The thread I wanted died of old age and the use of necromancy on forum threads is forbidden. So, I ask a slightly different question here.
I'm mostly referring specifically to the ultra-specific, awful Lawful language of a most evil kind: Legaleze Infernal. It is the language of corporate lawyers Devils.
I know some who interpret it as a language that found a means for brevity without losing any of the specifics of what would be a long, conditional phrase in many other languages.
If Commands are given in Infernal to recipients who also understand Infernal, would you (as a DM whether you've DM'd or not) consider a single Infernal word to be so specific as to include all kinds of conditionals that would take a paragraph in Common to state?
I saw a situation where someone spoke a Command in Infernal to a creature that also spoke Infernal that Commanded the creature to chase a specific object as if it's life depended on catching it and the caster threw the object through spinning blades. When the creature failed the save, the DM allowed it and the creature failed to notice the blades on its turn - cue airplane scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark.
My question is whether you would allow it, and any further explanation why or why not would be appreciated.
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Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider. My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong. I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲 “It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
The spell has no effect if your command is directly harmful to the target (the target does not need to know that’s its harmful for the spell to fail), so I’d have not allowed this on those grounds.
But as to your actual question, portraying infernal that way is interesting, but I don’t think it’s good for a DM to just say “yeah you can get a paragraph out of one word,” because that’s not how languages work. If you didn’t develop some methodology, it would go from “interesting” to “cheap” very quickly. Nobody has to actually construct a fake language, but languages follow rules, and it’s vital to have some idea of what those rules are, or else the illusion is far too fragile.
In any case, it absolutely violates the spirit of the spell’s limitation. It’s clear that the intent is one-word out of character, though that it doesn’t say it leaves the door cracked for some language shenanigans. I would definitely encourage players to get as creative as possible with tense/aspect/mood to try and convey as much information as they can with one word, but the kind of thing you’re describing feels unreasonable to me.
[EDIT] To be clear, I’m addressing your general question here. In your specific example, the PC only seems to have stretched “fetch” to “fetch as if your life depends on it,” which is really just “fetch but emphatic,” and that’s an easy sell for one word. It still won’t work because of the “spell fails if command is harmful” thing, but I’d happily allow it linguistically.
I agree with Saga that I wouldn't allow the spell to have the commanded to actual harm to himself since that's written in the spell rules.
But - that's an interesting idea! I will certainly consider to allow for infernal to be a very "legal" language which allows for a lot more "complicated" one-word commands. It makes infernal a very "usefull" language to know when commanding other persons in infernal, but also very dangerous... Do you really want to know infernal when you meet that devil with command...
But I think it would be mostly cosmetics. I usually interprets command "as intended" by the player (and vice versa). If you throw a ball and say "fetch", it's that ball you will fetch, not the glass on the table or the golden crown you're there to steal. I find that easier than to end up in long discussions about what someone "thought" a person using it meant. For simplicity, I would most often allow even for short sentences like "Close your eyes" or "hands up" to work fine.
Worse yet, the DM allowed it on something considered undead. *shrug*
EDIT: Was told it wasn't undead but diseased. Okay, I suppose going by RAW, but if it comes from the animating of something that died - even from disease, I would be hard pressed not to consider it undead just because of RAW.
Sometimes, playing fast and loose is entertaining, but sometimes, it's just so fast and loose as to not bother with any boundaries of the gameplay.
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider. My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong. I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲 “It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
I probably wouldn't allow a complex command, even with the attempted justification that "it's one word in their language".
We're playing in English, and the cool conceit of the spell is that you shout "Jump!" and the thing jumps, not that you write out a complex command and then claim it's one word. (I'm sure nearly anything can be "one word" in a language that uses prefixes, suffixes, and compounding words together to convey ideas - but we're speaking English at the table here.)
That said, "Fetch!" would be a one-word command in English that conveys to the creature that it needs to catch this thrown object and bring it back. And "As if your life depends on it" is an irrelevant modifier here - the creature is bound by the spell to obey, it doesn't need "motivation". So a one-word command works fine here!
...but in this case, the "through spinning blades" should probably count as "directly harmful to it"
...but the DM said the creature didn't notice the blades. Which is different!
So if in this case, the command was basically "Fetch" but emphatic, and there happened to be some hazard in the way that the creature didn't see, and the creature wasn't undead... yeah, your DM played this fine!
