Hello everyone, and welcome to another article focusing on the Cleric Domains in the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. The goal for each of these is to provide you with a quick overview of your domain powers, spells, and introduce you to a god or goddess from real-Earth mythology who could be a deity using this particular domain.
All that said, welcome to this week’s article on the domain of: Charm
The Charm domain is described as “You can baffle and befuddle foes with a touch or a smile, and your beauty and grace are divine.” – so we have a god of beauty, probably also flirtation, wit and charm as well, and quite possibly some confusion.
The powers given are Dazing Touch – Which allows you to daze a living creature for 1 round as a touch attack. This means that they cannot take any action for 1 round. That means no attacking, no spellcasting, and no moving. If you can get in close, it makes for an excellent way to take someone out of the equation for a while. (Provided they do not have more hit dice than you have levels). Crucially, it doesn’t allow a saving throw.
The second power is Charming Smile – the ability to cast Charm Person as a swift action. While it only lasts for a limited amount of time (1 round/level), the ability to cast it as a swift action means that you can charm one opponent (effectively removing them as an enemy, unless you attack them directly or attempt to get them to do something they normally wouldn’t), and still be able to deal with one more.
Spells:
The spells you get with the Charm domain are as follows:
Charm Person
Before this starts, it’s important to note that it only affects humanoids (this does NOT include monstrous humanoids). That said, this spell is where a player can get creative. After all, what would you do for a “trusted friend”? That’ll at least partially depend upon your alignment, but I have a deeper discussion of this spell on a previous installment of Finding the Path, which you can find HERE.
Calm Emotions
This spell allows you to calm creatures down, removing negative emotion and emotion-like effects, such as a Rage spell, a barbarian’s rage ability, and even things like a Bless spell. It allows you to remove morale bonuses and penalties, fear effects, and even the confused condition. So it also prevents them from taking effect, so if you cast it on a barbarian before he has a chance to rage, you can (while concentrating) keep him from raging.
Suggestion
This particular spell does well in the hands of a creative caster. As described in the spell “influence the actions of the target creature by suggesting a course of activity (limited to a sentence or two). The suggestion must be worded in such a manner as to make the activity sound reasonable.” So, in this case, the recipient won’t do anything suicidal like “Go kill the Red Dragon,” but you could make it far more reasonable by saying “Could you distract the dragon a moment? Then we’ll handle it for you.” That means that with a bit of creativity you can make most things sound reasonable. Caught stealing? “Could you do me a favor and say you were with me? You know I had nothing to do with it.” Need the goblin scout to lie to his chieftain and say he didn’t see you? “Could you claim you never saw us? We won’t bother your tribe, HONEST!” And I’d be amiss if I didn’t mention one of those all-time movie moments: “These aren’t the droids you’re looking for.” “These aren’t the droids we’re looking for.” – Have fun with it. 😊
Heroism
Heroism gives a +2 morale bonus on attack rolls, saves, and skill checks. The important part of this one isn’t the bonus (though it is very nice, since it applies to so many things), it is the duration of the spell. Lasting 10 minutes per level, this spell will last over an hour, even when you only just picked it up. This will allow multiple combats or skill checks, depending on the circumstances, though it only allows for one creature to be affected.
Charm Monster
See Charm Person and apply to every type of creature.
Geas/Quest
These spells have seen great use in the plot-setup for various adventures, though often not in the games themselves. This is likely because most players are unlikely to use this as a spell themselves, as the goal of the spell is long term, but when applied to player characters it has a life of its own. For example, one PC encounters the villain on his own. The villain uses Geas/Quest and instructs the PC to bring the rest of the party to a certain point, at a certain time, and that he IS NOT ALLOWED TO TALK ABOUT IT AT ALL. That means that the player should do their utmost to lure the others there (or suffer some nasty penalties) and that he wouldn’t be allowed to explain why. GM, this is where you’re supposed to shine. Be creative in what an NPC might do, and allow the NPC to use their level of intelligence to at least shut down some of the loopholes that the players might use. (In my example above, the player cannot TALK about it, but the villain did not specify that he couldn’t WRITE about it for instance. That would give the player an out if he takes the time to consider it. Of course, you should put some time pressure on, just to mess with it, as it makes for a better narrative).
Insanity
Okay, mechanically this spell simply applies the confused condition. It’s a great effect in the hands of a PC, but it is a HATEFUL spell in the hands of an NPC, as it takes away player agency. That said, mechanically it’s at least partially able to take an NPC out of a combat, or even worse, make that NPC work against his own group. So it’s good for sowing a bit of chaos, and can give you the upper hand if used in the right conditions, and given a bit of luck.
Demand
See Suggestion and add a range of the entire plane that you’re on, and beyond.
Dominate Monster
In many ways, this is like Charm Person, except this time you can CONTROL the actions, without them being able to resist it, as they would under Charm Person (and you’re not limited to just humanoids). That means that they can act directly against their own will. The only limit is language, so while you can cast it on any humanoid, sharing a language makes this much more powerful and versatile as you can give them very exact instructions to do.
New Deity
Clíodhna
The Dual Goddess, Queen of the Fair Folk, Queen of the Banshees
Alignment N
Worshipers lovers, minstrels, elves, those who appreciate beauty, artists, public speakers, and politicians
Cleric Alignments LN, NG, N, NE, CN
Domains: Charm, Death, Destruction, Madness, Trickery
Sub-domains: Exploration, Insanity, Love, Lust, Rage, Undead,
Favored Weapon: Longbow
Symbol: a stone with red feminine smiling lips or a dual-faced coin with the same woman depicted on both sides, one young and beautiful, the other dead and screaming horribly.
Clíodhna is a dualistic goddess, both a goddess of beauty, but also a goddess of death, destruction, and the undead. Portrayed by her followers during the day as a fair maiden, at night she turns into an avenging banshee, and so too do her followers act. During the day they are helpful, bright, and willing to work towards the greater good, helping young people find true love, arranging marriages, and helping in fields. During the night they become avengers and criminals, some turn to vigilantism and others to murder sprees, using their normal work as cover for their crimes.
Generally, the clergy does not accept murderous behavior, but they do accept that all mortals have a darker side, one best indulged during the cover of night, and they’re willing to give their lay worshipers some leeway, though anything truly endangering the community provokes a violent reaction.
Services are held at dawn and dusk, with dawn services celebrating the day to come and the joy of life, and dusk services embracing the “death of the day.” Clíodhna’s clergy generally get along fairly well with the undead, and have no issues with the unintelligent undead at all. Only the intelligent undead are eliminated if needed, depending on their predisposition.
Next week, we take a look at the Community domain. Let us know in the comments if you have anything you wish to add or see addressed. 🙂
Kim Frandsen
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