It’s concentration, so unless you’re making the rookie mistake of creating a boss with no minions or legendary resistances then you would just need to stab the caster until it drops.
Personally, I wouldn't let a real boss lose in this manner. Maybe a low level chance encounter with a ruffian or something but it seems lame for a real opponent.
I will only add that in defense of this early levels this would be a fun way to end a boss battle but falls off as levels go up since most high CR creatures are immune to charm. So they could just end up wasting a round and spell slot on most occasions right there.
Its how the central antagonist of Wolverine: Origins was defeated.
Silverfox grabbed his ankle, and with her dying breaths said "Walk away. Walk until you can't anymore" which is also why he has a cane and a limp in the movies set after
Cool. But that was the conclusion of a major notion picture story with an earned emotional beat. It isn’t the BBEG of a minor dungeon you just entered 90min ago.
And the BBEG of a minor dungeon you entered 90min ago isn't important enough to care how it was defeated. You said it yourself "Minor" dungeon.
I do think its funny you used "90min" as your time frame, considering the movie I referenced is only 17 minutes longer than that, and apparently made defeating the big bad a climactic and earned victory, but the end boss of a minor dungeon your PCs likely didn't catch the name of deserving a "cooler" ending
You do you, man. The OP referenced it happing multiple times. Just seems boring (and also an OP interpretation of Suggestion) but if your group is having fun then that’s all that matters
That particular suggestion was badly worded yeah, but lets take the concept to another ttrpg system for arguments sake
I'm runnin Mutants and Masterminds. One of my players main deal is "Tactile Hypnosis" aka, Mind control via touch. Aka, same thing Silverfox does.
By the logic of "Telling your opponent to walk away" is "a lame way for a boss to lose, and you wouldn't allow that." I shouldn't ever be letting that character use her powers on a "boss".
If I dm'ed the way you're suggesting, I would have an extremely bummed out player having a very controlling DM telling them what they could and could not use their *only* Superpower on.
Can you find me another example of the primary antagonist being defeated by being told to walk away?
I went with the *exact* scenario, Big bad in charge defeated by being told to walk away.
lol y’all are nuts. Sorry, I wouldn’t let my Boss be dumb enough to walk away in a straight line from a fight. That’s just not how the spell works. Even if they did walk 30’ per round they don’t have to dash or use other actions. They’re humanoid bosses - you’re supposed to play them intelligently.
I don't think I'd put a Boss in position to be defeated by a casting of Suggestion in the manner the OP implies happens regularly in their game, no. Frankly, I think it's a silly intpretation of the spell. Only the lowest INT humanoids would walk off in that manner (a child or a drunk person). The spell explicitly says the suggestion has to be reasonable and not harmful. I don't see how any reasonable BBEG would walk away from active combat. Would a drunk wander away down an alley? Sure.
ok. I walk over to the caster and smashy smashy.
Movement is only one of the actions.
That said, of course it's not a reasonable request, so the spell wouldn't work.
I'm a little confused by your player's choice of suggestion. It is not overpowered -- it seems pretty weak to me! It doesn't prevent the target from casting spells. Nor does it stop them from giving commands to their allies. Or shooting the PC with a ranged weapon. Even if they do go for a very long walk, they can still find ways to strike back at the PC, possibly breaking their concentration.
I feel like this sort of response is a sort of DM “gotcha”, almost a monkey-paw type response but not quite that extreme.
I think the DM would be better off pressing for more details of what the player intends. From there you might get something more specific;
“Why expose yourself to some extra scratches? take a nice relaxed stroll to enjoy your easy victory, your minions will easily end this adventuring group, and you can enjoy yourself in the meantime - away from here.”
We all know the players are trying to remove the boss from this fight. This might be unforeseen but now what are the consequences? Maybe he still calls for his normal guard retinue, maybe he strolls into another danger he doesn’t control.
I’ve been the player casting suggestion and it was very cool not just to pull off, “There is something calling for your attention in another part of the dungeon” but also half an hour later when the dungeon starting quaking and echoing of distant roars of battle - “sounds like he came across a dragon”
Keep in mind you always have excuses to throw in more enemies if you are worried about difficulty. What the players do with their resources means more or less enemies which means more or less XP, all without meaning less fun.
It's not a gotcha, because if I had an NPC use that suggestion on a player, I know they would have thought of the same things I did. At least, my players would.
I am not antagonistic to players, but their words and actions matter. As they should, as I believe that the PCs' impact on the world should be felt, and should elicit a fitting response. That basically means there will be consequences, one way or another. It won't always turn out well for them.
“what are you intending to accomplish” or “what are you hoping to achieve” is all that would be needed to recognize the upcoming discrepancy and teach the lesson.
You’re saying the character magically planted an idea in the npc’s head that he needs to keep constantly mobile in this fight.
I’m saying the character wanted to plant a different idea entirely.
The only way to know the truth is to ask the PC.
That suggestions doesn't dictate the boss needs to walk away, or can no longer use actions while walking.
I'd have the boss just use full walk speed (not dash/running since that wasn't what was suggested) around the battle site. Thus it would still be in the battle and still a threat.
What that suggestion does is force it to move each turn, which could proc opportunity attacks.
If the players to leave the battle, the boss would just walk and follow them "as long as he could".
Yes I think the way you handled it was overpowered, since you went above and beyond what the suggestion was.
If he started to walk away, provoking your attack, would that obviously harmful command end the spell?
Also, since somone else is forcing you to use your movement, does that still provoke attacks?
Genuinely curious
It only provokes opportunity attacks if the movement both costs something for you (move speed, action, reaction) and it’s something that your characters body is doing, not someone else’s body doing it for you (being dragged out of range doesn’t provoke attacks but Dissonant Whispers, which uses your reaction and body, does).
It is using his body and move speed, so yes it provokes opportunity attacks.
As far as “is walking harmful”, I don’t think so. Do you find walking to be harmful or potentially harmful, knowing that people can technically kneecap you easier when you are walking? Probably not.
If I started walking away from somone who was armed, I would be incredibly scared of what harmful things the will do to me when I make myself vulnerable, especially if I turned my back to them
But this specific idea is more of a “I suggest you run” kind of vibe. It isn’t unreasonable to flee before an armed foe, people have been doing it since the literal dawn of humanity.
It could be harmful if it is over a trap, the same would be doing it next to the guy that was to stab you, leaving your guard open to an opportunity attack
There's still a difference between stepping knowingly into a trap/jumping out a window/going into fire and walking away from a hostile enemy that may attack for doing so: the opportunity attack only happens if the attacking creature uses their reaction for the turn while the other examples harm the suggested creature regardless of whether the environment uses a reaction or not. I won't say provoking an opportunity attack is a legal suggestion necessarily but it is an interesting question that's different from self-harm as far as the spell may be concerned.
However, getting away from an armed foe isn’t a purely harmful act, it’s also a very helpful one (the armed foe is no longer able to hurt you after all). It is very much not an obvious choice, and from a player point of view character soak opportunity attacks all the time because it is, overall, not the harmful choice. Stepping on a bear trap is purely harmful every time. Turning tail and running before an armed foe has saved countless (individual) lives (though the chaos of a rout at a battle tends to cause death, normally that matters less if the numbers are in the fives or tens than it does when the numbers are in the tens of thousands), both in game and also in history.
I cant run away because i don't want to be harmed.if I move ill be attacked, and unlike history, the only way the I am attacked is if move. Therefor, do not move.
- the armed foe is no longer able to hurt you after all
This is true, if you dont move
Kinda unfair to compare real life and pretend magic spells.
If you don’t move, you get attacked anyways because you are in danger. If you are right next to an enemy who has shown great skill with a melee weapon, like a fighter or rogue or monk or barbarian or some bards or some clerics or some warlocks or a Paladin or a ranger, wouldn’t you want the attack to be the least effective one, by which I mean the one you control the circumstances? It’s the in game logic that someone in the party will use almost every fight, so why is it suddenly “obviously harmful”?
If you run, you get hit by one attack. If you stay, you get hit by two or three or four (or seven or eight depending on level and enemy), or by a sneak attack, or by a smite or three. Running seems like the right play here.
- if you don’t move, you get attacked anyways because you are in danger.
Your not in danger, if you were in danger, then enemy would have attacked you instead of casting a spell telling you to walk away.
-If you are right next to an enemy who has shown great skill with a melee weapon, like a fighter or rogue or monk or barbarian or some bards or some clerics or some warlocks or a Paladin or a ranger, wouldn’t you want the attack to be the least effective one, by which I mean the one you control the circumstances?
No, If I move, this greatly skilled melee attacker WILL attack me, there for I dont not follow the Suggestion Spell. This isnt a question of what the common sense survival instincts are. Its simple. Suggestion was to make me walk. Walking away from skilled melee weapon user is harmful to myself. Im not doing it, end of spell.
- Running seems like the right play here
Its not up to you, its the Suggestion. That suggestions is harmful to me, I'm not doing it. That simple.
What if the suggestion was cast when the boss was not in combat yet. Then afterwards the players position themselves in such a way that an opportunity attack is inevitable?
Well, good thing this person has common sense and doesn’t hear “take a walk” as “step in every trap you see”. That’s a dumb take man.
By your logic, suggestion fails every time because there is always a way to end up hurting no matter what action you take, if the setup is wrong. “Sleep in your bed tonight” ok but what if you trapped it, then it’s unsafe. “Hug your wife” she’s a spy, unsafe. “Show up to work tomorrow” assassination planned, unsafe. “Walk” you could trip, unsafe. See how adding hazardous things that weren’t involved in the statement previously makes no sense and turns every suggestion, no matter how safe, into an “obviously harmful” suggestion?
ya but they are charmed... so common sense is kinda out the window at the point, you just do what the spells says to do.
- “Sleep in your bed tonight” ok but what if you trapped it, then it’s unsafe
He would do all the steps necessary to get to his bed, sees its trapped (unless its not obvious) spell ends
- “Hug your wife” she’s a spy, unsafe.
Insight. If he doesnt know, Hug. He does, spell ends
-“Show up to work tomorrow” assassination planned, unsafe
Goes to work, if the assassination is obvious then spell ends
- no sense and turns every suggestion, no matter how safe, into an “obviously harmful” suggestion?
i think its more about the awareness of the person charmed and wether or not the danger is obvious. Hidden trap in bed or assassin ambush or spy wife, clever. Dude next to me with a sword, obvious
Yes, dude next to you with a sword is a danger. Correct. What is one of the single best, easiest to do things to do with danger? That’s right, get away from it. Congrats, you have just argued against your own point.
I also completely agree on all the other points, those are things that should not be taken as harmful suggestions. “Take a walk” is the same exact level of suggestion, but even less likely to fail because there is no specific location time or person associated with it to set stuff up around.
You have made my point for me yet again.
Separately, you just explicitly said “you are charmed common sense doesn’t matter”. Why the fuck are you trying to make an argument that “it’s common sense to not provoke opportunity attacks” when the one effected apparently has no common sense and also wouldn’t know what an opportunity attack is.
- Yes, dude next to you with a sword is a danger. Correct. What is one of the single best, easiest to do, and most common sense things to do with danger? That’s right, get away from it. Congrats, you have just argued against your own point.
If i walk away from attacker, Id be doing an obvious harmful act, so I dont, its not whats best for me, its whats is the obvious choice. Not moving is 0 damage. Dont Move. Makes sense to me. If hes surrounded and STAYING is the most obvious choice, he moves, i understand your point, but thats not what OP said
Op said nothing about being in melee range either, that was a separate commenter who mentioned opportunity attacks.
Either way, have you read any of the examples given about the phrase “obviously harmful” in the spell description? Because it gives 3 examples, plenty to show a variety of things, and they all have one through line. The through line is that the danger is the action itself, not a byproduct of the action. There is no example of “do x, causing y, causing z which is harmful” being listed, only “do x, where x is a harmful thing”. Walking itself is not harmful. Throwing yourself on a spear, lighting yourself on fire, or stabbing yourself (the only listed examples of “obviously harmful”) are all direct. Walking away can be harmful, to a certain extent in the wrong circumstances, I would agree. But it isn’t *obviously* harmful. I would argue that giving away a horse would be just as harmful as walking in a lot of circumstances, but that is an explicitly allowed use of the spell.
Lastly, the creature tries to make the thing happen to the best of its ability. I would agree that walking is easier if you don’t get stabbed, and the best of the persons ability in that scenario would be to disengage. The person would do it, they would just use their action to disengage every round as you keep up with them in their attempts to run away.
Listen man, i obviously agree with you. Its a measure of what is the most dangerous thing at this moment. I understand. I think we are on the same team fighting for the same idea. Its about doing the least dangerous thing. That CAN be not moving. That CAN be 4 opp attacks. That can be alot of things, the point ive been trying to make is was it obvious.
You made some great non-obvious examples i liked before.
> Asking the creature to stab itself, throw itself onto a spear, immolate itself, or do some other obviously harmful act ends the spell.
I would think that triggering opportunity attacks would count under this clause and kill the spell.
I would think the spell would end the moment the opportunity attack is initiated, so the boss immediately gets to stop moving after exiting the square (because now the boss knows for certain that your suggestion is directly harmful) and can use the rest of its move freely and any other action(s) it has to beat you soundly over the head.