It does not matter whether or not the creature knows the command is harmful. It doesn’t even matter whether or not the caster knows it’s harmful. If it’s harmful, the spell has no effect.
It does not matter whether or not the creature knows the command is harmful. It doesn’t even matter whether or not the caster knows it’s harmful. If it’s harmful, the spell has no effect.
That makes absolutely no sense.
It would make a side effect of this spell making it a 100% safe way to check for traps - give a party member a command to do something, and if that would trigger a trap then they'd be unable to do it, since it would be harmful? Even though nobody would know it's harmful except the omniscient narrator?
It would be silly if this spell was a way to check whether something is harmful, if nobody involved knows whether something is.
It does not matter whether or not the creature knows the command is harmful. It doesn’t even matter whether or not the caster knows it’s harmful. If it’s harmful, the spell has no effect.
That makes absolutely no sense.
It would make a side effect of this spell making it a 100% safe way to check for traps - give a party member a command to do something, and if that would trigger a trap then they'd be unable to do it, since it would be harmful? Even though nobody would know it's harmful except the omniscient narrator?
It would be silly if this spell was a way to check whether something is harmful, if nobody involved knows whether something is.
This is the Rules & Mechanics forum. The rules and mechanics don't always make sense. The role of the DM is to be the human element to step in and say "no, you can't use the spell this way."
The mechanical rationale here is, of course, that it's absolutely insane to allow a 1st-level spell to allow a character to command another to kill themselves, no matter the exact the circumstances of the scenario. Allowing the scenario described in the OP is 100% in violation of both the letter and the spirit of the rule. Your "check for traps" example is technically in line with the RAW but obviously goes against the spirit of the spell, which is what DMs are for.
I'd say that the insane thing isn't the spell can tell a creature to do something that isn't harmful as far as it can tell, it's that there's an instant-kill trap around that the creature somehow doesn't perceive as such! The spell isn't the insane thing in that scenario.
The place to make a different call on is the part where the target somehow didn't see giant deadly spinning blades (that part makes no sense), not making the spell require an omniscient point of view to adjudicate.
The spell already has an omniscient point of view. The fail condition, as stated clearly and unambiguously in the spell text, is “if your command is directly harmful to it.” Not “if it knows,” not “if you know.” Just “if it is.” I’ve explained the circumstances under which I think the DM should make a ruling counter to that, so I’m certainly not going to die on the hill of “the spell’s writing is perfect and good.” But it’s RAW, the establishment of which is the point of this forum.
There are a great many spells that have an omniscient point of view. Just start casting spells that can only target creatures at every chest you see to reveal the mimic! The DM’s job is to curtail RAW when it violates the spirit of the game. The issue here is that a first-level spell being an insta-kill does violate the spirit of the game. I sincerely don’t understand your position that it’s insane for an insta-kill trap to escape notice. That’s the point of traps.
With the language, I could see a language which has developed a single word for something that might take a phrase in other languages, but I’d think the opposite would also be true. Like in infernal maybe there’s no word for compassion, so they need to spend a sentence explaining the concept. I don’t know that it would come up mechanically but it would be cool for flavor. It would seem like the DM would need to keep a list of such words, though, in case they come up again.
I sincerely don’t understand your position that it’s insane for an insta-kill trap to escape notice. That’s the point of traps.
That's the point of traps, but "insta-kill" traps are few and far between, and well-hidden insta-kill traps require pretty significant effort. I can't think of the last time I've seen an "instant kill" trap in a dungeon, and most things that I can think of that are "instant kill" are big and obvious. Huge drops off of cliffs, giant spinning blades like in this example, etc.
Just start casting spells that can only target creatures at every chest you see to reveal the mimic!
Well yeah, we do that, if we think there's a mimic around we shoot it/attack it. Presumably the spell or attack has no effect if the target for it isn't actually a creature...
With the language, I could see a language which has developed a single word for something that might take a phrase in other languages, but I’d think the opposite would also be true. Like in infernal maybe there’s no word for compassion, so they need to spend a sentence explaining the concept. I don’t know that it would come up mechanically but it would be cool for flavor. It would seem like the DM would need to keep a list of such words, though, in case they come up again.
