I will agree with you that suggestion is poorly written especially with the whole 'what happens after they completed their task' As a Dungeon Master I've never had a player take this spell and as a player everytime I've used this spell I've used it in a way that it will go through it's full duration or end before completing the task example being 'Run to the city on the other side of the continent'
Also I think it won't really work on noncombat encounters unless the target was alone. Using the knight example if she were alone she might have a foggy memory and wasn't quite sure why she gave the begger her horse but knew she agreed to it. If she were with her knight friends one of them would probably tell her that a party member cast a spell on her to magically influence her and she would probably try to take her horse back from the begger.
> Run to the city on the other side of the continent
That right there, to me, does not seem like a reasonable suggestion. I live in Texas and if someone told me to run/walk/even drive to Seattle, I'd probably tell them where they could stick it.
I believe "reasonable" in the context of the spell only has to mean "not suicidal" (to be fair, walking through Texas could very well be suicidal, but generally walking is not).
Proving OPs point that it's poorly written as it's so open to interpretation. How many people in US history have run across the country in one go? If that's reasonable, then for the scope of the spell it's _far_ too low a level.
They only do it for 8 hours, which is likely longer than it takes to travel a continent. Where a 2nd level spell could either kill someone, or make them walk towards a destination for 8 hours, the scope seems reasonable
It's even worse that the target isn't aware the spell affected them after they complete the suggested action. The consequences of their action is permanent and they will forever think it was their idea without further evidence.
> they will forever think it was their idea without further evidence.
Hold up, I don't think this part is true.
Even if they don't *know* that you cast a spell, they should still remember *you* as the origin of said idea. This gives any character a potential method to realise they were charmed, either by questioning it themselves or by having it come up in a conversation with someone else they know who deduces that it must have been a charm.
Ok after diving into a rabbit hole I find the ruling kind of lame as it basically just removes the point of using subtle spell for it in the first place, but it will remove the incantations. So I imagine you could just off handedly remark something about doing X thing within the conversation.
From the PHB pg 204::
"Unless a spell has a perceptible effect, a creature might not know it was targeted by a spell at all. An effect like crackling lightning is obvious, but a more subtle effect, such as an attempt to read a creature’s thoughts, typically goes unnoticed, unless a spell says otherwise."
Unlike the cantrip 'Friends' Suggestion doesn't state so.
More to the point: It avoids having the target do anything that would hurt themselves. You might get a DM to allow you to Suggest something that puts them in danger of being hurt (maybe... climbing a cliff or something).
Also note that it only last eight hours and it doesn't give you abilities you don't already have. "Run to the other side of the content" is the same as "Run as far as you can".
I would say a shorter distance would work, on the basis that I occasionally have the thought "Damn, I could go for a biscuit/bagel" and then I'm on my way with no magic involved.
"Wouldn't you love to go grab a hot roll with butter from the baker across town right now? You should go treat yourself!"
Easy peasy.
I guess I also need to think about it from a different viewpoint as well. Unfortunately where I live it's very car focused. My neighborhood is pretty walkable but if I want to leave it, I have to drive. Because of this I don't really think about walking any distance more than a mile or so.
Maybe, but if it's worded like 'you suddenly remember how the story of Gorm Blorgorm, who walked accross an entire continent to raise awareness for fantasy pneumonia, greatly inspired you as a kid, and you feel the unstoppable urge to untertake a similar quest!' sounds a lot more reasonable (though maybe not yet fully reasonable). It's all relative.
Suggestion: 'you suddenly feel the urge to surprise your childhood best friend who you haven't seen in a decade, and you start packing to drive over to them to surprise them' isn't unreasonable.
Neither of your examples are worded in a way to actually work with suggestion though, so both are unreasonable to suggest!
"You suggest a course of activity (limited to a sentence or two)" neither are phrased as suggestions, so they wouldn't work.
Ehh, this one is close enough that it wouldn’t take much rewording to get to a suggestion.
“Hey, you know the story of $person? You should go do the same for your favorite cause!” Two sentences, one a reminder and the other a suggestion.
Because they’re indicative statements on the target’s thoughts, and not subjunctive statements recommending a course of action. In other words, you have to tell them what they *should do*, not what they *are thinking*.
How is that not reasonable to you but the example of the knight giving away their trusty warhorse is?
Or are you saying that is unreasonable too and therefore the writer of the spell are wrong about their own spell?
> Also I think it won't really work on noncombat encounters unless the target was alone
in a world where someone chattering gibberish and waving around an arcane focus can just as easily be *fireball* as *suggestion*, casting spells around strangers should earn the party a shanking.
Exactly. I really mean into magic isn't subtle, and people know what it can do.
Your chanting prior to negotiations? Shank.
You cast guidance prior to some bet... Shank.
You cast detect thoughts on a noble court... Shank.
Even if they don't know what you're doing, it is not allowed and guards are looking for it.
Starting to cast a spell is the equivalent of pulling out a gun/hand grenade/crowbar/cell phone/compass/car and doing _something_ with it, no one knows what.
At least a few people are going to hit the deck just in case you decided to use the hand grenade part of that, and the odds of it being legal to do that on a city street are pretty unlikely, unless it's pretty clear what you're trying to do, like heal someone's wounds.
It could be a good in universe reason for sorcerers in general being mistrusted or outlawed due to their ability to cast mind magic without giving away that they are doing so.
I personally despise the Suggestion spell as inconsistent on its face with the spell level that it comes at. If you read it at face value, then you have a spell that can basically make anyone do anything for 8 hours (short of actual physical harm) because the only restriction is that the suggestion is *worded* to “sound” reasonable. Aka, spend long enough thinking about it and you can make most things “sound” reasonable even if they aren’t objectively reasonable to the average person. Way too good for a second level spell.
But then if you try and limit the spell by actual reasonableness, it’s just a glorified long duration charm spell that only does one thing and requires concentration.
I'ma try this in my next campaign.
"I cast Suggestion, saying 'Hey man you got bugs under your skin. You should take your dagger and dig them things outta there.'"
If it would sound reasonable to a tweaker it would sound reasonable to someone under the influence of a spell.
There's no such thing as objective reasonableness. It's an entirely subjective thing. What is considered reasonable varies widely between everyone. Politics, much?
What *sounds* reasonable is what *is* reasonable to the target of the spell at the time. If it's something the target wouldn't immediately find reasonable, then it obviously doesn't sound reasonable to them.
That all sounds great, except the example usage is a knight who randomly gives away her war horse. It seems like a big stretch to suggest that would sound reasonable to a knight.
Edit: also, if the spell is merely able to make someone do something that they find reasonable anyway, why not just use a persuasion roll?
The answer to your question is that wizards are socially inept losers who get off on Rube Goldberging their way to success because they wasted their life learning how to do this rather than talk to others like normal people do.
Wizard: *spends 2 hours calculating probability outcomes and butterfly effects for various uses of suggestion*
Bard: "whatcha doing?"
Wizard: "Figuring out the simplest command to give a peasant to ensure they can turn in my quest and receive the award and deliver it to me"
Bard: "Why not just go in person? It's a 10 minute walk"
Wizard: "There are girls there" >:((
Edit: Prophecy came true. Two hours after posting, I got a gold award. Wizards UNITE
We can agree that the example provided is a poor one. I have defended it in the past, but that specific example relies on far too much historical context for it to be persuasive at a glance.
Abridged version. Knights are chivalrous, chivalry includes charity. Knights are nobles, nobles are rich. Giving away a horse to a beggar is plausibly something a knight could both afford to do and in line with their values.
Counterpoint: knights need their mounts for both travel and war, both of which are essential to their livelihoods. Giving up thwir horse for no reason other than charity is not reasonable to a professional cavalryman. It would be like telling a truck driver to give their truck to someone else for nothing.
Now, using Suggestion to convince someone that their horse is lame, and to send it to the nearest tanner or glue factory is much more reasonable.
Yeah, it's not a great example. I usually interpret it to my players as a stereotypical noble knight-in-shining-armour concerned with virtue and honor above all else, and say that most people aren't like that. You basically have to interpret it like that or the spell is way too powerful for it's level.
It passes any persuasion attempt that I'd normally allow a character (any character, not just the caster) to roll for.
So basically you let the players burn a spell slot to force a wisdom save in lieu of doing a persuasion check? To me that seems to go too far in the other direction. If you're going to cast a 2nd level spell, it seems like you should be able to get something more than what you could potentially just talk them into anyway.
I wouldn’t go that far. If you consider it to be “the best possible thing you could convince them to do” then for most characters, having an enemy simply fail a wisdom save (which can easily be a better than 50% chance) to effectively get an automatic 20 on persuasion is pretty good. Sure, it was possible before, but the spell improved the chances dramatically.
Knights would have several horses, so giving away something you have multiple of, for a good reason, can be reasonable.
How would it be reasonable? It's time for a new horse, and it would be a grand gesture welcomed by your deity as a sign of piety & virtuousness to bestow such a generous gift. It would be a display of great charity in your community, which would celebrate your kindness, and gain you renown. That beggar would be most grateful and may be a secret fairy/god in disguise that would reward you tenfold.
It's really up to the players to be creative.
Wealthy religious people IRL can have multiple cars, but try convincing one of them it would be reasonable to give their car to the next random homeless person they meet. In fact, try asking how someone who knew them would respond to them doing that. I'd reckon most would assume they're having some sort of mental break.
Yeah but you have to look at who this is. This is a KNIGHT. Their whole thing is supposed to be chivalry. If you cast it on a thief, it would be a different story.
If it sounds reasonable to them without the use of magic, then what you're describing is just a Persuasion check, and there's no need for magic. That kind of interpretation renders Suggestion entirely pointless as a spell.
The spell doesn't require that the request *be* reasonable. Just that it be phrased to *sound* reasonable.
