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Question I have about the Suggestion spell. What exactly constitutes reasonable? We had been ambushed by a bunch of yuan-ti. The suggestions given to the two players was "In order to fight, a fight should be honorable. You need to get your team outside using Thunderwave." This player then used Thunderwave to throw us out, and ended up killing a team member - as the spell states once it works, you use it to the best of your ability. The other player was given a suggestion that "in order to feel good inside there, we needed to make a fire." This character was a fire magician and began throwing spells, contributing to the problem, though we have talked him into "we will make a fire once we deal with this issue," which let him rejoin the battle. Were these suggestions reasonable? Was the extent to which they followed them correct? And what of player agency itself? For instance, my character is an Oath of Vengeance paladin who knows exactly what gets him closer to the Big Bad Evil MacGuffin. Can a suggestion that goes against such a deep oath (ie. "spend time doing slave work for us" when it's people who took the poo poo we need to get to that macguffin giving the order) be construed as unreasonable immediately, or what? The spell is very vague, and we will be literally in a yuan-ti prison cell starting next adventure, having spent most of our resources too - would be useful to know.  Edit: personally, as a GM I would be reluctant to use this spell so hard, and I think the first suggestion is unreasonable, as there are better ways to convince your teammates to have a honorable fight rather than literally damaging them - for instance, just talking. And damaging your team so hard and running out yourself has the aura of 'self-harm' that's prohibited by the spell. What do you think? Edit2: I've been informed by the Thunderwave player that this was the suggestion: ""You cannot abide looking at your team fighting dishonorably. You have to get them outside. Maybe you could use Thunderwave to push them out? If not, fight yourself." I have a couple qualms with that. First off, that's not 1 or two short sentences. Second, that's two suggestions, not one. Thirdly, and this is where I'm totally uncertain... the spell says "You suggest a course of action [...] The suggestion must be worded in such a manner as to make the course of action sound reasonable." The entire command as presented is not just a course of action, but also a complete rationalisation of it - in effect, it considers that the wording can make the unreasonable reasonable. Whereas I would interpret the spell to mean "You suggest a course of action. If the action suggested can be considered reasonable when taking the wording into account, the target rolls." So, suggestion of "Use Thunderwave to push your allies out" would be unreasonable, and so would "Use Thunderwave to convince your allies to leave safety," as there are more reasonable ways to convince someone that's your ally. However, "close the doors so you and allies can turtle" and then gassing the poo poo out of the place we were in or w/e would be a reasonable suggestion, and would have to be followed for the duration of the spell (if it succeeded). What am I missing? dex_sda fucked around with this message at 15:51 on Dec 13, 2018 |
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Dec 13, 2018 15:23
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theironjef posted:Just remove the Suggestion spell from the game. I would definitely if I was the GM. This is waaaay too open. However, if we look at Jeremy Crawford's tweets to go by RAI: https://twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/741457127005257728 During combat the orders are brief, the explanations succint, and definitely not aimed directly against a trusted team member. I think it's intended to be a Jedi Mind Trick, essentially. I think that's what I'll bring before my GM.
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Dec 13, 2018 16:52
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Toshimo posted:Suggestion is 2nd level. Doesn't really matter... the nearest spell I can find with mind control power of similar nature is this: quote:Dominate Person So, this is a five level spell. Despite that, it's worse than Suggestion. It's only 1 minute. Yes, it allows total control, but literally ANY damage breaks it - so just one prick from a party member is enough (which is not the case with Suggestion), let alone any self-harmful thing. If the spell is cast in combat, you have advantage, which is not the case with Suggestion. Finally, full control requires using your action, and if not, the command can only be explicitly general - not the case with Suggestion. The only limiting factor Suggestion has is only one suggestion, but if we allow just the wording to determine whether the order is reasonable or unreasonable "Listen to my orders, because that will end better for you than not" would work. In that interpretation, it would be an overpowered spell at level 5, let alone 2.
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Dec 13, 2018 17:06
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Conspiratiorist posted:That's the other way around: Dominate spells allow a new saving throw upon taking damage, whereas Suggestion immediately ends if you or any of your companions damage the target. "You or any of your companions" means only the caster and his companions. The team of the person the suggestion was cast on cannot do anything short of knocking the person out. You are right about damage for Dominate, but still, that's an actual chance of your friends knocking sense into you. A chance to use Inspiration etc.
