Hello spellcasters of all shapes and sizes! Welcome to my spellbook and thank you so much for checking out the 15th episode of our first level spell series. Have you ever wanted to make people swoon for you in an instant, create instant bonds that make it so they can never wish ill harm on you, if that’s something you might like then charm person is for you.
This spell is usable by the bard, druid, sorcerer, warlock and wizard and through extension anyone else with access to their spell lists and it is found in the players handbook. Let’s take a quick look at some mechanics here.
Table of Contents
Mechanics
- Level: 1st
- Casting Time: 1 Action
- Range/Area: 30 ft
- Components: V, S
- Duration: 1 Hour
- School: Enchantment
- Attack/Save: WIS Save
- Damage/Effect: Charmed
Your cast time is the standard one action, the range is a circumstantially pretty measly 30 feet, the duration however is an impressive one hour, the effect at a glance is as followed attempt to charm a humanoid, through a wisdom saving throw. If the humanoid is hostile they make the saving throw with advantage. Upon failing the save, the humanoid is charmed by you. Also read this charm person vs friends.
At higher levels, When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 2nd level or higher, you can target one additional creature for each slot level above 1st. The creatures must be within 30 feet of each other when you target them.
The components are somatic and verbal meaning you have to gesture with one hand as well as speak forth in an incantation and your school is simply enchantment. Now let’s take a quick look at the full description here so we are all on the same page and we all know how does charm person work 5e.
Description
You attempt to charm a humanoid you can see within range. It must make a Wisdom saving throw, and does so with advantage if you or your companions are fighting it. If it fails the saving throw, it is charmed by you until the spell ends or until you or your companions do anything harmful to it. The charmed creature regards you as a friendly acquaintance. When the spell ends, the creature knows it was charmed by you.
At Higher Levels: When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 2nd level or higher, you can target one additional creature for each slot level above 1st. The creatures must be within 30 feet of each other when you target them.
So there are for the record some criticisms of this spell. Before we get to that i would like to quickly address what charmed is. A charmed creature can’t attack the charmer or target the charmer with harmful abilities or magical effects. The charmer has advantage on any ability check to interact socially with the creature. You can also check out this comparison 5e charm person vs suggestion.
Pretty cool! Now the biggest criticism of this spell is that it wasn’t quote-unquote nerfed. The wording is the nerf however so the keywords are friendly acquaintances. Now there’s an argument to be made that there is a difference between close friend, lifelong friend and friendly acquaintance or trusted individual.
Friendly acquaintance by most people’s standards is someone you’re just socially friendly with a co-worker that you don’t necessarily hate but works a different shift than you so you’re not particularly close. Yet you smile past each other as you walk past…things like that.
It’s tricky because it doesn’t really affect the charmed aspect of it you still get advantage of the social interactions but the level of compliancy might differ from what you think. With that in mind, let’s take a quick look at some alternative uses here.
Alternative Uses
If role played correctly i could very easily see someone using this to persuade a guard for example. Get in close with an inkeeper or shopkeeper and use this to bargain for goods adam heavily reduced rate. Outside of that i can’t really imagine a whole lot of crazy uses for it, it is mentally be used socially and it can rip people out of direct combat which is quite cool as well.
Conclusion
With that in mind if you have any crazy stories involving charm person or of any alternative uses of your own i would really like to hear them down in the comments beneath and i know everyone else would as well. Thank you so much guys and as always happy casting everyone. charm monster dnd | dominate person dnd 5e | hold person 5e | dnd 5e friends | 5e suggestion.