Charm mechanics questions

[JetEskimo]

I am working on a solo-focused WF Sorc/Paly build concept (envisioning a charmed Army of God roaming a dungeon), and wanted to get a little more info on how Charm works under certain conditions.

What do I need to do to continue using these spells reliably as I level up? Heighten/Spell Focus/Spell Penetration feats? When should I worry about picking these up? Since I'm going WF and my starting CHA will be slightly gimped (starting at 14), does this change anything? What about Improved Heighten/Penetration Enhancements? Improved Heighten seems a waste given the number of SP I'll have and the small amount of savings.

I've read that Charm Undead becomes fairly useless once they start being intelligent. Is this true, and at what level does this start to occur? Can this be overcome w/ feats/enhancments?

Aura of Good & AoE Buff Spells - Will charmed critters receive the buffs from Aura of Good? Will the save bonus affect their ability to break the charm (they are allies, but I am not technically evil). What about AoE buffs spells like Haste/Rage/etc?

Still fairly new to the game, so feel free to impart any additional knowledge you might think is useful. I'm not really worried about the end game too much (4th MMO and I have yet to hit the level cap due to altoholism), but I will hopefully make it out of the single digits.

Thanks in advance.

[Beherit_Baphomar]

You can buff charmed mobs with just about anything you can group members.

Heighten is good for charm. Spell pen you wont really need to worry about until The Vale, thats when we saw Spell Resistance
go on mobs more and more.

Your CHA is what makes the Difficulty Checks for your spells. 14 might not be too good. With items it will obviously get better, but still...your DC is gonna be low.

[frugal_gourmet]

I can't recommend your strategy, as it is a very difficult one in practically every form of DND from pen and paper on out.

If you want to multiclass, you are better off gearing towards buffing oriented spells. And those spells that affect enemies should skirt spell resistance if at all possible -- like blaster spells.

Here's how Charm works:

1. Caster rolls d20 to overcome target's spell resistance. Adds caster level to roll. Adds # of spell penetration feats, enhancements, items to roll.

(As you can see, you're already working from a disadvantage. Although enemies won't have spell resistance until high levels, you will have fewer caster levels and will be less likely to have spell penetration feats and enhancements due to your straddling of two classes. You will not be nearly as effective beating SR as other casters at that character level).

2. The DC of your spell is determined by your charisma modifier (your charisma needs to be as high as possible) and the spell's level. If your spell is a low level, the "heighten" feat will raise the spell's level to help increase it's DC. The monster needs to beat this DC to avoid being charmed.

(Again, if your charisma is not maxed directly charming monsters is going to be difficult. The lack of feats like height and spell focus feats/items will also hurt).

..

So, you've chosen a very difficult road if charm type spells are truly your choice. You might be able to get past it by the right combination of items that boost your spell penetration/DCs a bit. You may be able to throw in a Spell Focus: Enchantment or something to boost up your DCs. And you have to keep your charisma just as high as you can for spell success. I don't know that I'd go heighten. I'd have to see a cost/benefit analysis there.

[Beherit_Baphomar]

Or how about a bard?
Dont bards get charms?

And they have some pretty wicked buffs for melee strength.

Bards - The New BattleCaster.

[JetEskimo]

Thanks for the input folks, very helpful.

SR & Multi-classing concerns: At this point, I am only planning on taking 2 levels of Paly. Since I am primarily focusing on solo play, I am not concerned about how I'll stack up against other players but to the SR of the mobs. You (collective) mentioned SR showing up around the Vale and at "higher levels". Are we talking level 8, 12, or 14? I've seen a couple of different "Vales" mentioned, which is why I ask. Will those two levels really kill the effectiveness of the spells?

DC: I do worry about this. But short of hard core min/maxing (dumping all but 12 of 28 build points into CHA) I am only off by 1 on what most folks are going to be starting with. Is the game setup such that you either max out or fail trying? I understand that this might be the case on Elite level, but does it hold true on Hard as well? It really won't break my heart if I can't run elite quests. I can probably get it up to 16 if that 1 point makes that much of a difference.

