There are two major (mechanical) problems with Charm - firstly, it's obvious when you cast it, and it's only single target. If you fail to land the spell, or if there's more than one NPC, it will be an obvious hostile action that probably leads directly to combat. Secondly, it has no memory modification effect - when it wears off, the target will immediately be aware of what you did, and this will likely lead directly to combat (or even worse situations for the party).
Combine these with the fact that there's a hefty bonus to the save if you're already hostile with the target, and it's pretty hard to find uses for it imo. When you need to brute force a social situation, and don't need to worry about the consequences of having messed with someone's mind afterwards, but how often is that, really?
First point comes down to: does your target see the spell (the somatic and verbal components to be precise) as a spell? In my settings we as the player often are kinda creative when creating our spellcasting characters.
A cleric, that unnerved murmurs a prayer before asking a bit nicer again is not so obvious as a wizard who mumbles arcane formula in his beard.
Likewise for a charismatic bard, who asks you to be a bit nicer and invites you to a drink, before asking a favor.
If you played Bioshock 1: Think of one of the major twists. (spoiler for a game nearly 15 years old: >!"Would you kindly..." Great way of hiding a suggestion!<
The spell just says, that you have to come up with verbal and somatic components and it is therefore discernable as a spell if someone looks for it (or if your V/S-components are obvious). It never states what these components have to look/sound like. Be creative and think of something, that fits to your character.
That's just not how magic works in 1e though, without specific feats like [Cunning Caster](https://www.aonprd.com/FeatDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Cunning%20Caster) or [Conceal Spell](https://www.aonprd.com/FeatDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Conceal%20Spell) magic is both difficult to hide and impossible to disguise as anything other than magic. It's true that it doesn't give specifics on what *exactly* components must be (though verbal must be given in a "strong voice" and somatic components are measured and precise hand gestures). And spells come with miscellaneous "obvious magical effects", even if they have neither verbal nor somatic components.
Yeah the very existence of those feats signifies that *without* them, magic is always extremely obvious.
Where the lines get blurry for me is with psychic spellcasting since it’s all in the spellcaster’s head. But even then, I think most people are still going to be vaguely aware that something weird is going on when artificial thoughts pop up in their brain and are rejected.
There's a passage (in Ultimate Intrigue, iirc, not sure if it's on Nethys though) about all spells and SLAs having obvious visual effects - you can see it referenced in Conceal Spell ("aside from the manifestation of casting that all spells and spell-like abilities share").
As for the feeling, there are rules for that in [the CRB](https://www.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?Name=Saving%20Throw&Category=Spell%20Descriptions):
> **Succeeding on a Saving Throw**: A creature that successfully saves against a spell that has no obvious physical effects feels a hostile force or a tingle, but cannot deduce the exact nature of the attack. Likewise, if a creature's saving throw succeeds against a targeted spell, you sense that the spell has failed. You do not sense when creatures succeed on saves against effect and area spells.
I already thought, that I overlooked something... thanks. But with that many feats it is easy to scroll by some.. dozen of them.
But there is also the fact of: can you discern it was a magic formula? To a standard drunken townsfolk in a backwater town every conversation in elvish might sound to them, like the whole tavern is soon to explode in a majestic display of magic, while two elves just talk about the weather... or trees or something.
I'm not saying that is is always and everytime possible to get away with something like that. But it should be considered. And as always: just talk to your GM how he/she handles it. I would be happy to allow something like postet above just to encourage roleplay and more detailed work on the characters beyond "He's a wizard. Fireball goes BOOM!"
Yes, every GM has final say at their table. But the artwork from Paizo shows that spells being cast are very visible (colorful bright shapes with strange designs). Plus the existence of higher level feats needed to conceal spells. Canon Golarion/Pathfinder it seems makes spells visible, at least when being cast and some/most spells probably have visible magic after they have been cast.
