicked.

Fluff matters, not just the mechanics. Just because two different things are modeled in a similar way doesn't make them the same thing. I can't hit someone with my sword from 40 feet away just because the attack roll is the same whether you are making a ranged or melee attack.

Well, you probably could, if the mechanics really were identical, discuss things with your DM to work out a cool distant-sword maneuver. But it would be a "talk to your DM" thing.

I'm saying that charm person need not be interpreted as you're interpreting it, and that if it's not interpreted that way, it needn't be inherently wicked. You're responding by insisting that your interpretation is the only one, and therefore it's evil, and because it's evil, your interpretation must be the one true one.

Does that clarify why we've been going around in circles on this?

1. What gives the caster the right to cast any spell on an unwilling target?
2. What gives the caster the right to determine that the target should view the caster as a friendly acquaintance for an hour?

I've responded to this with reformulated questions; I don't see your answer, even in the form of new questions. I assume you've missed it. I'll repeat:

1. What gives anybody the right to walk up to an unwilling stranger and try to make them willing to chat?
2. What gives anybody the right to act in a way that breaks the indifference or hostility the target started off with so they can make the target view them as a friendly acquaintance for an indefinite period of time?

Yup. It's the difference between taking a shot for courage and slipping something in her drink. One you have a right to do. One you don't.

So you're saying that drunk people are more attractive?



Do you genuinely not see the difference between a means being inherently evil and the ends to which a means could be put being evil? Because your insistence on bringing up Dastardly suggests you don't.

[Brookshw]

1. What gives the caster the right to cast any spell on an unwilling target?
2. What gives the caster the right to determine that the target should view the caster as a friendly acquaintance for an hour?

Why are you talking about rights in an apparently lawless society where authorities do nothing and lynch mobs are okay? Pick a basis for your hypotheticals, either it's a lawless society and talking about rights doesn't matter, or a lawful society where lynch mobs aren't okay and reactions should be in proportion to actual harm suffered, not some hypothetical harm.

While I'm here, the Dastardly argument is very contrived, the spell's recipient is still free to interpose themselves between the caster and the sister, drag the sister out of there, quite a few options remain open and within the acceptable actions permitted by the spell. Please don't presume additional affects (i.e. makes you sit there stupidly) unless the spell actually causes them, which it doesn't.

[Imbalance]

I don't agree that implanting a suggestion is seizing control of the target's will. The spell does not say you take over their mind and force them to do your bidding. It acts entirely as a non-magical suggestion implant would, just quicker as all forms of magic tend to be. Heck, perhaps the spell itself merely converses with the target's subconscious and convinces it in the same way Persuasion works. I've witnessed plenty of examples in the world we live in where a person can be led to believe something that is not their own free will. Brainwashing is an extreme form of this and requires not a single spell.

It is a decision about the caster that the target did not make for themselves. Distinct from puppeteering, yes, but it is a controlled thought and thus a gateway. A person in the real world can be led, but there is no belief that is not free will, since at any time, you may change your mind. For an hour, your opinion of the caster is magically fixed.

[Segev]

It is a decision about the caster that the target did not make for themselves. Distinct from puppeteering, yes, but it is a controlled thought and thus a gateway. A person in the real world can be led, but there is no belief that is not free will, since at any time, you may change your mind. For an hour, your opinion of the caster is magically fixed.

Define "make for themselves."

Because again, you're just asserting this is so. "It's different because, um, it's a spell."

That said, I do agree that the reaction upon learning it happened should be different than a non-reaction upon not learning that it didn't, because the person did something that didn't tell the target that he'd been magically affected.

Perhaps we might make some headway if we examine this: the Enchanter subclass of Wizard gets an ability that makes the targets NOT ever realize it happened. Let's say Ella is an Enchantress, and she has this power. She uses it on James to make him see her as a friendly acquaintance. When the hour is up, her class feature says James does not, in fact, realize he'd been Charmed. However, he also doesn't have the spell forcing him to view her as a friendly acquaintance anymore.

Assuming he had no prior interactions with her to set a strongly different tone, what would be appropriate reactions from James upon reflecting on the half hour he spent with Ella during which she asked him on the date that's rapidly approaching that evening?