I'm not trying to be an "I only solo" type, as I have a very party friendly bard as my highest level character at the moment. Just looking for a fun way to run quests during off-hours, to explore at my own pace, or when I'm feeling anti-social or incapable of being social (hic). No need to be the biggest, baddest anything, just functional

[Thailand_Dan]

To compare, most people go 1 of 2 directions with sorc. Either WF for self-healing or Drow so they can start with 20 CHA. One point does not make much of a difference, but six points (14 vs 20) makes a huge difference.

[Samadhi]

Here's the difference for your DC question

A fully maxed out hieghten, pure, max cha build is rarely going to have anything fail on their saves. (Let's say 95% with the caveat of certain mobs being exceptions)

A not fully maxed out build is going to lose 5% every point they lose. So, for the moment, just analyzing a 14 starting Cha is going to put you down to 80% with all other factors being equal. This is not going to be a huge deal in some ways - but its really going to take a toll on your mana pool especially when soloing.

Now, lets factor in, that you are also going to have to build towards high damage spells (max/emp) for any real end boss killing ability; and probably quicken for solo-self healing; and that idea of charming everything even at 80% efficiency is probably not even an option anymore.

Not trying to rain on your parade or anything - but that is the reality of quests past, say, level 8 (not even counting level 13+ when SR starts entering the picture)

[MrCow]

Now, lets factor in, that you are also going to have to build towards high damage spells (max/emp) for any real end boss killing ability; and probably quicken for solo-self healing; and that idea of charming everything even at 80% efficiency is probably not even an option anymore.

Not trying to rain on your parade or anything - but that is the reality of quests past, say, level 8

Towards the end-game if you are a charm fanatic, Symbol of Persuasion with Quicken really takes the cake, as far as I have witnessed. So far, one of my best Symbol of Persuasions has been ensnaring about 47 monsters under my power, all for the cost of 55 SP (quickened/extended). That was a fun 3:12 out in the Vale of Twilight...

Charming huge masses of things is certainly viable in some situations once you obtain that level of power. Although, I do agree. charming everything isn't ultimately going to do much good.

[hydra_ex]

Charming is extremely fun, but ultimately useless in endgame. You need a good sr (~20 should be fine), and youd rather kill monsters initially, rather than have them run around.

[Lithic]

Towards the end-game if you are a charm fanatic, Symbol of Persuasion with Quicken really takes the cake, as far as I have witnessed. So far, one of my best Symbol of Persuasions has been ensnaring about 47 monsters under my power, all for the cost of 55 SP (quickened/extended). That was a fun 3:12 out in the Vale of Twilight...

Charming huge masses of things is certainly viable in some situations once you obtain that level of power. Although, I do agree. charming everything isn't ultimately going to do much good.

I have to agree with Mrcow. Charming is great if the boss has lots of allies in the same room, or a room very close by with large passageways. Feast or famine is the perfect place to charm everything and wait for the boss to die.

In more recent quests, there seem to be extra barriers to prevent a charmed army from swarming the boss. Running with the devils has that healer boss before the 5 devils, coalesence chamber has the climb, rainbow is half uncharmables (killing off your charms pretty fast), charming in dust is a perfect way to fail, and ritual... well that one might work.

The devs are also giving bosses more and more area effect attacks, either in the form of cleave/greatcleave, or area spells like delayed blast fireball. Those wipe out gobs of charmed mobs really fast (just as the flamestrike in cabal tended to decimate my followers). Put the two together, and charm as a bosskiller is quickly waning.

[Brummbar]

Hi Jet,

I know you have a theme in mind. So it's tough to say Don't do x,y,z.


But...


if you want to be a Chamer.. I would highly suggest you stay pure Sorc.

You want your DC as HIGH as possible.

You lose them with each and every melee level. and you lose one by starting as a WF. Drow can be 20 CHR to start. WF only 18.

