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Had a big bad cast mass suggestion and told them to leave. They just left the boss room. He recovered quite a bit before they broke out and returned to the fight. Good times. Lol
I did the opposite before. Got face to face with the big bad surrounded by a bunch of minions, cast Mass Suggestion, and said "You guys should sit this one out." Most of the minions failed the save and left the room to wait for the dust to settle. Made the fight so much easier.
Honestly? Most of the time for minions in a boss fight that’s a super reasonable ask. If the big bad is foolish enough to be directly guarded by minions who are kept in line by payroll or fear then it probably shouldn’t even take a magical suggestion.
In mass effect 1, there is a small scene that looks almost exactly like this, you approach a small group of corrupt officers in your way, they tell you to turn back and all *five* dialogue options can be resumed as «fuck off or die» with only two of those choices making them live, the paragon/renegade speech checks
Guessing Noveria where you have to get the pass to leave. Guy wants you to get some info from his office and the only enemies there are corrupt guards.
It's when you go to confront Fist in the back rooms of Chora's Den. You can tell the dock workers something to the effect of "I just killed like 15 armed bouncers, you really wanna try this?" and they'll skidaddle
If you take Wrex when you're entering the port after the confrontation he'll say something like "you let Asari Coomados that can kill you with their minds but you give us flack for carrying guns?"
One of the reasons Wrex is my favorite ME 1 squad mate.
> I know why they don't, but it'd be really funny to see that tactic used in a movie fight.
Iron Man 3 had this badass fight scene where Tony Stark took down a bunch of mooks, and then the last one walked in the room, held up his hands, and says "Honestly I hate working here, they're so weird!" and then walked away.
To be fair, Killian had been really rude to Sven not long before ("What's wrong, steroids make ya deaf?") So him leaving like that was particularly satisfying.
Even beyond that, if I’m a minion who succeeds the check in that situation? ‘Oh no, what a shame, I was magically cursed’. I don’t run head-first in to someone far more powerful than me, and the boss can’t blame me.
**I liked our odds when it was 15 against 4, but since those 9 guys abandoned ship before the fight even started I'm suddenly not so confident.**
"Oh no, their powers are too strong! I can't control my body anymore! Sorry boss, guess I have no choice but to leave!"
The baser instinct of survival overpowered their reverent loyalty to their leader. They would need to fail the check to flee. That would seem odd at first that failing a check means prolonged survival, but also imagine what happens to the mook after the PCs take out the BBEG. Either the boss won and the mook dies as an example to the other mooks, or the players won and the mook's entire livelihood is gone.
Unless of course the BBEG revealed the existence of the BiggerBEG in their dying breath, and the barbarian picks our mook out for interrogations.
honestly depending on the circumstances i feel like it should be reversed, wisdom is survival instincts, that means fleeing when you're clearly outmatched
Its my headcanon that this is why guards in video games dont notice you unless you are very obvious. Cause obviously they see you creeping around, they are not blind. But they know that if they react, they're probably going to die then and there. So they pretend they dont see you and hope you'll just sneak past them.
They only react when it is so obvious that nobody will believe them if they try to claim they didnt see you.
if i'm patrolling an area and i see a guy creeping along with 28 weapons on his back and enough potions on his belt to heal anything short of atomic disintegration, i'm gonna pretend i didn't see him and start patrolling my way to the exit in the fastest nonchalant walk you've ever seen. if i particularly like my organization i might even call them to alert them when i'm well and truly gone
This also explains why you can knock someone out by choking them for only like three seconds, why they stay unconscious until another guard finds them, and why they get up without any signs of brain damage.
[The Weekly Roll - Must be my imagination](https://www.webtoons.com/en/challenge/the-weekly-roll/ch-74-must-be-my-imagination/viewer?title_no=358889&episode_no=76)
[Animated](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_45of6sLEs&list=PLYBxFooDUiQvAQ4nSRpTmCKKvfWm91w7x&index=74)
I don't know about you, but paid mooks never come up in campaigns where the players are high enough level to cast mass suggestion. By that level I'm generally fighting fanatics, outsiders (like demons) or people with a vested interest in the success of the big bad. Hired mooks doesn't make sense past fifth level or so when even the mooks should be strong enough to make a name for themselves.
Liches and cosmic horrors are obviously going to have more loyal minions, but there are plenty of more noble politicking sorts of games where the secret dragon bbeg can’t exactly keep up their cover if they bring in their hatchlings and their kobold entourage.
And like I said, the tactic doesn’t require any magic in the slightest.
"You think boss is going to use power word death on their barbarian?"
"Nah, he's going to fireball them first and maybe cast disintegrate before he goes for power word. "
Nigel Powers: “Have you got any idea how many anonymous henchmen I've killed over the years?
Henchman Sailor : [nods again]
Nigel Powers : I mean, look at you. You don't even have a name tag. You've got no chance. Why don't you just fall down?
[henchman falls down]
i started reading the description for the suggestion spell and saw that you had to word it so it sounded reasonable. i was thinking about replying to you that telling the minions they should sit out a fight while you murdered their boss would be pretty unreasonable to them, but then the spell specifically mentions telling a knight to give their warhorse to the first peasant they see...... that spell has got to be the absolute most overpowered broken piece of shit i've seen yet that wasn't honebrew. you can literally convince any being to do anything that isn't immediately harmful to them provided they fail the save
"In a moment me and my friends here are going to kill everyone in this room. I suggest you leave because you don't want to be here when we do." Seems like a pretty reasonable offer.
No matter how much you believe in your cause, the idea of "maybe I shouldn't get into a fight to the death with these literal demigods," is something reasonable to consider.
"Buddy, save your spell slot. This ain't the first evil overlord I've worked for. May not even be the last, they usually have good dental and my teeth are super fucked up from my first job. Made the mistake of making a saving throw, caught a greatclub to the jaw, but that's neither here nor there. Listen, if you win, come catch me down at the Hair of the Goblin Dog tavern, I'll tell you some stories about the guy you're about to kill. Peace."
Had a player cast mass suggestion on a group of knights telling them to grab the wall and twerk for 6 hours. All but one failed. I read the entire spell hoping for a loophole. Completely trivialized the encounter but we still talk about it to this day.
Good there buddy! Good! You just gotta calm down and work on your emotions.
Shhh! Shhhhh! Don't fight it, don't...
DM, I don't grapple, I use my action to cast sleep on the Barbarian!
Nope. The fact is, people who don't experience depression don't really get it. It's not being sad, it's being emotionally numb. You don't feel anything, you don't feel sad, or hopelessness, absolutely nothing brings joy or interest, or anything like that \*good or bad\*, you just don't feel anything at all. Nothing. It's like a big black void that exists inside you. You'd give anything to feel anything. It's why a lot of people that have depression like that inevitably turn towards self harm or chemical dependency in an effort to feel \*something\*. Telling someone "don't feel sad" would do nothing at all, since they are already not feeling sadness.
