Strangeness of dire charm

[jimmybackman1]

if you are solo and get dire charmed you "die" why does getting charmed count as dying that is just silly with the amount of mobs that can charm the ♥♥♥♥ out of you?!

[fauxpas]

It actually does make alot of sense in universe; although I'd personally think it was decided due to AI limitations as well as the fact that it'd be really boring simply waiting for the charm to end.

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

Same question has been asked before many years ago. I'm not aware of any official explanation, such as whether it's by design or a known bug. Some players arrange something for themselves to make the game over scenario plausible (such as the opponent commanding the charmed character to commit suicide or such, since no party member is available anymore to help), others think the insta-death is silly.

[mike_hanna211]

Creatures charmed can't be commanded to "commit suicide" in tabletop AD&D.

Anyway, Baldur's Gate differs slightly from tabletop AD&D. I'm with the OP on this point. The duration of the Dire Charm spell is 20 rounds, in Baldur's Gate. You should be able to just wait it out instead of it being a death sentence.

[fauxpas]

True, but at the same time I think people would tend to dislike the AI attacking a fully charmed party either which would be the other realistic solution.

[Wonko]

Dire Charm and Charm Person work completely differetnly, but neither would allow the caster to command the victim to suicide.

Charm person makes the victim believe the caster is it's best friend in the world but ends if the caster attacks or commands the victim to self-harm.

Dire Charm sends the victim into a berserker frenzy, attacking the nearest creature, friend or foe, exluding the caster. So if your avatar were at the lighthouse and a siren dire charmed it alone, it'd either do nothing or run after the nearest squirrel, if it were two sirens then whichever one didn't cast the spell would be attacked.

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

And still it's "game over" so far, and the players are divided into several camps with regard to what they think about that as outlined before.