So you see... it makes very little practical sense to be a charmer if your not maximizing your ability to do so. YOu'll fail alot. And they will break faster and more often.


You can still be a chamring solo'ing Amry of God assembler as a pure Sorc.

Heck .. I did it all through every level I played essentially...

I could amass a HUGE army, with minimal spell point expenditure.

Solo'ing all the slayer bosses in Giant Hold at level 10 or 11 because you have 10-20 charmed buddies is awesome.




Keep in mind some groups don't like charmers... you'll catch a little flack because you are making quests to easy

[baddax]

Hi Jet,

I know you have a theme in mind. So it's tough to say Don't do x,y,z.


But...


if you want to be a Chamer.. I would highly suggest you stay pure Sorc.

You want your DC as HIGH as possible.

You lose them with each and every melee level. and you lose one by starting as a WF. Drow can be 20 CHR to start. WF only 18.

/////////////////
You lose one DC per Spell levlel and every Cha modifier point. ie. a lvl 10 caster with 28 cha casting charm person has a DC of 20. A lvl 16 caster with a 32 cha has a DC of22 when casting charm person assuming its not heightened and there is no other modifiers.

Now Spell Pen DC is a different story altogether.

The pally/sorc combo is very nice and should be effective. Although im not sure WF is your best option for your play selection. DC's and sr should not suffer much except on elite level quests where even maxed out sorcs can fail significantly to land their spells. So if you plan on running wilderness and or normal quests of the appropriate level it should not be a problem. However another problems will be your lack of 8 level spells and i beleive you will only get 1 7th as a sorc so spell selection will be crucial.

///////////////////

So you see... it makes very little practical sense to be a charmer if your not maximizing your ability to do so. YOu'll fail alot. And they will break faster and more often.


You can still be a chamring solo'ing Amry of God assembler as a pure Sorc.

Heck .. I did it all through every level I played essentially...

I could amass a HUGE army, with minimal spell point expenditure.

Solo'ing all the slayer bosses in Giant Hold at level 10 or 11 because you have 10-20 charmed buddies is awesome.




Keep in mind some groups don't like charmers... you'll catch a little flack because you are making quests to easy [/QUOTE]

[Ghoste]

Towards the end-game if you are a charm fanatic, Symbol of Persuasion with Quicken really takes the cake, as far as I have witnessed. So far, one of my best Symbol of Persuasions has been ensnaring about 47 monsters under my power, all for the cost of 55 SP (quickened/extended). That was a fun 3:12 out in the Vale of Twilight...

Charming huge masses of things is certainly viable in some situations once you obtain that level of power. Although, I do agree. charming everything isn't ultimately going to do much good.

Would love to see a video of something like that...

[Falcone]

...and ritual... well that one might work.

Charming all the air elementals on the path to end room, and watching the NPC kill everything they toss around the room provides some good entertainment if nothing else

[richieelias27]

Contrary to what everyone else is saying, the problem here is not actually your splash of Paladin levels. You can still be a perfectly fine charmer with 2 pally levels. You will simply have to make certain sacrifices to stay effective at charming.

Now, with 2 pally levels thats -1 from your charm DC (assuming heighten). I higly reccomend you max your WF charisma for another -2 to your charm DC (compared to non drow) giving you -3 total. Continue to pump all your bonus stat points into DC and thats where you'll stay the entire game. Now, from that, give up a frivolous melee feat in favor of focus: enchantment bringing you back up to -2, give up empower (my pure drow sorc doesnt have it and I dont really miss it) for greater focus: enchantment bringing you to -1. Now you're only 1. that will go away with the next level cap increase though) down from a pure sorc, and that isnt that bad at all. You're still going to have slight issues with spell penetration, but you can give up quicken (you're a sorc, it isnt a game breaker) for the penetration feat and at least be even. Get greater penetration as well if you feel you're having issues later on... that may be more difficult to fit in though.

So yes, you could do just fine as a Pally 2 Sorc 14. You wont be "as" good as a pure drow sorc, but you'll come close. Pick up enervate as well for charming casters, or touch of idiocy (takes away enough wis to get charms to stick, but not so much they cant cast spells thus becoming useless as a charmed mob).