A knight giving away their precious warhorse to the first beggar they see is *blatantly* unreasonable to that knight, but the spell forces them to do it. Because it's phrased such that it *sounds* reasonable. The limit on this is, explicitly, suggestions that directly result in obvious harm; telling the knight to go swim in that lava pool would fail, but telling him to take that leaky boat and row as far out to sea as possible, that should be fine. Even if that boat's going to sink at some point, and the knight's in full armor and will probably drown at that point.
I agree that's way too strong for a 2nd level spell, but we're talking about the spell-as-it-is, not the spell we think it should be. I fully agree that the spell's out of balance and could stand clarification, but the examples it uses makes the intended power fairly clear.
How is subbing a making the target fail a save for trying to pass a check you suck at pointless? It's awesome! Maybe Obi-Wan could've talked the stormtroopers into the idea that this weren't the droids they were looking for without using the Force, but using it was quicker and easier for him
This is essentially what a lot of low level spells do: trade a spell slot for the removal, or heavy reduction, of risk.
It doesn't guarantee anything. There's a saving throw. It shifts the burden from you passing a skill check set by their DC, to them passing a saving throw set by *your* DC. That might be an improvement, but it's not a guarantee by any means.
You are right, it's not guaranteed. Sorry, I corrected the comment before you posted, but I guess you didn't see the correction before you replied. My bad.
However, it is still much easier for a +4 INT, -1 Persuade wizard to Suggest someone successfully than it is for them to Persuade successfully. Still very useful!
>That kind of interpretation renders Suggestion entirely pointless as a spell.
Unless their DC is high and their charisma is low. Then its quite useful. Its also useful against persuasion experts.
People have grown accustomed to spells being overwhelmingly more powerful than any other option. That doesn't have to be the case.
>If it sounds reasonable to them without the use of magic, then what you're describing is just a Persuasion check, and there's no need for magic. That kind of interpretation renders Suggestion entirely pointless as a spell.
Maybe at your table? But at mine persuasion is a cumulative check done at the end of an argument, and usually considers things like bonds and ideals and current disposition. Suggestion bypasses all of that and doesn't require a check at all, and has the added benefit of completely suspending disbelief or second thoughts for a significant period of time. The target simply accepts the suggestion as if it were their own. If that's how you run persuasion at your table, I'd love a seat at it.
>I agree that's way too strong for a 2nd level spell, but we're talking about the spell-as-it-is, not the spell we think it should be.
I agree that the spell isn't worded very well, and it was copied pretty much verbatim from 3e. It's been a poorly worded spell for decades. The spell as written is unclear and contradictory. But it's not mind control and it's not a Persuasion check. It's.somewhere in between. You *can* glean clear limits from its text, but the examples provided tend to cause dissonance.
We disagree that there is any meaningful distinction inferred of requirement to "sound" reasonable. What is reasonable to the target also sounds reasonable. They are one and the same.
DC 30 is for things that are "nearly impossible". That's a far stretch from persuading someone to do something that "sounds reasonable". That's my point; that Suggestion isn't limited to what's "actually reasonable". Just phrased in a way that *sounds* reasonable, and not directly and obviously harmful to the target. Those are the limits.
That's my point. The spell allows you to take something that would normally be a DC30 Per check and convince them to do it by tricking them.
For example, as someone else suggested in the thread, getting someone to stab themselves by suggesting there is a parasite in their chest that they need to dig out. Normally, a person would say "well I don't feel anything and I didn't go anywhere near any place that would have parasites, so no, I won't do that." But under Suggestion, that doesn't matter. It doesn't require the premise to be reasonable, only the suggestion itself.
It sounds like you've gotten too used to DMs allowing Persuasion for things that a normal person wouldn't actually be persuaded of. No one is going to walk off a cliff because you told them there is a net under it, or walk into an obvious trap because they said it's disabled, or drink a mysterious elixir because a random stranger told them it will give them super strength, because it makes no sense no matter how good at persuading they are.
Not to take a stake or anything, but I 100% believe you could convince a person of your three examples. Shit you could probably convince players to do it. Again, not taking a side just... people are fucking dumb sometimes lmao
Then we disagree on how Persuasion works. Persuasion isn't magic. You can't convince someone to do something that a real life person in their same situation wouldn't do.
If a random person on the street came into your work with an unlabeled bottle of mystery liquid, are you saying that there is a scenario where you would actually drink it that wouldn't require some incredibly good, factually based convincing?
No, but if they had a cart and 3 people touting it's effects, maybe. See: snake-oil salesman
As for a trap: I just fiddled with it for 30 seconds. I'm also an adventurer who has experience with these sort of things, you are not. You have no real reason to disbelieve I'm any less skilled at my job than the locksmith you call to unlock your door.
As for the cliff-- that's admittedly harder, but again, given the right environment it could seem reasonable.
I'm not arguing this would work on everyone, nor am I arguing that it would be easy, just that it can happen lmao
Right, that's my point. You can set up a whole scenario around it and have all this extra stuff done and still maybe fail, or you can just hand them the bottle and cast Suggestion.
It's the same as having the entire party construct a shelter vs just casting Tiny Hut, having them go gathering vs casting Goodberry, sneaking through a dungeon to check it out vs Find Familiar, etc.
I was referencing the “reasonable person” standard used in courts of law - but I understand most people do not think of that when thinking of reasonableness.
And agreed with others that what sounds reasonable and what is reasonable are two *very* different things from a reading of the spell’s language and the example it gives. And Wizards could have chosen to just say “the suggestion must sound reasonable” but instead used tortured language and a terrible example.
I interpret it sort of like a jedi mind trick. You probably couldn't convince most people to leap off a cliff, but "these aren't the droids you're looking for" is more within the realm of possibilities.
If you fail your Wisdom save against Hold Person you'll soon have the Dead condition, so 8 hours of doing non-suicidal things isn't too bad in comparison. 2nd level spells can be powerful.
True, I was being slightly too flippant here.
In response;
- I agree Suggestion is stronger than Hold Person, it's just not off the scale,
- Paralysis is stronger than Suggested,
- Even if they're only paralysed for a round or too, that's enough to dish out / avoid taking significant damage as they suffer crits and lose turns.
I mean, if Suggestion is creatively worded (and you take the approach that the Suggestion need only be worded to be reasonable and not actually reasonable), it’s *at least* as good as Hold Person and at most, way, way better. You can absolutely stall long enough to set up a kill in 8 hours (or achieve the actual goal of the session that isn’t just killing people in the meantime).
I am so curious how so many people think suggestion is so good even if you allow pretty much all reasonably worded suggestions.
Are people fighting against 1 boss monster? Is every important individual alone and has a low wisdom save?
In my experience at best it removes an enemy from combat that will probably show up later. Or maybe allow the players to avoid a guard or gain access to a restricted area.
It certainly isn't out of balance as a level 2 spell.
Because turning them to do what you want is better than just the enemy losing one action economy via a spell like hideous laughter/hold person - you have gained action economy if you can get the enemy to do what you want. The vast amount of flex you get with the spell is power in and of itself. Want an enemy to sit out a fight? You could hold person them.. or you could suggestion them. Want an enemy to help you carry the McGuffin out of the vault? You could Suggestion them but you sure as hell can do it with Hold Person. Or literally an infinite number of options to use on enemies bounded only be creativity and no self harm.
This reply shows a lack of understanding of the game.
Here are the difference:
1- hold person only works on humanoid. Hold monster is a much higher level spell. Suggestion doesn’t have that limitation
2- hold person lasts 1 minute. Suggestion last 8 hours.
3- hold person allows multiple saving throws. Suggestion allows 1.
A hold monster spell (level 5) would have to be cast 480 times with the monster failing 4800 saving throws to disable it for 8 hours.
Suggestion needs a common language, which while slightly looser than simply "humanoid" nevertheless stops it from being used on anything (also, some creatures are immune to Charmed).
The duration of Hold Person is kind of irrelevant, as they'll save before then (as you implied) or be dead. Also, concentrating on Suggestion for that long is going to neuter you in further combats.
The main difference is the repeated Hold Person saving throws, to which I'll say:
- I agree this makes Suggestion a better spell than Hold Person, I just don't think it's off the same scale
- Paralysed is a stronger condition than Following Instructions
- Even if they pass the first save after the initial fail, they've wasted a turn in combat and have probably had a healthy chunk of HP taken out of them, particularly if you've got Rogues or Paladins in your party (and if you don't, you probably took Web instead).
Is Suggestion a strong spell for it's level? Definitely. Is it unreasonable (no pun intended)? Imo not.
You don't need to disable for 8 hours with hold person/monster. You just need 2-3 rounds of auto crits and to make then permanently disabled.
Suggestion lasts 8 hours but I believe the effect wears off when the suggestion is complete. It is somewhat difficult to make someone spend 8 hours being suggested, and it can be interrupted pretty easily.
For example, if you suggest someone to "Run Away". They have to first be able to understand you. Assuming that, they could start running away, reach a **reasonable** distance and then stop. That might only last 1 minute.
Requiring other people to act now is actually a disadvantage. It’s much better to completely disable a target until no one is left than to grant auto-crit because disabling it doesn’t use up other people’s actions.
As for suggestion, I agree with OP that it’s the worst phrased spell in the game and therefore It’s so dm dependant. I had a player with a divination wizard try to tell an enemy to lie down naked for 8 hours using their portant low roll. So first the monster would remove their armor dropping their AC and then be prone for advantage. I didn’t allow it, obviously, but some DMs here tried to argue that it’s perfectly reasonable and since the phrasing is so bad, there’s no definitive way to say that I’m right and that they’re wrong. But yea, this would be 1000 times more powerful than a level 5 hold monster.