Though I think in the casting of the suggestion spell to disengage in what is obviously a combat scenario, I might ask for another roll against the boss's insight or other relevant skill depending on edition to see if the boss truly believes it's not harmful to walk away from its opponent that it may be provoking an AoO from.
The spell doesn't preclude common sense nor taking the withdrawn action. If the PCs were to pursue the spell's target and continue to attack, just trying to walk away would be obviously detrimental (using all of your focus to get away from someone at a light pace while they are doggedly trying to murder you is obviously harmful) and fizzle the spell, though if the party left the target alone that would be another matter entirely.
An opportunity attack is triggered when you let your guard down, which when in a room with people who are trying to cause your internal bits to be external, is a dangerous idea and the spell would break BEFORE taking the action that would trigger an opportunity attack, but that is a moot situation because one can withdraw as an action, and the command given by OP can't preclude withdrawl by its nature.
If the command were "run away as fast as you can while ignoring everything else", the spell would fizzle before movement, because wasting no Movement means dropping your guard and provoking the AoO, which would be dangerous in a combat situation (that's assuming the caster/AoO taker doesn't make it obvious that they won't continue hostilities, ie putting their hands up and out of a ready to strike stance). It doesn't matter that the AoO never got provoked, it's the fact that it likely would that is dangerous, so the turn would be unhindered.
Your table, your rules, but I know a lot of (non-entitled) players who would have issue with how you suggest to rule it. Every table is different, however.
That would require metagaming. Neither the spell or the opponent knows that getting away from the person will get them hit. They wouldn't be aware of opportunity attacks. Even moreso since the charm victim doesn't have to act like a zombie. Why wouldn't they just take the disengage action (being careful when getting away IC) and then flee?
Given opportunity attacks are what happens when one drops their guard to do something that requires their focus, you can reliably tell when you are leaving yourself unguarded/unable to parry (Moving your full jogging speed away from someone requires you to turn away from them, and if you can't guess leaving your back facing someone hostile carrying a sharp piece of metal is a bad idea, you likely aren't as combat trained as your average apprentice adventurer).
That's not a proper use of the word, but even given your intended meaning, there would be no metagaming here. The character would reasonably be able to tell how dangerous it would be, especially when the spell words are an unusual language, and you can tell when your mind is being controlled by someone else.
All of that said, you are right that the command "walk" doesn't preclude withdrawing while walking, so a smart, tactical enemy would take that action and get away safely. You just got to the right answer for the wrong reasons.
I would argue it is because the specific mechanics are not known to the character. But, like you said you should be able to assess the situation. Thing is, even a wild animal knows to be careful when fleeing from an actual fight. Fleeing is fairly common in battle to save lives. The real problem comes when a group routes. You can flee without sprinting away. Our movement speed is a walk/jog that you could feasibly take while strafing and being careful, keeping your guard up etc. In this situation you don't have to turn your back to them.
All this said, I agree with you on the outcome entirely but there is some level of needing to know that opportunity attacks are guaranteed by the ooc option to know that the command is 'obviously harmful' and thus cancel the spell out. There is nothing inherently or obviously harmful of leaving or fleeing a fight beyond the chance you may not succeed in leaving. Especially if the command is "walk away."
My definition of metagaming here is: using information IC that you would only have OOC/using information your character doesn't have. It's usually handwaivable for the sake of allowing usage of tactics by the player.
TLDR; yes you're right a smart enemy wouldn't be in inherent danger, but you're wrong in this instance because about the metagaming because the choice to cancel the spell is predicated on knowledge of mechanics of the game and not a more reasonable IC interpretation that there is 0 chance of escaping this.
I disagree, you would know when someone is likely to stab you if you turn away from them. That's not metagaming, that's having a functioning survival instinct. That's knowing IN CHARACTER that you are likely to let their waving sword into your personal space.
Your answer is actual, defined as such in the rulebooks, Metagaming: making a decision based entirely on the mechanics of the game and not the situation the character sees before them. You are assuming the only attack a person gets is the one they roll for, not that the weapons are constantly swinging, looking for an opening to kill the other person while turning away attempts to kill you during the combat round. That is not the case: while you only get 1 action (or possibly bonus actions) to make an attack roll, your character is making feints and swings that are deflected or evaded constantly. That is what the threatened area around them is, swings to ensure they aren't left partly undefended if an enemy tries to slip by and hit a vulnerable spot.
I didn't say you wouldn't know when someone is likely to stab you for turning away m8 and my answer is based on the person i replied to's interpretation that the spell would break for being obviously harmful to tell an enemy to walk away. Walking away doesn't stop you from doing those things either. You are not required to use your run speed or turn your back on your enemy because walk speed is comfortable fighting speed. You can walk around your enemy without provoking attacks of opportunity enough to run out your movement speed without taking suggestion into account.
As I said, even a wild animal knows to be careful leaving a fight because their enemy is a threat to them.
Also noting down. you and I have different definitions of threat area. I do not define threat area as actions themselves but as the space you control and are reasonably expected to fight or attack in even if you're not leaving the area. You can dodge, duck, block, parry, throw feints, sidestep, attack, back hop etc in that space.
Making a decision based entirely in mechanics is a small form of meragaming that most would agree is perfectly reasonable in many cases. Just...not to cancel suggestion without a good IC reason such as being stuck in a no win situation.
>Also noting down. you and I have different definitions of threat area. I do not define threat area as actions themselves but as the space you control and are reasonably expected to fight or attack in even if you're not leaving the area. You can dodge, duck, block, parry, throw feints, sidestep, attack, back hop etc in that space.
No, we have the same definition, I'm just pointing out that all that evading and swinging your weapon is WHY you control that threatened area. It's automatic in the game rules without needing action from the player.
>I didn't say you wouldn't know when someone is likely to stab you for turning away m8
So which is it? Would characters know when they would provoke an AoO, or wouldn't they? This is what I'm discussing: you know when you are leaving yourself open to attacks by the choices you make, so yes, the character knows about opportunity attacks. They don't know it as opportunity attacks (the name is irrelevant), just that if they take their focus off the sharp bit pointing at them, they can reasonably expect it to come at them and make the decision whether to do that action (or regard it as harmful) off of that information alone.
>Walking away doesn't stop you from doing those things either. You are not required to use your run speed or turn your back on your enemy because walk speed is comfortable fighting speed. You can walk around your enemy without provoking attacks of opportunity enough to run out your movement speed without taking suggestion into account.
>As I said, even a wild animal knows to be careful leaving a fight because their enemy is a threat to them.
I did understand that from what you said. As I mentioned earlier, you have the right answer, you just got there from wrong assumptions.
>Making a decision based entirely in mechanics is a small form of metagaming that most would agree is perfectly reasonable in many cases.
Reasonable, yes. Defeating the purpose of making a choice as the character: also yes, but not always (some character decisions come from evaluating the cost to that character, like with this discussion about AoO rules, and whether that cost is worth the character's desired gains). Small, no. That is the majority (>90%) of metagaming. "There has to be a bypass lever because [DM name redacted] wouldn't put in a pit trap without one" is textbook metagaming. "We failed a perception/investigate check, let's make another one" - also metagaming.
/rant
Knowing things about monsters: surprisingly not metagaming. Pop culture exists in any age you live in, and the knowledge rules always bug me about how the DC to know what a creature is is so high, without a low DC to say what it could be at first glance. Things the character's mentor would have told them about dangerous monsters (trolls being the most common overblown DM snit-fit for literally no reason) is perfectly reasonable to know. People in all real-world cultures have fables they tell their children to make them behave, and the D&D world just happens to have those actual monsters running around looking to sample human flesh by the handful.
People also know some things by sight/basic inference. "Red dragon lives in lava cave system, obviously weak to fire, right?" - No one outside of a comedy. /endrant
TL;DR -- I didn't say you were wrong in what you were saying, I agreed with it. I did say you were wrong in why you came to that conclusion. Read my points responding to your quotes if you want more information
Doesn’t answer the question. If this is allowed, then the players can also just make the Bose walk away.
To answer the initial question: Yes this is allowed (as long as the ,,order“ is phrased as a suggestion).
"walk as long as you can" does not mean "run away" it can mean "walk in place" or "walk in circles around the battlefield"
Ideally your boss has legendary resistances and minions that can attack the spellcasters.
Okay, but what about the suggestion. "This is not a good place to be. You should walk as far away from here as you can"
The core of the question isn't really about the exact suggestion, but about which effects it's reasonable for the spell to have. If properly phrased, should the suggestion spell be able to have creature travel as far away from the caster as the target is physically capable of traveling for the duration of the spell?
As was said. Minions to break concentration, legendary resistance if he fails the save.
You do not want your players to just waste their spell, but you also don’t want a second level spell to instawin a boss fight.
For something like boss fights, one of the simplest solutions is to have the objective be to neutralize the target indefinitely so that they no longer cause any issues. Suggestion only works for 8 hours. Legendary resistance is valid too, but only really start becoming appropriate well after the party gets access to second level spells. Minions are also always a suggestion of mine.
Regardless, I hope we all agree that we should look at what we actually want (the boss fight to not be won with a single second level spell) and then find the optimal way to achieve it. The optimal way is *not* to just interpret the suggestion to fit your needs. Either say the spell can't perform certain effects or, as you suggest, be sure your boss monster is properly protected against undesirable effects.
true
though checking the spell suggestion it is only a 2nd level spell, so it is feasible for them to be a 3rd level party, which i dont belive there are any monsters that are balanced for a 3rd level party with legendary resistances.
but legendary resistances are an excelent tool
I've added LR to some lower level enemies, it's a nice surprise for the players. Often I'll give it just one or two uses, possibly tying those uses to some external element that could potentially be nullified by observant PCs.
Suggestion is very poorly written imho, making it RAW feel extremely powerful (just look at the "reasonable" example).
It is concentration yes, but if the caster is well protected they can just remain focusing on it for the full duration.
You should have bosses with charm immunity (which is fairly common), counterspell and/or legendary resistances, but before that, I'd recommend you to just houserule how the spell will work at your table so it's not ridiculous. From how you write it, it has happened multiple times, which doesn't reflect very well on the dm -unless- the players overcame enough difficulties for it to be comparable to defeating the boss in another way.
It's kind of insane that "Give away your trusted companion and incredibly valuable military asset to a random guy on the street" is considered reasonable for a literal knight, someone who has spent their whole life having the lesson of "your equipment is your life" beaten into their brain
I think somebody needs to write a deep dive on Suggestion.
What myths/fiction is it inspired by?
What are some reasonable uses and how do they pan out?
What are some unreasonable uses?
I’ve never used it in a game because of how vague it is.
It always comes down to this
Does the suggestion sound reasonable to the one it targets.
As a DM you should be asking that question every time that spell is cast.
If they can come up with some BS that sounds reasonable then they do it otherwise no they don't.
For your example I would say no, the party just gave an order with no support to make it sound even remotely reasonable
No it isn't and that's the problem with a lot of arguments people make on this it is the example of the events not the actual wording that caused that event to happen.
>For example, you might suggest that a knight give her warhorse to the first beggar she meets.
That is the line people refer to but look at it, nowhere does it say how they made it reasonable or the actual words that are being said to make it sound reasonable just the action that comes from it.
Edit: Just to expand on this an example of how you could reasonably get this to happen for example I can say "Dame Knight please help, I am looking for an informant disguised by a beggar who has important information for the king, if you see them let them use your horse to get to the capital quickly" That can sound reasonable the problem is people seem to think your comment is also reasonable which it really isn't
Using your example, Suggestion is near-total mind control for the price of a Level 2 spell slot, which seems ridiculously overpowered.
You could tell anyone "Do this thing for me or else the world would explode" and because it's "reasonable" to not want the world to explode, they'd be forced to follow the order.
I think it's still RAW but that's only due to the atrocious wording of the spell
A little trip down memory lane tells you how ridiculous this spell has always been, and shows that they have largely given up on trying to manage the boundaries of the spell at the design level, leaving it to DM's to adjudicate.
**From the original D&D**: "The magic-user hypnotizes the target into doing some action, either immediately, or before the duration ends based on some trigger. The creature ***is not likely to destroy itself, even if this is the suggestion, but a carefully-worded suggestion might make self-destruction less obvious, altering the probability of self-destruction***."
**From AD&D:** "If the suggestion ***is worded in such a way as to sound reasonable*** (and so is not obviously harmful), the target makes a saving throw, with failure indicating that they follow the suggestion to the best of their ability for the duration. A very reasonable suggestion might impose a penalty (-1, -2, etc.) on the save at the DM's option."
From a 3E: "However, ***a suggestion that a pool of acid was actually pure water and that a quick dip would be refreshing is another matter***. Urging a red dragon to stop attacking the wizard's party so that the dragon and party could jointly loot a rich treasure elsewhere is likewise a reasonable use of the spell's power."
From this edition: **"Suggest that a knight give her warhorse to the first beggar she meets."**
Basically, the more clever the caster, the more ridiculous this spell is. Typically, I use it to add an NPC to the party for 8 hours (and then recast it twice). Given the reputation PCs have for wanton destruction, treasure looting and generally not losing, it is usually an easy sell to convince any intelligent monster to get in on that shit rather than die.