And baddax, you are slightly confused with the way spell DC's work. Spell DC is spell level (not caster level) +10(I think?) +casting stat +feats. spell "penetration" is caster level + enhancements/feats. So, with heighten 2 levels of pally is only -1, and you're even at level 20 with level 9 spells. Its his low charisma, not his paladin levels that are hurting his DC the most. The paladin levels are hurting his spell penetration, which can be shored up somewhat by taking penetration and greater penetration feats.

[miceelf88]

Not an expert, so someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but be careful about which mass buffs you toss out on your army of god. They get periodic saves to break the charm, so anything that buffs their saves will make the charm last a shorter time. On the flip side, for my soloing sorc, nothing makes me happier than seeing a kobold shaman cursing my charmed trogs. Pretty much guarantees they won't break charm.

[richieelias27]

You are correct sir. Its a waste of SP and not to mention dangerous to buff your charmed minions.

[MrWizard]

I am working on a solo-focused WF Sorc/Paly build concept (envisioning a charmed Army of God roaming a dungeon), and wanted to get a little more info on how Charm works under certain conditions.

What do I need to do to continue using these spells reliably as I level up? Heighten/Spell Focus/Spell Penetration feats? When should I worry about picking these up? Since I'm going WF and my starting CHA will be slightly gimped (starting at 14), does this change anything? What about Improved Heighten/Penetration Enhancements? Improved Heighten seems a waste given the number of SP I'll have and the small amount of savings.

I would go with heighten all the way. Spell focus enchantment, at least one to start..at later levels you can trade it out as you gain equipment if you feel you can still land it well. 14 charisma is only -2 modifier from cha 18...so not soo bad. I would go with at least one enchantment though. Noticeable difference on low level elite stuff for sure. You only want to cast it once. Get spell resistance as soon as you can.

I've read that Charm Undead becomes fairly useless once they start being intelligent. Is this true, and at what level does this start to occur? Can this be overcome w/ feats/enhancments?

Command undead works for me all the way through to high levels. Only worry if it says 'immune'. There are problems on high level elite with certain groups (like wraiths)..but that is because you will be shy on necro enhancements. Fully specced it is not an issue. My sorc carries it as soon as he can get it.

Aura of Good & AoE Buff Spells - Will charmed critters receive the buffs from Aura of Good? Will the save bonus affect their ability to break the charm (they are allies, but I am not technically evil). What about AoE buffs spells like Haste/Rage/etc?

They all work as they would on a summoned pet. I believe their better saves will come of it...and when they break they will still be buffed.

Still fairly new to the game, so feel free to impart any additional knowledge you might think is useful. I'm not really worried about the end game too much (4th MMO and I have yet to hit the level cap due to altoholism), but I will hopefully make it out of the single digits.

Thanks in advance.

My strategies as a charmer are thus....

1- I like to use charm monster and dominate person (when I can get them), before that it is charm person and suggestion. I do this so I can selectively charm the ones I want and not get the ones I do not. I also find them to charm for extremely long times over suggestion and persuasion. Command undead is the only one I use for the undead as control undead has a timer that will make it a waste of a spell.

2- I try to charm fighters and such and not casters. Casters seem to have higher saves and break a lot. The fighters will usually kill the casters quickly and take the whole problem away. Rangers are great too as they will range enemies really well and pick up aggro too. The casters will usually do all sorts of damage to the fighters before they die including diseases, stat damages, and stuff like burning blood. This makes them easier to take down if they break.

3- Using charm is great to bypass large areas of a dungeon due to aggro. But remember with the new AI charm can cause major aggro on you. So when the charms break 'way back there' a lot of times the whole group will start hunting you down. Some dungeons they get stuck, but some they do not.