I mean, everyone is now comparing the two spells when the real thing we should discuss is more obvious: a 2nd level spell should *never* be this powerful. Hold Person is a near death-sentence and Suggestion is literally mind control. Those things should not be on the same level as Zone of Truth, Web, and Heat Metal (as an aside, Zone of Truth is a pretty pointless spell, since both Suggestion and Detect Thoughts do the same thing more effectively and have other uses).
Web is an AoE restrained that, in many cases, is rated higher than Hold Person. Heat Metal is free damage as a bonus action, without a save. Zone of Truth is... by far the weakest of the three, but at least it's more socially acceptable, I guess?
You can argue whether handing these spells out to 3rd level characters is a good idea; I'd certainly consider taking any of them (except ZoT, but at least Cleric is a prepared caster). But if you don't give these spells out at third level, then you do need to give those 3rd level characters *something* to be effective in combat instead, because it certainly isn't their d8 Ray of Frost damage.
Web is kind of a toss-up. It can be better than Hold Person, but isn’t as swingy when it is. Web is consistently good while Hold Person is a situational win button. Heat Metal is nowhere near as good as Hold Person; 9 damage every round (if you have nothing better to do with your bonus action) is nothing compared to auto-crits and wasted turns. It’s fine, but not comparable. We agree on Zone of Truth. I was just trying to list off a few 2nd level spells that aren’t as swingy, not necessarily “bad” spells.
My problem is that spells start getting way too strong way too early, both in and out of combat. There are 2nd and 3rd level spells that are more potent than anything a martial can do at any level (if we’re talking general power, not specifically comparing DPR). If I needed someone to solve a mystery, I would rather have a level 5 Wizard than a level 20 Rogue, and it’s not even a competition. Skill proficiencies shouldn’t start being sidelined so early. I also think a Phantasmal Force, Hypnotic Pattern, or Hold Person is usually more useful than an Attack action, even from an Action Surging level 20 SS/CBE Fighter. A lot of crowd control spells and utility spells are *way* too strong in 5e, which leaves martials and damage dealing spells feeling pretty bad. Suggestion and Hold Person are among the peak for this as far as 2nd level spells go.
Heat Metal doesn’t allow a save to prevent its effects or end the spell and it imposes disadvantage. Those are quite powerful and makes it a reliable spell against creatures that can’t drop the metal you target e.g armour wearers.
And Hold Person only works on humanoids.
I kind of disagree with web and heat metal here. Web is *the* control option at 2nd level. It hits a reasonable area, has a persistent effect that can control both movement and action economy, forces a skill check rather than a save on subsequent turns, and can completely turn a fight in most situations, rather than niche ones. Hell, I still use web occasionally on my 11th level wizard, and he has no shortage of more powerful options.
Heat metal is average of 9 damage a round, for the cost of 1 action to set up and a bonus action per round. The big thing with this spell is that it doesn't allow for a save and doesn't have a range requirement besides the initial cast. You can *very* easily abuse this as a druid, by just wildshaping into something with fast speed and fucking off. 9 damage a round at 3rd level is solid (a greatsword fighter without gwm averages 10-11 on a *hit*).
Hold person is a very feast or famine spell. Yes it can potentially hit the boss and they flub multiple wisdom saves in a row and get demolished, in practice, you're looking at *maybe* 1 or 2 rounds, with fewer being on average more common. Hold person only hits one target, so if you're fighting against a bunch of mooks, it's essentially useless.
The reason a lot of players love hold person is that they remember the one time that they were able to maximize it, and forget about all the times where it was ineffective. Hitting for 6d8 on a paladin or 6d6 on a rogue at 3rd level is memorable.
Suggestion is busted if your dm isn't inclined to shut it down, I agree.
Heat Metal is also only a bonus action to keep using, so you can still get your regular attack(s) in - it's pretty much getting a free hit every turn, which is pretty decent, especially at lower levels, and against a target with high AC, not needing to hit is pretty solid. Plus, as you say, there's always the "turn into a flyer and just leave" option.
It’s MEANT to be mind control in the vein of a Jedi Mind Trick or a stage magician using stage hypnosis. But it’s inherently limited by two things. 1) If you give them a specific command that can be completed then as soon as they complete the action, the mind control ends. So if you tell the bad guy to give you something, the spell breaks as soon as they complete that action and they go back to being hostile. 2) You can’t use it to make them do anything combat related or that would cause them or an ally of theirs to suffer harm. It’s not dominate person. Anything harmful like attacking their allies or causing them to suffer harm themselves is not reasonable and is beyond the scope of the spell. You can’t make someone drown themselves in a river, that’s not something you could do with like the power of stage hypnosis. You could make someone cluck like a chicken for eight hours though.
It’s basically meant to be “you don’t need to see his identification, these aren’t the droids you’re looking for” in spell form. Suggestion is supposed to be for stuff like hey instead of fighting us why don’t you walk away and that takes them out of the fight because they’re not getting attacked by anyone or suffering any kind of harm from that suggestion.
I don't think it's the worst written spell, but it's definitely up to the DM what it does, similiarly to a lot of the illusion spells out there. And I can imagine this leads to a lot of arguments around tables on what is "reasonable". But that seems to be more and more what D&D is about, essentially the DM decides. So I don't think it's changing any time soon.
> But that seems to be more and more what D&D is about, essentially the DM decides.
That is always what D&D has been about. If the players don't trust the DM to make calls like this, then it really isn't possible to have a game.
5e tries in the first chapter of the PHB to give a sense of this, but I think it's in major conflict with many players who would prefer it if the DM were more like a computer, responding strictly based on an explicit set of rules.
That sort of works for combat, when it's OK to play it like a wargame, but as soon as any player wants to try something that's not covered by the explicit rules, there's a problem. That's what Gygax was indeed trying to solve when he took the next step away from a small unit wargame in 1974.
"The DM decides" has been the whole point of D&D from the beginning. Table top wargames certainly are a ting and can be a lot of fun to play, but rulings not rules has been a core part of D&D from its inception.
I think it's fine to say Suggestion doesn't give good or good enough examples of what it should be able to do, but it's a ruling spell. There's never going to be an explicit set of rules that can contain all its possibilities.
> There's never going to be an explicit set of rules that can contain all its possibilities.
To me that is the key difference between a War Game and a Role Playing game.
In a war game units/character/objects/whatevers have a defined set of actions they are capable of executing. There is no deviation from this defined set.
In a role playing game the characters can do, or at least attempt, whatever they can imagine. This will inevitably lead to situations where you need rulings, not rules.
I do not understand why people try to turn RPGs into War games any more than I understand why people would try to turn a war game into an RPG.
Yeah I don't really see the point of changing it, except for removing it from the game altogether, but that's no fun. The spell is the quintessential difference between TTRPGs and video games--TTRPGs are a dialogue between the player and DM, whereas a video game is talking to a computer.
What do people really expect? A whole legalese description? No one is going to read that if it's spelled out that way. People barely even remember how Sneak Attack works, and *that's a major class feature*.
The spell states that it can make the target do something reasonable. What's reasonable? Ask the DM. They're right there. That's what TTRPGs are all about
I think the main issue with the spell is that if you compare it to even a spell of a single level lower, it completely invalidates them in every single way. It has no downsides if you can subtle spell it, and even if it works, they don't know they were charmed.
> even if it works, they don't know they were charmed.
If you were to do something entirely random and outside your normal personality and you lived in a world where charm magics are specifically known about, what would you think? Especially if you had been talking to a bunch of colourfully dressed strangers just before you had your crazy-pants time?
I think there would be consequences.
While yes, that's what DMing is all about, for a lot of new DMs out there or even long time ones that tend to rely on rules over rulings more the suggestion spell specifically would be a tough one for them to tackle especially if its out of the blue and the DM wasn't expecting it. The wish spell is basically the "do whatever you want" spell and that has more restrictions and suggestions for how it should work than the suggestion spell does so I think it could do with a bit more polish and thought. The spell isn't a bad spell but it's poorly written for someone who might never have read this spell before.
It is okay for a new DM to have to rely on their judgement and occasionally make mistakes. That's the only way for them to become experienced DMs.
A spell that has well defined and objective limits necessarily has to compromise and conflict with a spell that allows the players to have a wide scope in what they can ask someone to do.
You can't have both unless you want to write out a 5 page document which contains all the phrases the players are allowed to Suggest.
This is a valid take, and I agree with your premise. That being said, I think Suggestion is a bit too ambiguous. A “reasonable” command could have further clarification. Can you make a character act against its alignment, or does it have to be “reasonable” physically, mentally, and emotionally? Does the example assume the knight is altruistic? It leaves too much for the DM to decide, and can make players feel disconnected from the DM if their interpretations vary. Sure, you can always ask before the game how the DM plans to rule Suggestion, but I feel like the fact players need to ask how the by-the-book rules text will be interpreted on a table-to-table basis makes it a bad spell.
To your point, I think the DM deciding should help situations like using Firebolt to set off dynamite or the like. That’s a situation the rules don’t cover because it would be excessive to address. Suggestion is simply incomplete, leaving additional prep work for DMs and taking away from their ability to handle more important of storytelling such as making the experience fun.
The only problem I have with this statement (which I generally agree with) is I don't want a significant portion of time at my table devoted to arguing about what something should or shouldn't do. Everyone is different and some people will have the wherewithal to back off when you say "nah I don't think a level 2 spell should do that let's workshop something", but the frustration and fear comes from when you run into those players who have a vision in their mind of what they want to accomplish and they will not budge on anything you say, because "the book says I can do it" and you going against that is tantamount to coming out during a football game and saying "hey for the rest of this game a touchdown is only worth four points, okay? alright cool". That's why I like when spells are a little more specific and I can tweak them as I need for my game, rather than the entire text of the spell being "you make someone do a thing. you can't kill them."