I've seen this exact thing going between English and French. There aren't always going to be words that translate directly to other words and using the single word language would give an advantage in that case. However, it's usually not a complex idea type thing, more like the phrase that you mentioned here.
With the language, I could see a language which has developed a single word for something that might take a phrase in other languages, but I’d think the opposite would also be true. Like in infernal maybe there’s no word for compassion, so they need to spend a sentence explaining the concept. I don’t know that it would come up mechanically but it would be cool for flavor. It would seem like the DM would need to keep a list of such words, though, in case they come up again.
I've seen this exact thing going between English and French. There aren't always going to be words that translate directly to other words and using the single word language would give an advantage in that case. However, it's usually not a complex idea type thing, more like the phrase that you mentioned here.
The interesting thing is that the Command has an implicit assumption about how imperatives are constructed, namely it can be done in a single word. This isn't true for other languages (see last years post twinned-spell-and-command-help, posts #7 and #8 for examples) like German or Spanish.
Now the flip side, where in a foreign language a complex concept can be distilled into a word, is certainly possible. But like SagaTympana mentioned its closer to a violation of the spirit of the spell to start with. We aren't going to start carrying "1001 interesting commands" covering all the languages in the multiverse with complex meaning verbs. A split imperative in a language is one thing, a paragraph in a word doesn't seem valid to me either. And Infernal in my mind is specifc and complicated in construction to allow an Baatorian worth their horns, ways around contracts. Modron would probably be better for that concept (a language where every second of a minute has a unique name), and good luck in finding a speaker to listen to you.
After all, it is only a 1st level spell in complexity, and charm person is generally a better choice, assuming you aren't in combat where avoid a lot of problems discussed. The single word verb is also a big limiting factor. I doubt you can find in another language the verb "To set off a trap," let alone "Walk over there." as a single word. You don't even have need to worry about direct harm cases, because you blew your one word budget to start with.
Bottom line; I wouldn't allow it. I would have the Baatorian, almost do it and then turn around and say "You know, you are going to have to a have a contract written up for that first" with a knowing smile.
With the language, I could see a language which has developed a single word for something that might take a phrase in other languages, but I’d think the opposite would also be true. Like in infernal maybe there’s no word for compassion, so they need to spend a sentence explaining the concept. I don’t know that it would come up mechanically but it would be cool for flavor. It would seem like the DM would need to keep a list of such words, though, in case they come up again.
I've seen this exact thing going between English and French. There aren't always going to be words that translate directly to other words and using the single word language would give an advantage in that case. However, it's usually not a complex idea type thing, more like the phrase that you mentioned here.
The interesting thing is that the Command has an implicit assumption about how imperatives are constructed, namely it can be done in a single word. This isn't true for other languages (see last years post twinned-spell-and-command-help, posts #7 and #8 for examples) like German or Spanish.
Now the flip side, where in a foreign language a complex concept can be distilled into a word, is certainly possible. But like SagaTympana mentioned its closer to a violation of the spirit of the spell to start with. We aren't going to start carrying "1001 interesting commands" covering all the languages in the multiverse with complex meaning verbs. A split imperative in a language is one thing, a paragraph in a word doesn't seem valid to me either. And Infernal in my mind is specifc and complicated in construction to allow an Baatorian worth their horns, ways around contracts. Modron would probably be better for that concept (a language where every second of a minute has a unique name), and good luck in finding a speaker to listen to you.
After all, it is only a 1st level spell in complexity, and charm person is generally a better choice, assuming you aren't in combat where avoid a lot of problems discussed. The single word verb is also a big limiting factor. I doubt you can find in another language the verb "To set off a trap," let alone "Walk over there." as a single word. You don't even have need to worry about direct harm cases, because you blew your one word budget to start with.
Bottom line; I wouldn't allow it. I would have the Baatorian, almost do it and then turn around and say "You know, you are going to have to a have a contract written up for that first" with a knowing smile.
With the language, I could see a language which has developed a single word for something that might take a phrase in other languages, but I’d think the opposite would also be true. Like in infernal maybe there’s no word for compassion, so they need to spend a sentence explaining the concept. I don’t know that it would come up mechanically but it would be cool for flavor. It would seem like the DM would need to keep a list of such words, though, in case they come up again.
I've seen this exact thing going between English and French. There aren't always going to be words that translate directly to other words and using the single word language would give an advantage in that case. However, it's usually not a complex idea type thing, more like the phrase that you mentioned here.