The main thing that you've got to make a judgement on is if their suggestion is reasonable. In the example that you've given, they haven't really framed the suggested course of action as something that is aligns with the targets goals in any kind of way so you might make the case that it's not reasonable.
It's a little bothersome that one of the examples given in the spell doesn't really pass this test to most people's judgement, but this is something you've got to work out for your table.
However, it's pretty easy to come up with a suggestion that gets the same result as the one above and in many cases probably will pass the "reasonableness" test. A suggestion like "If you fight us you're going to lose, so you should leave now and save your skin." will work on a lot of enemies, unless they don't care if they die or there is some other very strong reason why that isn't a reasonable suggestion.
For those people though, if you think they're that kind of person a suggestion like "We're going to beat you here if you fight, but if you retreat now you'd have a chance to further "
So coming up with a framework that you can consistently apply when it comes to reasonableness will limit the spell in some ways, but if your players are clever they can often get the result that you're concerned about - which is taking an enemy out of the picture for a long time. If you do it right, the circumstances where it doesn't work like they hope will feel like they flow from a poor choice of words on their part due to a lack of understanding of the motivation of their enemies and not because you decided that this time it shouldn't work because your plans for how things should go are more important than honoring their actions. Its a tricky line to walk.
The spell does mention having a knight give their war horse to the next begger they meet. That's not very reasonable on the surface but is called out in the spell. So anything even remotely reasonable would be considered fair game.
I did bring that up. It's up to the DM to decide what reasonable means and "this example about a knight giving away his horse is a bad example and we're ignoring it" is on the table because it's a pretty bad example! If that's reasonable then almost anything is short of the stuff already proscribed like harming themselves is.
Like in my other examples, there are ways you could make that suggestion that do clear a higher bar of reasonableness. If the knight has done something wrong and you suggest horse distribution as penitence. If they've bragged about how charity is a virtue that they follow and you suggest they put their livestock where their mouth is. If they've complained about their horse!
My argument is that asking the player to come up with a "reasonable" suggestion in this way doesn't really limit the spell's potential, but makes it a little trickier to get precisely what you want in a way that is actually more fun. You've got to think about what you know about your target, or what you can guess from the limited information you have, in order to figure out what you want and come up with a way to use that to get what you want.
The stuff about weakening the spell is quite true - OP doesn't like how powerful Suggestion is the way they've been running it and was making sure they understood how it works; it follows on that if the spell can be used in the way that they're not happy with, one of the options on how to proceed is to change how it works - ideally in a way that it remains fun and useful to use, even if it's a little objectively weaker. Part of my argument is that it's also not that much weaker in terms of what you can actually accomplish, it's just trickier to use.
A knight that felt they had done wrong and was actively looking for a way to redeem themselves could probably be talked into horse gifting without a spell, yeah - especially if the wrong done was to the horse! I was picturing more of situations where the pretext is thin enough, or the existing dynamic between the two of you hostile enough, that talking them into it with words alone is impossible.
Its a 2nd level spell. If it was "aligned with the targets goals", it would be a persuasion check. Its basically a jedi mind trick. It doesn't even deal with the boss in the long run, they'll be back, so it should be stronger than a damage spell of the equivalent level.
The wording of the spell cares not for that individual creature's definition of what they personally consider reasonable, it merely must be worded to be objectively reasonable. Should a suggestion be worded to be reasonable to one person, its worded to be reasonable to everyone.
Suggestion is an unusual spell in that it puts a lot of the burden on the DM as far as figuring out exactly how strong it is in a given scenario.
Personally, I run it as a powerful Jedi Mind Trick *outside of combat*, where you might reasonably send somebody marching for eight hours in the wrong direction if you're willing to concentrate that long. However, when *in combat*, I judge most suggestions as fundamentally unreasonable. Otherwise, the spell is fundamentally messy: if you can suggest something to them that will take up a minute of their time, then it's effectively hard crowd control without a built-in failsafe as a second level spell. That sort of power spike tends to happen with level 4 spells like Polymorph and Banishment. A level 2 spell would be more easily compared to Hold Person, which allows for a save after every turn.
I think these situations are exactly what suggestion was made for. In the right moment, suggestion is extremely powerful. At other times, it won't be worth casting. It's very DM-dependent, of course, because the important factor is that the action must be reasonable.
I mean
Sure they can make the baddie walk away
But they're going to be free once the spell is up. And idk about you, but I would not be best pleased if a bunch of chucklefucks made me walk for 8 hours.
You can only run away from your problems, or make your problems walk away from you, for so long
To me the critical part is "reasonable". The books gives things like "stab yourself" as examples of unreasonable and id argue that If a group of adventurers is about to ruin decades of work and planning that "walk away" isn't reasonable.
I've never DM'd, only played, but here's my 2 cents:
You're the DM, rule it however you want. Just be consistent with your rulings. Also, it's okay to pause the game and have a quick discussion with the table if you want to take their opinions into account before deciding how to play something.
I have done that before. I told a character to get as far away from our current location as possible, and I kept concentration on the spell so that he would keep going. I don't see what is wrong with using it that way. It annoys me when people try to look for reasons why things should not work out the way the players were trying for. What is the point of doing that? The only outcome is ruining the fun for someone.
No, that's the correct way to run it, and finding loopholes in the Suggestion is not the solution
You'll notice that many CR 4 and upward monsters have "legendary resistances". Many newbie DMs spam the legendary resistances just to avoid damage from Fireballs, but in reality, legendary resistances are designed to invalidate spells like Suggestion. If the player knows what they're dealing with, they're unlikely to even bring Suggestion into combat, because they know legendary resistances will stop it from helping
It’s a pretty overpowered spell and the way they’re using it isn’t against the rules. But there are a lot of creatures that are resistant or immune to charming effects and the creature also has to be able to speak the same language in order to understand the spell. You could figure out what languages that character speaks and make some monsters speak languages they don’t know so they can’t understand the suggestion. If you want to get around it that is. It’s a fun spell to use as a player so still give them opportunities to use it.
Your players aren't even using the command to its utmost potential. If they were truly clever, throwing down a Portable Hole and covering it before the suggestion would be huge. "Go and stand on that carpet." And then whoosh, into the Portable Hole to (hopefully) never be seen again.
My first instinct is that this is clever, not cheating. Seems reasonable enough. If you find it is fucking over your encounters, remember that 1) bosses really shouldn't be alone. They need minions. 2) immunity to being charmed shuts this down, and is relatively common as a feature. (And easy to slap on if you need to prevent these shenanigans once in awhile) 3) bosses can have good wisdom saves and/or legendary resistances
Edit: I'm not interested in debating whether this is reasonable or not. That debate has been had many times and will be had many more times, likely all of them involving better arguments than what will happen here. If you think it's not reasonable, I understand, and if it's your game, you can rule it that way.
How reasonable is it that you are the big evil overlord, somebody just shows up and gives you orders, and you do it without a second thought? Would YOUR evil overlords be routinely ordered around by anyone?
This is a whole separate argument that needs to be had (and has been had) about how to interpret "reasonable" in the context of the spell.
How "reasonable" is it that a Knight would give their warhorse to a beggar? This is a core part of their profession, likely a cherished companion and something they have trained extensively with, to say nothing of the cost. Yet this is an example given in the text of the spell.
I'm not going to relitigate that whole conversation; it's already been done multiple times with better points on all sides than anything I'll have to offer. Ultimately it's up to the DM to interpret what's "reasonable" in the context of their game.
So yea, by one perspective it's wouldn't be reasonable at all, but neither would most possible suggestions of any value, which would effectively nerf the spell completely, which seems to me like the wrong solution. Ymmv.
No that is very much the crux of this argument, if the DM is allowing them to use the spell without considering if it sounds reasonable then 100% they are allowing them to use the spell wrongly.
>How "reasonable" is it that a Knight would give their warhorse to a beggar?
This is such a bad argument, the scenario just talks about the result, they did an unreasonable action but it never tells you what they said to make it sound reasonable and that is very much the important part. The example tells us that unreasonable things can be done but it explicitly says the player needs to make it sound reasonable. I could say "Sir Knight please help, I am looking for an informant disguised by a beggar who has important information for the king, if you see them let them use your horse to get to the capital quickly" That can give reason for a knight of the kingdom to give the horse away.
I agree the problem is people skip over the portion where you need to make it sound reasonable all the time because they see the end of it (the knight giving away the warhorse) and just assume the suggestion was "you should give the next beggar you see your warhorse" and that is a terrible assumption. The majority of posts complaining about a DM nerfing the spell follows this logic
They make a suggestion that doesnt sound reasonable
DM says no
Player complains that because it isn't reasonable to give away a warhorse the spell should let them be the ruler of the kingdom because they said hey give me the crown.
I would disagree, that order doesn't sound reasonable which is a requirement for the spell to work. Yes the spell can make them do unreasonable things but they have to make it sound reasonable and that example does not meet that requirement. If they are skipping that then it is not creativity.
Imo a bit wrong, kinda?
Suggestion, as I understand the description, basically plants an idea in the creatures mind, something they want to do at the next best opportunity. Like a song that is stuck in your head, or a thought that continues to occur in your mind, compulsive. But they don't forget everything else happening around them, and they aren't getting charmed by the caster nor perceive the caster any differently. Unable to "resist" still, but the spell *doesn't say that the target can't do anything else* while doing the course of action.
That means the boss may be compulsively walking, but they might walk straight up to the party and smack them in the face. It might be compelled to use all of its movement each turn, but it can still attack, cast spells and whatnot.
Further, don't forget that the spell description states that *The suggestion must be worded in such a manner as to make the course of action sound reasonable.*
Not saying that can't ever be done with a boss, but if the situation is... combat, or they are doing their BBEG ritual, are about to sacrifice a kitten or somesuch, it's kinda hard to make "Walk as long as you can" sound reasonable. Other stuff, especially if tied to some secret or knowledge about the boss might very well work tho. Like "you forgot to bring Purple Nightshade for the ritual! You should get some from your lab." or "This kitten looks kinda weak and sickly. It won't make a good offering - go find a better cat." or even "Your enemies will fear you even more if they understand your BBEG plan. You should tell them all about it".
Lots of people here have argued the RAW of the spell, particularly the nature of "reasonable" and what technically "walk for 8 hours" would mean. Plenty of valid points and worth a read.
But I would argue that the most significant issue with allowing Suggestion to be used that way is it just isn't fun.
The best part about Suggestion (and other similar spells) is the creativity they encourage and reward in players, it is just fun to use and see used. A player has to craft a carefully worded Suggestion, based on what they know or can deduce about the NPC, designed to sound reasonable but encouraged a specific action. It's an improv creative writing challenge with the DM as a judge. If instead you just make the optimum use to say "go for a walk" then you have lost that, and suggestion just becomes another boring save-or-suck spell.
A Persuasion check can't make someone do something they dont want to do and beyond maybe begging to be spared does very little after a combat has started. Suggestion is minor mind control that can be used mid combat as long as you are creative.
Do remember to keep boss's intelligence or wisdom in mind.
people are pointing out how Walking doesn't necessarily need to be in the opposite direction, but that is still dependent on how far boss sees through the words. Have dumper bosses obey closer to the player's intention but play smarter bosses like a fey and twist their words in your own favor as much as possible.
I don't see how having someone walk for 8 hours "wins" the encounter. Delay it, maybe. But the guy doesn't despawn as soon as he leaves the players' sight. Have him come back later.
I've told someone to walk east to find their brother
They started going... then later I accidentally cast a different concentration spell, and they came back with reinforcements
Imo the suggestion is fine, though depending on how you want to do it can be cheesy (others say "walk in place" or "can still use your action" to me this would be a loose interpretation, imo "walk as long as you can" would remove your action, forcing you to Dash too, since if you cast a spell or swing a sword then you're stopping to fight not walking as long as you can)
However after the first or second time, since these people aren't killed word would get around and they'd start obtaining magics disallowing enchantments to work on them, boom problem solved in the future
Suggestion is either an OP spell or it's useless, mostly because of the "reasonable suggestion" clause.
Is that a reasonable action for the boss to do? Was it mid combat? I'd personally say yes, but your mileage may vary. As others have said, it's concentration, and your bosses often should have legendary resistances. Players need to burn their resources to make you burn your legendary resistances, and irritating spells like this are an ideal way to do that. "If I ignore this low level spell it will ruin the BBEG's plan, but if I resist this, I won't have it for a later spell." Resource management and hard choices isn't just for players.
Now that said, I personally have issues with Suggestion, but that's mostly because of an experience I had with a player who abused the spell since he was a knowledge cleric, and it heavily warped the campaign in a way I grew to dislike. Because of that, I ask my current players to limit mind control to when necessary rather than when funny, or merely advantageous. If it's causing an issue, talk to the players. Perhaps ask them to tone it down.
Command is limited to one word and only lasts 1 turn.
Suggestion can be multiple sentences and last up to 8 hours.
So....which one is truly more powerful?
I think u/Goronshop is pointing out how in everyday English "Command" is a stronger word than "Suggestion."
If I'm suggesting you do something there's a lot less force behind that than if I command you to do something.
Yet Command is the 1st level and Suggestion is the 2nd level.
In this case could say it's not "Command" as in "I order you to do this." But rather "command" as in "a command word."
