Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback The Problematic "Friends" Spell: The Number One Annoyance from my Last Two Playthroughs

Just prior to the fabulous new patch I played as a Bard and prior to that as a Sorcerer. Often, for seemingly random reasons, perfectly happy PCs would suddenly aggro on me, ruining all sorts of gameplay and forcing me to load. There were many examples of this, but the most awkward was after Kagha wholeheartedly thanked me for convincing her not to join the shadow druids. Then all of a sudden as I was walking through the grove to claim my reward for saving the grove all the druids, including Rath, stated turning hostile. Midway through the second playthrough I was annoyed at what I thought was bugginess in the game and had no idea why this was happening. Then I realized why: the friends spell.

If I am trying to resolve a conversation peacefully through charisma skills, no one is upset when Shadowheart casts guidance in the middle of the conversation, likely because it is cast on me. Yet if I use friends, it casts on the person I am talking to, who then goes hostile once a timer ticks down after the conversation. This might be the way the spell works in PnP, but is not the way it should work in BG3.

This may seem like a nit-picky issue, but it really made my last two playthroughs where I tried out charismatic characters much less enjoyable. Not only did it make the spell not worth casting, but I had no idea why all sorts of situations were going dramatically south. I am familiar with DnD and have played both prior Baldur's Gate games and was confused by this, and I have little doubt that players not familiar to the game will be even more confused.

Personally, I think this spell should be changed in BG3 to simply apply to the person in dialogue, to give them advantage on the roll, just like guidance gives them a bonus on the roll. I don't think a spell granting advantage on charisma-based skills is too overpowered, and encourages different ways of competing the game. I've even thought of making certain characters high half-elves instead of wood-half elves because access to this as a high-elf cantrip would give open up opportunities for non-cha based characters to use skills meaningfully on occasion. I also think that this will be much less confusing to players new to the game who, like myself, will be constantly wondering why people start attacking them out of the blue.

If for some reason Larian deems the above change too powerful for some reasons, please just cut the stupid spell out of the game. It isn't worth using to face such drastic consequences for those in the know and it risks ruining the game experience of those who are not in the know.

Thanks for making an awesome game and your kind consideration in thinking about this change.

Honestly, I've never used the Friends spell because I know it aggroes characters after it wears off, which seems to negate any benefit it could have in the moment. Can anyone tell me when the spell is actually useful? Genuinely, it seems like Friends and Charm Person are two spells that just are bad and wouldn't provide any real benefit.

Every single time you either get rid of that character, or you run far enough fast enough.

First example that comes to my mind is Gibblebog.
You "Friend" him ... pass your check ... and he runs away from the sight, hearing, and eventualy existence itself.

Most likely, a spell granting advantage on charisma-based skills would encourage a single way of completing the game - casting that spell for every single charisma check. Especially since it is trivial & consequence-less to long rest in BG3 and restore spell slots.

It'd also make all other spells/abilities that grant advantage on charisma checks (at a higher cost, level, or other penalty) less meaningful, as advantage doesn't stack.

What should be fixed is the discrepancy between the BG3 Friends tooltip and what actually happens. The tooltip says "Once the spell ends, the creature knows it was Charmed and might accuse the spellcaster." Keyword accuse. Similar to what happens when you steal from someone, casting friends should result in the NPC afterward coming up and initiating dialogue. The player has to persuade/bribe/intimidate the NPC in order for combat to not be initiated, and casting any spell during this conversation (guidance, Friends, etc) should result in automatic combat as the NPC is on the lookout for your magical mind control.

That's...bizarre. I kinda thought that I was misunderstanding something about how the spells, but apparently not. The spells...don't seem to have an actual upside. The point of charisma checks is usually to avoid combat. Why bother using the spell to boost those checks if it only makes combat inevitable later? Unless you straight up just avoid the character like the plague from then on and stay far, far away.

Personally I used the spell only once in my entire time playing and it was only to test to see what happens once it wears off. Safe to say, it easily got on my "most useless spells ever made" list, along with charm animal, never to be looked upon again.