The interesting thing is that the Command has an implicit assumption about how imperatives are constructed, namely it can be done in a single word. This isn't true for other languages (see last years post twinned-spell-and-command-help, posts #7 and #8 for examples) like German or Spanish.
Now the flip side, where in a foreign language a complex concept can be distilled into a word, is certainly possible. But like SagaTympana mentioned its closer to a violation of the spirit of the spell to start with. We aren't going to start carrying "1001 interesting commands" covering all the languages in the multiverse with complex meaning verbs. A split imperative in a language is one thing, a paragraph in a word doesn't seem valid to me either. And Infernal in my mind is specifc and complicated in construction to allow an Baatorian worth their horns, ways around contracts. Modron would probably be better for that concept (a language where every second of a minute has a unique name), and good luck in finding a speaker to listen to you.
After all, it is only a 1st level spell in complexity, and charm person is generally a better choice, assuming you aren't in combat where avoid a lot of problems discussed. The single word verb is also a big limiting factor. I doubt you can find in another language the verb "To set off a trap," let alone "Walk over there." as a single word. You don't even have need to worry about direct harm cases, because you blew your one word budget to start with.
Bottom line; I wouldn't allow it. I would have the Baatorian, almost do it and then turn around and say "You know, you are going to have to a have a contract written up for that first" with a knowing smile.
Certainly. I was merely thinking of allowing a smaller phrase. Something along the lines of "give me a ride" but probably not "tie your shoelaces" without having a specific context. In French, they have two verbs for "to know". Savoir is to know (something) and connaitre is to know something (I wish I could think of one of the specific examples where there was more meaning implied). Of course, you can also get into more specialized language like computer programming, accounting, or the law, where a single word or phrase can convey a lot of information. However, that's bordering on being another language and just because you understand the language that the word is derived from doesn't mean that you understand the word in that specific context. Thus, I could say "Reconcile" intending to have the creature make sure that my bank statement and my check book match up while figuring out what fees and other adjustments need to be made for my check book as well as what checks have been written but haven't cleared yet at the bank, but they may simply apologize to you for something that they did against you because that's the best that they can understand "Reconcile".
It probably is better to stick to ideas that are closer to the actual description of the spell in a language that the DM knows and let them rule on it as to whether it would work or not. After all, most people will agree that the intent isn't to allow for the passage of complex ideas in a one word command.
My view on this is that in the way that the spell is omniscient, the spell command is in game language agnostic - this spell's rules are somewhat meta-textual. The command is limited to 1 word in the language being used at the table. All of the spells that have a word limit count are not counting words in game, they are counting player words because in game languages might have no relation to the language being used by the players.
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The thread I wanted died of old age and the use of necromancy on forum threads is forbidden. So, I ask a slightly different question here.
I'm mostly referring specifically to the ultra-specific,
awfulLawful language of a most evil kind:LegalezeInfernal. It is the language ofcorporate lawyersDevils.I know some who interpret it as a language that found a means for brevity without losing any of the specifics of what would be a long, conditional phrase in many other languages.
If Commands are given in Infernal to recipients who also understand Infernal, would you (as a DM whether you've DM'd or not) consider a single Infernal word to be so specific as to include all kinds of conditionals that would take a paragraph in Common to state?
I saw a situation where someone spoke a Command in Infernal to a creature that also spoke Infernal that Commanded the creature to chase a specific object as if it's life depended on catching it and the caster threw the object through spinning blades. When the creature failed the save, the DM allowed it and the creature failed to notice the blades on its turn - cue airplane scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark.
My question is whether you would allow it, and any further explanation why or why not would be appreciated.
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider.
My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong.
I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲
“It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
The spell has no effect if your command is directly harmful to the target (the target does not need to know that’s its harmful for the spell to fail), so I’d have not allowed this on those grounds.
But as to your actual question, portraying infernal that way is interesting, but I don’t think it’s good for a DM to just say “yeah you can get a paragraph out of one word,” because that’s not how languages work. If you didn’t develop some methodology, it would go from “interesting” to “cheap” very quickly. Nobody has to actually construct a fake language, but languages follow rules, and it’s vital to have some idea of what those rules are, or else the illusion is far too fragile.