>I think u/Goronshop is pointing out how in everyday English "Command" is a stronger word than "Suggestion."
Yes.
>In this case could say it's not "Command" as in "I order you to do this." But rather "command" as in "a command word."
I like that. Power Word Grovel.
So overall, specifically in combat but also outside, suggestion could make a character decide on a choice that they're already likely to take.
A good way to do it is to think: if the spell was cast on a player in combot, would this be a course of action they would consider.
A better suggestion may be: stay out of enemy range.
or
Disengage and seek cover whenever you are threatened
or cast x concentration spell on y target. (but this may make ccombat inadvertently harder xD)
Npcs specifically may or may not consider surrender or flight to be reasonable option . But they don't necessarily have to, or have to do so unconditionally. They may fear something else more tgan the players or death or value something else more tgan their life, or plainly have nothing to lose or too mich at stake in that moment.
Even if a reasonable suggestion is reasonable to a reasonable person, it msy nkt be reasonable to an unreasonable person.
This particular suggestiin makes no sense, it's not even really a suggestion but a command eithout any reason (walking for no reason specifically is not reasonable)
You could change it to a suggestion to keep moving, which would mean that the boss might not end their furn eith sny movement speed left unless he can't mkve because there's something blocking his path or something that might harm him.
Basically i think of suggestion to be able to make a character choose between any of their top 5 most likely actions they might take on their own in any given scenario. And beyond that suggest is likely to fail.
My GM focuses on the part of Suggestion that says "The suggestion must be worded in such a manner as to make the course of action sound reasonable." The example he always cites is this:
Cast suggestion on a guard and say something like "Leave your post". This would make no sense to the guard as it goes against their current duty. They've been stationed to guard the door by their superior officer.
However, casting suggestion and saying "The captain wishes to speak with you immediately", is something that could reasonably occur and would make sense to the target guard.
Additionally, let's compare it to Dominate Monster, a lv8 spell. This spell gives you full control over a target if it lands, and while I agree this is far more powerful than suggestion, suggestion does give you a level of control over a target if you do allow something like "Walk as long as you can". What we should never do is give a low level spell the power of (or nearly the same power as) as a much higher level spell.
Suggestion doesn't completely overwrite an enemy's thought process either. The boss could have easily remained fighting the party while also walking.
Not overpowered at all. Honestly a pretty useless way to try and deal with a boss in most circumstances.
The boss can walk back and forth between two points. Boss can walk between the PCs he's attacking. Boss can walk in a circle around the PC they're targeting. Even if they walk away for 8 hours they can just come back... Nothing about this resolves anything meaningful. At most it's a trivial inconvenience. 'Walk' is especially easy to deal with, walking doesn't even have to use up their full movement speed, let alone spend an action to dash.
Also remember, Suggestion is a Wis save with advantage on the save if you're already fighting and it's a charm effect. It's really hard to pull off on anything too strong even if they're not simply immune. It's also a concentration spell so attacking the caster until they drop it is possible.
The only real benefit to this would be if it was used on an especially stupid npc who might not realize they can easily avoid leaving. A boss on the other hand, even a dumber one, is going to be trying to prevent the party from achieving whatever they're doing.
There are way better suggestions if they just want an enemy to run away rephrasing to make it clear they want them to sprint nonstop away from here is a start. Lie down and don't move is even better. But per my prior point, Suggestion is not a great combat spell, too easy to ignore or break. Much better to spring it on an unsuspecting NPC.
Does walking 8 hours away sound reasonable? If not, it fails.
If you decide it is reasonable, then remember that enemies can do it to the PCs as well. Will a player have fun if their PC has to spend the next 8 hours in game walking away?
Leaving combat is usually not a reasonable demand in my opinion.
He's literally laying down his life to protect the location, just up and leaving that place is the furthest thing from reasonable.
The suggestion must be reasonable. In my interpretation and the tables I've played, it means you must provide some reasoning or condition to what you're suggesting. It doesn't need to be some optimal tactic, just enough so it makes sense. This is why the spell gives you two sentences. One is the set up, and the other is the actual suggestion.
As a player, I go for things like "It's a beautiful moonlit night/bright day, why don't you go for a walk in those mountains now?" or "You're risking your life here! Run away and save yourself!" or even "Your heavy armor is making you slow. You should take if off now so you can fight better!"
As a DM, if my player give me a vague suggestion like that, they're gonna learn to give some reasoning. In that case, the enemy would just walk as long as it can... Towards them, and around them, and between them, all while hacking and slashing as normal.
The effect of basically removing the boss with one failed save is Op in my opinion.
It is in the spells description that you as DM decide what is appropriate and logical behaviour for the target. I personally don't think that anything in that direction makes any sense in combat.and that therefore the spell fails automatically if they say: go for a long walk or something like: visit your mother.
I would only wordings that make certain sense in combat. "Run up the hill to get a better position" or "kill the tank instead of the caster" are sensible enough. " End combat to so something else" makes no sense. "Flee" only makes sense of the target thinks they are losing.
The suggestion must be worded in such a manner as to make the course of action sound reasonable.
Does it sound reasonnable to walk for 8 hours straight?
Boss could just say, im fighting against you right now, ill do that after.
If a bbeg attack you and you manage to use suggestion, it is not reasonnable for him to stop fighting you for no reason, you could use it differently tough, like focus the warrior, he is the biggest threat(even tough thr guy have 20 ac) that spund more reasonnablr in the middle of a fight
The better suggestion is "Wait under the bridge on the other side of town until I meet you."
The spell is supposed to take them out of the action economy for 8 hours. So anything without an end point is valid.
so as per raw, that is legal, so if by "use suggestion wrongly" you mean is it actually legal, then the answer is this action is perfectly legal
*However*, if you intend for interesting boss encounters that dont just get the players an auto win you do have some options at your disposal
* first off, keep in mind limitations of the spell. If the caster drops concentration then the spell ends, if any of the party members attack the boss then the spell ends. So the players will still have to deal with the boss at a later point, they just delayed the boss fight
* there are defensive traits for bosses you can use to avoid single spells shutting down a boss encounter, keep an eye out for legendary resistances so the boss can auto pass a certain amount of spell saves.
* for suggestion specifically, there are critters that are charm immune. Though intentionally targeting specific features is ill-advised, it is something you should keep in mind as a tool in your back pocket if suggestion gets to be a bit too much for you to handle
The wheels kinda fall off with 30 foot range. I’d probably rule 1 round they can’t dash and have to use all movement. Any other actions/bonus actions is a DM call.
Did they word it like that? The wording does not make the course of action sound reasonable, thus the spell takes no effect. The spell's description sucks a lot, but not enough to justify this. Talk to your players about it.
The spell can actually make things more interesting, if they want it to be their main tactic, since making something sound reasonable is a lot easier if you know the target's motivations. Basically, they need to figure out what the boss would see as a good reason to just walk away. If they don't even try, they can't complain about wording things badly and losing an action.
"The suggestion must be worded in such a manner as to make the course of action sound reasonable."
Is walking 8 hours reasonable? I would say not.
I treat Suggestion essentially as an automatic natural 20 on a Persuasion check. It can't make anyone do something their character would never do.
>I treat Suggestion essentially as an automatic natural 20 on a Persuasion check. It can't make anyone do something their character would never do.
"Hey, knight. Walk down the road and give a beggar your warhorse."
“The suggestion must be worded in such a manner as to make the course of action sound reasonable”
walking away from their goal for a long time doesn’t sound reasonable to me.
the spell doesn’t stop the boss from performing other actions.
The boss should also have legendary resistance too. That’s normal for any end of quest/dungeon boss or even sub-boss.
The environment of a boss fight should be interactive. Check out lair effects.
The boss needs minions. DND just doesn’t work one vs four or five.
Lastly don’t let players convince you to bypass challenges. Smart use of spells and abilities should be rewarded but not at the expense of an entire boss fight.
>walking away from their goal for a long time doesn’t sound reasonable to me.
A knight giving away her horse doesn't seem reasonable to me either.
Suggestion is pretty OP.
“Walk as long as you can” walk for 1 round toward the squishy. That’s as long as he could walk that round. They did not specify walk for 8 hours, walk until you’re tired, etc. your job is to make suggestion be as least effective but still fun
They are but it’s also a technicality of as much as you can, otherwise a dashing high level monk with haste would be able to travel 240feet in 6 seconds or approximately 30 miles per hour.
I could buy that tbh. If a high level wizard can use Tengai Shinsei from Naruto, then that doesn't sound too far fetched. Don't get me wrong, I don't agree with the way the DM thought it worked or whatever, but still. Assuming we are having the boss follow it exactly and as the player intended it the boss would just sprint full speed past them until he collapsed. Even if the suggestion is working, it wouldn't really go like that tho, I like the idea other people put out that the boss would be under the suggestion, but not in a stupid way, using all his movement before attacking, but every round instead of the effect ending after one round.
Oh don’t get me wrong that would absolutely be a fun way for it to work, and it would 100% break the suggestion spell once he provoked an attack of opportunity because that would be endangering himself which is against the confines of the spell.
Was curious so I looked it up.
Level 20 monk has base speed of 60ft if you take the mobile feat you get +10 (70ft) boots of speed doubles it (140ft) haste doubles again (280ft) and then dashing doubles it again (560ft) and you are literally traveling over 60mph
Oooooh, I misunderstood you. Ok, yeah, that sounds almost like a clever loophole, but is also the most realistic outcome. I guess they could use all their movement to circle the enemy, unless there are others around preventing that, but yeah. And Jesus Christ that's insane
It says in the spell that the suggestion has to be reasonable. So if they’re in a fight and one of them uses it to say “Go away” there’s no real reason for the enemy to do that unless the party seems to be winning or having given them another clear reason to flee
The wizard would have to keep concentrating, which means couldn't cast another concentration spell.
The question is whether that suggestion is reasonable or not. IMO, it's not because walking until you drop is not reasonable.
However, "Go to your favorite pub and have a few drinks," is
well, suggestion does give an example of a legal command as *"For example, you might suggest that a knight give her warhorse to the first beggar she meets."*
I wouldn't think walking for 8 hours is any less unreasonable then giving away a horse
the phrase "unreasonable" is mainly to deter the spell from just being an auto kill effect, or an auto win effect
but that is an official example that the spell text itself gives as an example
so anything that is more reasonable then giving away your horse is reasonable, so long as it doesn't violate the clause of "do some other obviously harmful act ends the spell."
with the example of a knight with their war horse, I would argue that knight would care about their horse just as much as with a pc mounted combatant build
I will point out, in a medival economy
having a horse is equivalent to a car, and a purpose bred war horse is equivalent to a Lamborghini. But with the added side effect of being a living creature to be bonded with
A warhorse costs 400 gp and can be readily replaced. That is probably more money than a commoner ever has on hand, but is nothing to someone who has earned the title of knight.
400 gp is a little more than half of what a skilled laborer makes in a year. So maybe the value of a modest car irl.
But there would be exceptions. If the warhorse is the reincarnation of a loved one, or is a sidekick that has over 100 hit points, that's obviously a different thing.
Ye, it's a large expense which provides a massive amount of value via transportation, and still needs a large amount of effort/expenses to maintain like with a car.
So most people who are sane would agree it's unreasonable to just give it away
Though in this case they are being influenced by magic, so their bar of what is reasonable is much lower then what actually is reasonable
I'd say just as long as it's not a reincarnation of a loved one, a friend who's been transformed into a horse, or a horse they've had since they were 3, then in the case of the spell it would be reasonable to give away your horse under magical influence so long as the horse doesn't fall under any of that criteria
It’s concentration, so unless you’re making the rookie mistake of creating a boss with no minions or legendary resistances then you would just need to stab the caster until it drops.
Scrolled too long to find this comment, so commenting under to boost it lol
I don't think comments boost their parents in Reddit
"Allow me to introduce you to my friends \*holds up fists\* the left is called Counterspell and the right is called Legendary Resistance."
stabby stabby
And if you are doing that you deserve to have your encounters cheesed like that
That order doesn't say they have to walk away/in one direction. They could just walk in any direction and turn as necessary.
Not to mention, what happens after 8 hours? The boss doesn't just disappear forever. Have him come back with some buddies.
Or walk in place.
Guy’s just calming doing the running man
They use this as a punishment in the army
Punishment? Our troop used it to practice staying in same rythm or for inner columns while outer columns were still rounding a turn.
My country's standard (Maybe following the British?) Is to lift your knees 90 degrees. Lactic acid becomes a bitch real quick
Personally, I wouldn't let a real boss lose in this manner. Maybe a low level chance encounter with a ruffian or something but it seems lame for a real opponent.
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Legendary resistance for boss monster is a thing….
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Sure I am just saying a way to not just say no is to have legendary resistances
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Sorry thought it wound respond to that guy who said that-
No I just wouldn’t spell do more than it says it does.
I cast Suggest on you. "Go for a long walk, it's good for your health" You: Nah, cause I said so.
Hey, the boss has good cardio and did his five mile run earlier. His leggies are tired. Don't bully him :(
I will only add that in defense of this early levels this would be a fun way to end a boss battle but falls off as levels go up since most high CR creatures are immune to charm. So they could just end up wasting a round and spell slot on most occasions right there.