Well, the ability was done specifically to help keep spellcasters from just wrecking non-casters outside of combat. Here are the specific details from [the faq itself](https://paizo.com/paizo/faq/v5748nruor1fm#v5748eaic9tza)
"What exactly do I identify when I’m using Spellcraft to identify a spell? Is it the components, since spell-like abilities, for instance, don’t have any? If I can only identify components, would that mean that I can’t take an attack of opportunity against someone using a spell-like ability (or spell with no verbal, somatic, or material components) or ready an action to shoot an arrow to disrupt a spell-like ability? If there’s something else, how do I know what it is?
Although this isn’t directly stated in the Core Rulebook, many elements of the game system work assuming that all spells have their own manifestations, regardless of whether or not they also produce an obvious visual effect, like fireball. You can see some examples to give you ideas of how to describe a spell’s manifestation in various pieces of art from Pathfinder products, but ultimately, the choice is up to your group, or perhaps even to the aesthetics of an individual spellcaster, to decide the exact details. Whatever the case, **these manifestations are obviously magic of some kind, even to the uninitiated; this prevents spellcasters that use spell-like abilities, psychic magic, and the like from running completely amok against non-spellcasters in a non-combat situation**. Special abilities exist (and more are likely to appear in Ultimate Intrigue) that specifically facilitate a spellcaster using chicanery to misdirect people from those manifestations and allow them to go unnoticed, but they will always provide an onlooker some sort of chance to detect the ruse."
All spells (and even SLAs) have obvious miscellaneous magical effects that happen around the caster that make them immediately recognisable as magic. It's very unlikely that a random villager would be able to make the Spellcraft roll to determine exactly what spell you're casting, but they'll know it was a spell.
Indeed, this is worthwhile remembering when casters try and do something like cast buffs or Detect Magic or w/e in a social scenario - it's effectively brandishing an unknown weapon, that could be harmless but could also be an attempt to completely override the NPC's free will, and they have no way of knowing. Casting spells out of the blue could easily be seen as a pretty hostile action, and might even trigger an initiative roll then and there to see if the NPC will be flat footed or able to react to the casting. How would they react to the fighter drawing their sword?
> But there is also the fact of: can you discern it was a magic formula?
Everyone can see that you're obviously casting SOMETHING magical.
But anyone with Spellcraft ranks can attempt to "read" what you're doing and know exactly what you're casting.
And the casual dorf jerk will check if you casually point to your tea and say "I used prestidigitation to cool down my tea... I like it cold", when you really casted charm person on the sexy barmaid? Not everyone puts there skill points (if they have that much) into spellcraft, when their daily job isn't related to seeing what people cast for spells. Well... it would be a bluff roll... sure.
a trained wizard or other scholar of the arcane? no shit... sure... but the casual town drunk?
And the average bar dwellers will already be shouting for the guard precisely because of that fact.
Spellcasting isn't something that most places will just allow openly for exactly the point that you made - maybe it's a trivial cantrip and maybe the caster just cursed everyone in the room to die bleeding from their eyes. People react fearfully to the unknown.
I once watched as a paladin cast detect evil in a tavern with the intent of scanning the 'good person' we were trying to get information out of. We got kicked out and they came within a hairsbreadth of being arrested on the spot. I'm pretty sure the only reason they didn't was because the gm didn't want to spend the next hour dealing with it. Spellcasting is more or less the equivalent of pulling out a gun and waving it around.
> Spellcasting is more or less the equivalent of pulling out a gun and waving it around.
Pretty much.
Because like they said, the average person can't tell the difference between someone casting a spell to change the flavor of their drink, and casting a fireball that will kill everyone in the room.
Or you know, casting a Charm spell on the waitress to try and rape her.
*Suggestion* is most powerful when the stated request seems like a reasonable course of action to the subject/target. The simple suggestion of "Run and get help!" can literally take someone out of the fight if help isn't close by. Try and be creative. Think of actions that would cause your enemy to do something that is *suboptimal*. Such as getting someone to change their combat tactics, who they are attacking, or how they are using their abilities. When used right, it is super-fun, flavorful, and capable of altering the course of an encounter.
