Charm Person: Do You Feel the Magic Within You? Would You Like To?

Usable By: Bard, Druid, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard

Spell Level: 1

School: Enchantment

Casting Time: 1 action

Range: 30 feet

Duration: 1 hour

Components: V, S

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.

Review by Sam West, Twitter:@CrierKobold

Charm Person is about as one to one a spell can be to a condition. You pick a person and attempt to charm them. While charmed, they treat you as a friendly acquaintance. Simple. Elegant. Surprisingly lackluster in utility.

The charmed mechanic does two things: it prevents a charmed creature from attacking the charmer or targeting them with harmful abilities or magical effects, and the charmer gets advantage on ability checks made to interact socially with that creature. In exchange, after the hour is up, the creature knows it was charmed by you, and you may have to deal with those consequences.

At its best, this is a tool for winning over a creature you need a lot, but you only need them for roughly an hour. It's something you cast on a marked noble you and the party plan on swindling out of their lavish fourth estate on an island you need a base on, or on a villainous brute you want to pacify for a bit while your friends navigate around them. A big thing going against this is the help action; any player can simply aid in a social encounter by talking you up, acting as an interested competing party, or otherwise providing compelling assistance to the deception, performance, or persuasion check being made. You don’t need advantage on these checks when it's pretty easily available with some coordination.

In combat, this could act as a save or die, but there will be a very small window where it's likely to be. It grants advantage to creatures you’re fighting, so if you want the best chance of keeping an enemy off of you, you’ll want to cast this prior to actual punches getting thrown. Even if you do get a humanoid to fail the save, it's only charmed by you. It can think you’re a perfectly lovely individual, and offer you compliments about your hair today while simultaneously bashing whatever brain cells your barbarian has left out of their noggin. In the absolute best case scenario, the enemy still is probably treating his other allies as allies, and can still take the help action or do other supportive actions to empower their team.

I think Charm Person is neat, and has a wide breadth of circumstances where it can be moderately helpful, but not more helpful than a lot of things you can get for cheaper or free. If you’re on a solo mission for the party to woo a suitor for an hour while they break into said suitors' estate and steal a giant diamond, yeah, Charm Person is great. In most games where multiple players are working together to navigate a social environment, I think you’re better off with just the help action. After an hour, then, the person won’t be aware you literally magically manipulated them into friendship, which is certainly going to cause some tension. If you’re taking it for bard flavor reasons or to be the enchanter-y-iest enchanter, go for it. Otherwise, you’re not getting enough bang for your buck here.

5e Spells

Charm Person: Do You Feel the Magic Within You? Would You Like To?