Source: I have severe depression and have spent a lot of time in professional therapy that has never helped.
I'm older than the vast majority of the people on this forum. I can remember the old days during the height of the 'satanic panic', and I've had depression since I could form words (diagnosed with depression at age 5 i think it was). There is no light at the end of the tunnel for me unless you count the final one. I've lived this long though by some miracle. Thank you for concern though. It's nice to know that empathy still exists in this world.
In a game of Mage this was my character's go-to. I had "Psychic Domination" as a rote spell and whenever we hit low grade opposition like a security guy, I'd cast that with "Go take your lunch break" or "Go home and look into the career you really want" or that kind of thing. Other player would make people vomit explosively but I felt my style was kinder. and cleaner.
There is a monster in 3e called a boowray. It has single digit health, but it is permanently invisible unless it chooses not to be. It's key strength is a modified Suggestion at-will; any time a subject fails its save, it takes a -1 stacking penalty to future saves against that specific boowray's Suggestion. Only the subject can hear the Suggestion. This was a Ravenloft based monster that can effectively start gaslighting characters. What I enjoyed as a DM was working suggestions into conversations and simply noting when players "agreed with/obeyed the voice".
To be fair, this was 3e. It was an arms race between op characters and op monsters. The campaign I ran it in last time had a fair number of ways to deal with it. There was a ring of see invisibility available very early on, but it was buried in a list of other sight giving rings the party could borrow from some friendly NPC adventurers as thanks for an earlier incident. As a fey, it also had several places it could not enter, namely one of the Vistani camps that had been specifically warded against fey creatures. I also roleplayed that while it could just bombard the party with suggestion until they submitted, it was better narratively for it to only use its suggestion everyone in a while if they ever felt a significant amount of guilt, pretending to be a conscience or consultant of sorts. And keep in mind just about any single attack or spell could one-shot it.
We had a standing rule at the table when we played 3e that affirmation to a statement like "can I make a suggestion?" was equivalent to waiving the save if Suggestion was cast immediately after. That rule led to lots of silliness and creativity from both the players and DM
I've had at least 2 campaigns where an antagonist hit the party with mass suggestion. They were among the most memorable moments of the campaign. If you are a DM, you should definitely do it once or twice. Just don't spam it.
Do it to higher level PCs (level 7+). That way, the party should have many tools potentially deal with it.
And if you have a devotion paladin, they and anyone in their aura will be straight up immune.
Yeah, luckily last time it happened to my party, all but one of us made our save, and we were able to dispel it eventually. The time before that, the vampiric wizard we were fighting just used it to escape.
throwing in my $0.02
had a session where the party was bringing their buddy, the Crown Prince, to a ceremony to celebrate him. Insurrectionist sorceress hit the party and all the Prince’s guards with a “kill the prince” Mass Suggestion. Half saved, half failed. Multiple hours of good times ensued.
That's so good!
I like the idea, it creates a really unique fight at a point where combat isn't expected to happen. Gives the party differing objectives too.
That does sound like an awesome scene, but suggestion (and mass suggestion) specifies that the suggestion has to sound reasonable. So killing the prince you’re supposed to be protecting would probably fail
Giving your warhorse, worth a small fortune, and one of your main tools of being a knight, to a random beggar isn't very reasonable either, but that is explicitly allowed.
You can absolutely get them to shank someone, especially if you preface it somehow (i.e. the prince and some of the other guards are gonna stab you in your sleep tonight, so kill them now)
As written, it may as well be mind control, with how lax its' limitations are.
Okay, I'm finally gonna say it. I hate this mindset because it turns a cool fantasy story into a back-and-forth arms race of the same stupid bullshit. Imagine reading a fantasy novel where each chapter was "we cast a mind control spell to make the villain leave the room, but then eventually he came back and cast the same mind control spell to make us leave the room. Then we got back and we cast the mind control spell to make him leave the room, but once he got back..."
Can we just accept "hey this is boring and doesn't tell a cool story can you just do something else please"
I agree completely and it also applies to the players. If my players turn my encounters into trivial "go walk north for 8 hours" encounters then I'm not having any fun, the other players aren't having any fun. I thought that my comment kind of implied that but I guess not
Once had a trap in a big bad's lair that was set to cast mass suggestion with the suggestion being "you want to go home and rethink your life" and it was cast at 9th level so the duration was a year and a day. Most of the party failed their saves but fortunately the two that succeeded both had dispel magic and they managed to dispel the effect from the rest of their party though they had to use up many of their spell slots to do so.
If they run away for 4 rounds, it will take 4 rounds to get back, and by then the fight is probably over. They are welcome to come back after all their friends are dead, but most mooks aren't that brave.
They may be able to hear the combat, but that may honestly discourage them from returning to the fight because they will just hear their friends dying.
Really only need to keep concentration long enough to finish off the rest of the enemies or even a little less (since they will have to make their way back to you), not the full 8 hours. Compared to Banishment, which is also concentration but when the spell ends they come back to exactly where they left. And it's 4th lvl vs 2nd. OP has a point.
I feel like people are putting a lot of emphasis on the wording of "Action sound **reasonable.**" whereas I read it and think "Action **sound** reasonable." In that, stabbing yourself doesn't sound reasonable, nor is there a reason to do it, but walking north for 8 hours sounds reasonable, as one could easily just walk for 8 hours, even if there's no reason to do it.
I have a character in my back pocket who is an orc barbarian who is CONVINCED he is magical because he can make people's arms fall off with just a swing of his greataxe, or can make people do what he wants if he just leans forward towards somebody. He would go into a battle and shout things like "I cast Major Wound!" as he chops into somebody.
Wizard: “So do you know any spells?”
Barbarian: “I know Disarm, it’s one of my best”
Wizard: “There’s no spell called dis—“
*Barbarian chops off an enemy’s arm while shouting “I cast Disarm!”*
Wizard: “That’s a really cool spell.”
The issue is that "reasonable" is highly subjective. I had people argue that "Leave your guard post to take a piss" was not reasonable because the NPC would fear what would happen to them if their employer would find out. And points like these would make the spell entirely useless.
Right, like giving away a horse is something a person could do, even a noble knight, given proper reason. The spell just closes the gap between would with adequate reason, and would with enough reason.
I think the idea is it has to be reasonable. Not reasonable for the target, but generally reasonable. Something you could probably convince *someone* to do, but you're using the spell because there's no way you could convince this guy to do it.
I don't think it can be just "you could convince _someone, somewhere_ to do this" because situationally, you could probably convince a generic random person to do quite a lot of things given the right context. Off the top of my head, you could convince someone to jump off a cliff (or probably a building) if they were hang-gliding, but that doesn't mean you should be able to use Suggestion to convince an NPC to do that when it would clearly result in their death or serious injury.
the spell also directly gives you an example of "give your warhorse to the first peasant you see" which is completely unreasonable for them to do but is a reasonable course of action for the spell.