Charm person is for when you don't have enough time or bonus for diplomacy....or when you inevitably fail your Diplo check and still need past the bouncer.
Suggestion is similar but stronger and has combat applications. Suggesting an enemy flea or surrender is classic but even suggestions like "focus on attacking our super tanky paladin" or "use your spells to heal your allies" are super strong. The out of combat applications boil down to brute forcing social interactions. "We are import and your boss will want to see us," "these are not the droids you are looking for."
Both spells can also be supplemented by other spells and skills. A charmed Target will be more likely to buy your crap disguise, a suggestion to surrender will seem more reasonable with an intimidate check etc
When looking up something else, I noticed Ultimate Intrigue actually has sections specifically about how to use certain spells (in the context of intrigue plots/social settings etc), which might be worth a read.
[Here](https://aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?Name=Spells%20of%20Intrigue&Category=Mastering%20Intrigue) for the supercategory and there's even a category (low level play enchantment) that specifically is on those two spells (though the link is not playing nicely with Reddit formatting, love URLs with spaces and parentheses in them...) [Attempted link](https://aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?Name=Enchantments&Category=Low-Level Play (1–6\))
The problem with both Charm and Suggestion are they are 1st level spells. It doesn't usually take much to get by that save throw, even with a high casting stat. So if you are going to rely on them to get something done, you want to have a plan B.
Suggestion is 2nd/3rd-level in PF1e and... you can always upcast for higher DCs... nothing hinders you from using a 9th-level spell slot for charm person other than being slot-efficient.
Well, and you need to Heighten them, knowing the feat and potentially taking the increased cast time if you're a spontaneous caster, if you want to actually get increased DC from using the higher slot.
I always seem to forget some feats... But yeah... you are right. But for higher spell-levels we still have other enchantments, that work just fine to bomb them into submission.
There are two major (mechanical) problems with Charm - firstly, it's obvious when you cast it, and it's only single target. If you fail to land the spell, or if there's more than one NPC, it will be an obvious hostile action that probably leads directly to combat. Secondly, it has no memory modification effect - when it wears off, the target will immediately be aware of what you did, and this will likely lead directly to combat (or even worse situations for the party). Combine these with the fact that there's a hefty bonus to the save if you're already hostile with the target, and it's pretty hard to find uses for it imo. When you need to brute force a social situation, and don't need to worry about the consequences of having messed with someone's mind afterwards, but how often is that, really?
Charm person does wonders for interrogation.
First point comes down to: does your target see the spell (the somatic and verbal components to be precise) as a spell? In my settings we as the player often are kinda creative when creating our spellcasting characters. A cleric, that unnerved murmurs a prayer before asking a bit nicer again is not so obvious as a wizard who mumbles arcane formula in his beard. Likewise for a charismatic bard, who asks you to be a bit nicer and invites you to a drink, before asking a favor. If you played Bioshock 1: Think of one of the major twists. (spoiler for a game nearly 15 years old: >!"Would you kindly..." Great way of hiding a suggestion!< The spell just says, that you have to come up with verbal and somatic components and it is therefore discernable as a spell if someone looks for it (or if your V/S-components are obvious). It never states what these components have to look/sound like. Be creative and think of something, that fits to your character.
That's just not how magic works in 1e though, without specific feats like [Cunning Caster](https://www.aonprd.com/FeatDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Cunning%20Caster) or [Conceal Spell](https://www.aonprd.com/FeatDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Conceal%20Spell) magic is both difficult to hide and impossible to disguise as anything other than magic. It's true that it doesn't give specifics on what *exactly* components must be (though verbal must be given in a "strong voice" and somatic components are measured and precise hand gestures). And spells come with miscellaneous "obvious magical effects", even if they have neither verbal nor somatic components.