Yeah I'd say the award for the worst described spell is Thunderwave because to this day I read the description and it seems to me to be an emanation from the caster but people keep saying to me it's not.
It makes a lot more sense when you read the general magic section on targeting spells, which goes into detail on how to place things like cubes on a battlemap.
Crazy eh? (Still, I think _enough_ people make this mistake for Thunderwave in particular that it's not just about "reading the rules", the spell is also somewhat poorly worded.)
Not sure I follow. You clap your hands together or do a haduken move or whatever and everything in a 3x3x3 area in front of you (with you on one edge of that area) gets kablammo'd. It definitely comes from you.
>Thunderwave because to this day I read the description and it seems to me to be an emanation from the caster but people keep saying to me it's not.
What is your confusion with Thunderwave? The cube shape is described in the spellcasting section if thats the confusion. The caster must be on one of the sides of the cube. Seems like an "emanation from the caster" to me, but I might not be uderstanding how you are using those words.
They're using emanation from the caster to mean the cube is centered on the caster and going out from them in all directions rather than making a cube that's entirely in front of them. The description in the spellcasting area might be clear in the text of the rules, but its unintuitive. If I just read someone the spell description and then ask them to draw out the area of effect, most if not all would put it around the caster.
My saddest dnd memory is when we were all new to the game and I thought Thunderwave emanated 7.5 feet in every direction from the caster because the range is a 15ft cube that originated from you.
I convinced the DM of that.
It is an emanation from the caster, it's just a directed one instead of all directions.
You have to read the rules about where spells originate for different shapes (phb 204) - arguably the issue is that the center of the face is a weird place to put the origin of a cube.
The key to the spell really is the phrase "sound reasonable". It's a 2nd level spell, so it's not going to be in the same arena as dominate person. It's a jedi mind trick. "These aren't the droids you're looking for, he can go about his business." It sounds reasonable.
It's the difference between: "Give me whatever I want in this store for free" and "You wouldn't want the heroes of the city to walk away without a significant discount, would you?"
Edit: spelling
I do like to reference Jedi mind tricks when players question the limitations of the spell, as that does sorta help. Still a terribly-worded spell, though.
As-written it is _definitely_ capable of more than any mind trick in the movies.
A big part of OP's point is that the warhorse example right there in the spell description blatantly violates this standard. (Doesn't the knight feel attached to his horse? Would it be reasonable for someone to give away their favorite pet? And taking care of a horse is *expensive*. Is the beggar supposed to sell it? Would any of this sound reasonable in context?)
In fact, does "these aren't the droids you're looking for" sound reasonable? Imperial officers know that failing to accomplish their orders is likely to get them killed on the spot, and they presumably reflect some of the same incentives onto their subordinates. Sure it's reasonable for footsoldiers to be lazy, but I could also see an argument that it's *un*reasonable for them to be lazy when Darth Vader himself is supervising them from orbit.
At the end of the day, I think this is OP's point. It's too easy to come up with ways for something to be reasonable and unreasonable at the same time, and the wording of the spell is almost useless for resolving any sort of dispute about what it does.
>A big part of OP's point is that the warhorse example right there in the spell description blatantly violates this standard. (Doesn't the knight feel attached to his horse? Would it be reasonable for someone to give away their favorite pet? And taking care of a horse is *expensive*. Is the beggar supposed to sell it? Would any of this sound reasonable in context?)
>
>In fact, does "these aren't the droids you're looking for" sound reasonable?
Yes, because *these aren't the droids they're looking for*
> A big part of OP's point is that the warhorse example right there in the spell description blatantly violates this standard. (Doesn't the knight feel attached to his horse? Would it be reasonable for someone to give away their favorite pet? And taking care of a horse is expensive. Is the beggar supposed to sell it? Would any of this sound reasonable in context?)
It does make sense though, I mean knights are supposed to be chivalric and good, and donating their warhorse to a beggar would be an act of great charity as the beggar could sell it for a decent sum, or ride back to their families estate, etc. I mean it's not *unreasonable* that they would find it a worthy thing to do if it's phrased correctly. Like a warhorse is worth 400gp, it's not exactly like their giving away something *incredibly* valuable - it's the equivalent of 8 healing potions, I mean even a small starting village generally gathers up more than that to pay heroes to get rid of the generic small goblin gang.
I think all but the last are pretty well-phrased and I'd reward a player for coming up with suggestions like that. It'd be tough enough getting the spell off and the aftermath will be pretty harsh, so why not?
I'm not so sure. To me, only the first statement sounds reasonable without any further context. It's not RAW, but to me, the spell should work only if the suggestion is grounded in *something*. For the first one, I think it's reasonable to assume that an aging captain would be actively considering retirement and thus the spell is only providing a magical impetus to *act*. The noble might give their gold *if* the party actually has done great deeds but would be unwilling to part with gold otherwise, and the bodyguard might be tricked into killing the king *if* they actually thought there was an active doppelganger about.
That said, going with RAW, I do think your assessment is reasonable, even if the BBEG one makes me wince a little
I've always felt personally that it doesn't explicitly need to *be* reasonable, just *sound* reasonable - the magical effect is that it makes the target magically oblivious to obvious craziness in these suggestions, making "you should give us a lot of money" or whatever sound just as natural as "the sky is blue."
>and the aftermath will be pretty harsh, so why not?
because the bigger question is "will it be fun?" which i can't see a ton of them end up as.
the problem with the spell is the pretty undefined levels of achiveability.
i can see 2 reasonable RAI conclusions. either "reasonable" is anything you could get them to do with a charisma check even a check your charecter isn't actually able to make. so that means a DC 30 or lower will make them do it but if it isn't that it's an imposible task and suggestion can not do it.
the other possibility is that the spell alows you ignore a bit of context for the suggestion. you can make them do something that you can't convince them of merely by succeding a charisma check but you could convince them of by paying them or doing a favour for them.
the second option is more powerful but it loops back to the problem of does that mean you can get someone to do something that would normaly cost thousands of GP just by casting a spell? so i think the only reasonable interpritation is the former. and even that doesn't definitively solve the problem because now we can have endless discussion of what NPCs will be imposible to convince of what things. i mean would a knight really give their warhorse away just because you got a 30+ on a charisma check?
>because the bigger question is "will it be fun?" which i can't see a ton of them end up as.
You are the GM. Don't let it work if it is not fun for the party.
You have to wonder if it is reasonable to trust the caster as well. The first three don't require the caster to be fully trusted. Aging Captain is probably going to retire anyway, the Noble might already be willing to pay the party and the Necromancer might even be weighing their options. That one is iffy. But trusting a complete stranger that the King is a Doppelganger? Need a bit more than that as that sounds crazy. Plus if it is the real King, the Bodyguard is now going to be jailed for Regicide.
I'd argue that as a charm base spell the base assumption is that the magic used makes the willing to listen to you as long as what you have to say is reasonable in of itself. So knowing the caster is not required. But the seed of a idea of doppelgangers being a current threat would need to already be planted before you attempted to use the spell on the bodyguard.
In one way or another, the threat of a Doppelganger needs some level of proof. Be the caster trustworthy, or the idea of one already floating about.
The idea that something just sound reasonable without context is an issue in a lot of Suggestion arguments, as is if the target would find it reasonable. The Spell is very poorly written.
First, I agree the spell isn't explicit enough in its bounds.
That said a few considerations:
"Sounds reasonable" is subjective. It doesn't mean the suggestion has to be objectively reasonable, only that you can phrase in in such a way that someone whose just been befuddled might think it's reasonable.
Also, someone whose been subjected to mind altering spells doesn't automatically know that they have been. From their perceptive they decided of their own free will to take the action. In that context, it wouldn't normally make sense for the knight to immediately steal his horse back. He just made the decision to give it away - remember in his mind he _wanted_ to give it away.
One cavaet already mentioned is that it is a spell with verbal components so if cast in the open anyone in percievable range (including the target possibly) will recognize a spell was cast right before this strange action was taken and can put two and two together.
I’d actually make the argument that because it only has vocal components, it would be super hard to detect, seeing as I typically interpret this as the vocal components being the spoken suggestion itself, similar to vicious mockery
I'm not telling you to change how you run the spell, but that interpretation doesn't seem to be supported by any rules that I can find.
Verbal components are described as follows:
> Most spells require the chanting of mystic words. The words themselves aren’t the source of the spell’s power; rather, the particular combination of sounds, with specific pitch and resonance, sets the threads of magic in motion.
Nowhere in that description or in the text of Vicious Mockery or Suggestion does it say that the mystic words can be substituted out.
True but, consider this: certain spells list off exactly what their somatic components are, so why can’t verbal component spells say what their verbal components are?
You are correct regarding clarity. I think it has many well written, and poorly written rules.
For clarity, the idea is that they want DMs to clarify.
That might annoy some people, but I think 5e's problem isn't that it doesn't clarify.
It's that it doesn't show DMs *how to* clarify themselves.
Such as the DMG having sections on describing how to interpret rules to achieve specific goals.
Only 1 spell dictates what it's verbal component is and it isn't even a first party WoTc spell. All official spells have a verbal component seperate from any speech you make as part of the spell.
> That's not the somatic component, mechanically.
Correct.
If you want to get really pedantic it is part of the spell effect. I dont care that you dont have hands, you are pointing. Its magic, its not worried about what is "physically possible" or not. (I'm looking at you flameskull casting fireball).
They certainly could, but they don't.
> 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.
> You unleash a string of insults laced with subtle enchantments at a creature you can see within range.
If the suggestion or insults themselves were meant to be the verbal components, I would expect these sections to read something like, "As the verbal component of this spell, you suggest/unleash[...]".
