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Thread: Proper Reaction to Charm Person.
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2019-05-13, 02:26 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Proper Reaction to Charm Person.
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).
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.
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?
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).)
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.
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.
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2019-05-13, 02:47 PM (ISO 8601)
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2019-05-13, 02:50 PM (ISO 8601)
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2019-05-13, 02:59 PM (ISO 8601)
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2019-05-13, 03:03 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Proper Reaction to Charm Person.
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.
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2019-05-13, 03:05 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Proper Reaction to Charm Person.
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.My sig is something witty.
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2019-05-13, 03:05 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Proper Reaction to Charm Person.
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.
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2019-05-13, 03:08 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Proper Reaction to Charm Person.
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?
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2019-05-13, 03:25 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Proper Reaction to Charm Person.
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.
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2019-05-13, 03:28 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Proper Reaction to Charm Person.
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.
Originally Posted by Segev
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
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?
Originally Posted by Imbalance
Originally Posted by Witty Username
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.
What about nonemergency situations, like the ones that have been disputed throughout most of this thread?
Originally Posted by Kyutaru
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2019-05-13, 03:31 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Proper Reaction to Charm Person.
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.
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2019-05-13, 03:47 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Proper Reaction to Charm Person.
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!
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.
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.
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?
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?
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.
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2019-05-13, 03:52 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Proper Reaction to Charm Person.
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.
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2019-05-13, 03:58 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Proper Reaction to Charm Person.
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.
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2019-05-13, 04:03 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Proper Reaction to Charm Person.
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?
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2019-05-13, 04:13 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Proper Reaction to Charm Person.
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.
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?
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
But you still, I'm sure, won't claim that Socialites using their abilities are inherently wicked.
Well, you probably could, if the mechanics really were identical
I'm saying that charm person need not be interpreted as you're interpreting it
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.
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2019-05-13, 04:26 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Proper Reaction to Charm Person.
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.
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2019-05-13, 04:31 PM (ISO 8601)
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2019-05-13, 04:39 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Proper Reaction to Charm Person.
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.
I meant for the subject(s) not necessarily for me.
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?
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.My sig is something witty.
78% of DM's started their first campaign in a tavern. If you're one of the 22% that didn't, copy and paste this into your signature.
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2019-05-13, 04:45 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Proper Reaction to Charm Person.
Which is why I'm no longer responding to that line of reasoning. It's a dead end perpetuated by authority.
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".
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2019-05-13, 05:04 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Proper Reaction to Charm Person.
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."
There is no way to know whether they'll make the saving throw, either, until you cast it.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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, 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.
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2019-05-13, 05:09 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Proper Reaction to Charm Person.
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?
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.
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2019-05-13, 05:23 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Proper Reaction to Charm Person.
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.
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2019-05-13, 05:44 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Proper Reaction to Charm Person.
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.Last edited by Witty Username; 2019-05-13 at 05:46 PM.
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2019-05-13, 05:57 PM (ISO 8601)
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2019-05-13, 05:57 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Proper Reaction to Charm Person.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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2019-05-13, 06:13 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Proper Reaction to Charm Person.
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,
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.
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2019-05-13, 06:37 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Dec 2018
Re: Proper Reaction to Charm Person.
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?
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2019-05-13, 06:45 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2014
Re: Proper Reaction to Charm Person.
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.
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2019-05-13, 07:34 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2018
Re: Proper Reaction to Charm Person.
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.