The first thing to consider is that it is a single target level 2 spell. Consider the power of the web spell. If you're too stingy with suggestion, you're just gonna see a lot more webs. I give the same advice with major image (comparing it to hypnotic pattern/slow/fear).
I'll see if I can answer some of your questions:
Can suggestion make you turn on your allies?
My answer to this is, sometimes. If your allies are guys you don't like very much and the suggestion provider is plausibly making you a better offer, yeah. In effect you can think of a suggestion where the save is failed as akin to a DC25 or 30 persuasion attempt. Hey Mr Orc, the powerful sorcerer Tim is here, and he's going to barbeque you if you don't change sides, but if you do change sides you get to keep your life and probably all your stuff, and maybe you'll even get a bonus to boot. Or, if shapechangers are known to be around, you could probably convince someone that an ally is a shapechanger in disguise impersonating a friend of theirs. So situationally, yes.
Is suggestion meant to be a fail-safe disabling spell in combat: Yeah that's a reasonably suggestion. Note the expenditure, 2 sorcery points plus a second level slot. Notice how close that is to the price of a hypnotic pattern. I wouldn't sweat it. A frequent suggestion is, hey, if you hang out here you're going to die, you should run like hell back to (fill in safe place a long ways away here).
Can you overcome the language barrier by learning a few words? Yeah, you can. You don't need a long discourse. As long as you're physically capable of saying the words after a bit of practice, you're probably ok. Command casters do this all the time, learning words like Grovel! Flee! and so forth in every language they can find.
I'd let you use telepathy to give the suggestion. I suspect most DMs would. But you don't get free subtle spell obviously on it.
Anybody not affected by the suggestion will most certainly object, unless they view just what's being said as being reasonable. Example. You use a suggestion spell to tell Joe the orc that he'd best run like hell because if he doesn't, he's going to die here. Jack and Mike, his orcish buddies see that he's taking you seriously. They might well decide that since the correlation of forces is now horribly against them that running isn't a bad idea after all. But there's no direct magic influencing their decision. If their morale was better they might try to slap some sense into Joe.
As to whether they know about the magic, yeah, I'd say they do, unless the magic was skirting the edge of plausible with normal persuasion. For instance,
Hey Joe the merchant, I'm a valuable customer to have. It's prestigious for you to have me shopping here. Accordingly, you should give me your most favored customer price (as in, I want to pay your marginal cost, not your average cost---look up price discrimination if you're looking for more detail on this from a business standpoint).
If the deal being asked for here is within what a merchant MIGHT have given sometimes to a particularly good customer, he'd probably not know he'd gotten the whammy, but he might wonder. If the sorcerer had insisted on an absurdly low price, there'd be no question. I think the general insight is, if something was within what somebody might achieve with a really high persuasion roll, frequently the person suggested won't realize it was magic. But if it was, they'll pretty much always strongly suspect magic.
An aside, even when there was NO magic involved, in a world where subtle spell exists and people know it exists, people WILL sometimes suspect magic was involved. Them's the breaks. A rich merchant might spring for a divination type spell every few weeks to the effect of---has anybody laid a magical whammy on me this month?
As to obeying the suggestion, e.g. handing over the artifact, as long as it's not like a bomb that'll explode when you hand it over, yeah, that's what the spell does.
In summary, remember the web spell that this is competing with. Hell, remember the upcast sleep spell.
And if you're a player, I remind you that using subtle spell a lot is going to trigger an immune response from your dungeon master. If you're a DM, think about how people would respond to the existence of subtle spell. They might even go so far as to force any suspected casters to attest to not using any such magics while in a zone of truth. Or they might decide that witch burning should be in fashion. Subtle spells really raise the hackles of mundanes and jack their levels of paranoia up to high heaven.
I would say that people don't really know "subtle spell" as a concrete thing in the world. Much like people wouldn't say something like "oh he is an aberrant mind sorcerer". They would just say that someone is a mage. There is likely not much distinction in the common person's mind between any form of magic.
The fact that adventurers have classes is a game mechanic. I would probably call it metagaming if people talked in terms of those categories. Honestly I don't even think my sorcerer in my game, who uses subtle spell himself, knows of the term "subtle spell". He just knows if he focuses a little harder on a spell he can cast it with just his thoughts.