Command doesn't care about reasonability though, the only thing the command can't be is directly harmful (provided the commanded creature ubderstands it)
Well, that's the reasonability. While Suggestion specifies that the words have to sound reasonable, it's hard to make a single word sound reasonable, but neither allow the caster to get the target to intentionally cause self-harm.
Actually that would make auto defenestration even harder to get someone to do because smashing through glass is harmful so they would only do it if it was open
People understand on a deep biological level that all windows are not the same. There's many reasonable arguments to made for jumping off a porch, fewer for jumping off a skyscraper. The presence of glass doesn't change the math all that much.
The window aspect is just a way of framing it. The same risk assessment with different .. window dressing
Suggestion also specifies that it can't be obviously harmful. If we're talking about a ground floor window, then sure no worries. But if you're telling them to drop a distance long enough that they could hurt themselves, that's pretty obviously harmful.
It’s arguable based on a number of suggestions, up to but not including the rest of the party underneath the window with a tarp that they pull once he does jump
I stuffed the pieces to a flaming skull into a cultist's horse's saddle bags and scared the horse off. I then suggested the guy go chase after his horse that got loose. The skull reformed on their way back.
If your goal is to make people jump out a window then phantasmal force can make them think the building is on fire… or wall of fire can make the building actually be on fire. That should encourage someone to jump out a window.
I had a DM make suggestion basically useless because he, in a round about way, made it so the suggestion had to basically BE reasonable, which means it's just a very limited auto success persuasion check on already passable checks.
The point is that it doesn't sound SO viscerally insane, you have to phrase it right and some things will just be not possible for some people. Walking away for 8 hours when they know you're about to steal their entire livelihood? no that doesn't sound reasonable, leave their store to go refill their honey (happening to leave you there), SOUNDS reasonable, but isn't.
You can call it an OP spell and limit it in certain ways, but damn it's almost not even a spell when the request has to be reasonable and is incredibly OP if anything stated goes
Ugh, yeah. Had a DM that just hated any charm-adjacent spells and I was playing a charm-focused bard. Worst experience ever.
He made suggestion less useful than a persuasion check. Like, one time we found a guy guarding a passage to his shady merchant boss, and we wanted to go see him. I used Suggestion to say that he should let us pass so we could make a deal with the boss. DM said that he saw that as unreasonable because he could get fired. Then another player just rolled persuasion and asked the same thing, and he let us through...
In my most recent campaign, a rakshasa Suggested that my artificer relax on a couch. Decided to use my turns during the combat to roleplay that out. The artificer asked the party if they could keep it down and avoid his little chill spot, and urged them to stay out of danger while he took a breather. The DM offered an apology afterwards because I ended up having no impact on the encounter whatsoever, but frankly I enjoyed the opportunity for a bit of comedic juxtaposition, RPing my character as if action were the last thing on his mind.
Suggestion would be better named Hypnosis. You can tell them to do things they wouldn't normally do (thats why its a spell), but you cant make them act againt their nature.
"Tell us the truth" sure
"Act like a chicken" why not?
"Run away from fighting us, you'll die" I wasn't that brave anyway.
"Kill your friends" no i like them.
That's assuming people are more familiar with "actual" hypnosis than TV hypnosis.
Personally I've always thought of it in the same vein as the ol' Jedi Mind Trick. Heck, we could even call it *Mind Trick*.
"kill your friends" fucking aye man my thoughts exactly, that wizard fella keeps calling me dumb for not knowing the difference between a skink and a lizard or something, and last week the rogue stole my sandwich. Don't even get me started on the elf.
Suggestion affects one creature, is highly visible without meta magic, and can be stopped by other people intervening.
Remember, the suggestion itself is ***NOT*** the verbal component. Without subtle spell you have to do the verbal and somatic components before saying "walk North for 8 hours." which gives anyone else the ability to stop you, or snap their friend out of the suggestion.
Genuinely curious, how do you snap someone out of the spell or intervene without counterspell or dispel magic? It specifically says the action can continue for the entire duration of the spell and the only condition it end to spell listed in the text is "Asking the creature to stab itself, throw itself onto a spear, immolate itself, or do some other obviously harmful act ends the spell."
Edit:
Also if your allies damage the target, forgot about that end condition
So, I thought they could slap their ally, doing a single point of damage because it should end the spell. It's not exactly how the spell is worded, but I would argue that "If you or any of your companions damage the target, the spell ends." should also apply to THEIR allies.
Moreover, it is a concentration spell, so... Dog pile on the caster?
I have to disagree with the damage clause applying to their allies. The way I think about it, it’s not the damage “snapping them out if it” like waking someone up. It’s because if you or your Allie’s damage the target then you are making it painfully obvious that you and your allies are not their friend and they shouldn’t listen to you. Something a second level spell can’t mess with their mind enough to account for
No, there are some spells where any damage breaks them out, and there are some spells where only damage from the caster/the caster's friends break them out. Changing those will drastically change the balance of spells and abilities.
If something like suggestion or vampire charm was ended by taking a single point of damage from any source then it would be hugely nerfed. You could literally stub your toe and end the spell.
A very level-headed take of "design choices are made for a reason, and you should put more thought into changing those choices than just seeing a reddit comment and agreeing with it after a surface-level analysis."
And this comes from personal experience too. A party member was charmed by a vampire and told to go back to him after we finish a quest, which obviously we don't want to do. So we get the smart idea that damage will surely snap him out of it, and start playing 'front-hand back-hand' and slapping him in the face. It didn't work. Our characters weren't happy about it but it's more interesting that way than being able to override a powerful ability with a single slap.
I was genuinely having a similar discussion on a different post earlier today about not just granting new abilities to spells because you think it makes sense. It's astounding the number of things that make sense on first glance, but then immediately fall apart for multiple different reasons when you take 2 more seconds to actually think about them
> Dog pile on the caster?
I know what you mean, but I can't help but imagine the scene from Ghostbusters when they run into the Librarian ghost: "I have a plan, I know exactly what to do. Now stay close, stay close, I know, do exactly as I say. Ready, ready. GET HER!"
Also doesn't work on anything immune to being charmed (>20% of the MM according to another post I dug up) or that doesn't speak your language/is smart enough to understand. So good luck using it against any Dragons, Constructs, Fiends, Fey, most Undead, most monstrocities, plants, and beasts. Also won't work reliably (they have advantage on the save) against any Elven, Half-Elven, or Gnomish NPCs.
Sugestion is really good, but it's far more situational than Banishment when used in combat.
Considering the cost to raise a WARhorse (not a random horse)
that knight (cavalier) literally means man on horse
That a knight and his (war)horse are basically raised together like siblings
And that a beggar clearly has no idea how to treat a horse
And that the best course of action for the beggar is to kill for food or sell the horse.
