Finally, it is completely up to the DM as to how the NPC interprets the command. In this case, "drop" wouldn't necessarily even result in the character dropping what they were holding. They could drop to the floor, ending up prone. Just dropping their weapon would be a reasonable interpretation, too. In fact, unclipping their money pouch and dropping that to the floor would even be a reasonable way. Trying to subvert it, if they were next to another character, hitting them in order to try to knock them out would work.
Not sure I like this tbh. The spell quite clearly say what effect each of the "typical" commands have. Sure a DM could well change (and most certainly add to) those commands but I'd suggest keeping a list in that case. The spell really is built around the assumption that each specific command has a specific effect. Sure some minor variation could well take place but not to the extent you are suggesting.
Actually, you're right that the spell lists the effects of these typical commands. Wherever applicable, therefore, the effects should be as listed.
For anything else, though, I would definitely not keep a list. You are issuing a 1-word command, and the interpretation of that would be whatever the creature being commanded would reasonably interpret. If you said "disarm", for instance, it would be roughly equally likely that the creature would take this as disarming itself (dropping it's weapons) or attempting to disarm their current opponent. If you said "stab", they could either see it as a command to stab themselves (in which case it would fail) or to stab their current opponent. With different creatures, personalities and backgrounds it is in no way unreasonable that the effect could be completely different on another target.
I think it's also reasonable that the DM could, where the meaning of the word is unclear (or where it could be reasonably assumed that the target's mind would be fighting the effect, even though it failed the save), subvert the command. They could choose to take disarm as "attempt to remove the arms from your current target". In fact, I would expect a DM to do this on occasion, and would consider part of the fun to be trying to find command words which the DM couldn't turn against me.
1) As a free activity at the start of your turn, say “When I say ‘Bippity,’ what I mean is, throw your weapon away and drop prone and close your eyes for six seconds”
1) As a free activity at the start of your turn, say “When I say ‘Bippity,’ what I mean is, throw your weapon away and drop prone and close your eyes for six seconds”
2) Command: “Bippity”
Eh?
Why would an enemy take, at face value, what you said you meant?
That said, I don't see much point in arguing about it. It's a DM decision where you haven't used one of the examples (specifically stated in the spell itself), so there's nothing wrong if the DM wants to always take the command exactly as the player intended.
I used to play Vampire: the Masquerade, and dealing with one-word commands like this is pretty common. From my personal experience, its not uncommon for people who get said command to often interpret it in a way that makes sense to their characters. For instance, the command "Drop." My first thought would be to have the target drop to the floor (ie go prone).
So, as a way to focus the effect, many people would use the Command as part of a sentence, to ensure that the context of said command was understood. "Drop your weapon!" is pretty easy to understand contextually, and follows all the rules of the ability if you only use on a single word of the sentence (drop in this case).
All in all, the only Command that might be tricky to implement is something like "Sleep!" Obviously, that's going to be a bit quirky, given that its only one turn.
2) Command: “Bippity”
I don't know anyone, player or GM, that'd allow that to be pulled off, and that includes both VtM and D&D. Mostly because Bippity isn't the command you're given. You're commanding them to do is "throw your weapon away and drop prone and close your eyes for six seconds when I speak a trigger." That's not a one word command.
I could give more reasons why that should never work (barring an exceedingly rare GM that's down with it), but I'm just going to go with "that's a shitty attempt to abuse the rules and good faith of the game, so no." Nothing more needs to be said.
As a DM, I hold to the "one word only" interpretation of the rule, without any context or attempting to stage the command beforehand.
That said, I do think it would be interesting to add an additional upcasting rule to allow upcasting to either 1) add 1 additional creature per level, 2) add one additional word per level, or 3) some combination (so a 3rd level casting could be 1 word and 3 creatures, 1 creature and 3 words, or 2 creatures and 2 words
I’m not saying I’d allow “Bippity” either, but if you think that “Bippity” and “drop” are functionally different as words, then boy do entire schools of linguistic scholars have a bone to pick with you! :D
I’m not saying I’d allow “Bippity” either, but if you think that “Bippity” and “drop” are functionally different as words, then boy do entire schools of linguistic scholars have a bone to pick with you! :D
This spell would be a lot more powerful in german...they have a single word for tons of stuff english doesn't, plus you get to shout in german, the best shouting language!