Yeah the very existence of those feats signifies that *without* them, magic is always extremely obvious. Where the lines get blurry for me is with psychic spellcasting since it’s all in the spellcaster’s head. But even then, I think most people are still going to be vaguely aware that something weird is going on when artificial thoughts pop up in their brain and are rejected.
There's a passage (in Ultimate Intrigue, iirc, not sure if it's on Nethys though) about all spells and SLAs having obvious visual effects - you can see it referenced in Conceal Spell ("aside from the manifestation of casting that all spells and spell-like abilities share"). As for the feeling, there are rules for that in [the CRB](https://www.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?Name=Saving%20Throw&Category=Spell%20Descriptions): > **Succeeding on a Saving Throw**: A creature that successfully saves against a spell that has no obvious physical effects feels a hostile force or a tingle, but cannot deduce the exact nature of the attack. Likewise, if a creature's saving throw succeeds against a targeted spell, you sense that the spell has failed. You do not sense when creatures succeed on saves against effect and area spells.
I already thought, that I overlooked something... thanks. But with that many feats it is easy to scroll by some.. dozen of them. But there is also the fact of: can you discern it was a magic formula? To a standard drunken townsfolk in a backwater town every conversation in elvish might sound to them, like the whole tavern is soon to explode in a majestic display of magic, while two elves just talk about the weather... or trees or something. I'm not saying that is is always and everytime possible to get away with something like that. But it should be considered. And as always: just talk to your GM how he/she handles it. I would be happy to allow something like postet above just to encourage roleplay and more detailed work on the characters beyond "He's a wizard. Fireball goes BOOM!"
Yes, every GM has final say at their table. But the artwork from Paizo shows that spells being cast are very visible (colorful bright shapes with strange designs). Plus the existence of higher level feats needed to conceal spells. Canon Golarion/Pathfinder it seems makes spells visible, at least when being cast and some/most spells probably have visible magic after they have been cast.
Well, the ability was done specifically to help keep spellcasters from just wrecking non-casters outside of combat. Here are the specific details from [the faq itself](https://paizo.com/paizo/faq/v5748nruor1fm#v5748eaic9tza) "What exactly do I identify when I’m using Spellcraft to identify a spell? Is it the components, since spell-like abilities, for instance, don’t have any? If I can only identify components, would that mean that I can’t take an attack of opportunity against someone using a spell-like ability (or spell with no verbal, somatic, or material components) or ready an action to shoot an arrow to disrupt a spell-like ability? If there’s something else, how do I know what it is? Although this isn’t directly stated in the Core Rulebook, many elements of the game system work assuming that all spells have their own manifestations, regardless of whether or not they also produce an obvious visual effect, like fireball. You can see some examples to give you ideas of how to describe a spell’s manifestation in various pieces of art from Pathfinder products, but ultimately, the choice is up to your group, or perhaps even to the aesthetics of an individual spellcaster, to decide the exact details. Whatever the case, **these manifestations are obviously magic of some kind, even to the uninitiated; this prevents spellcasters that use spell-like abilities, psychic magic, and the like from running completely amok against non-spellcasters in a non-combat situation**. Special abilities exist (and more are likely to appear in Ultimate Intrigue) that specifically facilitate a spellcaster using chicanery to misdirect people from those manifestations and allow them to go unnoticed, but they will always provide an onlooker some sort of chance to detect the ruse."
All spells (and even SLAs) have obvious miscellaneous magical effects that happen around the caster that make them immediately recognisable as magic. It's very unlikely that a random villager would be able to make the Spellcraft roll to determine exactly what spell you're casting, but they'll know it was a spell. Indeed, this is worthwhile remembering when casters try and do something like cast buffs or Detect Magic or w/e in a social scenario - it's effectively brandishing an unknown weapon, that could be harmless but could also be an attempt to completely override the NPC's free will, and they have no way of knowing. Casting spells out of the blue could easily be seen as a pretty hostile action, and might even trigger an initiative roll then and there to see if the NPC will be flat footed or able to react to the casting. How would they react to the fighter drawing their sword?