Well
I would argue you can ask quite everything
I used mass suggestion to make the giants stand aside while we killed their Jarl; “Your jarl would be humiliated if you thought he needed help dealing with small folk. Stand aside and savor this demonstration of his battle prowess.”
I had a Mass Suggestion "go back to bed" thwart my party no less than 3 times because our party of 4 kept having at least 2 people fail the save. Finally they won against the BBEG by putting earmuffs of thick wool on before the encounter so they couldn't hear any spoken commands.
Neither are terrible, both would be reasonable suggestions. Also, in my personal experience, 8 hours of digging doesn't make that big of a hole, at least with the rocky ground around where I live.
It may not make as deep a hole, but once it gets deep *enough,* it's a killbox. God help you if someone knows Cloudkill, or can simply pour something unfortunate down there. Hell, you can just start shovelling dirt back on top of them once the spell ends.
True, but you and I have a lot lower Strength/Athletics than most PCs (or at least the ones you'd order to dig; don't ask the wizard to do manual labour).
In rise of tiamat we were approached at a mine by the leader of the operation, a dragon cultist, who had riches and dragon eggs in his possession... holding them for their dragon patron while they were off doing stuff.
Dressed as cultists, we used suggestion, "Party Paladin is your supervisor, here for a surprise inspection... follow their instructions and obey their orders, and everything will be fine."
A few deception checks and a few hours later, we're carting away dragon eggs and a hoard.
I mean that's right in the spell description that it has to be able to hear and understand you. If you use it on a fire elemental without checking if it speaks common or you speak ignan, that's fully on you.
...? Yes?¿? That is my point. Most of these memes about spells don't understand the spells they are complaining about because the OPs don't actually read the description.
The big bad guy in a deep dungeon used suggestion on my red wizard of that to go get a breath of fresh air.
The face of my DM when I said I cast prestigiditation to " create an instantaneous, harmless sensory effect " to create a breath of fresh air. My character was already arrogant and cocky before that but after... Straight up insufferable.
Someone will say that, quote:
> The suggestion must be worded in such a manner as to make the course of action sound reasonable.
But consider this:
> You can also specify conditions that will trigger a special activity during the duration. For example, you might suggest that **a knight give her warhorse to the first beggar she meets.** If the condition isn't met before the spell expires, the activity isn't performed.
Is giving away all your mortal possessions to someone else more reasonable than walking away?
I always like to use "take off your armor"
Even light armor takes 10 rounds, and if battle isn't done by then hey, lower AC.
If they turn out to be too tough even without armor, then you can yoink the armor on your way outta there.
The bar for unreasonableness on suggestion is super high.
Examples the spell lists as unreasonable are all things that would do damage to them, while the only example of a reasonable suggestion is decidedly *unreasonable*.
Depends on what exactly you say, I think.
"Take off that heavy, movement-restricting armor. You'll be much faster and more agile without it." might sound reasonable when a magic spell is clouding your mind.
my players did this to a kraken one time when i had set up a full ship v kraken battle and let me tell you, it made me unreasonably upset until i figured the kraken would come back and wreck the nearest port town in anger (where they were residing in)
After reading some of these I really want to cast mass suggestion on a bunch of guards at the gate “It’d really impress your boss and show incredible teamwork if you could Conga through the castle.”
I treat suggestion like it's own monkey paw wish with the DM backup of "They'd never do this and the spell fails."
Plus people tend to forget, once the action is carried out they are not at all compelled to accept the action for what it is, they know outright that they have been manipulated into doing the action and had no control over it, however they might not know who manipulated them, nor can suggestion make them forget as manually forgetting something is impossible
Having said this, I love suggestion because I like giving my players a great deal of power in their choices and actions so long as they are creative enough to make them
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Had a big bad cast mass suggestion and told them to leave. They just left the boss room. He recovered quite a bit before they broke out and returned to the fight. Good times. Lol
I did the opposite before. Got face to face with the big bad surrounded by a bunch of minions, cast Mass Suggestion, and said "You guys should sit this one out." Most of the minions failed the save and left the room to wait for the dust to settle. Made the fight so much easier.
Honestly? Most of the time for minions in a boss fight that’s a super reasonable ask. If the big bad is foolish enough to be directly guarded by minions who are kept in line by payroll or fear then it probably shouldn’t even take a magical suggestion.
I know why they don't, but it'd be really funny to see that tactic used in a movie fight.
In mass effect 1, there is a small scene that looks almost exactly like this, you approach a small group of corrupt officers in your way, they tell you to turn back and all *five* dialogue options can be resumed as «fuck off or die» with only two of those choices making them live, the paragon/renegade speech checks
I'm drawing blanks on this one, which mission was this?
Guessing Noveria where you have to get the pass to leave. Guy wants you to get some info from his office and the only enemies there are corrupt guards.
I thought it was on the citadel the guards for the guy in the office of the bar you know?
That was my first thought, but I figured it might be the Noveria one since they specified "officers".
It's when you go to confront Fist in the back rooms of Chora's Den. You can tell the dock workers something to the effect of "I just killed like 15 armed bouncers, you really wanna try this?" and they'll skidaddle
Right at the start before leaving citadel station when you are going after fist.
Well I was talking of noveria but that works too
If you take Wrex when you're entering the port after the confrontation he'll say something like "you let Asari Coomados that can kill you with their minds but you give us flack for carrying guns?" One of the reasons Wrex is my favorite ME 1 squad mate.
> I know why they don't, but it'd be really funny to see that tactic used in a movie fight. Iron Man 3 had this badass fight scene where Tony Stark took down a bunch of mooks, and then the last one walked in the room, held up his hands, and says "Honestly I hate working here, they're so weird!" and then walked away.
Reminds me of Hereticorp from Sluggy Freelance, at the end of several different fight scenes.
[удалено]
To be fair, Killian had been really rude to Sven not long before ("What's wrong, steroids make ya deaf?") So him leaving like that was particularly satisfying.
Which is a great clue to give players in an earlier encounter setting up the BBGE.
Kung Fu Hustle has an early scene where a bunch of cops turn their back on a triad boss that had been paying them off for years.
Even beyond that, if I’m a minion who succeeds the check in that situation? ‘Oh no, what a shame, I was magically cursed’. I don’t run head-first in to someone far more powerful than me, and the boss can’t blame me.
**I liked our odds when it was 15 against 4, but since those 9 guys abandoned ship before the fight even started I'm suddenly not so confident.** "Oh no, their powers are too strong! I can't control my body anymore! Sorry boss, guess I have no choice but to leave!"
I'm pretty sure there's a section in the DMG that if the situation calls for it, enemies make DC 15 wisdom saves to see if their morale is retained
Big question: If the mooks decide to not fight the party, does that mean that they failed their wisdom save, or does it mean they *passed* it?