[jh12]

I notice that, once again, you dodged the questions. And responding with reformulated questions is most certainly dodging the questions. But because there's nothing difficult about your questions, I'll answer.

1. What gives anybody the right to walk up to an unwilling stranger and try to make them willing to chat?

First, unlike with spells, there's no way to know whether someone is an unwilling to talk without trying to talk to them first. Some people just look mean when they are by themselves. See the response to 2 for the rest of the answer, because it's all one and the same.

2. What gives anybody the right to act in a way that breaks the indifference or hostility the target started off with so they can make the target view them as a friendly acquaintance for an indefinite period of time?

Because you both are in public and are free to act, and react, within the normal bounds of human interaction. There couldn't be a society if people couldn't interact with each other. You can annoy her all you want, you can even ignore her request to leave her alone (you probably shouldn't ignore it though, and if you're too obnoxious you might find yourself thrown out of the establishment by the proprietor), but you can't keep her from leaving and you can't keep her from thinking that you are a jerk. The target benefits from society just as much as the speaker does and probably has been the undesired speaker on occasion, even if this time she's dealing with a jerk.

Dastardly is moving the goalposts; nobody is agruing what he does is okay.

Dastardly is not moving the goalposts. Dastardly is an illustration of the power of Charm Person, something a Socialite doesn't come anywhere close to achieving. You claimed it was almost the same thing, except without magic. It's not. Not even close. And Dastardly is an example of why.

The Socialite manipulating Alice until she believes Lucy is betraying her and Alice abandons her quest would also be reprehensible

She's doing all that in 6 seconds while fighting Alice and Lucy? That's impressive. But why would Alice believe the Socialite over her beloved sister? I'm pretty sure it would take more than the words of a friendly acquaintance to convince Alice to abandon her beloved sister and boon companion, especially when that so-called friendly acquaintance is currently attacking them.

But you still, I'm sure, won't claim that Socialites using their abilities are inherently wicked.

Because the Socialite skill is not nearly as powerful and represents something completely different than the Charm Person spell, which makes it pretty much completely irrelevant to an evaluation of the Charm Person spell.

Well, you probably could, if the mechanics really were identical

How are the mechanics any different? Range is just fluff.

I'm saying that charm person need not be interpreted as you're interpreting it

But you do so by claiming that it doesn't do what it does, which is why we keep going around in circles. You won't even answer two simple questions.

Do you genuinely not see the difference between a means being inherently evil and the ends to which a means could be put being evil? Because your insistence on bringing up Dastardly suggests you don't.

No it doesn't, it doesn't suggest that at all. As I've repeatedly admitted, Charm Person has many legitimate uses as a substitute for violence. But just like you aren't allowed to commit random acts of violence on people you meet in the street, you aren't allowed to cast Charm Person on them either. Because then you aren't substituting violence, you are perpetuating it.

[Imbalance]

Define "make for themselves."

Because again, you're just asserting this is so. "It's different because, um, it's a spell."

Choice. Do we choose to keep having this discussion of our own volition, or will we recognize an hour from now just how powerful the spell has been?

Of course different circumstances render different reactions. The target's continued ignorance does not negate what it is that the spell did to them, but may negate the memory of what they felt while under the effect.

[jh12]

Define "make for themselves."

Because again, you're just asserting this is so. "It's different because, um, it's a spell."

No, examples like Dastardly illustrate the difference between choice and a spell. You just keep ignoring them.

[Witty Username]

Pleading the 5th is perfectly fine. The beauty of Zone of Truth with a Charm Person spell is that you don't have to use it on the caster. If the victim voluntarily enters the Zone of Truth and says that the caster charmed him, you know it's true.

Your experience with zone of truth is vastly different from mine. usually your tied up, in a prison cell and the first question is have you committed any crimes, do you know anyone that has committed any crimes, or did you work alone when killing Baron Von Straid.

You think wanting a more enjoyable evening gives you the right to cast spells on unwilling people? I think we have a fundamental disagreement that is probably unbridgeable.

I meant for the subject(s) not necessarily for me.

What about non-emergency situations, like the ones that have been disputed throughout most of this thread?