I’m not saying I’d allow “Bippity” either, but if you think that “Bippity” and “drop” are functionally different as words, then boy do entire schools of linguistic scholars have a bone to pick with you! :D
Hmm.... a word that everyone playing knows intuitively and instantly versus one that you have to try and quickly define and hope people listen, retain, and understand in short amount of time in likely hostile situations are functionally the same?
So "Common" is defined by what the players know intuitively, not what the characters understand, and is a dead language incapable of accepting new words or slang? Or maybe, there's some sort of magical God of Language who keeps a divine dictionary, and only Words Which He Hath Written can interact with Command? Sure, that's possible. But after hearing my explanation (or a short discussion where I've reinforced it a few times to make sure we're on the same page), I'm fairly certain that you and your character understand what I mean when I say "bippity" as much or more than you understand what I mean when I say "drop" or "stab" or "disarm," which as was discussed above, are words with ambiguities that "bippity" lacks. "Bippity" is very clearly definied!
1) As a free activity at the start of your turn, say “When I say ‘Bippity,’ what I mean is, throw your weapon away and drop prone and close your eyes for six seconds”
2) Command: “Bippity”
Eh?
Command contains no rules forcing the target to obey your order in good faith, regardless of a trick like this - for example, if you use the spell's sample command "Approach", the GM can have the target approach anyone or anything, not just you. This leads to at least two equally valid ways to houserule the spell:
The target does its level best to guess what you meant, and obeys that command.
The target can pick any way to obey that command that satisfies its own mental definition of the word you used.
Under ruling 1, your trick just works, unless something stopped the target from understanding you, or they somehow forgot, or some other special rule. Under ruling 2, the spell is much harder to use across the board - for example, as someone else in this thread already mentioned, "drop" could mean drop prone, or it could mean drop something you're holding, or it could mean drop everything you're holding, or it could mean, for a bard who's beatboxing, drop the bass. In such a circumstance, it would be a GM call if the target could think up some other behavior to obey the command "Bippity!".
Consider the similar phrasing of the two phrases "follow the command on its next turn" and "A turned creature must spend its turns" in the examples below:
Command "...The target must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or follow the command on its next turn. ... Drop. The target drops whatever it is holding and then ends its turn. ... Flee.The target spends its turn moving away from you by the fastest available means"
Channel Divinity: Turn Undead A turned creature must spend its turns trying to move as far away from you as it can, and it can’t willingly move to a space within 30 feet of you. It also can’t take reactions. For its action, it can use only the Dash action or try to escape from an effect that prevents it from moving. If there’s nowhere to move, the creature can use the Dodge action.
Both magical effects force a creature to spend their turn (6 seconds) a certain way. Looking at Turn Undead, the creature under the effect does whatever possible to follow the demands of the effect, including using its action (which it still has). Command does not tell us what the affected creature can and cannot do, so the creature still has its action. The only question is whether it does whateverit can to follow the command as with Turn Undead, or if its allowed to half-ass it.
To come closer to an answer, ask yourself the following questions: 1. Using the command Approach on a creature 60 feet away from you, would the creature end its turn 30 feet away from you or 5 feet away from you (Dash). ["The target moves toward you by the shortest and most direct route, ending its turn if it moves within 5 feet of you"].
2. Using the command Flee would the creature end its turn 30 feet further away from you, or 60 feet (Dash). ["The target spends its turn moving away from you by the fastest available means"].
3. Using the command Drink would the affected character take a sip of his firebrew or down the whole pint? [Custom command].
4. Once again using the command Drink would the affected character drink the healing potion in his hand? (Requires an Action).
If you believe that a creature under the influence of Command would use its action to complete one or more of the above commands to the best of its abilities, then it would likely also spend its action to doff the shield and subsequently drop it.
