The 'charm person' spell specifies person in the name, but anything can be charmed. I've been kicking around the idea of flagging all mobs (by race) into humanoid or beast. 'Charm person' would then apply to humanoids, and a new 'tame' skill could be added to rangers. A little something to make rangers a bit bolder, help them at lower levels (since archery isn't really a valid option), and to give them more of a 'nature' side.

I still anticipate that 'charm person' would be much better than 'tame', since humanoid mobs are much more likely to carry equipment on them to boost their stats (such as weapons for additional damage).

Just an idea that came to mind while working on the new summon/pet/charm code.

Well, given that I know some of how the builder side of things work, that would be quite easy to do, so coding it isn't an issue at all.

First there would be a few things I would have to ask:

1) Would clerics using tame still be able to control a mob 1.1x their own level, or would this only apply to charm person?
2) Would rangers using tame be able to control a mob 1.1x their own level, or would it still be equal to their level as it currently is for all nonclerics using charm person?

Depending on how #1 was done, clerics would either be essentially unchanged (once leveling ranger high enough for tame) or lose a small amount power, as they wouldn't be able to charm quality beasts, but could still charm quality humanoids.

Depending on how #2 was done, rangers would either be essentually unchanged (once leveling cleric high enough for charm person) or gain significant power as they could charm quality beasts.

There would, of course, be the lower level benefit of rangers being able to charm beasts sooner, regardless of how #2 were implemented, and cleric having to wait to charm beasts until later.

I see a lot of people whining about how they say rangers are underpowered, so it might be interesting to see what would happen if they could charm higher level beasts.

I've also seen many other games where charm type spells were subdivided, though mostly in games where we had a lot more classes than five, and didn't have everyone able to play all 5 at once.

Just responding with what I originally thought up, although by no means is it a closed matter.

Clerics would get the charm bonus with humanoids, and rangers would get the bonus with beasts. While strengthening rangers slightly with this, and weakening clerics, I do not think it will be a major hit to clerics. Most clerics charm humanoid mobs anyways, for the weapons (damage). Rangers on the other hand may choose to investigate the strongest beasts, as 10% increase in levels without a weapon is likely out perform a weapon wielding mob of equal level.

I've also been kicking around the idea of making the level cap bonus based on skill/spell % instead of just a straight 10%. Not quite decided on this yet, since this would marginalize a major advantage for primary clerics (in the current system), which is definitely not a goal.