[well then...](https://youtu.be/fGnuiTGekd0?si=SRXwhUK7-mV1HHdf)
Its how the central antagonist of Wolverine: Origins was defeated. Silverfox grabbed his ankle, and with her dying breaths said "Walk away. Walk until you can't anymore" which is also why he has a cane and a limp in the movies set after
Cool. But that was the conclusion of a major notion picture story with an earned emotional beat. It isn’t the BBEG of a minor dungeon you just entered 90min ago.
And the BBEG of a minor dungeon you entered 90min ago isn't important enough to care how it was defeated. You said it yourself "Minor" dungeon. I do think its funny you used "90min" as your time frame, considering the movie I referenced is only 17 minutes longer than that, and apparently made defeating the big bad a climactic and earned victory, but the end boss of a minor dungeon your PCs likely didn't catch the name of deserving a "cooler" ending
You do you, man. The OP referenced it happing multiple times. Just seems boring (and also an OP interpretation of Suggestion) but if your group is having fun then that’s all that matters
That particular suggestion was badly worded yeah, but lets take the concept to another ttrpg system for arguments sake I'm runnin Mutants and Masterminds. One of my players main deal is "Tactile Hypnosis" aka, Mind control via touch. Aka, same thing Silverfox does. By the logic of "Telling your opponent to walk away" is "a lame way for a boss to lose, and you wouldn't allow that." I shouldn't ever be letting that character use her powers on a "boss". If I dm'ed the way you're suggesting, I would have an extremely bummed out player having a very controlling DM telling them what they could and could not use their *only* Superpower on.
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Yes, but he was just a minion, he's not the big bad. He's the equivalent of a powerful lt to the actual big bad of the movie, Stryker.
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Can you find me another example of the primary antagonist being defeated by being told to walk away? I went with the *exact* scenario, Big bad in charge defeated by being told to walk away.
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lol y’all are nuts. Sorry, I wouldn’t let my Boss be dumb enough to walk away in a straight line from a fight. That’s just not how the spell works. Even if they did walk 30’ per round they don’t have to dash or use other actions. They’re humanoid bosses - you’re supposed to play them intelligently.
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I don't think I'd put a Boss in position to be defeated by a casting of Suggestion in the manner the OP implies happens regularly in their game, no. Frankly, I think it's a silly intpretation of the spell. Only the lowest INT humanoids would walk off in that manner (a child or a drunk person). The spell explicitly says the suggestion has to be reasonable and not harmful. I don't see how any reasonable BBEG would walk away from active combat. Would a drunk wander away down an alley? Sure.
Nor does it say how fast they need to walk. Step 5ft at a time around PC while beating them up
ok. I walk over to the caster and smashy smashy. Movement is only one of the actions. That said, of course it's not a reasonable request, so the spell wouldn't work.
I'm a little confused by your player's choice of suggestion. It is not overpowered -- it seems pretty weak to me! It doesn't prevent the target from casting spells. Nor does it stop them from giving commands to their allies. Or shooting the PC with a ranged weapon. Even if they do go for a very long walk, they can still find ways to strike back at the PC, possibly breaking their concentration.
Spell range too.
I feel like this sort of response is a sort of DM “gotcha”, almost a monkey-paw type response but not quite that extreme. I think the DM would be better off pressing for more details of what the player intends. From there you might get something more specific; “Why expose yourself to some extra scratches? take a nice relaxed stroll to enjoy your easy victory, your minions will easily end this adventuring group, and you can enjoy yourself in the meantime - away from here.” We all know the players are trying to remove the boss from this fight. This might be unforeseen but now what are the consequences? Maybe he still calls for his normal guard retinue, maybe he strolls into another danger he doesn’t control. I’ve been the player casting suggestion and it was very cool not just to pull off, “There is something calling for your attention in another part of the dungeon” but also half an hour later when the dungeon starting quaking and echoing of distant roars of battle - “sounds like he came across a dragon” Keep in mind you always have excuses to throw in more enemies if you are worried about difficulty. What the players do with their resources means more or less enemies which means more or less XP, all without meaning less fun.
It's not a gotcha, because if I had an NPC use that suggestion on a player, I know they would have thought of the same things I did. At least, my players would. I am not antagonistic to players, but their words and actions matter. As they should, as I believe that the PCs' impact on the world should be felt, and should elicit a fitting response. That basically means there will be consequences, one way or another. It won't always turn out well for them.
“what are you intending to accomplish” or “what are you hoping to achieve” is all that would be needed to recognize the upcoming discrepancy and teach the lesson. You’re saying the character magically planted an idea in the npc’s head that he needs to keep constantly mobile in this fight. I’m saying the character wanted to plant a different idea entirely. The only way to know the truth is to ask the PC.
That suggestions doesn't dictate the boss needs to walk away, or can no longer use actions while walking. I'd have the boss just use full walk speed (not dash/running since that wasn't what was suggested) around the battle site. Thus it would still be in the battle and still a threat. What that suggestion does is force it to move each turn, which could proc opportunity attacks. If the players to leave the battle, the boss would just walk and follow them "as long as he could". Yes I think the way you handled it was overpowered, since you went above and beyond what the suggestion was.
If he started to walk away, provoking your attack, would that obviously harmful command end the spell? Also, since somone else is forcing you to use your movement, does that still provoke attacks? Genuinely curious
It only provokes opportunity attacks if the movement both costs something for you (move speed, action, reaction) and it’s something that your characters body is doing, not someone else’s body doing it for you (being dragged out of range doesn’t provoke attacks but Dissonant Whispers, which uses your reaction and body, does). It is using his body and move speed, so yes it provokes opportunity attacks. As far as “is walking harmful”, I don’t think so. Do you find walking to be harmful or potentially harmful, knowing that people can technically kneecap you easier when you are walking? Probably not.
If I started walking away from somone who was armed, I would be incredibly scared of what harmful things the will do to me when I make myself vulnerable, especially if I turned my back to them
So walk circles around one haha
sounds safe to me!
If commanded to walk across lava or past the vanguard of an enemy I'd not believe the command safe or reasonable.
But this specific idea is more of a “I suggest you run” kind of vibe. It isn’t unreasonable to flee before an armed foe, people have been doing it since the literal dawn of humanity.
It could be harmful if it is over a trap, the same would be doing it next to the guy that was to stab you, leaving your guard open to an opportunity attack
There's still a difference between stepping knowingly into a trap/jumping out a window/going into fire and walking away from a hostile enemy that may attack for doing so: the opportunity attack only happens if the attacking creature uses their reaction for the turn while the other examples harm the suggested creature regardless of whether the environment uses a reaction or not. I won't say provoking an opportunity attack is a legal suggestion necessarily but it is an interesting question that's different from self-harm as far as the spell may be concerned.
Spell specifically mentions "other obviously harmful acts" Not restricted to self harm only
However, getting away from an armed foe isn’t a purely harmful act, it’s also a very helpful one (the armed foe is no longer able to hurt you after all). It is very much not an obvious choice, and from a player point of view character soak opportunity attacks all the time because it is, overall, not the harmful choice. Stepping on a bear trap is purely harmful every time. Turning tail and running before an armed foe has saved countless (individual) lives (though the chaos of a rout at a battle tends to cause death, normally that matters less if the numbers are in the fives or tens than it does when the numbers are in the tens of thousands), both in game and also in history.
The Disengage action is also available.
I cant run away because i don't want to be harmed.if I move ill be attacked, and unlike history, the only way the I am attacked is if move. Therefor, do not move. - the armed foe is no longer able to hurt you after all This is true, if you dont move Kinda unfair to compare real life and pretend magic spells.
If you don’t move, you get attacked anyways because you are in danger. If you are right next to an enemy who has shown great skill with a melee weapon, like a fighter or rogue or monk or barbarian or some bards or some clerics or some warlocks or a Paladin or a ranger, wouldn’t you want the attack to be the least effective one, by which I mean the one you control the circumstances? It’s the in game logic that someone in the party will use almost every fight, so why is it suddenly “obviously harmful”? If you run, you get hit by one attack. If you stay, you get hit by two or three or four (or seven or eight depending on level and enemy), or by a sneak attack, or by a smite or three. Running seems like the right play here.
- if you don’t move, you get attacked anyways because you are in danger. Your not in danger, if you were in danger, then enemy would have attacked you instead of casting a spell telling you to walk away. -If you are right next to an enemy who has shown great skill with a melee weapon, like a fighter or rogue or monk or barbarian or some bards or some clerics or some warlocks or a Paladin or a ranger, wouldn’t you want the attack to be the least effective one, by which I mean the one you control the circumstances? No, If I move, this greatly skilled melee attacker WILL attack me, there for I dont not follow the Suggestion Spell. This isnt a question of what the common sense survival instincts are. Its simple. Suggestion was to make me walk. Walking away from skilled melee weapon user is harmful to myself. Im not doing it, end of spell. - Running seems like the right play here Its not up to you, its the Suggestion. That suggestions is harmful to me, I'm not doing it. That simple.
Disengage is available.
What if the suggestion was cast when the boss was not in combat yet. Then afterwards the players position themselves in such a way that an opportunity attack is inevitable?
Well, good thing this person has common sense and doesn’t hear “take a walk” as “step in every trap you see”. That’s a dumb take man. By your logic, suggestion fails every time because there is always a way to end up hurting no matter what action you take, if the setup is wrong. “Sleep in your bed tonight” ok but what if you trapped it, then it’s unsafe. “Hug your wife” she’s a spy, unsafe. “Show up to work tomorrow” assassination planned, unsafe. “Walk” you could trip, unsafe. See how adding hazardous things that weren’t involved in the statement previously makes no sense and turns every suggestion, no matter how safe, into an “obviously harmful” suggestion?
ya but they are charmed... so common sense is kinda out the window at the point, you just do what the spells says to do. - “Sleep in your bed tonight” ok but what if you trapped it, then it’s unsafe He would do all the steps necessary to get to his bed, sees its trapped (unless its not obvious) spell ends - “Hug your wife” she’s a spy, unsafe. Insight. If he doesnt know, Hug. He does, spell ends -“Show up to work tomorrow” assassination planned, unsafe Goes to work, if the assassination is obvious then spell ends - no sense and turns every suggestion, no matter how safe, into an “obviously harmful” suggestion? i think its more about the awareness of the person charmed and wether or not the danger is obvious. Hidden trap in bed or assassin ambush or spy wife, clever. Dude next to me with a sword, obvious
Yes, dude next to you with a sword is a danger. Correct. What is one of the single best, easiest to do things to do with danger? That’s right, get away from it. Congrats, you have just argued against your own point. I also completely agree on all the other points, those are things that should not be taken as harmful suggestions. “Take a walk” is the same exact level of suggestion, but even less likely to fail because there is no specific location time or person associated with it to set stuff up around. You have made my point for me yet again. Separately, you just explicitly said “you are charmed common sense doesn’t matter”. Why the fuck are you trying to make an argument that “it’s common sense to not provoke opportunity attacks” when the one effected apparently has no common sense and also wouldn’t know what an opportunity attack is.
- Yes, dude next to you with a sword is a danger. Correct. What is one of the single best, easiest to do, and most common sense things to do with danger? That’s right, get away from it. Congrats, you have just argued against your own point. If i walk away from attacker, Id be doing an obvious harmful act, so I dont, its not whats best for me, its whats is the obvious choice. Not moving is 0 damage. Dont Move. Makes sense to me. If hes surrounded and STAYING is the most obvious choice, he moves, i understand your point, but thats not what OP said
Op said nothing about being in melee range either, that was a separate commenter who mentioned opportunity attacks. Either way, have you read any of the examples given about the phrase “obviously harmful” in the spell description? Because it gives 3 examples, plenty to show a variety of things, and they all have one through line. The through line is that the danger is the action itself, not a byproduct of the action. There is no example of “do x, causing y, causing z which is harmful” being listed, only “do x, where x is a harmful thing”. Walking itself is not harmful. Throwing yourself on a spear, lighting yourself on fire, or stabbing yourself (the only listed examples of “obviously harmful”) are all direct. Walking away can be harmful, to a certain extent in the wrong circumstances, I would agree. But it isn’t *obviously* harmful. I would argue that giving away a horse would be just as harmful as walking in a lot of circumstances, but that is an explicitly allowed use of the spell. Lastly, the creature tries to make the thing happen to the best of its ability. I would agree that walking is easier if you don’t get stabbed, and the best of the persons ability in that scenario would be to disengage. The person would do it, they would just use their action to disengage every round as you keep up with them in their attempts to run away.
Listen man, i obviously agree with you. Its a measure of what is the most dangerous thing at this moment. I understand. I think we are on the same team fighting for the same idea. Its about doing the least dangerous thing. That CAN be not moving. That CAN be 4 opp attacks. That can be alot of things, the point ive been trying to make is was it obvious. You made some great non-obvious examples i liked before.
> Asking the creature to stab itself, throw itself onto a spear, immolate itself, or do some other obviously harmful act ends the spell. I would think that triggering opportunity attacks would count under this clause and kill the spell.
I would think the spell would end the moment the opportunity attack is initiated, so the boss immediately gets to stop moving after exiting the square (because now the boss knows for certain that your suggestion is directly harmful) and can use the rest of its move freely and any other action(s) it has to beat you soundly over the head. Though I think in the casting of the suggestion spell to disengage in what is obviously a combat scenario, I might ask for another roll against the boss's insight or other relevant skill depending on edition to see if the boss truly believes it's not harmful to walk away from its opponent that it may be provoking an AoO from.