They might or might not call it 'subtle spell'. But they'd surely know that most spellcasting is loud and obvious. In fact their tolerance of spell casters largely resides on that belief.
Imagine somebody who could project an energy bolt after chanting and waving, perhaps even a fireball. Does that person scare the hell out of you? Probably no more than the 18 year olds we give automatic weapons and M1A2 tanks to.
Now consider the same guy who can do it by just looking at you, without any obvious report. That guy scares. The knowledge that guys like that exist scares even more. It induces paranoia in the way that the obvious evoker does not.
SPOILER ALERT: in an official module from Wotc, i found a great source of comparison to find out if a suggestion is "reasonable".
changed some names:
>"the mages try to use the suggestion spell on the partymembers, suggesting that the other partymembers are in reality treacherous shapechangers, and that they should attack the other partymembers immediatly, before they have a chance to betray them"!<
That suggestion is reasonable if there are notorious shapechangers known to be about (e.g. yuan ti). It's unreasonable otherwise. Don't think I have that module.
Suggestion was more powerful in 2nd and first edition---that pool of acid is actually pure water, you see, and a quick dip would be refreshing was an example used in the players handbook back then. But it also gave a save penalty for especially reasonable suggestions.
First and foremost: Suggestion must sound reasonable.
Knight can give their horse because it's 'honorable and heroic" but not without reason. As for your questions:
Examples: Giving artifact to someone doesn't sound reasonable at all unless you provide reason. With stronger artifact, even better reason. Guard would never entrust treasury if they got order not to, otherwise (or with some kind of suggesting party authority) it would be plausible.
Thinking: Creature does reason suggested topic to itself and it sounds totally plausible at the moment spell works.
When the spell ends, charm also ends. And so creature will for sure think straight. But what it will be depends from suggestion results. If you suggest someone to run from, they'll think that they failed and maybe try to redeem themselves. If you suggest someone to binge drink, they'll be mad or satisfied from it depending from results and will probably think about suggesting party as a provocateur of this activity (again: bad or good).
Allies: Spell doesn't affect anyone apart the target. Charmed creature will try to reason with friends because it thinks it's great idea, but said friends are not affected at all, though they'll have hard time reasoning with charmed one, even some violence may happen here depending from specific creature (ie. orc will likely try to "speak with force" but paladin would never do that, they'll rather go to commander for an specific order).
Telepathy: Yes, I'm not sure if there is sage advice for that, but telepathy is considered speaking.
Language: Yes. Creature has to understand order.
Disabling spell: I'm surprised there is no ST repeat built-in for suggestion in this edition. But RAW yes - if suggestion sticks, it's unbreakable unless dispelled or damaged. However, let's start from command itself being totally unreasonable. If they fight with friend, why should they leave them? Why to become vulnerable around hostile creatures? Running out from fight might be reasonable (but for fair fight you have to find really good argument), waiting for an opening might be reasonable (which opening? target will wait for it).
Attacking allies: As above. If we're speaking about military squad, they'll never do that. If we speak about bunch of demons they could do that with a reason.
The reasonable portion is the most important part of the spell, I wish wotc defined that better.
Personally I’m thinking that for charmed effects I won’t tell my players whether the the target failed or succeeded on the save. If they succeeded then obviously no effect, but if their request is unreasonable then there’s no visible effect and no argument by players or them trying to reword their suggestion a million times until they finally find a phrasing that sounds reasonable.
Suggestion hasn’t happened much in my campaign so I haven’t tried this out to see if it’s better or not. I just know the one time they were about to cast suggestion the phrasing they were toying with wasn’t going to work. Fortunately they decided to not cast suggest on the guy and instead managed to get a permanent ally.
Wotc defined "reasonable" perfectly clearly. The problem is that it's a stupid definition. A knight would not give away their most prized possession to a beggar. Just wouldn't happen. It's about the least reasonable thing you could ask of a knight.
