Charmed green / light blue won't attack reds?!

[Jimjam]

What the hell is this?!

CHARM / BEGUILE, By Nallatikie nomanna - xegony (1/28/2001)
As an answer to the person who wrote that the charm series is buggy. The reason your pet did not attack its intended target is because they will not commit blatent suicide. If you charm a green or a low blue and tell it to attack a red, it will not do so. It will act as you described. Good Luck to all of you out there, ours is a difficult job, especially when no one lets us perform it (they dont understand ae mez and /assist on the main tank) Nallatikie Nomanna (https://web.archive.org/web/20010911151150/http://eq.castersrealm.com/spells/spelldescriptions.asp?Id=84&Page=2)

from casters realm archived page 2 September 11th 2001(!)

here is the described behaviour of the unsuicidal charm pet:

VERY BUGGY?, By Harach (1/28/2001)

A lot of times I charm (or beguile) a monster or whatever, and then tell him to attack another - He'll run back and forth, not doing anything. Once the monster I told to attack dies from something else, it will come back to its senses and come back to me. Charm may be bugged in dungeons and similar places. I mean, if I mess around with it in the Qeynos newbie area, it works fine. Most other places it messes up, though. (https://web.archive.org/web/20010504153937/http://eq.castersrealm.com/spells/spelldescriptions.asp?Id=84&Page=3)

from 2001 May Fourth (be with you!) eq.crgaming.com archive.

Really enjoyed digging this up. Don't remember it at all from live, but it gave me a laugh! I don't think it works like this here?

[Dolalin]

The second one is just a pathing bug in dungeons, which was super common. Not sure about the first. NPC logic was just super buggy all around. P99 is too bug-free :D

[Rygar]

Keep in mind I seem to recall charmed giants could attack Avatar of War before they nerfed it (i presume they would be green to AoW).

Not sure the exact details of how level disparity would work if true. I know there was something like spells had 0% landing if mob was 1.3 times your level or something like that, maybe same for charmed mobs refusing to attack if above that range.

[Rygar]

My first bit of general evidence from Dec, 1999 (https://groups.google.com/g/alt.games.everquest/c/ZxO0i-2xI_o/m/v5i4mbNP3S0J):
I am a level 19 Druid. I use befriend animal all the time to help me fight.
...

Anyway, tonight I couldn't
get my pets to fight.

...

Most of the pets I charmed were green so that they
would last longer.

If your Pet is too green compared to the Target you want to attack it
will ignore your attack command.

[Dolalin]

This is jogging my memory a bit. I know there was an issue with mage pets for awhile in early vanilla where they wouldn't attack reds, due to logic like this. It was eventually patched out. But I don't remember when this stopped being an issue for charmed pets.

[scifo76]

Pets running back and forth when sent to attack something is a classic pathing bug that can be seen in various places on P99 as well.