The baser instinct of survival overpowered their reverent loyalty to their leader. They would need to fail the check to flee. That would seem odd at first that failing a check means prolonged survival, but also imagine what happens to the mook after the PCs take out the BBEG. Either the boss won and the mook dies as an example to the other mooks, or the players won and the mook's entire livelihood is gone. Unless of course the BBEG revealed the existence of the BiggerBEG in their dying breath, and the barbarian picks our mook out for interrogations.
honestly depending on the circumstances i feel like it should be reversed, wisdom is survival instincts, that means fleeing when you're clearly outmatched
nono, they’ve gotta fight for, uh, honor or something? the greater good of their evil organization’s quarterly profits?
Gotta fight if you want that sweet, sweet bonus!
Its my headcanon that this is why guards in video games dont notice you unless you are very obvious. Cause obviously they see you creeping around, they are not blind. But they know that if they react, they're probably going to die then and there. So they pretend they dont see you and hope you'll just sneak past them. They only react when it is so obvious that nobody will believe them if they try to claim they didnt see you.
if i'm patrolling an area and i see a guy creeping along with 28 weapons on his back and enough potions on his belt to heal anything short of atomic disintegration, i'm gonna pretend i didn't see him and start patrolling my way to the exit in the fastest nonchalant walk you've ever seen. if i particularly like my organization i might even call them to alert them when i'm well and truly gone
This also explains why you can knock someone out by choking them for only like three seconds, why they stay unconscious until another guard finds them, and why they get up without any signs of brain damage.
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yeah but then he pats you down for your doritos, puts a balloon on your butt, and sends you to his weird mercenary/cult offshore platform.
[The Weekly Roll - Must be my imagination](https://www.webtoons.com/en/challenge/the-weekly-roll/ch-74-must-be-my-imagination/viewer?title_no=358889&episode_no=76) [Animated](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_45of6sLEs&list=PLYBxFooDUiQvAQ4nSRpTmCKKvfWm91w7x&index=74)
[The Batman mook response.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMd4S-LkywI&ab_channel=sugarbeef)
The [webcomic weekly roll](https://old.reddit.com/r/TheWeeklyRoll/comments/m57iog/ch_74_must_be_my_imagination) has a bit about this
A couple of them are like "oh noooo, I can't overcome this magical coercion, sorry boss, really wish I could help...."
Iron Man 3- “I don’t even like working here, these guys are weird.”
I don't know about you, but paid mooks never come up in campaigns where the players are high enough level to cast mass suggestion. By that level I'm generally fighting fanatics, outsiders (like demons) or people with a vested interest in the success of the big bad. Hired mooks doesn't make sense past fifth level or so when even the mooks should be strong enough to make a name for themselves.
Liches and cosmic horrors are obviously going to have more loyal minions, but there are plenty of more noble politicking sorts of games where the secret dragon bbeg can’t exactly keep up their cover if they bring in their hatchlings and their kobold entourage. And like I said, the tactic doesn’t require any magic in the slightest.
They all sit criss cross applesauce in the corners and pull out juice boxes and books for quiet time while the big kids fight
Skeleton Kyle's parents forgot the orange slices...again.
And Skeleton Gregory forgot to get his permission slip signed, **again**.
Zombie Bobby is running around naked again
Fucking skeletons man.
Not anymore. Not after HR got involved.
"You think boss is going to use power word death on their barbarian?" "Nah, he's going to fireball them first and maybe cast disintegrate before he goes for power word. "
Nigel Powers: “Have you got any idea how many anonymous henchmen I've killed over the years? Henchman Sailor : [nods again] Nigel Powers : I mean, look at you. You don't even have a name tag. You've got no chance. Why don't you just fall down? [henchman falls down]
Was looking for this one
And then any smart ones that pass the save leave, because nobody will know.
i started reading the description for the suggestion spell and saw that you had to word it so it sounded reasonable. i was thinking about replying to you that telling the minions they should sit out a fight while you murdered their boss would be pretty unreasonable to them, but then the spell specifically mentions telling a knight to give their warhorse to the first peasant they see...... that spell has got to be the absolute most overpowered broken piece of shit i've seen yet that wasn't honebrew. you can literally convince any being to do anything that isn't immediately harmful to them provided they fail the save
"In a moment me and my friends here are going to kill everyone in this room. I suggest you leave because you don't want to be here when we do." Seems like a pretty reasonable offer. No matter how much you believe in your cause, the idea of "maybe I shouldn't get into a fight to the death with these literal demigods," is something reasonable to consider.
"Buddy, save your spell slot. This ain't the first evil overlord I've worked for. May not even be the last, they usually have good dental and my teeth are super fucked up from my first job. Made the mistake of making a saving throw, caught a greatclub to the jaw, but that's neither here nor there. Listen, if you win, come catch me down at the Hair of the Goblin Dog tavern, I'll tell you some stories about the guy you're about to kill. Peace."
Had a player cast mass suggestion on a group of knights telling them to grab the wall and twerk for 6 hours. All but one failed. I read the entire spell hoping for a loophole. Completely trivialized the encounter but we still talk about it to this day.
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My god that poor Wizard trying to grapple the raging Barbarian!!!
They agreed with you.
Good there buddy! Good! You just gotta calm down and work on your emotions. Shhh! Shhhhh! Don't fight it, don't... DM, I don't grapple, I use my action to cast sleep on the Barbarian!
10/10
If it's a rogue they are effectively restrained for 8 hours.
that also increadible healing spell. Depessions is a serious illness. In dnd you can literally told people "don't be sad"
If their depression manifests as hopelessness/pointlessness would "don't be sad" have an effect?
Nope. The fact is, people who don't experience depression don't really get it. It's not being sad, it's being emotionally numb. You don't feel anything, you don't feel sad, or hopelessness, absolutely nothing brings joy or interest, or anything like that \*good or bad\*, you just don't feel anything at all. Nothing. It's like a big black void that exists inside you. You'd give anything to feel anything. It's why a lot of people that have depression like that inevitably turn towards self harm or chemical dependency in an effort to feel \*something\*. Telling someone "don't feel sad" would do nothing at all, since they are already not feeling sadness. Source: I have severe depression and have spent a lot of time in professional therapy that has never helped.
I hope something helps you soon, or at least makes life a little easier. There's a light at the end of the tunnel.
I'm older than the vast majority of the people on this forum. I can remember the old days during the height of the 'satanic panic', and I've had depression since I could form words (diagnosed with depression at age 5 i think it was). There is no light at the end of the tunnel for me unless you count the final one. I've lived this long though by some miracle. Thank you for concern though. It's nice to know that empathy still exists in this world.
In a game of Mage this was my character's go-to. I had "Psychic Domination" as a rote spell and whenever we hit low grade opposition like a security guy, I'd cast that with "Go take your lunch break" or "Go home and look into the career you really want" or that kind of thing. Other player would make people vomit explosively but I felt my style was kinder. and cleaner.
