Casting a charm spell on someone should be a "crime".

Imagine you are a vendor. A person walks into your shop with a magic sword to sell. You look at it, and tell the person you'll give 100 gold for it. The person looks at you, mutters a few magic words at you (charm spell) and you find yourself liking that person alot more, and you gladly say you'll give 150 gold for that sword....

Haha, need a little more realism here! No reasonable city would allow that kind of thing to be legal.

However, casting spells upon yourself to boost your personality/speechcraft/etc could be ok. And, of course if you cast that charm spell on the person while being stealthy and the person didn't see you do it, then sure, no crime to report to the authorities....

At the very least, shop owners, city officials, etc should have some sort of protection set up to prevent themselves from being charmed. Maybe a permanent charm detection or dispel in the area.

But would a charmed person press charges?

I agree. When I first started playing Oblivion and I accidenty casted a charm spell in public, I thought Id get busted. But no, everyone acted as if it were perfectly natural. This idea would make a lot more sense.

When the effects wear off, if they know what happened. Of course.

Maybe not make it illegal, but perhaps just make it so that shopkeepers refuse to deal with you.

EDIT: but they're charmed, so why would they refuse to deal with you... hmmm

The only use of charm spells is to make people more friendly to you. If casting it makes them less friendly, what's the point?

This is magicka we're talking about, not Dragonshouts. No "words" necessary.


I think that's pretty much the best answer. I imagine when a charm spell wears off, the person affected by it is probably none the wiser, though they find their disposition returning to whatever it previously was for whatever reason. The whole point is you're charmed and you don't know it. If you knew the spell was cast at you at all, then it wouldn't work.

This is the first thing that comes to mind. Said person won't get pissed off that you hit them in the face with a charm spell until after the effect wears off. I suppose after they snap out of it they may get offended, but by then you're out of the store with his/her things.



Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't there a silence spell?

How about it's a crime if seen by a third party? Or perhaps if the shop keeper notices you charm them? The school charm falls under isn't exactly one that is meant to be obvious. Edit: That said, now conversations happen in real time so charm may be more difficult to use. I guess that depends on whether shopping also happens in real time.

Nobody would know a crime was committed, since they're.. ya'know.. charmed. Otherwise I would agree with you. :shrug:

Ok, so how about if you cast a charm spell on someone in a city and the person sees you do it, sure the spell works and the person is charmed, but after the effect wears off, the person's disposition is a lot less than before the charm? (In addition to it being a crime).

But if you are stealthy when charming someone, then no adverse effects occur.

I think more of a problem is the way it's used. It's weird that you have to cast the spell at the target with your hands. That should let the target know they got charmed, and if they knew they were charmed, they wouldn't have been charmed. It's supposed to work without the target knowing.

The whole point of charming someone is they don't know their charmed.

Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh :mellow:

It's pretty obvious when the charm spell is a big green blob shooting out of the caster's hand. Let's hope that changes.

Would people that are not charmed see it happen and press charges? Most likely. Which is the whole point the OP is trying to get across.

Yes, but it's only called Silence because that's what every fantasy game calls that move. When you cast any spell in any of the Elder Scrolls games, do you say anything? Does anybody say anything when they cast spells?

Haha, it's a charm spell, not a forget spell. They are gonna remember having offered 100 gold for the magic sword, but then changing it to 150 after being washed over by the happy green swirls of magic energy...

I'd think that after that happened a few times, the vendors would catch on, not to mention the prison guards, city watch, royalty, etc.

To some extent, this depends on what you think a charm spell is doing. If you think all it does is make someone else like you a little more, then it seems like it should have no effect if the target notices you doing it.

On the other hand, if you think a charm spell is a bit more like brainwashing, then it's plausible that the target would "forget" that they like you because you cast a spell on them.

I expect a sort of "wait, what do i see in him/her" kinda response once it wears off. They might not think about magic, just wonder, why did I like them

To them, it would just be "I offered 100 gold at first, but then I saw something special in that adventurer and offered 150 instead, looking back I suppose I was just being foolish, 150 is way too much for him/her!"

After a few times, yeah, I suppose, but I feel like that type of AI might be a bit much. Part of the ability to stay immersed in the ES world relies on the player cooperating with the game and not abusing it.

I think a better solution would be for them to have a resistance to being manipulated by the spell is they are skilled in magic as well. You walk in, cast a weak charm spell. Their apt reply is, "You think I am so weak as to fall for your deceit?" There would then be a moderate drop in disposition towards you.

Maybe a charm spell could be administered in a more disceet manor like through a handshake or touch on the shoulder. The touch could have a minor green hue to it.

Maybe the higher the will power the less chance of the spell working alltogether? Maybe they do know they're being charmed but forgive you because they love you....until the spell wears off. But they'll forgive you again if you charm em.

Or would they run and try to buy something themselves before it wore off? Hmmmm...

If it were really any significant problem, wouldn't any shopkeeper with decent resources and half a brain move to an enclosed shop and have some sort of permanent Dispel field put on it?

Maybe it would work more like a brainwash kind of spell. It would be reported as a crime if someone not affected by it sees you doing it.

Similar to the flashthingy in Men In Black, but having the effect wear off.