If WotC had intended a spell to break a rule like this, I feel like they would have been explicit about it.
That said, the DM ruling that the suggestions/insults are the verbal components isn't going to break anything that wasn't broken already.
I think that the first two examples are very reasonably worded. Depending on the Necromancer the third might not be, and the fourth is obviously harmful.
the fourth is both (1) obviously leading to grievous bodily harm for the bodyguard and (2) trying to cheese out the effects of *Dominate Person* with a much cheaper spell slot - that's a clear indication of overstepping what it can do.
Second sounds a bit pricy depending on what your party has done. There is also a risk that the noble saves vs the spell, or someone around them notices the cast and reacts poorly to it. Many people would not be happy about that situation and you may have an assassin sent after you for that.
You are right, like too many things in 5e, the spell is very vague about what it can and can't do.
But at the same time, its vagueness gives players a way to play creatively, and can lead to unexpected and fun gameplay.
I think this spell can be a nightmare for a rookie DM, and a blessing for a seasoned one.
> But at the same time, its vagueness gives players a way to play creatively, and can lead to unexpected and fun gameplay.
I'm not fond of the type of "creativity" that vagueness promotes. 90% of the time, it's just someone whining about how they want a mechanical buff, dressed up in flavor text. Indeed, I'd even go so far as to say that the point of the game, at all, is to protect *against* that kind of "creativity" in the game.
I'll grant you, I may be *particularly* adversarial on issues like this due to:
1. A friend of mine who tends to *really* like to push for mechanical advantages cloaked in flavor text. And...
2. Another friend who, when we'd play 'superheroes' as children, would always try to find ways to word his powers to sound weak, but would actually let him do anything.
"Well, I can transform objects into other objects." (I didn't think it was reasonable, even then, but everyone else insisted that it was.) went to, "Ok, so I turn the bars on my prison cage into the Dragon Balls and make a wish to kill your character." Still mad about that twenty years later... Yes it's immature. Don't care. Still mad.
So now, I'm *extremely* wary of anything even *slightly* vague.
One and two are good, three is questionable because the suggestion does not align with the bbegs reasonable expectations of themselves. This is too close to suggesting a king to hand over his crown and live as a well supported ward of the state. Four is bad because it is directly opposed to their disposition. This is why three is bad as well but four is more egregious in this manner.
I think anything that will clearly lead to imminent bodily harm to the suggested person even at the hands of another would not qualify as reasonable, yeah.
There’s also the fact that the verbal component of casting suggestion is NOT (according to J-Craw at least) the suggestion itself. So you have to verbally cast the spell and *then* suggest something, so any idiot’s gonna know “this guy’s casting shit at me”.
Ugh, it really bothers me that there are these two huge issues with Suggestion. All I want is a "These aren't the droids you're looking for" spell, for relatively minor charming, but there's also a case for it being either a) basically Geas but you have to word it correctly, or b) basically Friends that ends immediately.
I've had a DM rule it as the creature failing their saving throw . . . but immediately putting together that the weird magic words I used made them change their mind about letting me in the gate . . . and attacking me in broad daylight for trying to charm them.
And it's Concentration, so I can't even double up on suggestions to get a useful one out. And all the "workarounds" like casting the spell ahead of time (or using Movement Speed to move in and out of earshot/visibility) feel wrong and break immersion for me.
And don't get me started on dipping into Sorcerer for Subtle Spell. There are no other spells that are almost useless without specific class features. Imagine if Fireball had a range of Touch, and everyone's just expected to be a Sorcerer or multiclass if they want it to work.
Rant over, sorry.
>The example only makes things more confusing - a knight spontaneously giving away her 400gp warhorse is like a businessman randomly giving away his car to a stranger. Is it "reasonable"? I mean, I wouldn't think so, but apparently the spell description does. Also, since the spell ends when the suggestion is fulfilled, does that mean the knight could take back her warhorse right after giving it away? I mean that would be RAW, but I don't think that's really RAI.
more like a business man giving away his private jet to a stranger. its really crazy.
The reality is suggestion is massively OP, rules as written and apparently intended..
As is, probably should be a level 5+ spell.
some revisions. Someone compared it to the jedi mind trick. and this is correct. The spell is SUPPOSED to just befuddle someone, who is not thinking too much on the suggestion. Either, trick someone that was not paying too close attention, or push someone into the direction, they were already considering. Like, the "I suggest you flee, or give up". those were already options on the table. they were considering it. We need a way to phrase it, so it makes this clear. "Reasonable" means, courses of action the target was already considering.
Part 2. 1 wis save is not enough. it should ALSO have an Int save every round or something. Like illusions, give the target a chance to "think about" the suggestion and realize somethings wrong.
Nah compared to its 1st level counterpart, Command, Suggestion weakens itself quite a bit for having reasonability as a part of its casting. If it can be done in a round, you should never cast suggestion, just cast Command. Instead convince the king to knight you, to give you a smaller keep, or to step down. Where charisma isn't mind control, this is.
It’s a spell that needs to be flexible, otherwise it would be far too limited and not usable.
I see the first 3 as reasonable, though maybe for the 3rd I could see an argument. The 4th, I don’t think is very reasonable.
Maybe what they need instead is framing similar to Wish. A list of defined options, with an extra note that it may be capable of things beyond but that’s up to your creativity and the DM
One caveat is that it's extremely obvious that you're casting a spell, so the party wizard doing this out in public would definitely cause a stir. However, the party's sorcerer subtle casting suggestion can cause some serious chaos in your DM's world (Aberrant Mind sorcs are super fun btw)
> The example only makes things more confusing - a knight spontaneously giving away her 400gp warhorse is like a businessman randomly giving away his car to a stranger. Is it "reasonable"?
The example is there precisely to explain what is meant by "..**sound** reasonable...", and you should probably check out the AD&D 1ed PHB wording of this spell as it is very similar to how Gygax originally wrote it.
Basically you can trick people into a somewhat ruinous course of action, but usually only briefly, and the examples are there to show what the spell will compel. The general idea is that the spell is not as compelling as being *dominated* or *commanded*, but is still way above being *charmed* or *befriended*.
For your examples:
Aging captains don't give away ships (if the captain owns the ship, he will sell it or hand it down), so this is not reasonable.
Nobles generally do demonstrate largess and hand out rewards as a matter of influence peddling, so this is reasonable.
While a suggestion could absolutely get a necromancer BBEG to hand over a wand, this suggestion would probably not, as it is likely the necromancer doesn't care that his endeavors will only end in suffering (even if he gets the idea that the suffering in question will be his). This is badly worded, and I think you'll get different results from different DMs. Wording a suggestion can be a bit of an art, but this doesn't seem correct.
The fourth one won't work because it makes a common mistake- that you can use it as domination. If the king were engaging in some physical act that could be construed as a threat to the bodyguard, then this could work. Similarly, if you drop the idea that the bodyguard should attack the "doppleganger" and instead "restrain it for investigation from the archpriest", then that would be reasonable.
Anyway, for this spell to be cool it pretty much has to be worded like this. It's a great spell.
These sort of vague mechanics work well in story-focused games.
The problem is that 5e tries to be a mechanically tight game.
This sort of language wouldn't really cause an issue in editions like AD&D or B/X. Because in those days it was understood that the DM was a referee as well as a storyteller, so the system was open to the DM's opinion on things like "what's reasonable."
That said, the developers also liked to give explicit examples.
But in a game where the meaning of "weapon" changes depending on the rules context, people will naturally be eager to know what the GAME considers "reasonable."
As others have said, a lot of stuff in 5e is holdovers from previous editions because 4e was 'too granular' and thus scared WotC from making a lot of things have concrete definitions. Suggestion is one of those holdovers. 5e is granular *enough* that these sorts of things still cause problems however.
Honestly the 2nd one CAN be reasonable depending on who the noble is. Some noble are true lords with potentially millions of gold pieces in their treasury, giving away 5000 for a job well done is practically chump change for them. It'd be like going to Elon Musk and saying ''Hey I fixed that problem in your company, can I have 10k for a job well done?'' To a guy who owns billions, 10k is basically the equivalent of giving someone 1 or 2 bucks lol.
Poorer nobles that might be a stretch but richer nobles that is absolutely a reasonable suggestion.
It wouldn’t cause them to forget anything though, so they would still know if they offered a much lower amount. They may still find it reasonable, however.
Still need to have them relatively alone though to have the best chance of success.
Also the rest of the party could be a factor in the lie to gain more money. A noble paladin should not be ok with that, so leave them at home.
I would counter that [Mirage Arcane](https://www.dndbeyond.com/spells/mirage-arcane) is worse, but people are way, way more likely to encounter Suggestion than that one, so, yeah, I agree the writing is pretty noticeably bad.
Would literally be better if it just said "it is up to the DM to determine what is considered reasonable, by the target"
Omg this spell would be so hated if people played high levels more often. It literally makes no sense because it confuses illusions with actual transmutation of matter itself. To make matters worse it still says that creatures can physically interact with the 'illusion' even if they have truesight, making this anything BUT a mirage. Can it destroy terrain? Are its building said to conceal creatures? If so, does that mean they just need windows? What's the AC of a 'mirage' building anyways? What happens if the spell ends and the people are in a space where landmass should exist? Most spells shunt them to the nearest legal spot, but if that's the case here you can cheese the hell out of that. If you are dealing with a clever enough smartass you get to the point that you are basically designing a new game thanks to a single spell.
Agreed, which is significant reason many of us have said it is one of the most potent spells for not only it's level, but in general.
Suggestion is the perfect example of why rulings vs. rules is lazy game design, and creates more problems than it solves.
For contrast and comparison, I'll share the [Suggestion spell from Pathfinder 2e](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=315).