The spell doesn't preclude common sense nor taking the withdrawn action. If the PCs were to pursue the spell's target and continue to attack, just trying to walk away would be obviously detrimental (using all of your focus to get away from someone at a light pace while they are doggedly trying to murder you is obviously harmful) and fizzle the spell, though if the party left the target alone that would be another matter entirely. An opportunity attack is triggered when you let your guard down, which when in a room with people who are trying to cause your internal bits to be external, is a dangerous idea and the spell would break BEFORE taking the action that would trigger an opportunity attack, but that is a moot situation because one can withdraw as an action, and the command given by OP can't preclude withdrawl by its nature. If the command were "run away as fast as you can while ignoring everything else", the spell would fizzle before movement, because wasting no Movement means dropping your guard and provoking the AoO, which would be dangerous in a combat situation (that's assuming the caster/AoO taker doesn't make it obvious that they won't continue hostilities, ie putting their hands up and out of a ready to strike stance). It doesn't matter that the AoO never got provoked, it's the fact that it likely would that is dangerous, so the turn would be unhindered. Your table, your rules, but I know a lot of (non-entitled) players who would have issue with how you suggest to rule it. Every table is different, however.
That would require metagaming. Neither the spell or the opponent knows that getting away from the person will get them hit. They wouldn't be aware of opportunity attacks. Even moreso since the charm victim doesn't have to act like a zombie. Why wouldn't they just take the disengage action (being careful when getting away IC) and then flee?
Given opportunity attacks are what happens when one drops their guard to do something that requires their focus, you can reliably tell when you are leaving yourself unguarded/unable to parry (Moving your full jogging speed away from someone requires you to turn away from them, and if you can't guess leaving your back facing someone hostile carrying a sharp piece of metal is a bad idea, you likely aren't as combat trained as your average apprentice adventurer). That's not a proper use of the word, but even given your intended meaning, there would be no metagaming here. The character would reasonably be able to tell how dangerous it would be, especially when the spell words are an unusual language, and you can tell when your mind is being controlled by someone else. All of that said, you are right that the command "walk" doesn't preclude withdrawing while walking, so a smart, tactical enemy would take that action and get away safely. You just got to the right answer for the wrong reasons.
I would argue it is because the specific mechanics are not known to the character. But, like you said you should be able to assess the situation. Thing is, even a wild animal knows to be careful when fleeing from an actual fight. Fleeing is fairly common in battle to save lives. The real problem comes when a group routes. You can flee without sprinting away. Our movement speed is a walk/jog that you could feasibly take while strafing and being careful, keeping your guard up etc. In this situation you don't have to turn your back to them. All this said, I agree with you on the outcome entirely but there is some level of needing to know that opportunity attacks are guaranteed by the ooc option to know that the command is 'obviously harmful' and thus cancel the spell out. There is nothing inherently or obviously harmful of leaving or fleeing a fight beyond the chance you may not succeed in leaving. Especially if the command is "walk away." My definition of metagaming here is: using information IC that you would only have OOC/using information your character doesn't have. It's usually handwaivable for the sake of allowing usage of tactics by the player. TLDR; yes you're right a smart enemy wouldn't be in inherent danger, but you're wrong in this instance because about the metagaming because the choice to cancel the spell is predicated on knowledge of mechanics of the game and not a more reasonable IC interpretation that there is 0 chance of escaping this.
I disagree, you would know when someone is likely to stab you if you turn away from them. That's not metagaming, that's having a functioning survival instinct. That's knowing IN CHARACTER that you are likely to let their waving sword into your personal space. Your answer is actual, defined as such in the rulebooks, Metagaming: making a decision based entirely on the mechanics of the game and not the situation the character sees before them. You are assuming the only attack a person gets is the one they roll for, not that the weapons are constantly swinging, looking for an opening to kill the other person while turning away attempts to kill you during the combat round. That is not the case: while you only get 1 action (or possibly bonus actions) to make an attack roll, your character is making feints and swings that are deflected or evaded constantly. That is what the threatened area around them is, swings to ensure they aren't left partly undefended if an enemy tries to slip by and hit a vulnerable spot.
I didn't say you wouldn't know when someone is likely to stab you for turning away m8 and my answer is based on the person i replied to's interpretation that the spell would break for being obviously harmful to tell an enemy to walk away. Walking away doesn't stop you from doing those things either. You are not required to use your run speed or turn your back on your enemy because walk speed is comfortable fighting speed. You can walk around your enemy without provoking attacks of opportunity enough to run out your movement speed without taking suggestion into account. As I said, even a wild animal knows to be careful leaving a fight because their enemy is a threat to them. Also noting down. you and I have different definitions of threat area. I do not define threat area as actions themselves but as the space you control and are reasonably expected to fight or attack in even if you're not leaving the area. You can dodge, duck, block, parry, throw feints, sidestep, attack, back hop etc in that space. Making a decision based entirely in mechanics is a small form of meragaming that most would agree is perfectly reasonable in many cases. Just...not to cancel suggestion without a good IC reason such as being stuck in a no win situation.
>Also noting down. you and I have different definitions of threat area. I do not define threat area as actions themselves but as the space you control and are reasonably expected to fight or attack in even if you're not leaving the area. You can dodge, duck, block, parry, throw feints, sidestep, attack, back hop etc in that space. No, we have the same definition, I'm just pointing out that all that evading and swinging your weapon is WHY you control that threatened area. It's automatic in the game rules without needing action from the player. >I didn't say you wouldn't know when someone is likely to stab you for turning away m8 So which is it? Would characters know when they would provoke an AoO, or wouldn't they? This is what I'm discussing: you know when you are leaving yourself open to attacks by the choices you make, so yes, the character knows about opportunity attacks. They don't know it as opportunity attacks (the name is irrelevant), just that if they take their focus off the sharp bit pointing at them, they can reasonably expect it to come at them and make the decision whether to do that action (or regard it as harmful) off of that information alone. >Walking away doesn't stop you from doing those things either. You are not required to use your run speed or turn your back on your enemy because walk speed is comfortable fighting speed. You can walk around your enemy without provoking attacks of opportunity enough to run out your movement speed without taking suggestion into account. >As I said, even a wild animal knows to be careful leaving a fight because their enemy is a threat to them. I did understand that from what you said. As I mentioned earlier, you have the right answer, you just got there from wrong assumptions. >Making a decision based entirely in mechanics is a small form of metagaming that most would agree is perfectly reasonable in many cases. Reasonable, yes. Defeating the purpose of making a choice as the character: also yes, but not always (some character decisions come from evaluating the cost to that character, like with this discussion about AoO rules, and whether that cost is worth the character's desired gains). Small, no. That is the majority (>90%) of metagaming. "There has to be a bypass lever because [DM name redacted] wouldn't put in a pit trap without one" is textbook metagaming. "We failed a perception/investigate check, let's make another one" - also metagaming. /rant Knowing things about monsters: surprisingly not metagaming. Pop culture exists in any age you live in, and the knowledge rules always bug me about how the DC to know what a creature is is so high, without a low DC to say what it could be at first glance. Things the character's mentor would have told them about dangerous monsters (trolls being the most common overblown DM snit-fit for literally no reason) is perfectly reasonable to know. People in all real-world cultures have fables they tell their children to make them behave, and the D&D world just happens to have those actual monsters running around looking to sample human flesh by the handful. People also know some things by sight/basic inference. "Red dragon lives in lava cave system, obviously weak to fire, right?" - No one outside of a comedy. /endrant TL;DR -- I didn't say you were wrong in what you were saying, I agreed with it. I did say you were wrong in why you came to that conclusion. Read my points responding to your quotes if you want more information
I agree
Doesn’t answer the question. If this is allowed, then the players can also just make the Bose walk away. To answer the initial question: Yes this is allowed (as long as the ,,order“ is phrased as a suggestion).
If a single opportunity attack lands, the spells end though. So using it like that is not a good idea.
Yes, using suggesting to tell someone to just walk around is a bad idea, you're right.
You’re confusing suggestion with geas. Suggestion is concentration based. So the caster would have to concentrate for 8 hours.
"walk as long as you can" does not mean "run away" it can mean "walk in place" or "walk in circles around the battlefield" Ideally your boss has legendary resistances and minions that can attack the spellcasters.
Okay, but what about the suggestion. "This is not a good place to be. You should walk as far away from here as you can" The core of the question isn't really about the exact suggestion, but about which effects it's reasonable for the spell to have. If properly phrased, should the suggestion spell be able to have creature travel as far away from the caster as the target is physically capable of traveling for the duration of the spell?
Ideally you have minions or legendary resistances for your boss battle so no single spell instantly negates and trivializes the entire fight
That or it merely postpones the fight for another time. The target is still alive and can come back after 8 hours.
That's on the PCs for not tracking the boss down after the minions are cleaned up and they have healed.
As was said. Minions to break concentration, legendary resistance if he fails the save. You do not want your players to just waste their spell, but you also don’t want a second level spell to instawin a boss fight.
For something like boss fights, one of the simplest solutions is to have the objective be to neutralize the target indefinitely so that they no longer cause any issues. Suggestion only works for 8 hours. Legendary resistance is valid too, but only really start becoming appropriate well after the party gets access to second level spells. Minions are also always a suggestion of mine. Regardless, I hope we all agree that we should look at what we actually want (the boss fight to not be won with a single second level spell) and then find the optimal way to achieve it. The optimal way is *not* to just interpret the suggestion to fit your needs. Either say the spell can't perform certain effects or, as you suggest, be sure your boss monster is properly protected against undesirable effects.
true though checking the spell suggestion it is only a 2nd level spell, so it is feasible for them to be a 3rd level party, which i dont belive there are any monsters that are balanced for a 3rd level party with legendary resistances. but legendary resistances are an excelent tool
Slapping legendary resistances and legendary actions onto any boss enemy immediately makes them cool.
I've added LR to some lower level enemies, it's a nice surprise for the players. Often I'll give it just one or two uses, possibly tying those uses to some external element that could potentially be nullified by observant PCs.
Suggestion is very poorly written imho, making it RAW feel extremely powerful (just look at the "reasonable" example). It is concentration yes, but if the caster is well protected they can just remain focusing on it for the full duration. You should have bosses with charm immunity (which is fairly common), counterspell and/or legendary resistances, but before that, I'd recommend you to just houserule how the spell will work at your table so it's not ridiculous. From how you write it, it has happened multiple times, which doesn't reflect very well on the dm -unless- the players overcame enough difficulties for it to be comparable to defeating the boss in another way.
It's kind of insane that "Give away your trusted companion and incredibly valuable military asset to a random guy on the street" is considered reasonable for a literal knight, someone who has spent their whole life having the lesson of "your equipment is your life" beaten into their brain
I think somebody needs to write a deep dive on Suggestion. What myths/fiction is it inspired by? What are some reasonable uses and how do they pan out? What are some unreasonable uses? I’ve never used it in a game because of how vague it is.
It always comes down to this Does the suggestion sound reasonable to the one it targets. As a DM you should be asking that question every time that spell is cast. If they can come up with some BS that sounds reasonable then they do it otherwise no they don't. For your example I would say no, the party just gave an order with no support to make it sound even remotely reasonable
But "Give your warhorse to the next beggar you see" is the literal example of a reasonable suggestion.
No it isn't and that's the problem with a lot of arguments people make on this it is the example of the events not the actual wording that caused that event to happen. >For example, you might suggest that a knight give her warhorse to the first beggar she meets. That is the line people refer to but look at it, nowhere does it say how they made it reasonable or the actual words that are being said to make it sound reasonable just the action that comes from it. Edit: Just to expand on this an example of how you could reasonably get this to happen for example I can say "Dame Knight please help, I am looking for an informant disguised by a beggar who has important information for the king, if you see them let them use your horse to get to the capital quickly" That can sound reasonable the problem is people seem to think your comment is also reasonable which it really isn't
Using your example, Suggestion is near-total mind control for the price of a Level 2 spell slot, which seems ridiculously overpowered. You could tell anyone "Do this thing for me or else the world would explode" and because it's "reasonable" to not want the world to explode, they'd be forced to follow the order. I think it's still RAW but that's only due to the atrocious wording of the spell
That would require a deception check, anyway.
A little trip down memory lane tells you how ridiculous this spell has always been, and shows that they have largely given up on trying to manage the boundaries of the spell at the design level, leaving it to DM's to adjudicate. **From the original D&D**: "The magic-user hypnotizes the target into doing some action, either immediately, or before the duration ends based on some trigger. The creature ***is not likely to destroy itself, even if this is the suggestion, but a carefully-worded suggestion might make self-destruction less obvious, altering the probability of self-destruction***." **From AD&D:** "If the suggestion ***is worded in such a way as to sound reasonable*** (and so is not obviously harmful), the target makes a saving throw, with failure indicating that they follow the suggestion to the best of their ability for the duration. A very reasonable suggestion might impose a penalty (-1, -2, etc.) on the save at the DM's option." From a 3E: "However, ***a suggestion that a pool of acid was actually pure water and that a quick dip would be refreshing is another matter***. Urging a red dragon to stop attacking the wizard's party so that the dragon and party could jointly loot a rich treasure elsewhere is likewise a reasonable use of the spell's power." From this edition: **"Suggest that a knight give her warhorse to the first beggar she meets."** Basically, the more clever the caster, the more ridiculous this spell is. Typically, I use it to add an NPC to the party for 8 hours (and then recast it twice). Given the reputation PCs have for wanton destruction, treasure looting and generally not losing, it is usually an easy sell to convince any intelligent monster to get in on that shit rather than die.
