Can an enemy be taken over in a fight with charm person?

Question

In a fight, can one wizard take over one of the enemies? Wouldn't it be strange, my new best friend was some seconds before my worst enemy?

And if it works, how to handle the rest of the fight? Does the charmed person fight against it's former allies? What does it do seeing the former allies fighting the new allies?

Answer 1

No, the enemy would not be able to totally control an ally with Charm Person

That's the realm of Dominate Person.

First, we need to clear up some of your statements:

Does the charmed person fight against it's former allies?

These are not your former allies, they're still your allies. You just happened to have gained a new close friend.

Does the charmed person fight against it's former allies? What does it do seeing the former allies fighting the new allies?

What would you do if two of your very close friends got into a fight to the death? You'd probably try to break it up, wouldn't you? You may or may not pick a side in the fight, but you're not likely to want to hurt either of your very good friends.

Wouldn't it be strange, my new best friend was some seconds before my worst enemy?

Heck yes it would, but the spell changes your behavior so that doesn't matter.

Now onto the relevant parts of the spell. From the PRD:

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

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

So, what happens if the person who cast the charm spell managed to win the Charisma check against you to make you attack your friends? You'd probably do it, but would likely not want to kill them, just make them stop fighting your buddy.

Answer 2

Charm just makes the target think the caster is an ally & isn't dominate like Cthos said... but I have some somewhat unusual experiences dealing with my brain after a cerebral hemorrhage a while back.

Things coming back sometimes come back through a in a murky fog that slowly recedes into clarity... sometimes it's as simple as waking up in the ICU thinking I don't have hepC.. or hep anything... please fuzzy person shaped blob, I need some V*... just a little V" or just like a flip from a light switch a whole bunch of stuff is there mentally where it was originally when it wasn't a moment ago & you were not aware of it missing till it was back. It's kind of an awesome thing to experience.

It's not strange that your new best friend was an enemy seconds ago, He was always your best friend & that dead bulb just wiggled into place to light up the rest of the memory string of Christmas lights into blazing clarity.

If your the GM, just think about how the npc would react to the realization & go from there for reaction on a pair of friends fighting towards the death, if your the player asking if you can use the spell in place of dominate ... not with charm person.

• V is a magical cure all+ ecstasy/acid type thing from the true blood tv series made from vampire blood. The fact that it was something from a fictional TV series didn't factor in & I felt like I was thinking extremely clear & logically. I didn't know why I knew what V did, just that it did; the why of my knowing it didn't factor into thoughts or seem strange any more than the impossibility of it working.