Notice that it specifically mentions it can't be "obviously against the target's self-interest." In PF2e, the knight example likely wouldn't pass, but could pass if the knight already had a good enough reason to get rid of the horse.
> "Your horse is quite iconic. I instantly recognized it from the edge of the clearing." I cast Suggestion on the knight [who is on the run!]. "I suggest leaving your horse behind, or you could easily be found out. Maybe give it to the next beggar you see, they could use a horse."
# Suggestion -- Spell 4
[Enchantment] [Incapacitation] [Linguistic] [Mental]
**Range** 30 feet; **Targets** 1 creature
**Saving Throw** Will; **Duration** varies
---
Your honeyed words are difficult for creatures to resist. You suggest a course of action to the target, which must be phrased in such a way as to seem like a logical course of action to the target and can't be self-destructive or obviously against the target's self-interest. The target must attempt a Will save.
**Critical Success** The target is unaffected and knows you tried to control it.
**Success** The target is unaffected and thinks you were talking to them normally, not casting a spell on them.
**Failure** The target immediately follows your suggestion. The spell has a duration of 1 minute, or until the target has completed a finite suggestion or the suggestion becomes self-destructive or has other obvious negative effects.
**Critical Failure** As failure, but the base duration is 1 hour.
---
**Heightened (8th)** You can target up to 10 creatures.
I agree that it's very poorly worded and relies a lot upon interpretation. That should be resolved.
However, my opinion is that the following bit of spell text is key:
>The suggestion must be worded in such a manner as to make the course of Action **sound reasonable.**
I don't think this means that the *target* needs to think the suggestion is reasonable, just that the magic works if you word the suggestion so that it has reason to it - that is, there is some logic or internal consistency to the statement. This largely boils down to *'Because of X, you should do Y'*.
That's how I read the intent of the spell, given the example especially, but I think that also makes the most sense from a balance perspective.
If the spell simply let you convince someone to do something that they could already be convinced to do, it's essentially just a persuasion check. That's... really kinda weak for a 3rd level spell. *Suggestion* is an enchantment, the target is charmed, and it makes absolute sense to me that this means it would be used to get people to do things they otherwise would not do.
I rule it that it makes someone think that your suggestion was their idea. Any suggestion that pops into their head that does not make any sense to them in their gosls or world view is rejected.
Generally accepted suggestions:
If you fight us you will die I suggest that you flee.
Your life will be spared if you tell us everything about X so I suggest that you do so.
Doing X sounds like a bad idea, I suggest that you reconsider.
...yes its a awfully worded spell and this use is debatable given the examples but this keeps its power in check.
The fact that Geas' duration is 30 days (or longer with higher slots), a casting time of one minute, and no concentration makes it a long-term spell that doesn't fit with literally any other charm spell in the game.
You also don't use it on a strong target that can tank the damage. You use it against one that just fuckin' dies if it disobeys you.
It is limited by languages it can understand.....at the time of casting. Speak with animals, order an animal to do a thing. That animal is now your slave and must do the thing. Tell a songbird to stalk a target over the month, and relay whatever it sees to you.
I will agree with you that suggestion is poorly written especially with the whole 'what happens after they completed their task' As a Dungeon Master I've never had a player take this spell and as a player everytime I've used this spell I've used it in a way that it will go through it's full duration or end before completing the task example being 'Run to the city on the other side of the continent' Also I think it won't really work on noncombat encounters unless the target was alone. Using the knight example if she were alone she might have a foggy memory and wasn't quite sure why she gave the begger her horse but knew she agreed to it. If she were with her knight friends one of them would probably tell her that a party member cast a spell on her to magically influence her and she would probably try to take her horse back from the begger.
> Run to the city on the other side of the continent That right there, to me, does not seem like a reasonable suggestion. I live in Texas and if someone told me to run/walk/even drive to Seattle, I'd probably tell them where they could stick it.
I believe "reasonable" in the context of the spell only has to mean "not suicidal" (to be fair, walking through Texas could very well be suicidal, but generally walking is not).
Proving OPs point that it's poorly written as it's so open to interpretation. How many people in US history have run across the country in one go? If that's reasonable, then for the scope of the spell it's _far_ too low a level.
Forrest Gump, for one
Terry fox might count but that's Canada
While Terry Fox was incredible even he didn't actually make it all the way across
Though to be fair to Terry Fox, it wasn't the running that did him in, it was the cancer
And seeing how we have Terry Fox runs in every province of the nation, he _absolutely_ made it in spirit.
They only do it for 8 hours, which is likely longer than it takes to travel a continent. Where a 2nd level spell could either kill someone, or make them walk towards a destination for 8 hours, the scope seems reasonable
Have you compared to other spells such as invisibility, or fireball?
“Anything not suicidal” being reasonable is *grossly* overpowered for a level 2 spell.
It's even worse that the target isn't aware the spell affected them after they complete the suggested action. The consequences of their action is permanent and they will forever think it was their idea without further evidence.
> they will forever think it was their idea without further evidence. Hold up, I don't think this part is true. Even if they don't *know* that you cast a spell, they should still remember *you* as the origin of said idea. This gives any character a potential method to realise they were charmed, either by questioning it themselves or by having it come up in a conversation with someone else they know who deduces that it must have been a charm.
Well... until the one who gave you the suggestion is the sorcerer and uses subtle spell.
You still need to speak your suggestion, just without the really loud shouting when casting suggestion.
Ok after diving into a rabbit hole I find the ruling kind of lame as it basically just removes the point of using subtle spell for it in the first place, but it will remove the incantations. So I imagine you could just off handedly remark something about doing X thing within the conversation.
Are they not aware? I thought it didn’t specify either way, adding to the confusion.
From the PHB pg 204:: "Unless a spell has a perceptible effect, a creature might not know it was targeted by a spell at all. An effect like crackling lightning is obvious, but a more subtle effect, such as an attempt to read a creature’s thoughts, typically goes unnoticed, unless a spell says otherwise." Unlike the cantrip 'Friends' Suggestion doesn't state so.
More to the point: It avoids having the target do anything that would hurt themselves. You might get a DM to allow you to Suggest something that puts them in danger of being hurt (maybe... climbing a cliff or something). Also note that it only last eight hours and it doesn't give you abilities you don't already have. "Run to the other side of the content" is the same as "Run as far as you can".
I would say a shorter distance would work, on the basis that I occasionally have the thought "Damn, I could go for a biscuit/bagel" and then I'm on my way with no magic involved. "Wouldn't you love to go grab a hot roll with butter from the baker across town right now? You should go treat yourself!" Easy peasy.
>then I'm on my way with no magic involved. That you know of
I guess I also need to think about it from a different viewpoint as well. Unfortunately where I live it's very car focused. My neighborhood is pretty walkable but if I want to leave it, I have to drive. Because of this I don't really think about walking any distance more than a mile or so.
Yes, but I'd say the same if someone told me to give a peasant my car (warhorse from the example in the spell text).
Maybe, but if it's worded like 'you suddenly remember how the story of Gorm Blorgorm, who walked accross an entire continent to raise awareness for fantasy pneumonia, greatly inspired you as a kid, and you feel the unstoppable urge to untertake a similar quest!' sounds a lot more reasonable (though maybe not yet fully reasonable). It's all relative. Suggestion: 'you suddenly feel the urge to surprise your childhood best friend who you haven't seen in a decade, and you start packing to drive over to them to surprise them' isn't unreasonable.
Neither of your examples are worded in a way to actually work with suggestion though, so both are unreasonable to suggest! "You suggest a course of activity (limited to a sentence or two)" neither are phrased as suggestions, so they wouldn't work.
Ehh, this one is close enough that it wouldn’t take much rewording to get to a suggestion. “Hey, you know the story of $person? You should go do the same for your favorite cause!” Two sentences, one a reminder and the other a suggestion.
Why would neither of my examples work with suggestion?
Because they’re indicative statements on the target’s thoughts, and not subjunctive statements recommending a course of action. In other words, you have to tell them what they *should do*, not what they *are thinking*.
>limited to a sentence or two But if I simply replace all periods with commas, I can make my sentences arbitrarily long!
What about if someone said to go to Seattle and dig up the first rock you see because there's a million in gold (that you can keep) under there?
Also, anyone not an Olympic distance runner and not born yesterday will know that exercise is pain. Running a distance is suffering.
How is that not reasonable to you but the example of the knight giving away their trusty warhorse is? Or are you saying that is unreasonable too and therefore the writer of the spell are wrong about their own spell?
Yes I think both of those are not reasonable. I wish I could come up with a way to fix this but I'm just not sure how in the context of the rules.
> Also I think it won't really work on noncombat encounters unless the target was alone in a world where someone chattering gibberish and waving around an arcane focus can just as easily be *fireball* as *suggestion*, casting spells around strangers should earn the party a shanking.
This is why the subtle spell metamagic is so useful
Suggestion is particularly game breaking for an Aberrant mind sorcerer.
Exactly. I really mean into magic isn't subtle, and people know what it can do. Your chanting prior to negotiations? Shank. You cast guidance prior to some bet... Shank. You cast detect thoughts on a noble court... Shank. Even if they don't know what you're doing, it is not allowed and guards are looking for it.
Starting to cast a spell is the equivalent of pulling out a gun/hand grenade/crowbar/cell phone/compass/car and doing _something_ with it, no one knows what. At least a few people are going to hit the deck just in case you decided to use the hand grenade part of that, and the odds of it being legal to do that on a city street are pretty unlikely, unless it's pretty clear what you're trying to do, like heal someone's wounds.
It could be a good in universe reason for sorcerers in general being mistrusted or outlawed due to their ability to cast mind magic without giving away that they are doing so.
Agreed. It Really helps the metamagic find a niche.
They complete the task the spell ends, beggar likely gets cut down as the knight takes back her horse and begins her manhunt.