In any case, it absolutely violates the spirit of the spell’s limitation. It’s clear that the intent is one-word out of character, though that it doesn’t say it leaves the door cracked for some language shenanigans. I would definitely encourage players to get as creative as possible with tense/aspect/mood to try and convey as much information as they can with one word, but the kind of thing you’re describing feels unreasonable to me.
[EDIT] To be clear, I’m addressing your general question here. In your specific example, the PC only seems to have stretched “fetch” to “fetch as if your life depends on it,” which is really just “fetch but emphatic,” and that’s an easy sell for one word. It still won’t work because of the “spell fails if command is harmful” thing, but I’d happily allow it linguistically.
I agree with Saga that I wouldn't allow the spell to have the commanded to actual harm to himself since that's written in the spell rules.
But - that's an interesting idea! I will certainly consider to allow for infernal to be a very "legal" language which allows for a lot more "complicated" one-word commands. It makes infernal a very "usefull" language to know when commanding other persons in infernal, but also very dangerous... Do you really want to know infernal when you meet that devil with command...
But I think it would be mostly cosmetics. I usually interprets command "as intended" by the player (and vice versa). If you throw a ball and say "fetch", it's that ball you will fetch, not the glass on the table or the golden crown you're there to steal. I find that easier than to end up in long discussions about what someone "thought" a person using it meant. For simplicity, I would most often allow even for short sentences like "Close your eyes" or "hands up" to work fine.
Ludo ergo sum!
Worse yet, the DM allowed it on something considered undead. *shrug*
EDIT: Was told it wasn't undead but diseased. Okay, I suppose going by RAW, but if it comes from the animating of something that died - even from disease, I would be hard pressed not to consider it undead just because of RAW.
Sometimes, playing fast and loose is entertaining, but sometimes, it's just so fast and loose as to not bother with any boundaries of the gameplay.
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider.
My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong.
I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲
“It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
I probably wouldn't allow a complex command, even with the attempted justification that "it's one word in their language".
We're playing in English, and the cool conceit of the spell is that you shout "Jump!" and the thing jumps, not that you write out a complex command and then claim it's one word. (I'm sure nearly anything can be "one word" in a language that uses prefixes, suffixes, and compounding words together to convey ideas - but we're speaking English at the table here.)
That said, "Fetch!" would be a one-word command in English that conveys to the creature that it needs to catch this thrown object and bring it back. And "As if your life depends on it" is an irrelevant modifier here - the creature is bound by the spell to obey, it doesn't need "motivation". So a one-word command works fine here!
...but in this case, the "through spinning blades" should probably count as "directly harmful to it"
...but the DM said the creature didn't notice the blades. Which is different!
So if in this case, the command was basically "Fetch" but emphatic, and there happened to be some hazard in the way that the creature didn't see, and the creature wasn't undead... yeah, your DM played this fine!
It does not matter whether or not the creature knows the command is harmful. It doesn’t even matter whether or not the caster knows it’s harmful. If it’s harmful, the spell has no effect.
That makes absolutely no sense.
It would make a side effect of this spell making it a 100% safe way to check for traps - give a party member a command to do something, and if that would trigger a trap then they'd be unable to do it, since it would be harmful? Even though nobody would know it's harmful except the omniscient narrator?
It would be silly if this spell was a way to check whether something is harmful, if nobody involved knows whether something is.
This is the Rules & Mechanics forum. The rules and mechanics don't always make sense. The role of the DM is to be the human element to step in and say "no, you can't use the spell this way."
The mechanical rationale here is, of course, that it's absolutely insane to allow a 1st-level spell to allow a character to command another to kill themselves, no matter the exact the circumstances of the scenario. Allowing the scenario described in the OP is 100% in violation of both the letter and the spirit of the rule. Your "check for traps" example is technically in line with the RAW but obviously goes against the spirit of the spell, which is what DMs are for.
I'd say that the insane thing isn't the spell can tell a creature to do something that isn't harmful as far as it can tell, it's that there's an instant-kill trap around that the creature somehow doesn't perceive as such! The spell isn't the insane thing in that scenario.
The place to make a different call on is the part where the target somehow didn't see giant deadly spinning blades (that part makes no sense), not making the spell require an omniscient point of view to adjudicate.
