inforgreen3's Profile

The limitations are as follows 

the creature can’t willing use its action to cause harm to itself or its allies. Commanding a creature to breath with its head held in water will fail as it knows it will drown commanding a creature to Defenestrate off a 4th story window will fail if it knows it will fall. The command “betray” may still get results so long as those results aren’t harmful, such as insulting or pickpocketing an ally. That being said, generally speaking if a command can only possibly cause harm to itself and it’s allies (as far as it knows) it fails, but if the command can be reinterpreted it succeeds and the command is not used to cause harm.
I like to think damage a player does as a result of a command is A-OK, such as dancing on caltrops or leaving melee range without disengaging with a word like “expedite” after all grovel is a command that makes a target more venerable. But the creature won’t do the damage itself, it will LET you damage it.

the command only lasts a turn. So you can’t command someone to strip their heavy armor cause that takes a full minute unless you successfully give them 10 consecutive commands. They make strip for a turn and instantly adjust their armor to fit without taking an action if the DM so rules so that’s no better than halt. Commanding someone to do something that tasks more than a turn like strip, doff, return, monologue, teleport, summon, research, results in 6 seconds of starting to do that with no obligation to continue. Same for a command to surrender, the all time favorite of people who think they’re clever as they watch someone as soon as it gets to their turn throw their hands in the air and say they surrender cause that’s when the command starts, then at the end of its turn the command is over and they still fight off people who try to arrest them. It last a turn, not a round, not a minute, and NOT until the command is complete. Duration 1 turn. After which they have no obligation to their behavior 

the command doesn’t effect what a creature can do with a turn. For example you can’t give someone the unconscious condition by commanding sleep cause it takes more than 6 seconds to fall unconscious. And commanding a human to fly won’t make them grow wings either.

If a creature can’t do something in a turn when it is not commanded to, it can’t be commanded to do that.

That being said, unless the act of trying itself violates the other rule, they’ll still attempt to sleep or fly to no avail. Similarly you can use this for commands that would otherwise be harmful like Defenestrate on a target who is 100 feet from a window to move them closer to it, or if they are too big to fit through they get stuck, but if the spell fails is decided on their turn. 

the target can interpret the commands how it wishes. You may command it to dance but be surprised to find that it can still move a bit slower backwards in a straight line like Michael Jackson. And also a creature has no obligation to interrupt anything else as part of the command besides the word in isolation spoken by you. So if you point somewhere and say relocate the target doesn’t have to go where you point. 

the targets ability to interrupt is especially useful to the target when commanded to speak with a command such as ramble monologue confess or talk. Unless you somehow commanded it to speak truthfully about something specific in one obscure word even I don’t know, a creature is under no obligation to tell the truth. It satisfying commands like speak or talk even when lying. Also, a creature is of no obligation to follow commands interpreted in context which means commanding a creature to confess in a murder mystery may get a confession about a lie they told or a prank they pulled 10 years ago.