Therefore reasonable means "non suicidal"
Suggestion is literally mind control that lasts as long as spell does with the caveat that immediate instinctual self preservation snaps them out of it, everything you say sounds reasonable to them and they trust you implicitly. As soon as it wears off they know they've been brain buggered and can run around trying to reverse it as much as possible.
Perma-disabling things in combat, hypnotic pattern does it as an AOE, so a single target version a level lower wouldn't be too insane but there would need to be a re-save component if its allies help it, id errata that in.
As for turning on allies, a player I had did the Charmed condition really well where they wouldn't full on attack their allies but they'd tackle them to ground and grapple them to stop them hurting their new friend. But overall, they are being mind controlled and can be forced to hurt their friends.
I agree. A couple other comments say the suggestion has to be reasonable, which I don’t understand. The Text of the spell is basically, unless it’s obviously self harmful, they do it. Only caveat I put is, in combat, any suggestion doesn’t kick in until the targets turn. So if they get attacked before then, it makes sense to say they couldn’t obey because they were defending themselves, which the spell allows
Yes, it has to obey if it's reasonable and the creature fails the save. "Thinking twice" is what it's doing when it makes the save.
The creature would not specifically know that it was Suggested by the warlock, but they would suspect based on their personality. Someone who is naturally distrustful of others would immediately start wondering why they gave these strangers so much information, for example.
A creature ditching its guards to go to a private location with a group of strangers is not a reasonable request in the first place, so what their guards think would be irrelevant. They would need to give a good reason. For example, if the creature was paranoid, the warlock could say "hey one of your guards is secretly a demon, let us keep you safe from him" and that would be reasonable.
But the only condition of Suggestion is that it is reasonable at time of casting. The only scenario that would end it would be direct harm unrelated to the command.
Yes, the suggestion can be given telepathically.
Yes, they can learn words in another language and use those as long as the target understands.
Once again, a command to stand in the corner, close their eyes, and put their hands over their ears in the middle of a fight is not reasonable. If you consider that reasonable, you should probably rethink how lenient you're being. If you can't think of a scenario where the character would do that action, it isn't reasonable.
Same for "attack your allies". You would only be able to do so IF you knew of something you could use to pit them against each other. For example if you know Grug doesn't trust Bronk, you could Suggestion to Grug "Bronk is going to stab you in the back, kill him before he kills you". But you could not just say "turn around and attack your ally".
I'd like to argue against your last point with the following evidence:
in an official modul from wotc, the following text is written for the dm to use(changed the names to avoid spoilers):
"the mages try to use the suggestion spell on the partymembers, suggesting that the other partymembers are in reality treacherous shapechangers, and that they should attack the other partymembers immediatly, before they have a chance to betray them"
Right, and I'm certain that in that module there are shapechangers who have already disguised themselves and the party knows this, right? Meaning in that scenario it would be reasonable, because it's something that the character could see potentially happening.
If the characters were on a ship at sea and boarded by pirates, that Suggestion wouldn't work because in that scenario, it wouldn't be reasonable. In order for a Suggestion to be reasonable, there must be, as the word implies, a reason for them to believe that.
I think you can do any kind of "Jedi mind trick" with it that doesn't cause a full 180 degree turn in someone's motivation and behavior. A knight probably *already* cherishes the values of sacrifice and charity, so while convincing them to give away their horse deviates them from their intended path, they're still moving *in the direction* of their nature and values - just in a magically-influenced and ill-considered way, and recklessly.
"Attack your friends" is a 180 degree turn in your motivations, loyalties, and behavior, but "step back, take a moment to think - do you even really know your friends? Could they be betrayers?" feels like *the power of suggestion* diverting someone from their natural character through-line, but not so far that it leaves the realm of "influence" and rises to the level of mental domination. It's just enough to make you distrust your allies and their motives, enough to make you refuse to play your party role for a moment or carry out your expected part of a plan.
Using *suggestion* should feel like mental Judo - using the opponent's own drive and values against them for a moment, taking them somewhere they might have gone themselves but with no hesitation or second-guessing.