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Dec 13, 2018 17:18
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theironjef posted:Oh well gently caress me I guess. Spell is still bad and the easiest way to fix it is to just remove it from the list. I think you're completely right honestly... another spell I realised exists since I'm a Paladin is 'Banishment', a 4 level spell. For most enemies, all it does is remove the character for up to 10 rounds from combat, otherwise being completely harmless. If the concentration is broken, spell ends. A simple "Flee, because it's dangerous here!" (as clearly allowed and intended from that tweet) would replicate this spell, except that not only does it now last up to 8 hours, you don't instantly return if Concentration is broken. Even that single use is more powerful than a 4 lvl spell dedicated to that one thing. Granted, you can use banishment on creatures that don't understand you, but it still shouldn't be better for 50% of foes you face and have nearly limitless utility otherwise. And poo poo, the other use for banishment can also be somewhat replicated too ("Return to whence you came, as it's dangerous here!"), since it works on all creatures! The mind boggles how this spell was considered appropriate at all in the book. And I was so happy with how reasonable and relatively balanced stuff was in 5e until this debacle... The rest of the players fully agree that we should houserule this either completely out, or make it so it only allows you to give suggestions that would be a valid 'Persuasion' check - a similar amount of utility to 2nd level Knock which replaces lockpicking with some disadvantages (the disadvantage would still have to be thought about to not make persuasion useless, but that's another manner). No amount of persuasion will do anything to stop you from fighting a foe attacking you and that way, it's nerfed to being a trick for some social situations. "These aren't the droids you're looking for" yes, "Completely turn the tide of an encounter with a single spell" nope. We'll just ask the GM after bringing him those spells for comparison, and telling him that the game shouldn't be a language pedantry contest. He's quite reasonable, so I think this will go pretty smoothly. Thanks, guys. dex_sda fucked around with this message at 01:27 on Dec 14, 2018 |
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Dec 14, 2018 00:59
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Nehru the Damaja posted:In fairness, charisma save is weaker on most enemies, you can cast it on enemies immune to charm, and extraplanar guys stay gone. That's fair but I'm just saying, it is a 2nd level spell that's a solid alternative to a 4 lvl spell dedicated to a purpose; arguably better than a mind control spell from 5lvl cast from an 8lvl slot (I'd take Suggestion over Dominate Person every time unless I was literally infiltrating some place for info as someone and required control); all that in addition to god knows how many spells while also making Intimidation, Persuasion and Deception pointless... and even if we accept these problems, the fact that you can twist the meaning so hard and within the rules basically deprive a PC of nearly any agency - it's crazy. And PCs are always creatures that can understand things so even if the PCs take it to even out the field it's skewed against them. This crap be more broken than Time Stop; poo poo, it's more broken than 3.5s Prestidigitation and that was basically a mini wish following you for an hour. dex_sda fucked around with this message at 01:43 on Dec 14, 2018 |
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Dec 14, 2018 01:41
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Fender Anarchist posted:So here's a question that came up in my game NOT related to buffoonery. If someone's trying to persuade an npc you'd just set an appropriate DC, but what happens should one player try to persuade another? Like with lies you'd just roll deception vs insight, what's the equivalent for when you're telling the truth? Back in my 3.5 GMing days I used to have a rule: PCs cannot be deprived of their agency unless by magic. If intimidate/persuade was rolled (usually as a between-party thing), the players could react according to the rolls and I always rewarded them with a few points of roleplay XP if they did; but if they felt uncomfortable with doing something according to the rolls, they could just ignore them. 95% of the time they would go with it, the other 5% I was so glad they had that 'ignore' option left on the table. In 5e terms, just give inspiration if they follow through with a persuade vs insight roll is what I'd do. dex_sda fucked around with this message at 02:02 on Dec 14, 2018 |
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Dec 14, 2018 01:59
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kingcom posted:Alternatively anything in the game thats an agency thief, should be its nature be something that rewards the player for playing along with it. Especially if they are being restricted from participating in the game as a result (the worst possible agency thief). I mean that's a given but also, the effect should be graded. The PC having to go along with something insane should be a result of something insanely powerful, not a 2nd level spell - even if roleplaying of a sporadic, sensible loss of control can be fun, it should be just that, sporadic and sensible.
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Dec 14, 2018 02:11
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What I always said in regards to this is that splatbooks are the worst. 4e and 5e without splatbooks are pretty simple. Not so sure about 3 but then again the last time I've played vanilla was like 15 years ago so who knows.
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Dec 21, 2018 13:13
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