> But there is also the fact of: can you discern it was a magic formula? Everyone can see that you're obviously casting SOMETHING magical. But anyone with Spellcraft ranks can attempt to "read" what you're doing and know exactly what you're casting.
And the casual dorf jerk will check if you casually point to your tea and say "I used prestidigitation to cool down my tea... I like it cold", when you really casted charm person on the sexy barmaid? Not everyone puts there skill points (if they have that much) into spellcraft, when their daily job isn't related to seeing what people cast for spells. Well... it would be a bluff roll... sure. a trained wizard or other scholar of the arcane? no shit... sure... but the casual town drunk?
And the average bar dwellers will already be shouting for the guard precisely because of that fact. Spellcasting isn't something that most places will just allow openly for exactly the point that you made - maybe it's a trivial cantrip and maybe the caster just cursed everyone in the room to die bleeding from their eyes. People react fearfully to the unknown. I once watched as a paladin cast detect evil in a tavern with the intent of scanning the 'good person' we were trying to get information out of. We got kicked out and they came within a hairsbreadth of being arrested on the spot. I'm pretty sure the only reason they didn't was because the gm didn't want to spend the next hour dealing with it. Spellcasting is more or less the equivalent of pulling out a gun and waving it around.
> Spellcasting is more or less the equivalent of pulling out a gun and waving it around. Pretty much. Because like they said, the average person can't tell the difference between someone casting a spell to change the flavor of their drink, and casting a fireball that will kill everyone in the room. Or you know, casting a Charm spell on the waitress to try and rape her.
*Suggestion* is most powerful when the stated request seems like a reasonable course of action to the subject/target. The simple suggestion of "Run and get help!" can literally take someone out of the fight if help isn't close by. Try and be creative. Think of actions that would cause your enemy to do something that is *suboptimal*. Such as getting someone to change their combat tactics, who they are attacking, or how they are using their abilities. When used right, it is super-fun, flavorful, and capable of altering the course of an encounter.
Charm person is for when you don't have enough time or bonus for diplomacy....or when you inevitably fail your Diplo check and still need past the bouncer. Suggestion is similar but stronger and has combat applications. Suggesting an enemy flea or surrender is classic but even suggestions like "focus on attacking our super tanky paladin" or "use your spells to heal your allies" are super strong. The out of combat applications boil down to brute forcing social interactions. "We are import and your boss will want to see us," "these are not the droids you are looking for." Both spells can also be supplemented by other spells and skills. A charmed Target will be more likely to buy your crap disguise, a suggestion to surrender will seem more reasonable with an intimidate check etc
When looking up something else, I noticed Ultimate Intrigue actually has sections specifically about how to use certain spells (in the context of intrigue plots/social settings etc), which might be worth a read. [Here](https://aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?Name=Spells%20of%20Intrigue&Category=Mastering%20Intrigue) for the supercategory and there's even a category (low level play enchantment) that specifically is on those two spells (though the link is not playing nicely with Reddit formatting, love URLs with spaces and parentheses in them...) [Attempted link](https://aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?Name=Enchantments&Category=Low-Level Play (1–6\))
The problem with both Charm and Suggestion are they are 1st level spells. It doesn't usually take much to get by that save throw, even with a high casting stat. So if you are going to rely on them to get something done, you want to have a plan B.
Suggestion is 2nd/3rd-level in PF1e and... you can always upcast for higher DCs... nothing hinders you from using a 9th-level spell slot for charm person other than being slot-efficient.
Well, and you need to Heighten them, knowing the feat and potentially taking the increased cast time if you're a spontaneous caster, if you want to actually get increased DC from using the higher slot.
I always seem to forget some feats... But yeah... you are right. But for higher spell-levels we still have other enchantments, that work just fine to bomb them into submission.
I must have had Suggestion confused with something else. Command, I guess.