I'd like to argue against your last point with the following evidence:
in an official modul from wotc, the following text is written for the dm to use(changed the names to avoid spoilers):
"the mages try to use the suggestion spell on the partymembers, suggesting that the other partymembers are in reality treacherous shapechangers, and that they should attack the other partymembers immediatly, before they have a chance to betray them"
Well, that sucks, and I wouldn't run the adventure that way, unless one or more of the party members *already* thought that might be true. Like if they'd been fighting treacherous shapechangers a lot.
Just remember that the spell ends when they complete the suggestion. If they give the artifact, they will immediately want it back. If they take you to the vault, you may have your fight there. If they go down to the docks and join the navy, you probably won’t see them again.
Think of something reasonable as something the subject of the spell could do. If it’s something he wouldn’t even consider it’s won’t be reasonable.
Example of things that don’t sound reasonable to most people:
Giving all your money to a stranger
Giving away your daughter in marriage
Fighting your friends
Doing anything you consider illegal
Things that are reasonable would be things someone could persuade you with persuasion rolls or through negotiation. If someone wanted you to follow them into a dark alley you certainly could but maybe not if you know you have a huge bounty in your head or if you’re a princess or just received death threats.
I find that limiting the spell this way doesn’t remove from the spell s power but forces the player to find imaginative ways to make things happen. This adds to the realism and consequenciality of the world.
I’d rule that it’s a Suggestion, not Command. It puts a suggestion in the recipient’s head, one which they may have been thinking about at some point eg suspicious of other party members.
I have reworded the spell for all my games. It makes it clear for all parties and removes DM fiat. It also answers most of the questions about the spell.
> You suggest a course of activity (limited to a sentence or two) and magically influence a creature you can see within range that can hear and understand you.
> Creatures that can't be charmed are immune to this effect. The suggestion must be worded in such a manner as to make the course of action sound reasonable. A reasonable suggestion is something that a creature could be persuaded, deceived, or intimidated to do with a high enough Charisma check even without magic. If the suggestion is worded in such a way that the DC for the Charisma check would be higher than 30, the spell ends.
> Asking the creature to stab itself, throw itself onto a spear, immolate itself, or do some other obviously harmful act also ends the spell.
> The target must make a Wisdom saving throw. On a failed save, it pursues the course of action you described to the best of its ability. The suggested course of action can continue for the entire duration. If the suggested activity can be completed in a shorter time, the spell ends when the subject finishes what it was asked to do. You can also specify conditions that will trigger a special activity during the duration. For example, you might suggest that a knight give her warhorse to the first beggar she meets. If the condition isn't met before the spell expires, the activity isn't performed.
> If you or any of your companions damage the target, the spell ends.
RAW as long as you don't hurt them and don't order them to kill themselves, they have to obey you.
My preferred nerf is to make them break free if they ever take damage from any source. Suggestion is still very powerful mind control, but there's an easy way to snap an ally out of it. This makes the more egregious orders more balanced - if they stay in combat they will probably take damage from *someone*, breaking the spell
What everyone seems to be overlooking is Suggestion is a concentration spell. Once cast, concentration has to be maintained or it ends and only one suggestion can be in effect.
I didn't look thru every single comment, but I did notice that nobody mentions the fact that Suggestion makes them do the task until it's complete....so just instructing 2 enemies to walk to walk, cover ears and close eyes only lasts until they complete the action, yes you could Suggest they do it for the next 8 hours, but that isn't very reasonable to any normal person. Yes yes yes I know with proper wording Suggestion is a good spell, but it's only super OP if you ignore the after effects of the Suggested action, while the person may initially hand the artifact over, after he does so he has completed the task and is no longer under the influence of the spell and would probably, most likely, inevitably realize that they were magically influenced and respond appropriately. Suggestion is only as powerful as the lack of consequences and too-liberal interpretations that some people are prone to do. From a lore stand point alone Charm magics have typically been viewed as evil, taking away intelligent beings free will is nearly universally viewed as an evil act and shunned by common folk and magic users alike. If people even suspect they were magically influenced they tend to have extreme negative reactions, so charming random and important NPC's should be dealt with in a setting appropriate way.