So I agree with you that they should just get rid of its hostility thing. Realistically it makes sense for it to provoke people as nobody would consent to being casted upon and bewitched, however from a game perspective it is the most useless spell out there, especially since there are far easier and safer ways to gain charisma advantage. The spell simply cannot compete with better alternatives.

They should either remove the hostility or rework it so it isn't obsolete. Same with charm animals.

That's right. The first time I used this spell, I was shocked at how useless it was. You can really only use it on certain NPCs like the Kith'rak Voss, who get aggressive anyway. The old AD&D version was much better, even better than the current Guidance spell, I think: https://baldursgate.fandom.com/wiki/Friends

Friends is extremely useful, I use it all the time. It makes social scenes A LOT easier, advantage is quite strong, and only becomes stronger if you already have good charisma.
Think of situations like saving Mayrina AND getting the hags hair for example. You need to pass a DC20 persuasion roll, I played a bard with expertise, so +5+4 with advantage.
This VERY difficult check all of a sudden becomes a 75% chance to pass.

Just treat it like stealing and teleport out immedately, or leave the area. Then, you will not have any problems.
If you leave and then come back later, characters will not be hostile to you

This is a D&D 5e choice.

They wanted low level mind control to come with consequences.

They were right in that certain aspects of D&D Tabletop would not translate well into a computer game.


They just were not smart enough to see that "How a NPC reacts to being mind controlled/charmed" is one of them things.

As for spells once the game is out just use Guidance and Enhance Ability on someone with Expertise and you should be golden in most social encounters.

Actions with consequences are a good thing.
Cantrip mind control should have consequences.
IMHO this working as intended.

It's not mind control - even charm person is not mind control - it's a magical influence, and friends is a very mild magical influence - it doesn't make them obey you, it just temporarily alters their perception of you, to consider you a friendly acquaintance (not even a close friend), and you don't neglect your duties and important objectives just because a friend you know asked you to. It's a very mild spell, which is why it's a cantrip - it doesn't achieve anything that you couldn't achieve with normal conversation, it just makes doing so easier and faster, at the cost of a lingering hostility and resentment from the individual afterwards.

Crown of madness, compulsion, dominate person, command and even suggestion - these are examples of actual mind control spells that compel your target to act in specific ways, or let you dictate what they do and how they behave. Charm Person, and Friends, are not this.

There is also a misunderstanding about 'Hostile', and that is the crux of the problem here.

Hostile does not mean 'will attack you' or 'get a red border and is now an enemy'; that's not what it means and it's not what it's ever meant within 5e nomenclature. Hostile is a dispositional state - a hostile NPC is inclined to mistrust you or your intentions, and is not inclined to help you, and may be difficult or even potentially impossible to convince to assist you or to let you do as you wish. That is what it means; nothing more than that.

Having NPCs attack you for using the spell and by extension turning whole factions against you, is absolutely not correct interpretation of this cantrip spell.

In video game terms, such as a Larian game, what friends should do is raise the disposition of the character along with its mechanical effect, and then after the duration expires lower it by a much stronger factor, so that when you next talk to that npc afterwards, they are in the angry and unhappy dispositional state (orange towards red on Larian's happy bar), and don't want to interact with or assist you. The game has the capability to handle doing this, and it would be a more correct interpretation of the cantrip's function and consequence. The movie vendor, upon being influenced to give you a discount because you're mates, may later put up 'do not serve' signs with your portrait, and gruffly let you know that you're banned from their cinema for your behaviour; they might call the guards to escort you off the premises if you don't leave... they don't immediately leap over their serving counter and try to stab you with the popcorn scoop on sight, unless they're already unhinged and strongly inclined towards violence naturally.

Consider this spell from the point of view of the victim. Someone comes up to a medieval villager and uses magic to alter their mind to get them to agree to something they didn't want to agree with. That's mind control from their point of view. Casting mind influencing spells against someone without their knowledge or consent is an attack against that person.


Perhaps you should read the spell.


It literally says in the 5e spell description that one of the possible outcomes of the spell is that the victim might attack you.