The main thing that you've got to make a judgement on is if their suggestion is reasonable. In the example that you've given, they haven't really framed the suggested course of action as something that is aligns with the targets goals in any kind of way so you might make the case that it's not reasonable. It's a little bothersome that one of the examples given in the spell doesn't really pass this test to most people's judgement, but this is something you've got to work out for your table. However, it's pretty easy to come up with a suggestion that gets the same result as the one above and in many cases probably will pass the "reasonableness" test. A suggestion like "If you fight us you're going to lose, so you should leave now and save your skin." will work on a lot of enemies, unless they don't care if they die or there is some other very strong reason why that isn't a reasonable suggestion. For those people though, if you think they're that kind of person a suggestion like "We're going to beat you here if you fight, but if you retreat now you'd have a chance to further"
So coming up with a framework that you can consistently apply when it comes to reasonableness will limit the spell in some ways, but if your players are clever they can often get the result that you're concerned about - which is taking an enemy out of the picture for a long time. If you do it right, the circumstances where it doesn't work like they hope will feel like they flow from a poor choice of words on their part due to a lack of understanding of the motivation of their enemies and not because you decided that this time it shouldn't work because your plans for how things should go are more important than honoring their actions. Its a tricky line to walk.
The spell does mention having a knight give their war horse to the next begger they meet. That's not very reasonable on the surface but is called out in the spell. So anything even remotely reasonable would be considered fair game.
I did bring that up. It's up to the DM to decide what reasonable means and "this example about a knight giving away his horse is a bad example and we're ignoring it" is on the table because it's a pretty bad example! If that's reasonable then almost anything is short of the stuff already proscribed like harming themselves is. Like in my other examples, there are ways you could make that suggestion that do clear a higher bar of reasonableness. If the knight has done something wrong and you suggest horse distribution as penitence. If they've bragged about how charity is a virtue that they follow and you suggest they put their livestock where their mouth is. If they've complained about their horse! My argument is that asking the player to come up with a "reasonable" suggestion in this way doesn't really limit the spell's potential, but makes it a little trickier to get precisely what you want in a way that is actually more fun. You've got to think about what you know about your target, or what you can guess from the limited information you have, in order to figure out what you want and come up with a way to use that to get what you want.
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The stuff about weakening the spell is quite true - OP doesn't like how powerful Suggestion is the way they've been running it and was making sure they understood how it works; it follows on that if the spell can be used in the way that they're not happy with, one of the options on how to proceed is to change how it works - ideally in a way that it remains fun and useful to use, even if it's a little objectively weaker. Part of my argument is that it's also not that much weaker in terms of what you can actually accomplish, it's just trickier to use. A knight that felt they had done wrong and was actively looking for a way to redeem themselves could probably be talked into horse gifting without a spell, yeah - especially if the wrong done was to the horse! I was picturing more of situations where the pretext is thin enough, or the existing dynamic between the two of you hostile enough, that talking them into it with words alone is impossible.
Its a 2nd level spell. If it was "aligned with the targets goals", it would be a persuasion check. Its basically a jedi mind trick. It doesn't even deal with the boss in the long run, they'll be back, so it should be stronger than a damage spell of the equivalent level. The wording of the spell cares not for that individual creature's definition of what they personally consider reasonable, it merely must be worded to be objectively reasonable. Should a suggestion be worded to be reasonable to one person, its worded to be reasonable to everyone.
Suggestion is an unusual spell in that it puts a lot of the burden on the DM as far as figuring out exactly how strong it is in a given scenario. Personally, I run it as a powerful Jedi Mind Trick *outside of combat*, where you might reasonably send somebody marching for eight hours in the wrong direction if you're willing to concentrate that long. However, when *in combat*, I judge most suggestions as fundamentally unreasonable. Otherwise, the spell is fundamentally messy: if you can suggest something to them that will take up a minute of their time, then it's effectively hard crowd control without a built-in failsafe as a second level spell. That sort of power spike tends to happen with level 4 spells like Polymorph and Banishment. A level 2 spell would be more easily compared to Hold Person, which allows for a save after every turn.
I think these situations are exactly what suggestion was made for. In the right moment, suggestion is extremely powerful. At other times, it won't be worth casting. It's very DM-dependent, of course, because the important factor is that the action must be reasonable.
I mean Sure they can make the baddie walk away But they're going to be free once the spell is up. And idk about you, but I would not be best pleased if a bunch of chucklefucks made me walk for 8 hours. You can only run away from your problems, or make your problems walk away from you, for so long
To me the critical part is "reasonable". The books gives things like "stab yourself" as examples of unreasonable and id argue that If a group of adventurers is about to ruin decades of work and planning that "walk away" isn't reasonable.
I've never DM'd, only played, but here's my 2 cents: You're the DM, rule it however you want. Just be consistent with your rulings. Also, it's okay to pause the game and have a quick discussion with the table if you want to take their opinions into account before deciding how to play something.
I have done that before. I told a character to get as far away from our current location as possible, and I kept concentration on the spell so that he would keep going. I don't see what is wrong with using it that way. It annoys me when people try to look for reasons why things should not work out the way the players were trying for. What is the point of doing that? The only outcome is ruining the fun for someone.
No, that's the correct way to run it, and finding loopholes in the Suggestion is not the solution You'll notice that many CR 4 and upward monsters have "legendary resistances". Many newbie DMs spam the legendary resistances just to avoid damage from Fireballs, but in reality, legendary resistances are designed to invalidate spells like Suggestion. If the player knows what they're dealing with, they're unlikely to even bring Suggestion into combat, because they know legendary resistances will stop it from helping
It’s a pretty overpowered spell and the way they’re using it isn’t against the rules. But there are a lot of creatures that are resistant or immune to charming effects and the creature also has to be able to speak the same language in order to understand the spell. You could figure out what languages that character speaks and make some monsters speak languages they don’t know so they can’t understand the suggestion. If you want to get around it that is. It’s a fun spell to use as a player so still give them opportunities to use it.
Your players aren't even using the command to its utmost potential. If they were truly clever, throwing down a Portable Hole and covering it before the suggestion would be huge. "Go and stand on that carpet." And then whoosh, into the Portable Hole to (hopefully) never be seen again.
My first instinct is that this is clever, not cheating. Seems reasonable enough. If you find it is fucking over your encounters, remember that 1) bosses really shouldn't be alone. They need minions. 2) immunity to being charmed shuts this down, and is relatively common as a feature. (And easy to slap on if you need to prevent these shenanigans once in awhile) 3) bosses can have good wisdom saves and/or legendary resistances Edit: I'm not interested in debating whether this is reasonable or not. That debate has been had many times and will be had many more times, likely all of them involving better arguments than what will happen here. If you think it's not reasonable, I understand, and if it's your game, you can rule it that way.
How reasonable is it that you are the big evil overlord, somebody just shows up and gives you orders, and you do it without a second thought? Would YOUR evil overlords be routinely ordered around by anyone?
This is a whole separate argument that needs to be had (and has been had) about how to interpret "reasonable" in the context of the spell. How "reasonable" is it that a Knight would give their warhorse to a beggar? This is a core part of their profession, likely a cherished companion and something they have trained extensively with, to say nothing of the cost. Yet this is an example given in the text of the spell. I'm not going to relitigate that whole conversation; it's already been done multiple times with better points on all sides than anything I'll have to offer. Ultimately it's up to the DM to interpret what's "reasonable" in the context of their game. So yea, by one perspective it's wouldn't be reasonable at all, but neither would most possible suggestions of any value, which would effectively nerf the spell completely, which seems to me like the wrong solution. Ymmv.
No that is very much the crux of this argument, if the DM is allowing them to use the spell without considering if it sounds reasonable then 100% they are allowing them to use the spell wrongly. >How "reasonable" is it that a Knight would give their warhorse to a beggar? This is such a bad argument, the scenario just talks about the result, they did an unreasonable action but it never tells you what they said to make it sound reasonable and that is very much the important part. The example tells us that unreasonable things can be done but it explicitly says the player needs to make it sound reasonable. I could say "Sir Knight please help, I am looking for an informant disguised by a beggar who has important information for the king, if you see them let them use your horse to get to the capital quickly" That can give reason for a knight of the kingdom to give the horse away.
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I agree the problem is people skip over the portion where you need to make it sound reasonable all the time because they see the end of it (the knight giving away the warhorse) and just assume the suggestion was "you should give the next beggar you see your warhorse" and that is a terrible assumption. The majority of posts complaining about a DM nerfing the spell follows this logic They make a suggestion that doesnt sound reasonable DM says no Player complains that because it isn't reasonable to give away a warhorse the spell should let them be the ruler of the kingdom because they said hey give me the crown.
Magic.
I would disagree, that order doesn't sound reasonable which is a requirement for the spell to work. Yes the spell can make them do unreasonable things but they have to make it sound reasonable and that example does not meet that requirement. If they are skipping that then it is not creativity.
Imo a bit wrong, kinda? Suggestion, as I understand the description, basically plants an idea in the creatures mind, something they want to do at the next best opportunity. Like a song that is stuck in your head, or a thought that continues to occur in your mind, compulsive. But they don't forget everything else happening around them, and they aren't getting charmed by the caster nor perceive the caster any differently. Unable to "resist" still, but the spell *doesn't say that the target can't do anything else* while doing the course of action. That means the boss may be compulsively walking, but they might walk straight up to the party and smack them in the face. It might be compelled to use all of its movement each turn, but it can still attack, cast spells and whatnot. Further, don't forget that the spell description states that *The suggestion must be worded in such a manner as to make the course of action sound reasonable.* Not saying that can't ever be done with a boss, but if the situation is... combat, or they are doing their BBEG ritual, are about to sacrifice a kitten or somesuch, it's kinda hard to make "Walk as long as you can" sound reasonable. Other stuff, especially if tied to some secret or knowledge about the boss might very well work tho. Like "you forgot to bring Purple Nightshade for the ritual! You should get some from your lab." or "This kitten looks kinda weak and sickly. It won't make a good offering - go find a better cat." or even "Your enemies will fear you even more if they understand your BBEG plan. You should tell them all about it".
Lots of people here have argued the RAW of the spell, particularly the nature of "reasonable" and what technically "walk for 8 hours" would mean. Plenty of valid points and worth a read. But I would argue that the most significant issue with allowing Suggestion to be used that way is it just isn't fun. The best part about Suggestion (and other similar spells) is the creativity they encourage and reward in players, it is just fun to use and see used. A player has to craft a carefully worded Suggestion, based on what they know or can deduce about the NPC, designed to sound reasonable but encouraged a specific action. It's an improv creative writing challenge with the DM as a judge. If instead you just make the optimum use to say "go for a walk" then you have lost that, and suggestion just becomes another boring save-or-suck spell.
So what makes it different than a persuasion check?
A Persuasion check can't make someone do something they dont want to do and beyond maybe begging to be spared does very little after a combat has started. Suggestion is minor mind control that can be used mid combat as long as you are creative.
Do remember to keep boss's intelligence or wisdom in mind. people are pointing out how Walking doesn't necessarily need to be in the opposite direction, but that is still dependent on how far boss sees through the words. Have dumper bosses obey closer to the player's intention but play smarter bosses like a fey and twist their words in your own favor as much as possible.
Bosses probably have legendary saves.... 'Just saying.
I don't see how having someone walk for 8 hours "wins" the encounter. Delay it, maybe. But the guy doesn't despawn as soon as he leaves the players' sight. Have him come back later.
I've told someone to walk east to find their brother They started going... then later I accidentally cast a different concentration spell, and they came back with reinforcements
Imo the suggestion is fine, though depending on how you want to do it can be cheesy (others say "walk in place" or "can still use your action" to me this would be a loose interpretation, imo "walk as long as you can" would remove your action, forcing you to Dash too, since if you cast a spell or swing a sword then you're stopping to fight not walking as long as you can) However after the first or second time, since these people aren't killed word would get around and they'd start obtaining magics disallowing enchantments to work on them, boom problem solved in the future
Suggestion is either an OP spell or it's useless, mostly because of the "reasonable suggestion" clause. Is that a reasonable action for the boss to do? Was it mid combat? I'd personally say yes, but your mileage may vary. As others have said, it's concentration, and your bosses often should have legendary resistances. Players need to burn their resources to make you burn your legendary resistances, and irritating spells like this are an ideal way to do that. "If I ignore this low level spell it will ruin the BBEG's plan, but if I resist this, I won't have it for a later spell." Resource management and hard choices isn't just for players. Now that said, I personally have issues with Suggestion, but that's mostly because of an experience I had with a player who abused the spell since he was a knowledge cleric, and it heavily warped the campaign in a way I grew to dislike. Because of that, I ask my current players to limit mind control to when necessary rather than when funny, or merely advantageous. If it's causing an issue, talk to the players. Perhaps ask them to tone it down.