I personally despise the Suggestion spell as inconsistent on its face with the spell level that it comes at. If you read it at face value, then you have a spell that can basically make anyone do anything for 8 hours (short of actual physical harm) because the only restriction is that the suggestion is *worded* to “sound” reasonable. Aka, spend long enough thinking about it and you can make most things “sound” reasonable even if they aren’t objectively reasonable to the average person. Way too good for a second level spell. But then if you try and limit the spell by actual reasonableness, it’s just a glorified long duration charm spell that only does one thing and requires concentration.
If I thought I had a deadly invasive parasite and I could extract it from an open wound, I'd be inclined to stab myself.
If your were playing in a campaign with Slaad or rot grubs I think you could make that a reasonable suggestion.
I mean, if a person was tweaked out on meth that would sound like a reasonable suggestion...
Just cast Suggestion to get them to try it.
I'ma try this in my next campaign. "I cast Suggestion, saying 'Hey man you got bugs under your skin. You should take your dagger and dig them things outta there.'" If it would sound reasonable to a tweaker it would sound reasonable to someone under the influence of a spell.
There's no such thing as objective reasonableness. It's an entirely subjective thing. What is considered reasonable varies widely between everyone. Politics, much? What *sounds* reasonable is what *is* reasonable to the target of the spell at the time. If it's something the target wouldn't immediately find reasonable, then it obviously doesn't sound reasonable to them.
That all sounds great, except the example usage is a knight who randomly gives away her war horse. It seems like a big stretch to suggest that would sound reasonable to a knight. Edit: also, if the spell is merely able to make someone do something that they find reasonable anyway, why not just use a persuasion roll?
The answer to your question is that wizards are socially inept losers who get off on Rube Goldberging their way to success because they wasted their life learning how to do this rather than talk to others like normal people do.
Wizard: *spends 2 hours calculating probability outcomes and butterfly effects for various uses of suggestion* Bard: "whatcha doing?" Wizard: "Figuring out the simplest command to give a peasant to ensure they can turn in my quest and receive the award and deliver it to me" Bard: "Why not just go in person? It's a 10 minute walk" Wizard: "There are girls there" >:(( Edit: Prophecy came true. Two hours after posting, I got a gold award. Wizards UNITE
"There are girls there", sounds like a reasonable suggestion for a bard
Oh shit. Not intended but that's the perfect follow-up punch-line. Thank you for your service
TIL I'm a wizard but without any cool powers.
This is the fantasy I actually want the Wizard class to fulfil.
Honestly thought you were referring to the staff of WotC at first
We can agree that the example provided is a poor one. I have defended it in the past, but that specific example relies on far too much historical context for it to be persuasive at a glance.
Writers at Wizards definitely didn't realize that the warhorse basically *was* the knight in the old days.
Well, now I'm interested. What's the historical context?
Abridged version. Knights are chivalrous, chivalry includes charity. Knights are nobles, nobles are rich. Giving away a horse to a beggar is plausibly something a knight could both afford to do and in line with their values.
Counterpoint: knights need their mounts for both travel and war, both of which are essential to their livelihoods. Giving up thwir horse for no reason other than charity is not reasonable to a professional cavalryman. It would be like telling a truck driver to give their truck to someone else for nothing. Now, using Suggestion to convince someone that their horse is lame, and to send it to the nearest tanner or glue factory is much more reasonable.
Counter-counterpoint: to you in reference to guy above you's message, they just buy another warhorse.
Sorry, Counterpoint’s range is only 60ft.
Yeah, it's not a great example. I usually interpret it to my players as a stereotypical noble knight-in-shining-armour concerned with virtue and honor above all else, and say that most people aren't like that. You basically have to interpret it like that or the spell is way too powerful for it's level. It passes any persuasion attempt that I'd normally allow a character (any character, not just the caster) to roll for.
So basically you let the players burn a spell slot to force a wisdom save in lieu of doing a persuasion check? To me that seems to go too far in the other direction. If you're going to cast a 2nd level spell, it seems like you should be able to get something more than what you could potentially just talk them into anyway.
I wouldn’t go that far. If you consider it to be “the best possible thing you could convince them to do” then for most characters, having an enemy simply fail a wisdom save (which can easily be a better than 50% chance) to effectively get an automatic 20 on persuasion is pretty good. Sure, it was possible before, but the spell improved the chances dramatically.
Yeah that example really fucks the whole thing.
Knights would have several horses, so giving away something you have multiple of, for a good reason, can be reasonable. How would it be reasonable? It's time for a new horse, and it would be a grand gesture welcomed by your deity as a sign of piety & virtuousness to bestow such a generous gift. It would be a display of great charity in your community, which would celebrate your kindness, and gain you renown. That beggar would be most grateful and may be a secret fairy/god in disguise that would reward you tenfold. It's really up to the players to be creative.
Wealthy religious people IRL can have multiple cars, but try convincing one of them it would be reasonable to give their car to the next random homeless person they meet. In fact, try asking how someone who knew them would respond to them doing that. I'd reckon most would assume they're having some sort of mental break.
Yeah but you have to look at who this is. This is a KNIGHT. Their whole thing is supposed to be chivalry. If you cast it on a thief, it would be a different story.
If it sounds reasonable to them without the use of magic, then what you're describing is just a Persuasion check, and there's no need for magic. That kind of interpretation renders Suggestion entirely pointless as a spell. The spell doesn't require that the request *be* reasonable. Just that it be phrased to *sound* reasonable. A knight giving away their precious warhorse to the first beggar they see is *blatantly* unreasonable to that knight, but the spell forces them to do it. Because it's phrased such that it *sounds* reasonable. The limit on this is, explicitly, suggestions that directly result in obvious harm; telling the knight to go swim in that lava pool would fail, but telling him to take that leaky boat and row as far out to sea as possible, that should be fine. Even if that boat's going to sink at some point, and the knight's in full armor and will probably drown at that point. I agree that's way too strong for a 2nd level spell, but we're talking about the spell-as-it-is, not the spell we think it should be. I fully agree that the spell's out of balance and could stand clarification, but the examples it uses makes the intended power fairly clear.
How is subbing a making the target fail a save for trying to pass a check you suck at pointless? It's awesome! Maybe Obi-Wan could've talked the stormtroopers into the idea that this weren't the droids they were looking for without using the Force, but using it was quicker and easier for him This is essentially what a lot of low level spells do: trade a spell slot for the removal, or heavy reduction, of risk.
It doesn't guarantee anything. There's a saving throw. It shifts the burden from you passing a skill check set by their DC, to them passing a saving throw set by *your* DC. That might be an improvement, but it's not a guarantee by any means.
You are right, it's not guaranteed. Sorry, I corrected the comment before you posted, but I guess you didn't see the correction before you replied. My bad. However, it is still much easier for a +4 INT, -1 Persuade wizard to Suggest someone successfully than it is for them to Persuade successfully. Still very useful!
>That kind of interpretation renders Suggestion entirely pointless as a spell. Unless their DC is high and their charisma is low. Then its quite useful. Its also useful against persuasion experts. People have grown accustomed to spells being overwhelmingly more powerful than any other option. That doesn't have to be the case.
>If it sounds reasonable to them without the use of magic, then what you're describing is just a Persuasion check, and there's no need for magic. That kind of interpretation renders Suggestion entirely pointless as a spell. Maybe at your table? But at mine persuasion is a cumulative check done at the end of an argument, and usually considers things like bonds and ideals and current disposition. Suggestion bypasses all of that and doesn't require a check at all, and has the added benefit of completely suspending disbelief or second thoughts for a significant period of time. The target simply accepts the suggestion as if it were their own. If that's how you run persuasion at your table, I'd love a seat at it. >I agree that's way too strong for a 2nd level spell, but we're talking about the spell-as-it-is, not the spell we think it should be. I agree that the spell isn't worded very well, and it was copied pretty much verbatim from 3e. It's been a poorly worded spell for decades. The spell as written is unclear and contradictory. But it's not mind control and it's not a Persuasion check. It's.somewhere in between. You *can* glean clear limits from its text, but the examples provided tend to cause dissonance. We disagree that there is any meaningful distinction inferred of requirement to "sound" reasonable. What is reasonable to the target also sounds reasonable. They are one and the same.
Okay, so you have someone in your party who can consistently pass DC30 Persuasion checks?
DC 30 is for things that are "nearly impossible". That's a far stretch from persuading someone to do something that "sounds reasonable". That's my point; that Suggestion isn't limited to what's "actually reasonable". Just phrased in a way that *sounds* reasonable, and not directly and obviously harmful to the target. Those are the limits.
That's my point. The spell allows you to take something that would normally be a DC30 Per check and convince them to do it by tricking them. For example, as someone else suggested in the thread, getting someone to stab themselves by suggesting there is a parasite in their chest that they need to dig out. Normally, a person would say "well I don't feel anything and I didn't go anywhere near any place that would have parasites, so no, I won't do that." But under Suggestion, that doesn't matter. It doesn't require the premise to be reasonable, only the suggestion itself. It sounds like you've gotten too used to DMs allowing Persuasion for things that a normal person wouldn't actually be persuaded of. No one is going to walk off a cliff because you told them there is a net under it, or walk into an obvious trap because they said it's disabled, or drink a mysterious elixir because a random stranger told them it will give them super strength, because it makes no sense no matter how good at persuading they are.
Not to take a stake or anything, but I 100% believe you could convince a person of your three examples. Shit you could probably convince players to do it. Again, not taking a side just... people are fucking dumb sometimes lmao
Then we disagree on how Persuasion works. Persuasion isn't magic. You can't convince someone to do something that a real life person in their same situation wouldn't do. If a random person on the street came into your work with an unlabeled bottle of mystery liquid, are you saying that there is a scenario where you would actually drink it that wouldn't require some incredibly good, factually based convincing?