The spell already has an omniscient point of view. The fail condition, as stated clearly and unambiguously in the spell text, is “if your command is directly harmful to it.” Not “if it knows,” not “if you know.” Just “if it is.” I’ve explained the circumstances under which I think the DM should make a ruling counter to that, so I’m certainly not going to die on the hill of “the spell’s writing is perfect and good.” But it’s RAW, the establishment of which is the point of this forum.
There are a great many spells that have an omniscient point of view. Just start casting spells that can only target creatures at every chest you see to reveal the mimic! The DM’s job is to curtail RAW when it violates the spirit of the game. The issue here is that a first-level spell being an insta-kill does violate the spirit of the game. I sincerely don’t understand your position that it’s insane for an insta-kill trap to escape notice. That’s the point of traps.
With the language, I could see a language which has developed a single word for something that might take a phrase in other languages, but I’d think the opposite would also be true. Like in infernal maybe there’s no word for compassion, so they need to spend a sentence explaining the concept. I don’t know that it would come up mechanically but it would be cool for flavor.
It would seem like the DM would need to keep a list of such words, though, in case they come up again.
That's the point of traps, but "insta-kill" traps are few and far between, and well-hidden insta-kill traps require pretty significant effort. I can't think of the last time I've seen an "instant kill" trap in a dungeon, and most things that I can think of that are "instant kill" are big and obvious. Huge drops off of cliffs, giant spinning blades like in this example, etc.
Well yeah, we do that, if we think there's a mimic around we shoot it/attack it. Presumably the spell or attack has no effect if the target for it isn't actually a creature...
I've seen this exact thing going between English and French. There aren't always going to be words that translate directly to other words and using the single word language would give an advantage in that case. However, it's usually not a complex idea type thing, more like the phrase that you mentioned here.
The interesting thing is that the Command has an implicit assumption about how imperatives are constructed, namely it can be done in a single word. This isn't true for other languages (see last years post twinned-spell-and-command-help, posts #7 and #8 for examples) like German or Spanish.
Now the flip side, where in a foreign language a complex concept can be distilled into a word, is certainly possible. But like SagaTympana mentioned its closer to a violation of the spirit of the spell to start with. We aren't going to start carrying "1001 interesting commands" covering all the languages in the multiverse with complex meaning verbs. A split imperative in a language is one thing, a paragraph in a word doesn't seem valid to me either. And Infernal in my mind is specifc and complicated in construction to allow an Baatorian worth their horns, ways around contracts. Modron would probably be better for that concept (a language where every second of a minute has a unique name), and good luck in finding a speaker to listen to you.
After all, it is only a 1st level spell in complexity, and charm person is generally a better choice, assuming you aren't in combat where avoid a lot of problems discussed. The single word verb is also a big limiting factor. I doubt you can find in another language the verb "To set off a trap," let alone "Walk over there." as a single word. You don't even have need to worry about direct harm cases, because you blew your one word budget to start with.
Bottom line; I wouldn't allow it. I would have the Baatorian, almost do it and then turn around and say "You know, you are going to have to a have a contract written up for that first" with a knowing smile.
Certainly. I was merely thinking of allowing a smaller phrase. Something along the lines of "give me a ride" but probably not "tie your shoelaces" without having a specific context. In French, they have two verbs for "to know". Savoir is to know (something) and connaitre is to know something (I wish I could think of one of the specific examples where there was more meaning implied). Of course, you can also get into more specialized language like computer programming, accounting, or the law, where a single word or phrase can convey a lot of information. However, that's bordering on being another language and just because you understand the language that the word is derived from doesn't mean that you understand the word in that specific context. Thus, I could say "Reconcile" intending to have the creature make sure that my bank statement and my check book match up while figuring out what fees and other adjustments need to be made for my check book as well as what checks have been written but haven't cleared yet at the bank, but they may simply apologize to you for something that they did against you because that's the best that they can understand "Reconcile".
It probably is better to stick to ideas that are closer to the actual description of the spell in a language that the DM knows and let them rule on it as to whether it would work or not. After all, most people will agree that the intent isn't to allow for the passage of complex ideas in a one word command.
My view on this is that in the way that the spell is omniscient, the spell command is in game language agnostic - this spell's rules are somewhat meta-textual. The command is limited to 1 word in the language being used at the table. All of the spells that have a word limit count are not counting words in game, they are counting player words because in game languages might have no relation to the language being used by the players.