Our Bard has been casting suggestion as one of his go to tactics. His suggestion in both instances has been for the creature to "kill all X creatures". Latest was to suggest to a bugbear to kill all bugbears which if it works would have him seeking out all bugbears for the duration to kill them all. What would the official ruling on this be? It's been comical since I've let it ride a couple times but will end up being problematic I'm sure.
Well, Suggestion should not work if it is clearly a suicidal mission. Yeah, maybe the wording "reasonable" is bit opened to interpretation (probably, rightly so).
Suggestion is a very DM discretion spell. The example given in the spell itself is really not that "reasonable" in the idea that you would have ANY chance of just conversationally convincing the target it is a rational course of action..
a knight give her warhorse to the first beggar she meets.
Think about it, beyond the warhorse being an incredibly expensive tool, it is also part of the knights equipment to do her job, and the beggar likely wouldn't even have a method of taking care of the horse. The horse might not even belong to the knight, it could be the lord of the knight that owns the horse and is allowing the knight to use it.
So to me the task needs to be "Possible to attain, and not obviously self harming" So asking someone to bring you the moon would fail, Asking him to turn on his friends is in the very edge possible of going either way. I mean if you say "Help us free you from these bugbears who brainwashed you!" that is reasonable...ish..
You're one of those that don't give names to class features, right? :p
That aside, Suggestion is a very powerful spell, although it's up to DM interpretation whether asking a creature to fight equally powerful creatures (such as of its own species) is apparently harmful or not.
The issue with the wording harmful is that any act relating to combat could be construed as harmful, right? So telling someone to act someone else would obviously lead them to harm. Or telling an enemy that they want to drop their shield would also potentially lead them to harm. This is just a bit of food for thought on the matter because I really dont have any helpful info to add on this spell. But the discussion got me thinking about the different applications of suggestions.
I would definitely say that the wording of your suggestion would be the key to making it work. Like instead of saying "you lower your shield" you could say something along the lines of "holding your shield makes it feel like holding fire", then they would probably throw it away and not attempt to grab it again for another 8 hrs. Thoughts?
The issue with the wording harmful is that any act relating to combat could be construed as harmful, right? So telling someone to act someone else would obviously lead them to harm. Or telling an enemy that they want to drop their shield would also potentially lead them to harm. This is just a bit of food for thought on the matter because I really dont have any helpful info to add on this spell. But the discussion got me thinking about the different applications of suggestions.
I would definitely say that the wording of your suggestion would be the key to making it work. Like instead of saying "you lower your shield" you could say something along the lines of "holding your shield makes it feel like holding fire", then they would probably throw it away and not attempt to grab it again for another 8 hrs. Thoughts?
You made an excellent point. How the character makes the "wording" of the suggestion may do the difference for the spell's success.
Our Bard has been casting suggestion as one of his go to tactics. His suggestion in both instances has been for the creature to "kill all X creatures". Latest was to suggest to a bugbear to kill all bugbears which if it works would have him seeking out all bugbears for the duration to kill them all. What would the official ruling on this be? It's been comical since I've let it ride a couple times but will end up being problematic I'm sure.
Well, Suggestion should not work if it is clearly a suicidal mission. Yeah, maybe the wording "reasonable" is bit opened to interpretation (probably, rightly so).
Maybe this can be helpful:
http://www.sageadvice.eu/2016/05/18/if-a-suggestion-becomes-unreasonable-during-the-spells-duration-does-the-spell-end/
Suggestion is a very DM discretion spell. The example given in the spell itself is really not that "reasonable" in the idea that you would have ANY chance of just conversationally convincing the target it is a rational course of action..
Think about it, beyond the warhorse being an incredibly expensive tool, it is also part of the knights equipment to do her job, and the beggar likely wouldn't even have a method of taking care of the horse. The horse might not even belong to the knight, it could be the lord of the knight that owns the horse and is allowing the knight to use it.
So to me the task needs to be "Possible to attain, and not obviously self harming" So asking someone to bring you the moon would fail, Asking him to turn on his friends is in the very edge possible of going either way. I mean if you say "Help us free you from these bugbears who brainwashed you!" that is reasonable...ish..
Expensive? Tool? Part of equipment?!
You're one of those that don't give names to class features, right? :p
That aside, Suggestion is a very powerful spell, although it's up to DM interpretation whether asking a creature to fight equally powerful creatures (such as of its own species) is apparently harmful or not.
The issue with the wording harmful is that any act relating to combat could be construed as harmful, right? So telling someone to act someone else would obviously lead them to harm. Or telling an enemy that they want to drop their shield would also potentially lead them to harm. This is just a bit of food for thought on the matter because I really dont have any helpful info to add on this spell. But the discussion got me thinking about the different applications of suggestions.
I would definitely say that the wording of your suggestion would be the key to making it work. Like instead of saying "you lower your shield" you could say something along the lines of "holding your shield makes it feel like holding fire", then they would probably throw it away and not attempt to grab it again for another 8 hrs. Thoughts?