Dominate Vs Charm

[Vallar]

Greetings Sorcerers! How do you do?
I hope you are all well and sound.

As you may have noticed, this is my very first post, however I have been playing for the past month and have to say... the game is just plain awesome!

So far, I chose an Elven male for my Sorcerer (for nothing particular other than the dexterity bonus which I regret now, which resonate to the lack of knowledge about anything related to D&D). Anyway, now he is level 10 and I chose for my level 5 spell to be Dominate Foe. I do want to play the role of a charmer/enchanter.

However, I was wondering, can I drop Charm Person now? As Dominate sounds FAR more superior in my perspective. Would I lose anything if I swapped that spell for another more useful, say Grease or Detect Door or the likes?

Thank you in advance.

[tinyelvis]

I assume you use heighten. If not you should. In this case, the only benefit I can see to charm is that the affected creature will remain in its general area. This of course is only a benefit if you desire to charm then leave the creature. Keep in mind, the charmed creature will often seek you out once the charm breaks so even this small potential benefit has its limits.

IF it was me and I planned to take dominate, then I would swap out charm for something more useful.

[Goldeneye]

You can keep both.
Casting against humanoids, you can alternate both spells.

However, I would advice you to drop Charm Human. There are better spells, and Charm Human is easily replaced by spells that can effect more monsters.

[Pwesiela]

If it's a choice between the two, drop charm and keep dominate.

First, dominate has a longer timer between saves.

Second, dominate has a higher will save, without the use of heighten.

Third, a dominated creature will follow you outside of its general area, making it more useful in a large area.

Fourth, it's more fun to say "I DOMINATED that guy" than "I charmed that guy." This includes PvP (where you can't use it iirc).

[Vallar]

Thank you everyone for the answers.

I switched Charm Person for Grease in hopes to have more CC power. So now, I have Command Undead, Dominate Person and Suggestion. Have to say though, the mobs do save almost all the time against Dominate (or Charm for that matter), even when having the Spell Penetration Feat. I think however, that once I get my Charismatic Cloak it would change a bit.

Anyway, thank you very much guys ^^

[Antheal]

Also, be aware of which School a particular spell belongs to if you plan on taking one of the Spell Focus: school Metamagic feats that increase the saving throws required for a particular spell.

For example, Hypnotism and Charm are Enchantment spells whereas Grease is a Conjuration spell. I expect Command Undead is a Necromancy spell?

[Dingdongtudelu]

Hey Vallar,

You may or may not know, but there are types of saves for types of spells. Enchantment spells, like charm and dominate, often allow their targets to roll a will save. Death spells, for example, often use fortitude saves, where evocation spells often use reflex saves.

Saving on spells / DC in general
------------------------------

When the creature succeeds in rolling higher than your spell DC (difficulty check, determined by your cha, among other things as sorcerer), he resists the spell and 'saves' it. For enchantment spells, this generally results in nothing at all happening, and you losing mana. Evocation spells often have their damage halved. To avoid your spells being saved, you could get items that improve your enchantment DC. Certain weapons can do this for you. Getting more int is always a good thing for any spell that allows a save to be made, and getting feats that grant you a spell focus in a particular domain (in your case enchantment), will up your DC too. The level of the spell being cast (charm monster has level 1), is added to that. Heighten spell is a feat that lets you increase that last modifier to the highest level of spell you can cast. If you heighten a charm person, and you are able to cast level 5 spells, the modifier will increase from 1 to 5.


Spell save types
----------------

Fortitude - Constitution
Reflex - Dexterity(/Intelligence)
Will - Wisdom(/Charisma)

The above overview will give you an idea about what type of spell to use against which target. The stats in brackets mean that the target has a specific type of feat enabled that allows them to use the stats in brackers as their save modifier, instead of the stat before that. For reflex saves, you can get the insightful reflexes feat. For will saves, there is force of personality.

Fighters in that regard, have abysmal will saves, and will often not even come close to making a save against your superdominate. Clerics on the other hand, are hard to cast enchantment spells on, and are often more easily disposed of by using evocation spells.

If you go nutso on the enchantment DC though, you should be able to fairly reliably charm targets with good will saves too.

Hope I didn't bombard you with too much information there...

D.

[Samadhi]

The only reason to keep charm spells is for the AOE ones (mass charm monster or mass suggestion). As you correctly surmised, Dominate is the superior spell, and the enchanter's choice for proper single-target control.

[Vallar]

Hmm... I see, this is quite an insight. I have acquired a club that gives 40% damage to 4th level spells and lower. This alone makes Fireball do about 45-97 per hit. I have maxed lore in Fire damage too. But I am thinking of changing the rest of my items for Enchantment thing then increase damage for spells and then Spell penetration.

Hopefully this will generate the results I am hoping for.

Really, thank you everyone for all the help, it really did open my eyes on a lot of things.

[Antheal]

The next feat you'll get will be at level 12, not 11.

Also, I notice your alignment is Chaotic Good, as you progress further into the game, you may find that an alignment like True Neutral may be more effective for you as a non-melee character. As there's no way to change your alignment without rerolling, don't worry about trying to make the "perfect" character and just use your current character as a learning experience so you know how to plan your progression to Level 20 on the next character you play.

As long as you remember to have fun, you're winning.

[Vallar]

I didn't even want it Chaotic good. I just followed one of the paths for Sorcerers, that about it. I learned the hard way that this allegiance isn't really any good. One of the quests had a golem in it that strikes you with some kind of holy or light cube, almost instant kills on hard.

But yeah, currently I am using this character to learn what all I could and have fun as much as I can, once I am done, I will probably either re-incarnate it or just use it as a bank character.