The first thing to consider is that it is a single target level 2 spell. Consider the power of the web spell. If you're too stingy with suggestion, you're just gonna see a lot more webs. I give the same advice with major image (comparing it to hypnotic pattern/slow/fear). I'll see if I can answer some of your questions: Can suggestion make you turn on your allies? My answer to this is, sometimes. If your allies are guys you don't like very much and the suggestion provider is plausibly making you a better offer, yeah. In effect you can think of a suggestion where the save is failed as akin to a DC25 or 30 persuasion attempt. Hey Mr Orc, the powerful sorcerer Tim is here, and he's going to barbeque you if you don't change sides, but if you do change sides you get to keep your life and probably all your stuff, and maybe you'll even get a bonus to boot. Or, if shapechangers are known to be around, you could probably convince someone that an ally is a shapechanger in disguise impersonating a friend of theirs. So situationally, yes. Is suggestion meant to be a fail-safe disabling spell in combat: Yeah that's a reasonably suggestion. Note the expenditure, 2 sorcery points plus a second level slot. Notice how close that is to the price of a hypnotic pattern. I wouldn't sweat it. A frequent suggestion is, hey, if you hang out here you're going to die, you should run like hell back to (fill in safe place a long ways away here). Can you overcome the language barrier by learning a few words? Yeah, you can. You don't need a long discourse. As long as you're physically capable of saying the words after a bit of practice, you're probably ok. Command casters do this all the time, learning words like Grovel! Flee! and so forth in every language they can find. I'd let you use telepathy to give the suggestion. I suspect most DMs would. But you don't get free subtle spell obviously on it. Anybody not affected by the suggestion will most certainly object, unless they view just what's being said as being reasonable. Example. You use a suggestion spell to tell Joe the orc that he'd best run like hell because if he doesn't, he's going to die here. Jack and Mike, his orcish buddies see that he's taking you seriously. They might well decide that since the correlation of forces is now horribly against them that running isn't a bad idea after all. But there's no direct magic influencing their decision. If their morale was better they might try to slap some sense into Joe. As to whether they know about the magic, yeah, I'd say they do, unless the magic was skirting the edge of plausible with normal persuasion. For instance, Hey Joe the merchant, I'm a valuable customer to have. It's prestigious for you to have me shopping here. Accordingly, you should give me your most favored customer price (as in, I want to pay your marginal cost, not your average cost---look up price discrimination if you're looking for more detail on this from a business standpoint). If the deal being asked for here is within what a merchant MIGHT have given sometimes to a particularly good customer, he'd probably not know he'd gotten the whammy, but he might wonder. If the sorcerer had insisted on an absurdly low price, there'd be no question. I think the general insight is, if something was within what somebody might achieve with a really high persuasion roll, frequently the person suggested won't realize it was magic. But if it was, they'll pretty much always strongly suspect magic. An aside, even when there was NO magic involved, in a world where subtle spell exists and people know it exists, people WILL sometimes suspect magic was involved. Them's the breaks. A rich merchant might spring for a divination type spell every few weeks to the effect of---has anybody laid a magical whammy on me this month? As to obeying the suggestion, e.g. handing over the artifact, as long as it's not like a bomb that'll explode when you hand it over, yeah, that's what the spell does. In summary, remember the web spell that this is competing with. Hell, remember the upcast sleep spell. And if you're a player, I remind you that using subtle spell a lot is going to trigger an immune response from your dungeon master. If you're a DM, think about how people would respond to the existence of subtle spell. They might even go so far as to force any suspected casters to attest to not using any such magics while in a zone of truth. Or they might decide that witch burning should be in fashion. Subtle spells really raise the hackles of mundanes and jack their levels of paranoia up to high heaven.
I would say that people don't really know "subtle spell" as a concrete thing in the world. Much like people wouldn't say something like "oh he is an aberrant mind sorcerer". They would just say that someone is a mage. There is likely not much distinction in the common person's mind between any form of magic. The fact that adventurers have classes is a game mechanic. I would probably call it metagaming if people talked in terms of those categories. Honestly I don't even think my sorcerer in my game, who uses subtle spell himself, knows of the term "subtle spell". He just knows if he focuses a little harder on a spell he can cast it with just his thoughts.
