Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Friends cantrip causes NPCs to turn hostile?

It causes NPCs to turn hostile now after it wears off.

Had it happen at Wakeen's rest, used it during the dialogue with the first Fist you meet and once it wore off after 10 turns I lost attitude and they all turned hostile. In the middle of another dialogue even.
Same thing in the goblin camp. Using Friends causes NPCs to turn hostile after 10 turns.

Didn't happen on my other playthroughts (all on Tactitian).
Did it get nerfed, or is my game bugged? It's basically useless now.

It is how that spell works and according to Larians own description, it is intended to make NPCs hostile,when they realise,what happened.
So if you didn't had that before, it was a bug.

It's always been that way, although I don't think it's the same in lower difficulties.

It only lasts a certain amount of time. Once the spell wears off, the NPC will turn hostile, upset that a manipulative form of magic was used.

However, if you're not around the NPC when the spell wears off, the NPC will get over it. Meaning you can talk to them again later as long as you're not right there when the effect ends. Walk away, come back, everything's fine.

This will probably get listed as a bug fix, and I believe that there were always instances of it doing this...

Unfortunately, it stems from a misunderstanding of the word 'Hostile'. The spell 'friends' is a cantrip that mentally compels a person to be friendly and helpful, temporarily, and when it wears off they are aware that you manipulated them with magic in this way; the spell text describes this and says that the affected target becomes hostile. What this means in D&D terms, is that the npc is shifted to the hostile disposition, which simply means that they are unwilling to assist you or expend any effort or risk for your sake; that they are ill-disposed towards you and are belligerent and unhelpful in manner. Hostile is a social disposition - alongside neutral and friendly.

Far too many people take the words of the spell in a video-game style, even in tabletop and assume it means 'they attack' - that's not what it means at all, but it's common nomenclature in video games to that effect, and that's how a lot of people mistakenly treat it. In particular, especially in game translations into video game format, this mistake is almost universal.

In this game, I believe what they've done with it is that it gives them an immediate negative 75 (or thereabouts?) in their disposition towards you when the spell ends, and if that brings them low enough they'll go video-game-hostile and attack. It they like you a lot beforehand, though, they might not, and will just hate you. Of course, if they like you that much before you cast the spell, there's probably no need to cast the spell...

Should depend on number of uses. Using once on an NPC that was friendly toward you would move them to neutral. Using it twice would move them to not like you and a third time would make them attack you. Your basically taking away a portion of their free will, this is in essence really a mental attack.

So you're telling me in 2 playthroughs, over 200h and using Friends literally EVERY SINGLE TIME it was available, it was bugged the entire time?

Because it has NEVER behaved like this for me.

That's only on the higher difficulty.

I tell you, what should be. On Tactician, this spell should work as described. However, as Niara pointed out, you might have had luck, that you didn't loose enough friendship with npcs, that they did turn hostile. Or it was a bug in your game. I can't tell you, what is wrong on your side, I can only tell you, what is suppose to be happening.

In my (not exhaustive) testing, friends will cause npcs to go aggro **IF** you are standing near them when it wears off. If you go away and return later it is fine (again, as far as I was able to tell). If I recall correctly there was a note about this in one of the early patch notes after release.

I can confirm that they won't go hostile if you get the f. Out from there in less then 10 turns. I think the implementation is bad it should be like mind reading roll a dice if you are successful you won't get caught.

The superior version of Friends is Enhance Ability: Charisma.

Exact same effect, with no negative side effects.

Thats why I no longer pick the Friends Cantrip on any of my characters.

Enhance Ability: Charisma does have a superior impact. However, it also costs a second level spell slot, whereas Friends is free to use and available from level 1.

And seeing that I used it at every opportunity available and never even knew there were any potential consequences to doing so, I can’t really see a downside to just using Friends.