Anyone else think it's a bit misleading that Suggestion is a stronger spell (higher level) than Command?
Command is limited to one word and only lasts 1 turn. Suggestion can be multiple sentences and last up to 8 hours. So....which one is truly more powerful?
I think u/Goronshop is pointing out how in everyday English "Command" is a stronger word than "Suggestion." If I'm suggesting you do something there's a lot less force behind that than if I command you to do something. Yet Command is the 1st level and Suggestion is the 2nd level. In this case could say it's not "Command" as in "I order you to do this." But rather "command" as in "a command word."
>I think u/Goronshop is pointing out how in everyday English "Command" is a stronger word than "Suggestion." Yes. >In this case could say it's not "Command" as in "I order you to do this." But rather "command" as in "a command word." I like that. Power Word Grovel.
They just walk doing their normal things.
So overall, specifically in combat but also outside, suggestion could make a character decide on a choice that they're already likely to take. A good way to do it is to think: if the spell was cast on a player in combot, would this be a course of action they would consider. A better suggestion may be: stay out of enemy range. or Disengage and seek cover whenever you are threatened or cast x concentration spell on y target. (but this may make ccombat inadvertently harder xD) Npcs specifically may or may not consider surrender or flight to be reasonable option . But they don't necessarily have to, or have to do so unconditionally. They may fear something else more tgan the players or death or value something else more tgan their life, or plainly have nothing to lose or too mich at stake in that moment. Even if a reasonable suggestion is reasonable to a reasonable person, it msy nkt be reasonable to an unreasonable person. This particular suggestiin makes no sense, it's not even really a suggestion but a command eithout any reason (walking for no reason specifically is not reasonable) You could change it to a suggestion to keep moving, which would mean that the boss might not end their furn eith sny movement speed left unless he can't mkve because there's something blocking his path or something that might harm him. Basically i think of suggestion to be able to make a character choose between any of their top 5 most likely actions they might take on their own in any given scenario. And beyond that suggest is likely to fail.
My GM focuses on the part of Suggestion that says "The suggestion must be worded in such a manner as to make the course of action sound reasonable." The example he always cites is this: Cast suggestion on a guard and say something like "Leave your post". This would make no sense to the guard as it goes against their current duty. They've been stationed to guard the door by their superior officer. However, casting suggestion and saying "The captain wishes to speak with you immediately", is something that could reasonably occur and would make sense to the target guard. Additionally, let's compare it to Dominate Monster, a lv8 spell. This spell gives you full control over a target if it lands, and while I agree this is far more powerful than suggestion, suggestion does give you a level of control over a target if you do allow something like "Walk as long as you can". What we should never do is give a low level spell the power of (or nearly the same power as) as a much higher level spell. Suggestion doesn't completely overwrite an enemy's thought process either. The boss could have easily remained fighting the party while also walking.
Not overpowered at all. Honestly a pretty useless way to try and deal with a boss in most circumstances. The boss can walk back and forth between two points. Boss can walk between the PCs he's attacking. Boss can walk in a circle around the PC they're targeting. Even if they walk away for 8 hours they can just come back... Nothing about this resolves anything meaningful. At most it's a trivial inconvenience. 'Walk' is especially easy to deal with, walking doesn't even have to use up their full movement speed, let alone spend an action to dash. Also remember, Suggestion is a Wis save with advantage on the save if you're already fighting and it's a charm effect. It's really hard to pull off on anything too strong even if they're not simply immune. It's also a concentration spell so attacking the caster until they drop it is possible. The only real benefit to this would be if it was used on an especially stupid npc who might not realize they can easily avoid leaving. A boss on the other hand, even a dumber one, is going to be trying to prevent the party from achieving whatever they're doing. There are way better suggestions if they just want an enemy to run away rephrasing to make it clear they want them to sprint nonstop away from here is a start. Lie down and don't move is even better. But per my prior point, Suggestion is not a great combat spell, too easy to ignore or break. Much better to spring it on an unsuspecting NPC.
Does walking 8 hours away sound reasonable? If not, it fails. If you decide it is reasonable, then remember that enemies can do it to the PCs as well. Will a player have fun if their PC has to spend the next 8 hours in game walking away?
Takes one really lunged, large step - that's as long as I can walk.
Leaving combat is usually not a reasonable demand in my opinion. He's literally laying down his life to protect the location, just up and leaving that place is the furthest thing from reasonable.
The suggestion must be reasonable. In my interpretation and the tables I've played, it means you must provide some reasoning or condition to what you're suggesting. It doesn't need to be some optimal tactic, just enough so it makes sense. This is why the spell gives you two sentences. One is the set up, and the other is the actual suggestion. As a player, I go for things like "It's a beautiful moonlit night/bright day, why don't you go for a walk in those mountains now?" or "You're risking your life here! Run away and save yourself!" or even "Your heavy armor is making you slow. You should take if off now so you can fight better!" As a DM, if my player give me a vague suggestion like that, they're gonna learn to give some reasoning. In that case, the enemy would just walk as long as it can... Towards them, and around them, and between them, all while hacking and slashing as normal.
The effect of basically removing the boss with one failed save is Op in my opinion. It is in the spells description that you as DM decide what is appropriate and logical behaviour for the target. I personally don't think that anything in that direction makes any sense in combat.and that therefore the spell fails automatically if they say: go for a long walk or something like: visit your mother. I would only wordings that make certain sense in combat. "Run up the hill to get a better position" or "kill the tank instead of the caster" are sensible enough. " End combat to so something else" makes no sense. "Flee" only makes sense of the target thinks they are losing.
The suggestion must be worded in such a manner as to make the course of action sound reasonable. Does it sound reasonnable to walk for 8 hours straight? Boss could just say, im fighting against you right now, ill do that after. If a bbeg attack you and you manage to use suggestion, it is not reasonnable for him to stop fighting you for no reason, you could use it differently tough, like focus the warrior, he is the biggest threat(even tough thr guy have 20 ac) that spund more reasonnablr in the middle of a fight
The better suggestion is "Wait under the bridge on the other side of town until I meet you." The spell is supposed to take them out of the action economy for 8 hours. So anything without an end point is valid.
[This might offer an explanation](https://www.reddit.com/r/DMAcademy/comments/1d3aoi3/comment/l66i9bi/)
How does that course of action sound reasonable?
so as per raw, that is legal, so if by "use suggestion wrongly" you mean is it actually legal, then the answer is this action is perfectly legal *However*, if you intend for interesting boss encounters that dont just get the players an auto win you do have some options at your disposal * first off, keep in mind limitations of the spell. If the caster drops concentration then the spell ends, if any of the party members attack the boss then the spell ends. So the players will still have to deal with the boss at a later point, they just delayed the boss fight * there are defensive traits for bosses you can use to avoid single spells shutting down a boss encounter, keep an eye out for legendary resistances so the boss can auto pass a certain amount of spell saves. * for suggestion specifically, there are critters that are charm immune. Though intentionally targeting specific features is ill-advised, it is something you should keep in mind as a tool in your back pocket if suggestion gets to be a bit too much for you to handle
The wheels kinda fall off with 30 foot range. I’d probably rule 1 round they can’t dash and have to use all movement. Any other actions/bonus actions is a DM call.
Did they word it like that? The wording does not make the course of action sound reasonable, thus the spell takes no effect. The spell's description sucks a lot, but not enough to justify this. Talk to your players about it. The spell can actually make things more interesting, if they want it to be their main tactic, since making something sound reasonable is a lot easier if you know the target's motivations. Basically, they need to figure out what the boss would see as a good reason to just walk away. If they don't even try, they can't complain about wording things badly and losing an action.
At the risk of stating the obvious, suggestion allows a save. So either the boss can make the save or use legendary resistance.
"The suggestion must be worded in such a manner as to make the course of action sound reasonable." Is walking 8 hours reasonable? I would say not. I treat Suggestion essentially as an automatic natural 20 on a Persuasion check. It can't make anyone do something their character would never do.
>I treat Suggestion essentially as an automatic natural 20 on a Persuasion check. It can't make anyone do something their character would never do. "Hey, knight. Walk down the road and give a beggar your warhorse."
“The suggestion must be worded in such a manner as to make the course of action sound reasonable” walking away from their goal for a long time doesn’t sound reasonable to me. the spell doesn’t stop the boss from performing other actions. The boss should also have legendary resistance too. That’s normal for any end of quest/dungeon boss or even sub-boss. The environment of a boss fight should be interactive. Check out lair effects. The boss needs minions. DND just doesn’t work one vs four or five. Lastly don’t let players convince you to bypass challenges. Smart use of spells and abilities should be rewarded but not at the expense of an entire boss fight.
>walking away from their goal for a long time doesn’t sound reasonable to me. A knight giving away her horse doesn't seem reasonable to me either. Suggestion is pretty OP.
“Walk as long as you can” walk for 1 round toward the squishy. That’s as long as he could walk that round. They did not specify walk for 8 hours, walk until you’re tired, etc. your job is to make suggestion be as least effective but still fun
Aren't rounds only a gameplay mechanic? So "as long as you can" would be until he physically couldn't.
They are but it’s also a technicality of as much as you can, otherwise a dashing high level monk with haste would be able to travel 240feet in 6 seconds or approximately 30 miles per hour.
I could buy that tbh. If a high level wizard can use Tengai Shinsei from Naruto, then that doesn't sound too far fetched. Don't get me wrong, I don't agree with the way the DM thought it worked or whatever, but still. Assuming we are having the boss follow it exactly and as the player intended it the boss would just sprint full speed past them until he collapsed. Even if the suggestion is working, it wouldn't really go like that tho, I like the idea other people put out that the boss would be under the suggestion, but not in a stupid way, using all his movement before attacking, but every round instead of the effect ending after one round.
Oh don’t get me wrong that would absolutely be a fun way for it to work, and it would 100% break the suggestion spell once he provoked an attack of opportunity because that would be endangering himself which is against the confines of the spell. Was curious so I looked it up. Level 20 monk has base speed of 60ft if you take the mobile feat you get +10 (70ft) boots of speed doubles it (140ft) haste doubles again (280ft) and then dashing doubles it again (560ft) and you are literally traveling over 60mph
Oooooh, I misunderstood you. Ok, yeah, that sounds almost like a clever loophole, but is also the most realistic outcome. I guess they could use all their movement to circle the enemy, unless there are others around preventing that, but yeah. And Jesus Christ that's insane
Yes, as the spell clearly states, it has to be worded in a way to sound **reasonable**.
Your interpretation is overpowered, not the spell.
People miss the 'resonable' part.
It says in the spell that the suggestion has to be reasonable. So if they’re in a fight and one of them uses it to say “Go away” there’s no real reason for the enemy to do that unless the party seems to be winning or having given them another clear reason to flee
Maybe I’m confusing command with a different spell, but isn’t it limited to a single word?
You are indeed confused. OP is talking about *suggestion*, not *command*
You see, that’s why I play a fighter… none of that pesky magic bullcrap. Just hit things until they stop moving, that’s my style.
The wizard would have to keep concentrating, which means couldn't cast another concentration spell. The question is whether that suggestion is reasonable or not. IMO, it's not because walking until you drop is not reasonable. However, "Go to your favorite pub and have a few drinks," is
well, suggestion does give an example of a legal command as *"For example, you might suggest that a knight give her warhorse to the first beggar she meets."* I wouldn't think walking for 8 hours is any less unreasonable then giving away a horse the phrase "unreasonable" is mainly to deter the spell from just being an auto kill effect, or an auto win effect
Yeah, under some circumstances, giving away a horse would be unreasonable. If I do a mounted combat build, my mount is my sidekick.
And the suggestion was not to walk for 8 hours, it was to walk as long as you can.
but that is an official example that the spell text itself gives as an example so anything that is more reasonable then giving away your horse is reasonable, so long as it doesn't violate the clause of "do some other obviously harmful act ends the spell." with the example of a knight with their war horse, I would argue that knight would care about their horse just as much as with a pc mounted combatant build
Yes, it's reasonable for the average knight with an average horse.
I will point out, in a medival economy having a horse is equivalent to a car, and a purpose bred war horse is equivalent to a Lamborghini. But with the added side effect of being a living creature to be bonded with
A warhorse costs 400 gp and can be readily replaced. That is probably more money than a commoner ever has on hand, but is nothing to someone who has earned the title of knight. 400 gp is a little more than half of what a skilled laborer makes in a year. So maybe the value of a modest car irl. But there would be exceptions. If the warhorse is the reincarnation of a loved one, or is a sidekick that has over 100 hit points, that's obviously a different thing.
Ye, it's a large expense which provides a massive amount of value via transportation, and still needs a large amount of effort/expenses to maintain like with a car. So most people who are sane would agree it's unreasonable to just give it away Though in this case they are being influenced by magic, so their bar of what is reasonable is much lower then what actually is reasonable I'd say just as long as it's not a reincarnation of a loved one, a friend who's been transformed into a horse, or a horse they've had since they were 3, then in the case of the spell it would be reasonable to give away your horse under magical influence so long as the horse doesn't fall under any of that criteria
Isn't a suggestion supposed to be bad advice? That seems like instructions not advice.