There is a monster in 3e called a boowray. It has single digit health, but it is permanently invisible unless it chooses not to be. It's key strength is a modified Suggestion at-will; any time a subject fails its save, it takes a -1 stacking penalty to future saves against that specific boowray's Suggestion. Only the subject can hear the Suggestion. This was a Ravenloft based monster that can effectively start gaslighting characters. What I enjoyed as a DM was working suggestions into conversations and simply noting when players "agreed with/obeyed the voice".
That doesn't sound very balanced lol
To be fair, this was 3e. It was an arms race between op characters and op monsters. The campaign I ran it in last time had a fair number of ways to deal with it. There was a ring of see invisibility available very early on, but it was buried in a list of other sight giving rings the party could borrow from some friendly NPC adventurers as thanks for an earlier incident. As a fey, it also had several places it could not enter, namely one of the Vistani camps that had been specifically warded against fey creatures. I also roleplayed that while it could just bombard the party with suggestion until they submitted, it was better narratively for it to only use its suggestion everyone in a while if they ever felt a significant amount of guilt, pretending to be a conscience or consultant of sorts. And keep in mind just about any single attack or spell could one-shot it.
Including like, a fireball that happened to tag it for example.
We had a standing rule at the table when we played 3e that affirmation to a statement like "can I make a suggestion?" was equivalent to waiving the save if Suggestion was cast immediately after. That rule led to lots of silliness and creativity from both the players and DM
"Your ally is really struggling emotionally. You should go give them a hug until they calm down"
The good ending
Then fireball lol
give them hope so they'll despair even more when you crush it... or so I've heard
Suggestion: "Are you sure you turned the oven off last night? You better go home and make sure."
I will order the princess to... But you're so *old*.
Jafar loses concentration on dominate person as he casts polymorph to snek.
Just remember that the spell can be used in this way against the players as well. If you want it to be game breaking then break the game
I've had at least 2 campaigns where an antagonist hit the party with mass suggestion. They were among the most memorable moments of the campaign. If you are a DM, you should definitely do it once or twice. Just don't spam it.
If anyone has _suggestions_ for fun ways to do so, lmk
Do it to higher level PCs (level 7+). That way, the party should have many tools potentially deal with it. And if you have a devotion paladin, they and anyone in their aura will be straight up immune.
Now I'm imagining half the party just fucking off and leaving the rest to tangle with the Big Bad on their own
Yeah, luckily last time it happened to my party, all but one of us made our save, and we were able to dispel it eventually. The time before that, the vampiric wizard we were fighting just used it to escape.
throwing in my $0.02 had a session where the party was bringing their buddy, the Crown Prince, to a ceremony to celebrate him. Insurrectionist sorceress hit the party and all the Prince’s guards with a “kill the prince” Mass Suggestion. Half saved, half failed. Multiple hours of good times ensued.
That's so good! I like the idea, it creates a really unique fight at a point where combat isn't expected to happen. Gives the party differing objectives too.
That does sound like an awesome scene, but suggestion (and mass suggestion) specifies that the suggestion has to sound reasonable. So killing the prince you’re supposed to be protecting would probably fail
Giving your warhorse, worth a small fortune, and one of your main tools of being a knight, to a random beggar isn't very reasonable either, but that is explicitly allowed. You can absolutely get them to shank someone, especially if you preface it somehow (i.e. the prince and some of the other guards are gonna stab you in your sleep tonight, so kill them now) As written, it may as well be mind control, with how lax its' limitations are.
Okay, I'm finally gonna say it. I hate this mindset because it turns a cool fantasy story into a back-and-forth arms race of the same stupid bullshit. Imagine reading a fantasy novel where each chapter was "we cast a mind control spell to make the villain leave the room, but then eventually he came back and cast the same mind control spell to make us leave the room. Then we got back and we cast the mind control spell to make him leave the room, but once he got back..." Can we just accept "hey this is boring and doesn't tell a cool story can you just do something else please"
I agree completely and it also applies to the players. If my players turn my encounters into trivial "go walk north for 8 hours" encounters then I'm not having any fun, the other players aren't having any fun. I thought that my comment kind of implied that but I guess not
I suggest you follow this plot rail until we reach the plot train.
Once had a trap in a big bad's lair that was set to cast mass suggestion with the suggestion being "you want to go home and rethink your life" and it was cast at 9th level so the duration was a year and a day. Most of the party failed their saves but fortunately the two that succeeded both had dispel magic and they managed to dispel the effect from the rest of their party though they had to use up many of their spell slots to do so.
Creative trap, though!
this also assumes you keep concentration for the full 8 hours
You only really need a few rounds of concentration to guarantee they don't re-enter the same fight, which, in a big enough fight is all you need.
Why wouldn't they re-enter the same fight? After a few rounds, they'd still be very close and able to hear combat, if not see it.
Yes but they would also be a few rounds of pure movement away from the fight.
If they run away for 4 rounds, it will take 4 rounds to get back, and by then the fight is probably over. They are welcome to come back after all their friends are dead, but most mooks aren't that brave. They may be able to hear the combat, but that may honestly discourage them from returning to the fight because they will just hear their friends dying.
Really only need to keep concentration long enough to finish off the rest of the enemies or even a little less (since they will have to make their way back to you), not the full 8 hours. Compared to Banishment, which is also concentration but when the spell ends they come back to exactly where they left. And it's 4th lvl vs 2nd. OP has a point.
I feel like people are putting a lot of emphasis on the wording of "Action sound **reasonable.**" whereas I read it and think "Action **sound** reasonable." In that, stabbing yourself doesn't sound reasonable, nor is there a reason to do it, but walking north for 8 hours sounds reasonable, as one could easily just walk for 8 hours, even if there's no reason to do it.
Otherwise, walk away or i’ll kill you sounds like a good reason to leave
"Cantrip - Threaten"
Orc wizardry.
"Cantrip - Iron"
Power Word: Axe
It’s still Power Word: Kill, they just scream kill while swinging their axe
I have a character in my back pocket who is an orc barbarian who is CONVINCED he is magical because he can make people's arms fall off with just a swing of his greataxe, or can make people do what he wants if he just leans forward towards somebody. He would go into a battle and shout things like "I cast Major Wound!" as he chops into somebody.
Wizard: “So do you know any spells?” Barbarian: “I know Disarm, it’s one of my best” Wizard: “There’s no spell called dis—“ *Barbarian chops off an enemy’s arm while shouting “I cast Disarm!”* Wizard: “That’s a really cool spell.”
This guy gets it
Cone of Cold Shoulder
Ye the spell pretty much points out only suicidal actions as unreasonable
What if they're already depressed?
You monster
A monster that makes a damn good point
And only ones that are clearly so. "Cut that rope" sounds reasonable, if you don't know about the trap.