1) As a free activity at the start of your turn, say “When I say ‘Bippity,’ what I mean is, throw your weapon away and drop prone and close your eyes for six seconds”
2) Command: “Bippity”
Eh?
Command contains no rules forcing the target to obey your order in good faith, regardless of a trick like this - for example, if you use the spell's sample command "Approach", the GM can have the target approach anyone or anything, not just you. This leads to at least two equally valid ways to houserule the spell:
The target does its level best to guess what you meant, and obeys that command.
The target can pick any way to obey that command that satisfies its own mental definition of the word you used.
Under ruling 1, your trick just works, unless something stopped the target from understanding you, or they somehow forgot, or some other special rule. Under ruling 2, the spell is much harder to use across the board - for example, as someone else in this thread already mentioned, "drop" could mean drop prone, or it could mean drop something you're holding, or it could mean drop everything you're holding, or it could mean, for a bard who's beatboxing, drop the bass. In such a circumstance, it would be a GM call if the target could think up some other behavior to obey the command "Bippity!".
Absolutely incorrect.
Command is explicit about what happens when you command "Drop," "Flee," "Approach," "Grovel," and "Halt." The DM is not invited to "determine how the target behaves" for those (including your 'ruling 2' obeying-the-letter-and-violating-the-spirit behavior), it just does exactly what Command lists for those words.
Those five commands are not special, they are just the "typical" commands the spell suggests. If a target is unable to twist the caster's understood intent when ordered to "Approach," it should be no more free to twist the caster's understood intent for any other valid command. If an enemy is holding a pouch of liquid and you order it to Drink with the intent that it drink that whole pouch, your DM is out of line to suggest that they twist your intent by sipping it, or reaching into their pack for a different liquid and drinking it instead, etc.
The barrier to cross is that the command is (1) 1 single word, (2) that it understands (or maybe more specifically "that is part of a language that it speaks," defeating 'bippity'), (3) that it can follow and complete on its next turn, and (4) that the target fails its wisdom save.
Layering more hurdles to overcome, like (5) is worded in a way that can't be obeyed while violating intent, not only goes beyond the RAW examples that are provided... it's also pretty much impossible for the player to protect against, since it's just a single word command. You can't expect players to craft air-tight Wish language with a one-word Command, so don't be a jerk and do things like Drink being a sip instead of a chug, or otherwise half assing it.
1) As a free activity at the start of your turn, say “When I say ‘Bippity,’ what I mean is, throw your weapon away and drop prone and close your eyes for six seconds”
2) Command: “Bippity”
Eh?
Command contains no rules forcing the target to obey your order in good faith, regardless of a trick like this - for example, if you use the spell's sample command "Approach", the GM can have the target approach anyone or anything, not just you. This leads to at least two equally valid ways to houserule the spell:
The target does its level best to guess what you meant, and obeys that command.
The target can pick any way to obey that command that satisfies its own mental definition of the word you used.
Under ruling 1, your trick just works, unless something stopped the target from understanding you, or they somehow forgot, or some other special rule. Under ruling 2, the spell is much harder to use across the board - for example, as someone else in this thread already mentioned, "drop" could mean drop prone, or it could mean drop something you're holding, or it could mean drop everything you're holding, or it could mean, for a bard who's beatboxing, drop the bass. In such a circumstance, it would be a GM call if the target could think up some other behavior to obey the command "Bippity!".
Absolutely incorrect.
Command is explicit about what happens when you command "Drop," "Flee," "Approach," "Grovel," and "Halt." The DM is not invited to "determine how the target behaves" for those (including your 'ruling 2' obeying-the-letter-and-violating-the-spirit behavior), it just does exactly what Command lists for those words.
Those five commands are not special, they are just the "typical" commands the spell suggests. If a target is unable to twist the caster's understood intent when ordered to "Approach," it should be no more free to twist the caster's understood intent for any other valid command. If an enemy is holding a pouch of liquid and you order it to Drink with the intent that it drink that whole pouch, your DM is out of line to suggest that they twist your intent by sipping it, or reaching into their pack for a different liquid and drinking it instead, etc.