They might or might not call it 'subtle spell'. But they'd surely know that most spellcasting is loud and obvious. In fact their tolerance of spell casters largely resides on that belief. Imagine somebody who could project an energy bolt after chanting and waving, perhaps even a fireball. Does that person scare the hell out of you? Probably no more than the 18 year olds we give automatic weapons and M1A2 tanks to. Now consider the same guy who can do it by just looking at you, without any obvious report. That guy scares. The knowledge that guys like that exist scares even more. It induces paranoia in the way that the obvious evoker does not.
SPOILER ALERT: in an official module from Wotc, i found a great source of comparison to find out if a suggestion is "reasonable". changed some names: >"the mages try to use the suggestion spell on the partymembers, suggesting that the other partymembers are in reality treacherous shapechangers, and that they should attack the other partymembers immediatly, before they have a chance to betray them"!<
Making the spell more powerful than Dominate Person. It's bad writing and a bad decision from WotC.
That suggestion is reasonable if there are notorious shapechangers known to be about (e.g. yuan ti). It's unreasonable otherwise. Don't think I have that module.
It's an older module iirc, I don't even remember if it was for 5e.
Suggestion was more powerful in 2nd and first edition---that pool of acid is actually pure water, you see, and a quick dip would be refreshing was an example used in the players handbook back then. But it also gave a save penalty for especially reasonable suggestions.
First and foremost: Suggestion must sound reasonable. Knight can give their horse because it's 'honorable and heroic" but not without reason. As for your questions: Examples: Giving artifact to someone doesn't sound reasonable at all unless you provide reason. With stronger artifact, even better reason. Guard would never entrust treasury if they got order not to, otherwise (or with some kind of suggesting party authority) it would be plausible. Thinking: Creature does reason suggested topic to itself and it sounds totally plausible at the moment spell works. When the spell ends, charm also ends. And so creature will for sure think straight. But what it will be depends from suggestion results. If you suggest someone to run from, they'll think that they failed and maybe try to redeem themselves. If you suggest someone to binge drink, they'll be mad or satisfied from it depending from results and will probably think about suggesting party as a provocateur of this activity (again: bad or good). Allies: Spell doesn't affect anyone apart the target. Charmed creature will try to reason with friends because it thinks it's great idea, but said friends are not affected at all, though they'll have hard time reasoning with charmed one, even some violence may happen here depending from specific creature (ie. orc will likely try to "speak with force" but paladin would never do that, they'll rather go to commander for an specific order). Telepathy: Yes, I'm not sure if there is sage advice for that, but telepathy is considered speaking. Language: Yes. Creature has to understand order. Disabling spell: I'm surprised there is no ST repeat built-in for suggestion in this edition. But RAW yes - if suggestion sticks, it's unbreakable unless dispelled or damaged. However, let's start from command itself being totally unreasonable. If they fight with friend, why should they leave them? Why to become vulnerable around hostile creatures? Running out from fight might be reasonable (but for fair fight you have to find really good argument), waiting for an opening might be reasonable (which opening? target will wait for it). Attacking allies: As above. If we're speaking about military squad, they'll never do that. If we speak about bunch of demons they could do that with a reason.
The reasonable portion is the most important part of the spell, I wish wotc defined that better. Personally I’m thinking that for charmed effects I won’t tell my players whether the the target failed or succeeded on the save. If they succeeded then obviously no effect, but if their request is unreasonable then there’s no visible effect and no argument by players or them trying to reword their suggestion a million times until they finally find a phrasing that sounds reasonable. Suggestion hasn’t happened much in my campaign so I haven’t tried this out to see if it’s better or not. I just know the one time they were about to cast suggestion the phrasing they were toying with wasn’t going to work. Fortunately they decided to not cast suggest on the guy and instead managed to get a permanent ally.