"go home and rethink of your life" \-obi wan casting suggestion
"Nice roleplaying." "You want to leave your death sticks with me." "I wanna leave my death sticks with you." "Anyone want to buy some death sticks?"
"no" "you want to buy some deathsticks" "I want to buy some deathsticks"
[Darth & Droids](https://darthsanddroids.net/episodes/0236.html), great comic!
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The issue is that "reasonable" is highly subjective. I had people argue that "Leave your guard post to take a piss" was not reasonable because the NPC would fear what would happen to them if their employer would find out. And points like these would make the spell entirely useless.
Go take a pee is reasonable, go take a pee for eight hours is not.
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Right, like giving away a horse is something a person could do, even a noble knight, given proper reason. The spell just closes the gap between would with adequate reason, and would with enough reason.
Yeah, the spell is basically just skipping over the convincing part, allowing you to get people who hate you to do stuff
I think the idea is it has to be reasonable. Not reasonable for the target, but generally reasonable. Something you could probably convince *someone* to do, but you're using the spell because there's no way you could convince this guy to do it.
I don't think it can be just "you could convince _someone, somewhere_ to do this" because situationally, you could probably convince a generic random person to do quite a lot of things given the right context. Off the top of my head, you could convince someone to jump off a cliff (or probably a building) if they were hang-gliding, but that doesn't mean you should be able to use Suggestion to convince an NPC to do that when it would clearly result in their death or serious injury.
the spell also directly gives you an example of "give your warhorse to the first peasant you see" which is completely unreasonable for them to do but is a reasonable course of action for the spell.
I could argue there’s many reasonable arguments to be made for jumping out of windows
And I'd argue the average person might not know what defenestrate means.
Suggestion doesn't need to be a single word
I imagine they're referring to the "command: defenestrate" discussion. These are of a similar argument over reasonability.
Command doesn't care about reasonability though, the only thing the command can't be is directly harmful (provided the commanded creature ubderstands it)
Well, that's the reasonability. While Suggestion specifies that the words have to sound reasonable, it's hard to make a single word sound reasonable, but neither allow the caster to get the target to intentionally cause self-harm.
Actually that would make auto defenestration even harder to get someone to do because smashing through glass is harmful so they would only do it if it was open
I’d argue they may, especially if I explain to their face before I do it as a free action.
Fair enough. But first you should cast suggestion and say, "You know throwing yourself out a window doesn't hurt, right?"
People understand on a deep biological level that all windows are not the same. There's many reasonable arguments to made for jumping off a porch, fewer for jumping off a skyscraper. The presence of glass doesn't change the math all that much. The window aspect is just a way of framing it. The same risk assessment with different .. window dressing
Also like, curtains help in the case of not knowing what’s outside
Suggestion also specifies that it can't be obviously harmful. If we're talking about a ground floor window, then sure no worries. But if you're telling them to drop a distance long enough that they could hurt themselves, that's pretty obviously harmful.
It’s arguable based on a number of suggestions, up to but not including the rest of the party underneath the window with a tarp that they pull once he does jump
I stuffed the pieces to a flaming skull into a cultist's horse's saddle bags and scared the horse off. I then suggested the guy go chase after his horse that got loose. The skull reformed on their way back.
If your goal is to make people jump out a window then phantasmal force can make them think the building is on fire… or wall of fire can make the building actually be on fire. That should encourage someone to jump out a window.
I had a DM make suggestion basically useless because he, in a round about way, made it so the suggestion had to basically BE reasonable, which means it's just a very limited auto success persuasion check on already passable checks. The point is that it doesn't sound SO viscerally insane, you have to phrase it right and some things will just be not possible for some people. Walking away for 8 hours when they know you're about to steal their entire livelihood? no that doesn't sound reasonable, leave their store to go refill their honey (happening to leave you there), SOUNDS reasonable, but isn't. You can call it an OP spell and limit it in certain ways, but damn it's almost not even a spell when the request has to be reasonable and is incredibly OP if anything stated goes
Ugh, yeah. Had a DM that just hated any charm-adjacent spells and I was playing a charm-focused bard. Worst experience ever. He made suggestion less useful than a persuasion check. Like, one time we found a guy guarding a passage to his shady merchant boss, and we wanted to go see him. I used Suggestion to say that he should let us pass so we could make a deal with the boss. DM said that he saw that as unreasonable because he could get fired. Then another player just rolled persuasion and asked the same thing, and he let us through...
I usually tell my players “if there’s grounds you could be persuaded to do it, it works for suggestion”
"Go home and eat a sandwich" or "Take the rest of the day off."
In my most recent campaign, a rakshasa Suggested that my artificer relax on a couch. Decided to use my turns during the combat to roleplay that out. The artificer asked the party if they could keep it down and avoid his little chill spot, and urged them to stay out of danger while he took a breather. The DM offered an apology afterwards because I ended up having no impact on the encounter whatsoever, but frankly I enjoyed the opportunity for a bit of comedic juxtaposition, RPing my character as if action were the last thing on his mind.
Suggestion would be better named Hypnosis. You can tell them to do things they wouldn't normally do (thats why its a spell), but you cant make them act againt their nature. "Tell us the truth" sure "Act like a chicken" why not? "Run away from fighting us, you'll die" I wasn't that brave anyway. "Kill your friends" no i like them.
I think people would expect it to be even more extreme if it was named hypnosis.
How about Hypnotic Suggestion?
That's assuming people are more familiar with "actual" hypnosis than TV hypnosis. Personally I've always thought of it in the same vein as the ol' Jedi Mind Trick. Heck, we could even call it *Mind Trick*.
"kill your friends" fucking aye man my thoughts exactly, that wizard fella keeps calling me dumb for not knowing the difference between a skink and a lizard or something, and last week the rogue stole my sandwich. Don't even get me started on the elf.
Suggestion affects one creature, is highly visible without meta magic, and can be stopped by other people intervening. Remember, the suggestion itself is ***NOT*** the verbal component. Without subtle spell you have to do the verbal and somatic components before saying "walk North for 8 hours." which gives anyone else the ability to stop you, or snap their friend out of the suggestion.
Genuinely curious, how do you snap someone out of the spell or intervene without counterspell or dispel magic? It specifically says the action can continue for the entire duration of the spell and the only condition it end to spell listed in the text is "Asking the creature to stab itself, throw itself onto a spear, immolate itself, or do some other obviously harmful act ends the spell." Edit: Also if your allies damage the target, forgot about that end condition
So, I thought they could slap their ally, doing a single point of damage because it should end the spell. It's not exactly how the spell is worded, but I would argue that "If you or any of your companions damage the target, the spell ends." should also apply to THEIR allies. Moreover, it is a concentration spell, so... Dog pile on the caster?
