You suggest a course of activity—described in no more than 25 words—to one creature you can see within range that can hear and understand you. The suggestion must sound achievable and not involve anything that would obviously deal damage to the target or its allies. For example, you could say, “Fetch the key to the cult’s treasure vault, and give the key to me.” Or you could say, “Stop fighting, leave this library peacefully, and don’t return.”
The target must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or have the Charmed condition for the duration or until you or your allies deal damage to the target. The Charmed target pursues the suggestion to the best of its ability. The suggested activity can continue for the entire duration, but if the suggested activity can be completed in a shorter time, the spell ends for the target upon completing it.
* - (a drop of honey)
The level 4 Wizard in my campaign nearly broke the entire game with this spell. After finding out they've been working for mindflayers in the middle of the astral plane she used this spell on a CR8 Mindflayer Psionic (the lead scientist who owned the ship she snuck on) telling it to surrender the ship to her and teach her how to fly it and leave the ship with its thralls afterwards without struggle. The Mindflayer failed the savings throw, and it was so specific it caught me off guard. Afterwards she crashed it into the Labatory her allies were waiting in, and flew them all into space, now with an entire fleet of mind flayer ships chasing her. I kept throwing everything, but she kept succeeding every savings throw they threw at her, and I also had to make sure I didn't accidentally kill them. She accidentally tossed the paladin off the ship when she spun it, and eventually the rest became incapacitated by the mindflayers. But her? No, I swear she succeeded against 100 saving throws against her before she finally passed out.
Dude, this spell is overpowered.
This new description for the spell is WAY clearer. Now the only real restriction is that the course of action has to not obviously damage the individual, which is much clearer and easier to understand.
Suffocation does not deal damage, it only applies levels of exhaustion.
As a result, "Breathe out fully and stop breathing until I say so" is a legal suggestion that will kill any viable target (that requires air) in six rounds, utterly debilitating them in the meantime.
This spell is not OK.
I probably wouldn’t consider that achievable. You can’t voluntarily hold your breath until you die, your instincts probably kick in when you hold your breath barely long enough to get out of breath.
The Charmed target pursues the suggestion to the best of its ability.
A creature physically cannot hold it's breath longer than a number of minutes equal to 1 plus its Constitution modifier. If there isn't anything keeping it from breathing like a choking hazard or being under water they would be forced to take a breath at the end of that time, removing my stacks of exhaustion.
Technically, "cast Power Word Kill on yourself once you fall below 100 HP" does not involve anything that would "obviously deal damage to the target or its allies", since it would kill them outright without dealing damage.
This spell really need the "sounds reasonable" qualifiers put back into it.
You should not able to walk into a town, find whoever is in charge and with a mere 2nd level spell ask them to sign over all their lands and titles to you and your party...
Yes.... It says OBVIOUSLY damage. So this implies we long as it's not obvious that what they're doing might harm them, I can say what I want and as long as it's possible they'll do yes? If I asked them to talk to a troll, like, simply say hello, or how are you?, would it count on obviously damage? What if I asked them to insult them? Now, we don't know how the troll would react. So I suggest a suggestion roll. Whenever someone asks something that no one knows the outcome of, roll a d12. Anything higher than 8, positive reactions! Anything lower, negative, and the spell cancels out.
This version still has a lot of issues. For instance, since it lasts 8 hours you could use it in combat and immediately bring someone out of the encounter by telling them to 'Walk in a circle until I tell you to stop and do nothing else.' Then the enemy is making a fool of themselves for the next 8 arduous hours all for the low price of a 2nd tier spell slot. To make matters worse, it doesn't end were one of the enemies to try and attack their buddy while he's doing this because it only ends when the caster or the casters allies damage the target.
I would prefer if it was both clear and written in a way that was harder to exploit. Perhaps by allowing the enemy to make continuous saves at the start of each round if you cast suggestion on them while they were hostile. And having the enemy make their initial save with advantage if they are hostile.
Could I use this spell to tell someone to approach me on the most direct way, even if a druid casted spike growth on that path? If the target fails the check to see the spikes, it wouldn't obviously do damage to them
that would be a course of action that would cause it damage so no.
It would deal damage, but if they didn't see it, it wouldn't obviously deal damage, so this would be valid.