Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Charm Spells and Consequences

What is the best way to use a Charm subtype spell (Friends, Charm Person, Dominate Person/Monster) without being caught?
As you will note in the spell description.
"When the spell ends, the creature knows it was charmed by you."
As you can imagine, most people do not like to be mind controlled, even if it is just to pass a Charisma check. So what is the best way to resolve this issue in-game?

Charm Person/Dominate are combat spells, only used in combat. Friends is a spell used outside of combat for (mainly) dialogue advantages. I could be completely wrong about that, but from my experience with the EA, things operate that way.

I believe in EA when you used Friends on someone during a dialogue they instantly became hostile and attacked you once the dialogue ended. You could avoid that by some cheese by teleporting away or something and waiting a couple of minutes. There was a whole topic about this here before.


My advice for the Friends spell is simple - if they didn't change anything from EA don't use it. It's not worth the hassle. Make a Character with high CHA and proficiency in Persuation and use Guidance and Enhance Ability spells.

you can use Friend on someone who will leave after conversation or you are about to kill them.

I haven't tested this out, but you should be able to use disguise self to change you appearance then charm all you want. I'm assuming that would work since disguise self allows corpses from animate dead to speak with you even if you kill them.

Outside of that, I could see other more niche scenarios where it might be worth it.
- You need to get info from someone you plan on killing anyways.
- It's some random pc that you aren't likely to reencounter.

Lastly, I argue charm person should generally be used outside of combat even if it is in niche situations. If the spell succeeds the enemy is only charmed that one character and will still attack party members. Enemies also get advantage when their saving throws against it.

Would Metamagic, one not in game be useful here? I think I once read a argument of how a player (Sorcerer) used Subtle Spell to avoid the hassle of having to deal with the consequences of his action.