I was addressing a non-combat scenario, since I thought that was the condition. I will admit to a misread.
If I charm a snobbish noble to convince him of the good he could do with his wealth and power of less fortunate people. I am deserving of burning?

Fluff matters, not just the mechanics. Just because two different things are modeled in a similar way doesn't make them the same thing. I can't hit someone with my sword from 40 feet away just because the attack roll is the same whether you are making a ranged or melee attack.

Bards are described as having performances so moving that it can effect others like others use magic, but Fluff matters, not mechanics so they should be treated the same as wizards and sorcerers because the spells produce the same effects.

[Kyutaru]

I'm saying that charm person need not be interpreted as you're interpreting it, and that if it's not interpreted that way, it needn't be inherently wicked. You're responding by insisting that your interpretation is the only one, and therefore it's evil, and because it's evil, your interpretation must be the one true one.

Which is why I'm no longer responding to that line of reasoning. It's a dead end perpetuated by authority.

It is a decision about the caster that the target did not make for themselves. Distinct from puppeteering, yes, but it is a controlled thought and thus a gateway. A person in the real world can be led, but there is no belief that is not free will, since at any time, you may change your mind. For an hour, your opinion of the caster is magically fixed.

For controlled thought and the enslavement of will, we have Dominate spells. That's when you have the ability to control thought, as a 5th level magical spell. Prior to that, the target retains free will and is merely being influenced by suggestions that may be refused. Even despite the Charmed state, the DM at any point can decide the target has refused the suggestion for McGuffin reason that triggers his sensibility. The previously given example of a man devoted to his wife is a fine example. It's only because this is a spell that people are having this controversy. Existing mechanics perform the functional equivalent and the Charm Person spell could have read "You use Persuasion on a target; it automatically succeeds if the target fails their Will save".

[Segev]

I notice that, once again, you dodged the questions. And responding with reformulated questions is most certainly dodging the questions. But because there's nothing difficult about your questions, I'll answer.

I have answered your questions. You just don't like my answers. At this point, if you wnat to keep accusing me of dodging your questions, you're going to have to give me some idea of what would constitute answering them other than, "Agree with jh12."

First, unlike with spells, there's no way to know whether someone is an unwilling to talk without trying to talk to them first. Some people just look mean when they are by themselves. See the response to 2 for the rest of the answer, because it's all one and the same.

There is no way to know whether they'll make the saving throw, either, until you cast it.

Because you both are in public and are free to act, and react, within the normal bounds of human interaction. There couldn't be a society if people couldn't interact with each other. You can annoy her all you want, you can even ignore her request to leave her alone (you probably shouldn't ignore it though, and if you're too obnoxious you might find yourself thrown out of the establishment by the proprietor), but you can't keep her from leaving and you can't keep her from thinking that you are a jerk. The target benefits from society just as much as the speaker does and probably has been the undesired speaker on occasion, even if this time she's dealing with a jerk.

See, there's an inherent assumption here that, somehow, "Free to act in society's accepted bounds" does include bothering somebody who doesn't want to be bothered, continuing to do so until you find a way to crack their shell, and get them to laugh and finally agree to spend some time interacting with you, but not to use a spell to do the same thing.

That assumption is, again, presuming your conclusion. Your conclusion is, "it's a horrible, socially unacceptable thing to do to somebody." I could make exactly as strong an argument that everything you said in answer to my reformulation of your question is equally horrible and should be equally socially unacceptable, using the same kind of premises (i.e. "my conclusion that they're horrible and socially unacceptable") that you did.

Honestly, I'm not even trying to persuade you at this point, so much as get you to see why your arguments are logically flawed. Even if I agreed with you, I'd be calling you out on this argumentation because it doesn't prove your point. It only demonstrates how emphatically you believe it. You'd have a much better chance of persuading me if you could grasp that you're just asserting your point and then implying that I'm a terrible person if I don't agree with you about it (e.g. by implicitly suggesting I'm okay with what Dastardly does if I'm okay with what Ella does).

Dastardly is not moving the goalposts. Dastardly is an illustration of the power of Charm Person, something a Socialite doesn't come anywhere close to achieving. You claimed it was almost the same thing, except without magic. It's not. Not even close. And Dastardly is an example of why.