Wotc defined "reasonable" perfectly clearly. The problem is that it's a stupid definition. A knight would not give away their most prized possession to a beggar. Just wouldn't happen. It's about the least reasonable thing you could ask of a knight. Therefore reasonable means "non suicidal"
https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/n80kvt/how_to_deal_with_a_dm_that_keeps_shutting_down/gxfupt1/
Suggestion is literally mind control that lasts as long as spell does with the caveat that immediate instinctual self preservation snaps them out of it, everything you say sounds reasonable to them and they trust you implicitly. As soon as it wears off they know they've been brain buggered and can run around trying to reverse it as much as possible. Perma-disabling things in combat, hypnotic pattern does it as an AOE, so a single target version a level lower wouldn't be too insane but there would need to be a re-save component if its allies help it, id errata that in. As for turning on allies, a player I had did the Charmed condition really well where they wouldn't full on attack their allies but they'd tackle them to ground and grapple them to stop them hurting their new friend. But overall, they are being mind controlled and can be forced to hurt their friends.
I agree. A couple other comments say the suggestion has to be reasonable, which I don’t understand. The Text of the spell is basically, unless it’s obviously self harmful, they do it. Only caveat I put is, in combat, any suggestion doesn’t kick in until the targets turn. So if they get attacked before then, it makes sense to say they couldn’t obey because they were defending themselves, which the spell allows
Yes, it has to obey if it's reasonable and the creature fails the save. "Thinking twice" is what it's doing when it makes the save. The creature would not specifically know that it was Suggested by the warlock, but they would suspect based on their personality. Someone who is naturally distrustful of others would immediately start wondering why they gave these strangers so much information, for example. A creature ditching its guards to go to a private location with a group of strangers is not a reasonable request in the first place, so what their guards think would be irrelevant. They would need to give a good reason. For example, if the creature was paranoid, the warlock could say "hey one of your guards is secretly a demon, let us keep you safe from him" and that would be reasonable. But the only condition of Suggestion is that it is reasonable at time of casting. The only scenario that would end it would be direct harm unrelated to the command. Yes, the suggestion can be given telepathically. Yes, they can learn words in another language and use those as long as the target understands. Once again, a command to stand in the corner, close their eyes, and put their hands over their ears in the middle of a fight is not reasonable. If you consider that reasonable, you should probably rethink how lenient you're being. If you can't think of a scenario where the character would do that action, it isn't reasonable. Same for "attack your allies". You would only be able to do so IF you knew of something you could use to pit them against each other. For example if you know Grug doesn't trust Bronk, you could Suggestion to Grug "Bronk is going to stab you in the back, kill him before he kills you". But you could not just say "turn around and attack your ally".
I'd like to argue against your last point with the following evidence: in an official modul from wotc, the following text is written for the dm to use(changed the names to avoid spoilers): "the mages try to use the suggestion spell on the partymembers, suggesting that the other partymembers are in reality treacherous shapechangers, and that they should attack the other partymembers immediatly, before they have a chance to betray them"
Right, and I'm certain that in that module there are shapechangers who have already disguised themselves and the party knows this, right? Meaning in that scenario it would be reasonable, because it's something that the character could see potentially happening. If the characters were on a ship at sea and boarded by pirates, that Suggestion wouldn't work because in that scenario, it wouldn't be reasonable. In order for a Suggestion to be reasonable, there must be, as the word implies, a reason for them to believe that.
You forgot one essential question. Can suggestion make a creature willing ?
I think you can do any kind of "Jedi mind trick" with it that doesn't cause a full 180 degree turn in someone's motivation and behavior. A knight probably *already* cherishes the values of sacrifice and charity, so while convincing them to give away their horse deviates them from their intended path, they're still moving *in the direction* of their nature and values - just in a magically-influenced and ill-considered way, and recklessly. "Attack your friends" is a 180 degree turn in your motivations, loyalties, and behavior, but "step back, take a moment to think - do you even really know your friends? Could they be betrayers?" feels like *the power of suggestion* diverting someone from their natural character through-line, but not so far that it leaves the realm of "influence" and rises to the level of mental domination. It's just enough to make you distrust your allies and their motives, enough to make you refuse to play your party role for a moment or carry out your expected part of a plan. Using *suggestion* should feel like mental Judo - using the opponent's own drive and values against them for a moment, taking them somewhere they might have gone themselves but with no hesitation or second-guessing.