The barrier to cross is that the command is (1) 1 single word, (2) that it understands (or maybe more specifically "that is part of a language that it speaks," defeating 'bippity'), (3) that it can follow and complete on its next turn, and (4) that the target fails its wisdom save.
Layering more hurdles to overcome, like (5) is worded in a way that can't be obeyed while violating intent, not only goes beyond the RAW examples that are provided... it's also pretty much impossible for the player to protect against, since it's just a single word command. You can't expect players to craft air-tight Wish language with a one-word Command, so don't be a jerk and do things like Drink being a sip instead of a chug, or otherwise half assing it.
For Drink, I would expect more than a sip, but I wouldn't necessarily expect the creature to down it. If I gave you a 2l bottle of water and told you "drink", I don't think many would expect that I meant you to polish off the entire thing, and a mouthful would easily satisfy the natural language, commonly understood meaning of the command.
The examples given are also mostly much clearer in definition than the average command. If you were told to flee, you would expect that meant to run away as fast as possible, and if told to approach, you would reasonably expect that meant to move as close as you could (subject to situational context, of course).
Added to which, the text says:
You might issue a command other than one described here. If you do so, the GM determines how the target behaves.
So, it is literally completely up to the DM what happens with any other command. The DM may interpret it however they wish, beyond the normal "DM is God" general rule. If you command the target to Drink when holding a container of urine, but they have a flask of water at their belt, it would not be even close to unreasonable for the target to drink from their flask instead of drinking wee (or anything else they would not normally consider something to drink).
Finally, having the DM subvert your commands occasionaly is fun. Trying to think of a single word command which is as unambiguous as possible is a nice challenge itself, and seeing the amusing ways that the DM twists what you have asked for can be hilarious. As a DM, the difficult part is figuring out when to do so, and how to make it as enjoyable for the party as possible. "Being a ****" and subverting a clear command in the middle of combat which could get the party killed is probably not the best way, but doing so with a clearly ambiguous command when the party is about to win combat anyway, or when they are otherwise in a more relaxed situation, can bring howls of laughter.
That is entirely different from how enemies are effected by “typical” commands, where they lean into them whole-heartedly and to the max. An enemy does not “approach” you halfway, they move (dash, even) to come as close as they can. If you don’t give other creative words similar enthusiastic effect, if you smirk at your player and wield your power to describe how they technically complied but actually did something totally different than the player hoped, you’re telling your player: “you wasted your turn, and should understand I don’t like creative use of this spell, stick to the typical commands.” Players learn from those moments.
If that’s what you actually WANT, fine, but the spell gives no indication that’s what it expects with warning language like Wish has. You’re probably just being a bad DM if the guard puts down the bedpan and reaches for the water skin when commanded to “drink”.
Actually, you're right that the spell lists the effects of these typical commands. Wherever applicable, therefore, the effects should be as listed.
For anything else, though, I would definitely not keep a list. You are issuing a 1-word command, and the interpretation of that would be whatever the creature being commanded would reasonably interpret. If you said "disarm", for instance, it would be roughly equally likely that the creature would take this as disarming itself (dropping it's weapons) or attempting to disarm their current opponent. If you said "stab", they could either see it as a command to stab themselves (in which case it would fail) or to stab their current opponent. With different creatures, personalities and backgrounds it is in no way unreasonable that the effect could be completely different on another target.
I think it's also reasonable that the DM could, where the meaning of the word is unclear (or where it could be reasonably assumed that the target's mind would be fighting the effect, even though it failed the save), subvert the command. They could choose to take disarm as "attempt to remove the arms from your current target". In fact, I would expect a DM to do this on occasion, and would consider part of the fun to be trying to find command words which the DM couldn't turn against me.
1) As a free activity at the start of your turn, say “When I say ‘Bippity,’ what I mean is, throw your weapon away and drop prone and close your eyes for six seconds”
2) Command: “Bippity”
Eh?
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
Why would an enemy take, at face value, what you said you meant?