He is moving the goalposts. Nobody is agruing that what Dastardly does is okay. The argument surrounds a use of charm person that doesn't touch on the "they can't attack you" thing. By bringing up Dastardly, you're conflating the two.

As I pointed out, the Socialite could achieve a similar effect by convincing Alice that Lucy is a traitor and that her quest isn't worth keeping, and making Alice go away in despair, so that Socialite Dastardly can engage in the same activities on Lucy he does in the charm person example. So, by your logic, since the Socialite can achieve the same results, his power must be equally evil.

She's doing all that in 6 seconds while fighting Alice and Lucy? That's impressive. But why would Alice believe the Socialite over her beloved sister? I'm pretty sure it would take more than the words of a friendly acquaintance to convince Alice to abandon her beloved sister and boon companion, especially when that so-called friendly acquaintance is currently attacking them.

Irrelevant whether it's in 6 seconds or over weeks of travel with them in disguise.

You're trying to say, "Because it's fast, it's evil," here. Just as bringing up Dastardly to compare to a situation where the effect you're relying on to prove the point with Dastardly doesn't matter is you trying to say, "Because this part that Ella isn't using COULD be used by somebody else, in another circumstance, for great evil, it's evil here."

Do you acknowledge that I agree that Dastardly is doing evil?

I am trying to get you to understand that Dastardly doesn't prove charm person is evil any more than a sniper using the trunk of a car to snipe at people without being seen proves that driving a car that happens to have a trunk is evil.

How are the mechanics any different? Range is just fluff.

Really? That's a fascinating claim. So, there's no "range" entry in the weapons tables, and no rules for how range interacts with weapon attacks?

Or are you saying that I missed somewhere a mechanic that says charm person granting Advantage and making people view the caster as a friendly acquaintance is different from other mechanics which grant Advantage and do the same?

Before you react, let me remind you that I understand your argument; I just find it specious, because it's poorly constructed. The claim that range is fluff is blatantly falsifiable. The claim that the mechanics behind charm person being different from my example of the Socialite or just a Diviner using his Portent-rolled 20 are mostly fluff based on how you object to one and not the other is not falsifiable, because you can't point to rules that say "this is evilly robbing them of free will, but that is not." I can point to mechanics specifying that range is one thing and melee is another.

But you do so by claiming that it doesn't do what it does, which is why we keep going around in circles. You won't even answer two simple questions.

I've answered them, but I can do so better now. So I shall: The same thing that gives Denise the Diviner the right to walk up to somebody and use her Portent-rolled 20 for her Charisma check gives Ella the right to walk up to somebody and use a spell to give herself Advantage on her Charisma check. Your only objection is based on social norms and socially-acceptable behavior, but you're arbitrarily declaring that one is socially acceptable and the other not. We don't actually have social norms surrounding spellcasting for social engagements IRL, so you're just making them up by presuming your conclusion is right, establishing what you think social norms would be if it were, and then asserting that, since social norms are the way you've established, your conclusion that it's horribly wrong and evil must be right.

We keep going around in circles because you won't examine your assumptions. You just keep making them and then being mad that others don't agree with them.

Choice. Do we choose to keep having this discussion of our own volition, or will we recognize an hour from now just how powerful the spell has been?

Of course different circumstances render different reactions. The target's continued ignorance does not negate what it is that the spell did to them, but may negate the memory of what they felt while under the effect.

Well, you or somebody else tried to bring this back to the OP's question about "approrpriate way for the NPC to respond." I was trying to start from here to see how he "should" respond, when he no longer is magically viewing her as a friendly acquaintance, but does not realize he'd been Charmed. From there, I hoped to extrapolate how the change to "realizes he's been Charmed" would look, by first using JUST the change in attitude as a baseline.

No, examples like Dastardly illustrate the difference between choice and a spell. You just keep ignoring them.

No, they really don't. They only illustrate that there is an evil use for the spell, relying on a factor in the spell that doesn't apply to the situations where I'm arguing there's room to question whether the appropriate reaction is the same as it would be in Alice's situation.