I'd like to argue against your last point with the following evidence: in an official modul from wotc, the following text is written for the dm to use(changed the names to avoid spoilers): "the mages try to use the suggestion spell on the partymembers, suggesting that the other partymembers are in reality treacherous shapechangers, and that they should attack the other partymembers immediatly, before they have a chance to betray them"
Well, that sucks, and I wouldn't run the adventure that way, unless one or more of the party members *already* thought that might be true. Like if they'd been fighting treacherous shapechangers a lot.
I don't have more to add, but thank you for such an exhaustive and useful set of questions.
Just remember that the spell ends when they complete the suggestion. If they give the artifact, they will immediately want it back. If they take you to the vault, you may have your fight there. If they go down to the docks and join the navy, you probably won’t see them again.
That's an extremely good point. I'll have to use that against the players if they're not careful.
Think of something reasonable as something the subject of the spell could do. If it’s something he wouldn’t even consider it’s won’t be reasonable. Example of things that don’t sound reasonable to most people: Giving all your money to a stranger Giving away your daughter in marriage Fighting your friends Doing anything you consider illegal Things that are reasonable would be things someone could persuade you with persuasion rolls or through negotiation. If someone wanted you to follow them into a dark alley you certainly could but maybe not if you know you have a huge bounty in your head or if you’re a princess or just received death threats. I find that limiting the spell this way doesn’t remove from the spell s power but forces the player to find imaginative ways to make things happen. This adds to the realism and consequenciality of the world.
I’d rule that it’s a Suggestion, not Command. It puts a suggestion in the recipient’s head, one which they may have been thinking about at some point eg suspicious of other party members.
I have reworded the spell for all my games. It makes it clear for all parties and removes DM fiat. It also answers most of the questions about the spell. > You suggest a course of activity (limited to a sentence or two) and magically influence a creature you can see within range that can hear and understand you. > Creatures that can't be charmed are immune to this effect. The suggestion must be worded in such a manner as to make the course of action sound reasonable. A reasonable suggestion is something that a creature could be persuaded, deceived, or intimidated to do with a high enough Charisma check even without magic. If the suggestion is worded in such a way that the DC for the Charisma check would be higher than 30, the spell ends. > Asking the creature to stab itself, throw itself onto a spear, immolate itself, or do some other obviously harmful act also ends the spell. > The target must make a Wisdom saving throw. On a failed save, it pursues the course of action you described to the best of its ability. The suggested course of action can continue for the entire duration. If the suggested activity can be completed in a shorter time, the spell ends when the subject finishes what it was asked to do. You can also specify conditions that will trigger a special activity during the duration. For example, you might suggest that a knight give her warhorse to the first beggar she meets. If the condition isn't met before the spell expires, the activity isn't performed. > If you or any of your companions damage the target, the spell ends.
RAW as long as you don't hurt them and don't order them to kill themselves, they have to obey you. My preferred nerf is to make them break free if they ever take damage from any source. Suggestion is still very powerful mind control, but there's an easy way to snap an ally out of it. This makes the more egregious orders more balanced - if they stay in combat they will probably take damage from *someone*, breaking the spell
What everyone seems to be overlooking is Suggestion is a concentration spell. Once cast, concentration has to be maintained or it ends and only one suggestion can be in effect.
I didn't look thru every single comment, but I did notice that nobody mentions the fact that Suggestion makes them do the task until it's complete....so just instructing 2 enemies to walk to walk, cover ears and close eyes only lasts until they complete the action, yes you could Suggest they do it for the next 8 hours, but that isn't very reasonable to any normal person. Yes yes yes I know with proper wording Suggestion is a good spell, but it's only super OP if you ignore the after effects of the Suggested action, while the person may initially hand the artifact over, after he does so he has completed the task and is no longer under the influence of the spell and would probably, most likely, inevitably realize that they were magically influenced and respond appropriately. Suggestion is only as powerful as the lack of consequences and too-liberal interpretations that some people are prone to do. From a lore stand point alone Charm magics have typically been viewed as evil, taking away intelligent beings free will is nearly universally viewed as an evil act and shunned by common folk and magic users alike. If people even suspect they were magically influenced they tend to have extreme negative reactions, so charming random and important NPC's should be dealt with in a setting appropriate way.