That said, I don't see much point in arguing about it. It's a DM decision where you haven't used one of the examples (specifically stated in the spell itself), so there's nothing wrong if the DM wants to always take the command exactly as the player intended.
I used to play Vampire: the Masquerade, and dealing with one-word commands like this is pretty common. From my personal experience, its not uncommon for people who get said command to often interpret it in a way that makes sense to their characters. For instance, the command "Drop." My first thought would be to have the target drop to the floor (ie go prone).
So, as a way to focus the effect, many people would use the Command as part of a sentence, to ensure that the context of said command was understood. "Drop your weapon!" is pretty easy to understand contextually, and follows all the rules of the ability if you only use on a single word of the sentence (drop in this case).
All in all, the only Command that might be tricky to implement is something like "Sleep!" Obviously, that's going to be a bit quirky, given that its only one turn.
I don't know anyone, player or GM, that'd allow that to be pulled off, and that includes both VtM and D&D. Mostly because Bippity isn't the command you're given. You're commanding them to do is "throw your weapon away and drop prone and close your eyes for six seconds when I speak a trigger." That's not a one word command.
I could give more reasons why that should never work (barring an exceedingly rare GM that's down with it), but I'm just going to go with "that's a shitty attempt to abuse the rules and good faith of the game, so no." Nothing more needs to be said.
As a DM, I hold to the "one word only" interpretation of the rule, without any context or attempting to stage the command beforehand.
That said, I do think it would be interesting to add an additional upcasting rule to allow upcasting to either 1) add 1 additional creature per level, 2) add one additional word per level, or 3) some combination (so a 3rd level casting could be 1 word and 3 creatures, 1 creature and 3 words, or 2 creatures and 2 words
I’m not saying I’d allow “Bippity” either, but if you think that “Bippity” and “drop” are functionally different as words, then boy do entire schools of linguistic scholars have a bone to pick with you! :D
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
This spell would be a lot more powerful in german...they have a single word for tons of stuff english doesn't, plus you get to shout in german, the best shouting language!
Hmm.... a word that everyone playing knows intuitively and instantly versus one that you have to try and quickly define and hope people listen, retain, and understand in short amount of time in likely hostile situations are functionally the same?
Yeahnah.
So "Common" is defined by what the players know intuitively, not what the characters understand, and is a dead language incapable of accepting new words or slang? Or maybe, there's some sort of magical God of Language who keeps a divine dictionary, and only Words Which He Hath Written can interact with Command? Sure, that's possible. But after hearing my explanation (or a short discussion where I've reinforced it a few times to make sure we're on the same page), I'm fairly certain that you and your character understand what I mean when I say "bippity" as much or more than you understand what I mean when I say "drop" or "stab" or "disarm," which as was discussed above, are words with ambiguities that "bippity" lacks. "Bippity" is very clearly definied!
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
Command contains no rules forcing the target to obey your order in good faith, regardless of a trick like this - for example, if you use the spell's sample command "Approach", the GM can have the target approach anyone or anything, not just you. This leads to at least two equally valid ways to houserule the spell:
Under ruling 1, your trick just works, unless something stopped the target from understanding you, or they somehow forgot, or some other special rule. Under ruling 2, the spell is much harder to use across the board - for example, as someone else in this thread already mentioned, "drop" could mean drop prone, or it could mean drop something you're holding, or it could mean drop everything you're holding, or it could mean, for a bard who's beatboxing, drop the bass. In such a circumstance, it would be a GM call if the target could think up some other behavior to obey the command "Bippity!".
Consider the similar phrasing of the two phrases "follow the command on its next turn" and "A turned creature must spend its turns" in the examples below:
Both magical effects force a creature to spend their turn (6 seconds) a certain way. Looking at Turn Undead, the creature under the effect does whatever possible to follow the demands of the effect, including using its action (which it still has).
Command does not tell us what the affected creature can and cannot do, so the creature still has its action. The only question is whether it does whatever it can to follow the command as with Turn Undead, or if its allowed to half-ass it.
To come closer to an answer, ask yourself the following questions:
1. Using the command Approach on a creature 60 feet away from you, would the creature end its turn 30 feet away from you or 5 feet away from you (Dash).