[jh12]

I meant for the subject(s) not necessarily for me.

How do you know what will let someone else have a good time and why is it up to you to decide how good of a time they have? This is one of the basic things that makes the spell objectionable--the substitution of your will for theirs.

I was addressing a non-combat scenario, since I thought that was the condition. I will admit to a misread.
If I charm a snobbish noble to convince him of the good he could do with his wealth and power of less fortunate people. I am deserving of burning?

While I think you are vastly overestimating what you can accomplish with Charm Person, the ends don't justify the means and I believe you will find that the punishment for casting a spell, especially a mind-altering spell, on a noble is especially severe.

Bards are described as having performances so moving that it can effect others like others use magic, but Fluff matters, not mechanics so they should be treated the same as wizards and sorcerers because the spells produce the same effects.

Are you talking about Glamour Bards with Enthralling Performance? I don't see them as being any different. It's okay if they are using it as a substitute for violence. It's not if they aren't.

[Imbalance]

For controlled thought and the enslavement of will, we have Dominate spells. That's when you have the ability to control thought, as a 5th level magical spell. Prior to that, the target retains free will and is merely being influenced by suggestions that may be refused. Even despite the Charmed state, the DM at any point can decide the target has refused the suggestion for McGuffin reason that triggers his sensibility. The previously given example of a man devoted to his wife is a fine example. It's only because this is a spell that people are having this controversy. Existing mechanics perform the functional equivalent and the Charm Person spell could have read "You use Persuasion on a target; it automatically succeeds if the target fails their Will save".

Yep, dominate is the total override, where charm person is the hour-long bypass hack of a single variable that is normally determined by a program of checks. That a charismatic person may be able to give the appearance of meeting the criteria that sets the output variable to 1 is still not the same as forcing the output variable to 1.

[Witty Username]

the ends don't justify the means and I believe you will find that the punishment for casting a spell, especially a mind-altering spell, on a noble is especially severe.

So, emergencies and combat are back on the table because the ends do not justify the means. mind-altering spells are a bad means.
Also, the only time that charm person forces another to do a particular course of action is in combat, so that would be the most severe violation of another's will. Combat would be the most evil use of charm person if mind-altering is evil.

I think talking out of turn next to a noble is punishable by death is most medieval circles, so I am not going say I won't be punished. But you are saying I would deserve it in this case.

as for the over hype, I was thinking charm person to get the conversation started then persuasion (cha 20, plus expertise for double proficiency) with advantage over the course of an hour. With economics data and petitions from locals for good measure.

[Hail Tempus]

Is this thread suggesting that Hypnotists are evil witches that must be murdered in their sleep?

That seriously seems like the logic path we're venturing down.

You can’t be hypnotized against your will. So, it’s not a great analogy for spells like Charm Person.

Penn & Teller aren’t Arcane Tricksters, either.

[jh12]

I have answered your questions. You just don't like my answers. At this point, if you wnat to keep accusing me of dodging your questions, you're going to have to give me some idea of what would constitute answering them other than, "Agree with jh12."

No you haven't, not until this post.

There is no way to know whether they'll make the saving throw, either, until you cast it.

That is certainly true. Irrelevant, but true. There is a way to tell if they want you to cast a spell on them, you can ask them.

See, there's an inherent assumption here that, somehow, "Free to act in society's accepted bounds" does include bothering somebody who doesn't want to be bothered, continuing to do so until you find a way to crack their shell, and get them to laugh and finally agree to spend some time interacting with you, but not to use a spell to do the same thing.

You completely ignore that I said the person was free to leave at any time and end your bothering of them. If they are in an establishment, they are also free to ask the proprietor to have you kicked out. That right there completely distinguishes it from a spell which forces them to view you as a friendly acquaintance.

That assumption is, again, presuming your conclusion. Your conclusion is, "it's a horrible, socially unacceptable thing to do to somebody." I could make exactly as strong an argument that everything you said in answer to my reformulation of your question is equally horrible and should be equally socially unacceptable, using the same kind of premises (i.e. "my conclusion that they're horrible and socially unacceptable") that you did.

So do it. Don't tell me you can do something. Be like Nike. Just do it.