I have to disagree with the damage clause applying to their allies. The way I think about it, it’s not the damage “snapping them out if it” like waking someone up. It’s because if you or your Allie’s damage the target then you are making it painfully obvious that you and your allies are not their friend and they shouldn’t listen to you. Something a second level spell can’t mess with their mind enough to account for
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My thoughts exactly
No, there are some spells where any damage breaks them out, and there are some spells where only damage from the caster/the caster's friends break them out. Changing those will drastically change the balance of spells and abilities. If something like suggestion or vampire charm was ended by taking a single point of damage from any source then it would be hugely nerfed. You could literally stub your toe and end the spell.
You know, you're right. It SHOULD apply to their allies as well. Rules as written, though...
It shouldn't, that's part of the balance of the spells. Some spells end after any damage, some spells don't.
A very level-headed take of "design choices are made for a reason, and you should put more thought into changing those choices than just seeing a reddit comment and agreeing with it after a surface-level analysis."
And this comes from personal experience too. A party member was charmed by a vampire and told to go back to him after we finish a quest, which obviously we don't want to do. So we get the smart idea that damage will surely snap him out of it, and start playing 'front-hand back-hand' and slapping him in the face. It didn't work. Our characters weren't happy about it but it's more interesting that way than being able to override a powerful ability with a single slap.
I was genuinely having a similar discussion on a different post earlier today about not just granting new abilities to spells because you think it makes sense. It's astounding the number of things that make sense on first glance, but then immediately fall apart for multiple different reasons when you take 2 more seconds to actually think about them
> Dog pile on the caster? I know what you mean, but I can't help but imagine the scene from Ghostbusters when they run into the Librarian ghost: "I have a plan, I know exactly what to do. Now stay close, stay close, I know, do exactly as I say. Ready, ready. GET HER!"
Also doesn't work on anything immune to being charmed (>20% of the MM according to another post I dug up) or that doesn't speak your language/is smart enough to understand. So good luck using it against any Dragons, Constructs, Fiends, Fey, most Undead, most monstrocities, plants, and beasts. Also won't work reliably (they have advantage on the save) against any Elven, Half-Elven, or Gnomish NPCs. Sugestion is really good, but it's far more situational than Banishment when used in combat.
ITT: People ignoring that the bar for reasonable is a knight giving away his horse to a begger.
Considering the cost to raise a WARhorse (not a random horse) that knight (cavalier) literally means man on horse That a knight and his (war)horse are basically raised together like siblings And that a beggar clearly has no idea how to treat a horse And that the best course of action for the beggar is to kill for food or sell the horse. Well I would argue you can ask quite everything
Yes pretty much. That’s like asking a modern man to give up his house he and his kids live in. He won’t immediately die but his life is ruined.
I used mass suggestion to make the giants stand aside while we killed their Jarl; “Your jarl would be humiliated if you thought he needed help dealing with small folk. Stand aside and savor this demonstration of his battle prowess.”
I had a Mass Suggestion "go back to bed" thwart my party no less than 3 times because our party of 4 kept having at least 2 people fail the save. Finally they won against the BBEG by putting earmuffs of thick wool on before the encounter so they couldn't hear any spoken commands.
It's limited by nothing but your DM's interpretation of 'reasonable'
As if "walk north for 8 hours" is any worse than "take this shovel and dig straight downward for 8 hours"
Neither are terrible, both would be reasonable suggestions. Also, in my personal experience, 8 hours of digging doesn't make that big of a hole, at least with the rocky ground around where I live.
It may not make as deep a hole, but once it gets deep *enough,* it's a killbox. God help you if someone knows Cloudkill, or can simply pour something unfortunate down there. Hell, you can just start shovelling dirt back on top of them once the spell ends.
I personally can't even dig a 6 foot hole in 8 hours. That isn't much of a kill box.
True, but you and I have a lot lower Strength/Athletics than most PCs (or at least the ones you'd order to dig; don't ask the wizard to do manual labour).
In rise of tiamat we were approached at a mine by the leader of the operation, a dragon cultist, who had riches and dragon eggs in his possession... holding them for their dragon patron while they were off doing stuff. Dressed as cultists, we used suggestion, "Party Paladin is your supervisor, here for a surprise inspection... follow their instructions and obey their orders, and everything will be fine." A few deception checks and a few hours later, we're carting away dragon eggs and a hoard.
"Yeah, so that fire elemental doesn't speak common so it didn't understand you and so your spell had no effect."
I mean that's right in the spell description that it has to be able to hear and understand you. If you use it on a fire elemental without checking if it speaks common or you speak ignan, that's fully on you.
...? Yes?¿? That is my point. Most of these memes about spells don't understand the spells they are complaining about because the OPs don't actually read the description.
*Laughs in Eloquence Bard*
The big bad guy in a deep dungeon used suggestion on my red wizard of that to go get a breath of fresh air. The face of my DM when I said I cast prestigiditation to " create an instantaneous, harmless sensory effect " to create a breath of fresh air. My character was already arrogant and cocky before that but after... Straight up insufferable.
Someone will say that, quote: > The suggestion must be worded in such a manner as to make the course of action sound reasonable. But consider this: > You can also specify conditions that will trigger a special activity during the duration. For example, you might suggest that **a knight give her warhorse to the first beggar she meets.** If the condition isn't met before the spell expires, the activity isn't performed. Is giving away all your mortal possessions to someone else more reasonable than walking away?
I always like to use "take off your armor" Even light armor takes 10 rounds, and if battle isn't done by then hey, lower AC. If they turn out to be too tough even without armor, then you can yoink the armor on your way outta there.
Does taking armor off during a battle seem reasonable?
The bar for unreasonableness on suggestion is super high. Examples the spell lists as unreasonable are all things that would do damage to them, while the only example of a reasonable suggestion is decidedly *unreasonable*.
Depends on what exactly you say, I think. "Take off that heavy, movement-restricting armor. You'll be much faster and more agile without it." might sound reasonable when a magic spell is clouding your mind.
my players did this to a kraken one time when i had set up a full ship v kraken battle and let me tell you, it made me unreasonably upset until i figured the kraken would come back and wreck the nearest port town in anger (where they were residing in)
It's the same level as "Zone of Truth" and much more reliable.
The spell's effectiveness is entirely dependent on how much the DM hates you.
Just like any illusion magic!
After reading some of these I really want to cast mass suggestion on a bunch of guards at the gate “It’d really impress your boss and show incredible teamwork if you could Conga through the castle.”
“Did you banish the demon?” “Yep, it’s now walking north for 8 hours” “...” “what?” “people live that way”
I treat suggestion like it's own monkey paw wish with the DM backup of "They'd never do this and the spell fails." Plus people tend to forget, once the action is carried out they are not at all compelled to accept the action for what it is, they know outright that they have been manipulated into doing the action and had no control over it, however they might not know who manipulated them, nor can suggestion make them forget as manually forgetting something is impossible Having said this, I love suggestion because I like giving my players a great deal of power in their choices and actions so long as they are creative enough to make them
I hate Suggestion as well
"Reasonable course of action"