4- End guys. End guys are pretty fun if you have a lot of charmed guys or there are things around them to charm. A good example is trial by fire. At the end I charm the two goons with the red named using enlarge. The red and the spiders all attack and get into it together. I throw up solid fog right on them and ckill, then firewall and do the old junp around and take him down with cold and such. The spider I usually have to fod if not killed in the battle at first. The charmed grabbed aggro and I was able to set up a specific area for crowd control. This allows you to contain the bad guy and either cook or freeze him. Debuff spells work good too. Buffing the charms help too (with displace or blur, hero and such) Just keep them charmed.

5- Enlarge feat. I cannot tell you how awesome this is, especially with the buggy aggro. Charming from afar is great to take out rangers who are slicing you up, starting a fight between a large group long before they see you, and also great for non charm stuff like killing beholders or contained monsters in lower areas that cannot get up. just remember to unclick it after you need it. It will suck mana quick if you do not watch it.

6- tactics. It takes time and good timing to learn and use them. But a proper charm on a proper monster is a great way to shield wall a mob. Some things like rangers and minos run everywhere. Others like a regualr troll may just stand and fight. In a doorway this is awesome. I like to flesh to stone something in the doorway, then charm em. Then blur them and then lay a ckill on the group trying to get through. If he is going down to quick I just stone another in the doorway and maybe charm if the group is still large. Just like in a party, your ckill will grab aggro and the stone charmed guy will block them quite effectively. Firewall, ckill, etc will take out the whole group.

7- Reinforcements - A good example is POP. IF you run to the top to get the door and charm the fighters and stuff on the way, but do not wait for them, they will kill the casters and be stuck/spread out all over the dungeon. this gets you to the top rather fast with just a few casts. The idea is to bypass the aggro, kil the casters, and leave most of the fighters stuck somewhere. As you go to do the rooms you will be able to charm survivors and take them into the rooms you are going to do. There will be some that 'won' their battles and they will still be charmed. Knowing you have to go back to a certain area to do more, like the rooms in POP, this type of use of charm will ensure you have cannon fodder for the areas you still need to penetrate.

8- spell resistance - This is a touchy subject for many, but especially for solo play you want this. Why? Lots of lower level mobs have spell resistance notably elves, renders, flensers, reavers, etc. These mobs are easily contained in von3 and the threnal runs with charm and other spells like hold monster. Without it you will see blue shields all day. A waste of mana. A party will love that you can do what most other casters cannot do in many dungeons by using spell pen. Charming elves in a lot of dungeons is tough, especially elite. This way they are your friends quickly. There are lots of dungeons with spell resistant mobs, it will help you tremendously to have this ready

9- scrolls to carry -
Enervation- on non spell resistant mobs this really helps

Minor globe of invulnerbility - until you can get charm monster, this is a great way to deal with charms that have to break. When they stand in it, they will break. You can beat them down. If in trouble just step out of the ball and it will follow and recharm itself. This is also good for a large group fo charmed mobs to get stuck on themselves. Just cast it and let some run through. They will all attack each of the broken ones. Some come in and some come out charm/recharm/charm.. all aggro crazy like. Quite amazing. Pretty fun in a large charmed group with an end boss too.

Major globe of invulnerbility - this deals withe 4th level spells and lasts longer. Unfortunately there is not a globe for 5th level spells. So dominate person (and mas suggestion/persuasion are unaffected)....also good for throwing up when attacked by mind flayers as it stops there mind stun thingee.


Never wait for charms to wear off.
Do not bother if they get stuck, run faster than them, leave em behind.
Bring as many as you can to the end battle and watch if too many break.
Only charm casters if you have too.
Rangers are great too charm, fighters last forever charmed.
Charm all the giants in stormcleave and use them to fight the skeletons....it is just cool.


as for your build and charm...I am assuming 2 levels of paladin. Well...that is gonna lower your DCs quite nicely. -2 for the non 18 charisma is one thing. Minus two levels is another. Add to that at an appropriate level you will be at least one spell level lower on your heighten than a straight caster.... tough call landing charms and getting through spell resistance. Makes the enchantment and spell pen feats even more needed at early levels.