Honestly, I'm not even trying to persuade you at this point, so much as get you to see why your arguments are logically flawed. Even if I agreed with you, I'd be calling you out on this argumentation because it doesn't prove your point. It only demonstrates how emphatically you believe it. You'd have a much better chance of persuading me if you could grasp that you're just asserting your point and then implying that I'm a terrible person if I don't agree with you about it (e.g. by implicitly suggesting I'm okay with what Dastardly does if I'm okay with what Ella does).

I've never suggested anything of the sort, implicitly or otherwise.

He is moving the goalposts. Nobody is agruing that what Dastardly does is okay. The argument surrounds a use of charm person that doesn't touch on the "they can't attack you" thing. By bringing up Dastardly, you're conflating the two.

Again, the Dastardly example isn't just about not being able to attack him. It's also about being forced to view him as a friendly acquaintance and being more receptive to his desires. It's a demonstration of just how much more powerful the Charm Person spell is than the Socialite.

As I pointed out, the Socialite could achieve a similar effect by convincing Alice that Lucy is a traitor and that her quest isn't worth keeping, and making Alice go away in despair, so that Socialite Dastardly can engage in the same activities on Lucy he does in the charm person example. So, by your logic, since the Socialite can achieve the same results, his power must be equally evil.

See, this here is argument by assertion. The Socialite cannot achieve a similar effect because the Socialite is not going to be able to convince Alice of anything when Alice knows the Socialite is evil. But Alice did know that Dastardly was evil yet still was forced to view him as a friendly acquaintance. This is just one of the many differences between the power of the Socialite and the power of Charm Person.

Irrelevant whether it's in 6 seconds or over weeks of travel with them in disguise.

Assertion.

You're trying to say, "Because it's fast, it's evil," here. Just as bringing up Dastardly to compare to a situation where the effect you're relying on to prove the point with Dastardly doesn't matter is you trying to say, "Because this part that Ella isn't using COULD be used by somebody else, in another circumstance, for great evil, it's evil here."

No, I'm saying because it's mind control it's generally evil unless used as a substitute for violence. Dastardly demonstrates that it is, in fact, mind control.

Do you acknowledge that I agree that Dastardly is doing evil?

Absolutely. And I've never suggested otherwise. Kyutaru is the might makes right one.

I am trying to get you to understand that Dastardly doesn't prove charm person is evil any more than a sniper using the trunk of a car to snipe at people without being seen proves that driving a car that happens to have a trunk is evil.

I've don't need to use Dastardly to prove that Charm Person is evil. It's one of the most evil examples of what can be perpetrated with the spell, but if you remember the point of the example (not mine) was to dispute your (or someone on your side) claim that Charm Person isn't mind control.

I've answered them, but I can do so better now. So I shall: The same thing that gives Denise the Diviner the right to walk up to somebody and use her Portent-rolled 20 for her Charisma check gives Ella the right to walk up to somebody and use a spell to give herself Advantage on her Charisma check.

Once again, that's not all the Charm Person spell does, so we need a further explanation.

Your only objection is based on social norms and socially-acceptable behavior, but you're arbitrarily declaring that one is socially acceptable and the other not. We don't actually have social norms surrounding spellcasting for social engagements IRL, so you're just making them up by presuming your conclusion is right, establishing what you think social norms would be if it were, and then asserting that, since social norms are the way you've established, your conclusion that it's horribly wrong and evil must be right.

This is true, we have no established social norms surrounding spell casting. We do have social norms involving bodily integrity and autonomy that are pretty well established. If you want to argue that there's an exception to those for spell casting, go right ahead. But you have to do better than claiming that it's no different than being good looking or slick talking when it's been repeatedly demonstrated that it is, in fact, different. And Dastardly is one of those examples showing just how different it is.

We keep going around in circles because you won't examine your assumptions. You just keep making them and then being mad that others don't agree with them.

No, we keep going around in circles because you keep pretending the spell is a different spell than the one actually cast and ignoring anything inconvenient to your argument.

No, they really don't. They only illustrate that there is an evil use for the spell, relying on a factor in the spell that doesn't apply to the situations where I'm arguing there's room to question whether the appropriate reaction is the same as it would be in Alice's situation.