["The target moves toward you by the shortest and most direct route, ending its turn if it moves within 5 feet of you"].
2. Using the command Flee would the creature end its turn 30 feet further away from you, or 60 feet (Dash).
["The target spends its turn moving away from you by the fastest available means"].
3. Using the command Drink would the affected character take a sip of his firebrew or down the whole pint?
[Custom command].
4. Once again using the command Drink would the affected character drink the healing potion in his hand? (Requires an Action).
If you believe that a creature under the influence of Command would use its action to complete one or more of the above commands to the best of its abilities, then it would likely also spend its action to doff the shield and subsequently drop it.
Absolutely incorrect.
Command is explicit about what happens when you command "Drop," "Flee," "Approach," "Grovel," and "Halt." The DM is not invited to "determine how the target behaves" for those (including your 'ruling 2' obeying-the-letter-and-violating-the-spirit behavior), it just does exactly what Command lists for those words.
Those five commands are not special, they are just the "typical" commands the spell suggests. If a target is unable to twist the caster's understood intent when ordered to "Approach," it should be no more free to twist the caster's understood intent for any other valid command. If an enemy is holding a pouch of liquid and you order it to Drink with the intent that it drink that whole pouch, your DM is out of line to suggest that they twist your intent by sipping it, or reaching into their pack for a different liquid and drinking it instead, etc.
The barrier to cross is that the command is (1) 1 single word, (2) that it understands (or maybe more specifically "that is part of a language that it speaks," defeating 'bippity'), (3) that it can follow and complete on its next turn, and (4) that the target fails its wisdom save.
Layering more hurdles to overcome, like (5) is worded in a way that can't be obeyed while violating intent, not only goes beyond the RAW examples that are provided... it's also pretty much impossible for the player to protect against, since it's just a single word command. You can't expect players to craft air-tight Wish language with a one-word Command, so don't be a jerk and do things like Drink being a sip instead of a chug, or otherwise half assing it.
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
For Drink, I would expect more than a sip, but I wouldn't necessarily expect the creature to down it. If I gave you a 2l bottle of water and told you "drink", I don't think many would expect that I meant you to polish off the entire thing, and a mouthful would easily satisfy the natural language, commonly understood meaning of the command.
The examples given are also mostly much clearer in definition than the average command. If you were told to flee, you would expect that meant to run away as fast as possible, and if told to approach, you would reasonably expect that meant to move as close as you could (subject to situational context, of course).
Added to which, the text says:
So, it is literally completely up to the DM what happens with any other command. The DM may interpret it however they wish, beyond the normal "DM is God" general rule. If you command the target to Drink when holding a container of urine, but they have a flask of water at their belt, it would not be even close to unreasonable for the target to drink from their flask instead of drinking wee (or anything else they would not normally consider something to drink).
Finally, having the DM subvert your commands occasionaly is fun. Trying to think of a single word command which is as unambiguous as possible is a nice challenge itself, and seeing the amusing ways that the DM twists what you have asked for can be hilarious. As a DM, the difficult part is figuring out when to do so, and how to make it as enjoyable for the party as possible. "Being a ****" and subverting a clear command in the middle of combat which could get the party killed is probably not the best way, but doing so with a clearly ambiguous command when the party is about to win combat anyway, or when they are otherwise in a more relaxed situation, can bring howls of laughter.
That is entirely different from how enemies are effected by “typical” commands, where they lean into them whole-heartedly and to the max. An enemy does not “approach” you halfway, they move (dash, even) to come as close as they can. If you don’t give other creative words similar enthusiastic effect, if you smirk at your player and wield your power to describe how they technically complied but actually did something totally different than the player hoped, you’re telling your player: “you wasted your turn, and should understand I don’t like creative use of this spell, stick to the typical commands.” Players learn from those moments.
If that’s what you actually WANT, fine, but the spell gives no indication that’s what it expects with warning language like Wish has. You’re probably just being a bad DM if the guard puts down the bedpan and reaches for the water skin when commanded to “drink”.
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.