As noted above this is exactly the correct interpretation of the spell. "That stinking spell caster just mind controlled me! Get them!"

(This is also a Baldur's Gate tradition. In the original Baldur's Gate if you failed vs pickpocket against a sleeping person in the Friendly Arm Inn he would go red and still be sleeping. Even if the door was closed and no one could have possibly seen the failed thievery attempt the entire Friendly Arm Inn went red and would attack you.)

Perhaps you should read my post again ^.^ You missed a pretty important detail within it that make the majority element of your response seem a little pointless and silly.

You can spin it how you like - Friends and charm person are not mind control, and that's been stated, again and again and again. Influence is not control. Magical affectation is not magical domination. It does not compel action, it does not force action and it does not control action, in any way; other spells do. It's not mind control, and it's not a mind control effect, unlike the other spells mentioned, which are. This isn't really open for debate - there's a clear line between what is and isn't mind control, and that is the compulsion of action. It's been ruled on, repeatedly. No-one's saying this cantrip is not invasive, but it's not mind control.

The chance that a target already inclined towards violent response might act violently upon discovering that you attempted to, or did, influence their decision-making is perfectly legitimate and within the definitions of hostile disposition; the spell text is a warning of this, more than anything else. Targets that are not so inclined, however, will not. If we wanted to take the spell entirely literally, then it's actually iron clad that creatures not already disposed towards violence, and not already prone to violence will not attack you from the use of this spell, since, as we know, spells do what they say, and only what they say, and this one says that creatures prone to violence might attack you... it does not carry that caveat for other creatures not inherently disposed towards violence.. so that merchant absolutely should not, just by the wording of the spell, if you want to be entirely literal. Are you suggesting that every NPC in the world is a creature predisposed towards violent reactions and prone to violence, even without magic being involved? I certainly don't accept that as a premise.

I gave a definition for what hostile means, in 5e nomenclature, and that's accurate. That don't discount the spell or its wording, and indeed, if you read my post properly, you'll see I already mentioned the edge cases where individuals prone to violence might, indeed, react violently. It does not change the fact that these spell effects are not mind control, and it's incorrect and misleading to label them as such; please don't.

I'd strongly suggest that you leave off looking for an argument for the sake of it; you've given your opinion that it's working fine and should continue to work that way - I accept that as your opinion, I just corrected you on your definition of Friends as a mind control spell, because it is not - that's all. There's no argument to be had here.

- I'd give you a lecture you haven't asked for.
- Okay, that's fine, I guess.. but can we look at it that way? Look, here is an example?
- Say what? No, this is silly, I am here to patronize you so I suggest you to read this, say this thing and not that thing

Hahaha

Edit: oh, by the way, that's just how I see it, not a necessarily factual representation of whats really happened in case someone would want to lecture me as well

Whether it's 'mind controlled' or just being "magically influenced", a agree with this sentiment.
I would not react kindly to someone casting Friend or Charm Person on me.

Let's check what you said then.

Let's check the spell.

The outcome you claim is not the correct interpenetration in your original post is actually in the spell.
You can backpedal as much as you'd like in your response. Claiming violent reactions weren't in line with the spell was simply wrong.

Your appeal to imaginary authorities is amusing.
You are using a magic spell without consent to get someone to do something they don't want to do.
From the victim's perspective there is no difference whether you call it influence or control, you have used magic on their mind to get them to do something they otherwise would not have done.
That's mind control.


You expressed your opinion on what you think Friends should do and I accept that as your opinion. I just corrected you on what the spell said and on what mind control is, because you were wrong - that's all.
If there is no argument to be had I would suggest you stop arguing.

Its a shame there isnt poll in this topic ...
Bcs no matter if Niara or Alodar are corect about "how it should work" ... *this* is how it is working ... and basicaly all we can do is to say if we like it or not.

I do, for one.

I am very torn about it actually. On the one hand, it does make sensethat people would maybe attack you for using the spell on them, but on the other hand...what's the point of Friends and of charm person then? What actual benefit is there in the game? They're worse than useless because they can only make a situation end in violence.