This is a prime example of you just ignoring things that are inconvenient for your argument. Alice cannot change her perception of Dastardly based on his actions. Ella cannot change her perceptions of Brad the Bad Bard based on his actions (which don't have to be nearly as extreme as Dastardly's). Someone who is not the victim of a spell can.

[jh12]

So, emergencies and combat are back on the table because the ends do not justify the means. mind-altering spells are a bad means.

I think you meant off, not on, in the bold but I disagree. Mind control spells aren't a bad means if they are a substitute for violence. See, I would also say it was wrong of you to use violence to convince the noble to be more generous.

Also, the only time that charm person forces another to do a particular course of action is in combat,

Forcing someone to view you as a friendly acquaintance is forcing them to do something. So is forcing them to be more receptive to your desires. It may not qualify as a course of conduct, but it's still force.

so that would be the most severe violation of another's will. Combat would be the most evil use of charm person if mind-altering is evil.

No more than Magic Missile or an axe to the head, which are also acceptable in combat but totally inappropriate in most social settings.

I think talking out of turn next to a noble is punishable by death is most medieval circles, so I am not going say I won't be punished. But you are saying I would deserve it in this case.

I don't think nobles should have to put up with being assaulted any more than regular people, and an assault on the mind is especially pernicious to anyone who values autonomy.

as for the over hype, I was thinking charm person to get the conversation started then persuasion (cha 20, plus expertise for double proficiency) with advantage over the course of an hour. With economics data and petitions from locals for good measure.

Sounds like you would have been better off just relying on the facts and your natural gifts. I have a very hard time believing that a noble (or anyone else) would consider himself responsible for any commitments he made while bewitched. I also believe that any of the good arguments you made during your hour would be tainted by the knowledge that you cast a spell on him.

[Imbalance]

Well, you or somebody else tried to bring this back to the OP's question about "approrpriate way for the NPC to respond." I was trying to start from here to see how he "should" respond, when he no longer is magically viewing her as a friendly acquaintance, but does not realize he'd been Charmed. From there, I hoped to extrapolate how the change to "realizes he's been Charmed" would look, by first using JUST the change in attitude as a baseline.

I can appreciate that, but it boils down to a question of how can you react to what you don't know. Opinions about people can definitely change on a whim without rhyme or reason. So, the target would have a nice memory and perhaps some sense that their judgement of the caster's status as an acquaintance had no basis in their own decision-making, but without knowing the spell had done it, what is there to respond to?

Here's a more mechanical question: if the caster outright tells the target that they are under the effect of charm person before the duration is up, nothing happens according to the text. The spell only ends prematurely if someone in the party harms the target (harm meaning hp damage, yes?). Why is that?

[Kyutaru]

Yep, dominate is the total override, where charm person is the hour-long bypass hack of a single variable that is normally determined by a program of checks. That a charismatic person may be able to give the appearance of meeting the criteria that sets the output variable to 1 is still not the same as forcing the output variable to 1.

I will agree to disagree on that point. Charm Person is as mechanical as the Charisma check. They both operate in a strict rules setting that messes with permissions that are hard-coded into the system. It's easier to see the skill check from a roleplaying view but I can view Charm Person operating the same way. They both have strict mechanical benefits but seen abstractly operate in much the same way.

[Hail Tempus]

Well, that would mean the spell can totally be used for rape.

If you can use it to get someone to jump it into a pool of acid by making them believe it is water, you can also make them have sex with someone by making them believe he's handsome, female, infertile and/or free of diseases when he is none of those things.

I get the impression the "sound reasonable" requirement is only there so that people actually make decent attempts at roleplaying, not to prevent the spell from bending someone's free will. After all, it is only "sound reasonable" not "be reasonable".

I interpret the “sound reasonable” aspect of Suggestion to mean “reasonable to a person”, not “reasonable to this particular person.”

“Drop your weapons and go home” is a reasonable suggestion, generally, even if it might not be reasonable to, say, fanatical zealots. Suggestion’s power level is a pretty well-designed medium between Charm Person and Dominate Person.