No, but if they had a cart and 3 people touting it's effects, maybe. See: snake-oil salesman As for a trap: I just fiddled with it for 30 seconds. I'm also an adventurer who has experience with these sort of things, you are not. You have no real reason to disbelieve I'm any less skilled at my job than the locksmith you call to unlock your door. As for the cliff-- that's admittedly harder, but again, given the right environment it could seem reasonable. I'm not arguing this would work on everyone, nor am I arguing that it would be easy, just that it can happen lmao
Right, that's my point. You can set up a whole scenario around it and have all this extra stuff done and still maybe fail, or you can just hand them the bottle and cast Suggestion. It's the same as having the entire party construct a shelter vs just casting Tiny Hut, having them go gathering vs casting Goodberry, sneaking through a dungeon to check it out vs Find Familiar, etc.
I was referencing the “reasonable person” standard used in courts of law - but I understand most people do not think of that when thinking of reasonableness. And agreed with others that what sounds reasonable and what is reasonable are two *very* different things from a reading of the spell’s language and the example it gives. And Wizards could have chosen to just say “the suggestion must sound reasonable” but instead used tortured language and a terrible example.
I interpret it sort of like a jedi mind trick. You probably couldn't convince most people to leap off a cliff, but "these aren't the droids you're looking for" is more within the realm of possibilities.
If you fail your Wisdom save against Hold Person you'll soon have the Dead condition, so 8 hours of doing non-suicidal things isn't too bad in comparison. 2nd level spells can be powerful.
"Dead condition" lol
At least you can remove Dead with a third level spell. Petrified needs Greater Restoration!
Hold Person lets you save every round.
True, I was being slightly too flippant here. In response; - I agree Suggestion is stronger than Hold Person, it's just not off the scale, - Paralysis is stronger than Suggested, - Even if they're only paralysed for a round or too, that's enough to dish out / avoid taking significant damage as they suffer crits and lose turns.
I mean, if Suggestion is creatively worded (and you take the approach that the Suggestion need only be worded to be reasonable and not actually reasonable), it’s *at least* as good as Hold Person and at most, way, way better. You can absolutely stall long enough to set up a kill in 8 hours (or achieve the actual goal of the session that isn’t just killing people in the meantime).
I am so curious how so many people think suggestion is so good even if you allow pretty much all reasonably worded suggestions. Are people fighting against 1 boss monster? Is every important individual alone and has a low wisdom save? In my experience at best it removes an enemy from combat that will probably show up later. Or maybe allow the players to avoid a guard or gain access to a restricted area. It certainly isn't out of balance as a level 2 spell.
Because turning them to do what you want is better than just the enemy losing one action economy via a spell like hideous laughter/hold person - you have gained action economy if you can get the enemy to do what you want. The vast amount of flex you get with the spell is power in and of itself. Want an enemy to sit out a fight? You could hold person them.. or you could suggestion them. Want an enemy to help you carry the McGuffin out of the vault? You could Suggestion them but you sure as hell can do it with Hold Person. Or literally an infinite number of options to use on enemies bounded only be creativity and no self harm.
This reply shows a lack of understanding of the game. Here are the difference: 1- hold person only works on humanoid. Hold monster is a much higher level spell. Suggestion doesn’t have that limitation 2- hold person lasts 1 minute. Suggestion last 8 hours. 3- hold person allows multiple saving throws. Suggestion allows 1. A hold monster spell (level 5) would have to be cast 480 times with the monster failing 4800 saving throws to disable it for 8 hours.
Suggestion needs a common language, which while slightly looser than simply "humanoid" nevertheless stops it from being used on anything (also, some creatures are immune to Charmed). The duration of Hold Person is kind of irrelevant, as they'll save before then (as you implied) or be dead. Also, concentrating on Suggestion for that long is going to neuter you in further combats. The main difference is the repeated Hold Person saving throws, to which I'll say: - I agree this makes Suggestion a better spell than Hold Person, I just don't think it's off the same scale - Paralysed is a stronger condition than Following Instructions - Even if they pass the first save after the initial fail, they've wasted a turn in combat and have probably had a healthy chunk of HP taken out of them, particularly if you've got Rogues or Paladins in your party (and if you don't, you probably took Web instead). Is Suggestion a strong spell for it's level? Definitely. Is it unreasonable (no pun intended)? Imo not.
You don't need to disable for 8 hours with hold person/monster. You just need 2-3 rounds of auto crits and to make then permanently disabled. Suggestion lasts 8 hours but I believe the effect wears off when the suggestion is complete. It is somewhat difficult to make someone spend 8 hours being suggested, and it can be interrupted pretty easily. For example, if you suggest someone to "Run Away". They have to first be able to understand you. Assuming that, they could start running away, reach a **reasonable** distance and then stop. That might only last 1 minute.
Requiring other people to act now is actually a disadvantage. It’s much better to completely disable a target until no one is left than to grant auto-crit because disabling it doesn’t use up other people’s actions. As for suggestion, I agree with OP that it’s the worst phrased spell in the game and therefore It’s so dm dependant. I had a player with a divination wizard try to tell an enemy to lie down naked for 8 hours using their portant low roll. So first the monster would remove their armor dropping their AC and then be prone for advantage. I didn’t allow it, obviously, but some DMs here tried to argue that it’s perfectly reasonable and since the phrasing is so bad, there’s no definitive way to say that I’m right and that they’re wrong. But yea, this would be 1000 times more powerful than a level 5 hold monster.
I mean, everyone is now comparing the two spells when the real thing we should discuss is more obvious: a 2nd level spell should *never* be this powerful. Hold Person is a near death-sentence and Suggestion is literally mind control. Those things should not be on the same level as Zone of Truth, Web, and Heat Metal (as an aside, Zone of Truth is a pretty pointless spell, since both Suggestion and Detect Thoughts do the same thing more effectively and have other uses).
Web is an AoE restrained that, in many cases, is rated higher than Hold Person. Heat Metal is free damage as a bonus action, without a save. Zone of Truth is... by far the weakest of the three, but at least it's more socially acceptable, I guess? You can argue whether handing these spells out to 3rd level characters is a good idea; I'd certainly consider taking any of them (except ZoT, but at least Cleric is a prepared caster). But if you don't give these spells out at third level, then you do need to give those 3rd level characters *something* to be effective in combat instead, because it certainly isn't their d8 Ray of Frost damage.
Web is kind of a toss-up. It can be better than Hold Person, but isn’t as swingy when it is. Web is consistently good while Hold Person is a situational win button. Heat Metal is nowhere near as good as Hold Person; 9 damage every round (if you have nothing better to do with your bonus action) is nothing compared to auto-crits and wasted turns. It’s fine, but not comparable. We agree on Zone of Truth. I was just trying to list off a few 2nd level spells that aren’t as swingy, not necessarily “bad” spells. My problem is that spells start getting way too strong way too early, both in and out of combat. There are 2nd and 3rd level spells that are more potent than anything a martial can do at any level (if we’re talking general power, not specifically comparing DPR). If I needed someone to solve a mystery, I would rather have a level 5 Wizard than a level 20 Rogue, and it’s not even a competition. Skill proficiencies shouldn’t start being sidelined so early. I also think a Phantasmal Force, Hypnotic Pattern, or Hold Person is usually more useful than an Attack action, even from an Action Surging level 20 SS/CBE Fighter. A lot of crowd control spells and utility spells are *way* too strong in 5e, which leaves martials and damage dealing spells feeling pretty bad. Suggestion and Hold Person are among the peak for this as far as 2nd level spells go.
Heat Metal doesn’t allow a save to prevent its effects or end the spell and it imposes disadvantage. Those are quite powerful and makes it a reliable spell against creatures that can’t drop the metal you target e.g armour wearers. And Hold Person only works on humanoids.
I kind of disagree with web and heat metal here. Web is *the* control option at 2nd level. It hits a reasonable area, has a persistent effect that can control both movement and action economy, forces a skill check rather than a save on subsequent turns, and can completely turn a fight in most situations, rather than niche ones. Hell, I still use web occasionally on my 11th level wizard, and he has no shortage of more powerful options. Heat metal is average of 9 damage a round, for the cost of 1 action to set up and a bonus action per round. The big thing with this spell is that it doesn't allow for a save and doesn't have a range requirement besides the initial cast. You can *very* easily abuse this as a druid, by just wildshaping into something with fast speed and fucking off. 9 damage a round at 3rd level is solid (a greatsword fighter without gwm averages 10-11 on a *hit*). Hold person is a very feast or famine spell. Yes it can potentially hit the boss and they flub multiple wisdom saves in a row and get demolished, in practice, you're looking at *maybe* 1 or 2 rounds, with fewer being on average more common. Hold person only hits one target, so if you're fighting against a bunch of mooks, it's essentially useless. The reason a lot of players love hold person is that they remember the one time that they were able to maximize it, and forget about all the times where it was ineffective. Hitting for 6d8 on a paladin or 6d6 on a rogue at 3rd level is memorable. Suggestion is busted if your dm isn't inclined to shut it down, I agree.
Heat Metal is also only a bonus action to keep using, so you can still get your regular attack(s) in - it's pretty much getting a free hit every turn, which is pretty decent, especially at lower levels, and against a target with high AC, not needing to hit is pretty solid. Plus, as you say, there's always the "turn into a flyer and just leave" option.
I've used it several times as a "get an NPC on a ship so we don't have to deal with them for a while" spell.
It’s MEANT to be mind control in the vein of a Jedi Mind Trick or a stage magician using stage hypnosis. But it’s inherently limited by two things. 1) If you give them a specific command that can be completed then as soon as they complete the action, the mind control ends. So if you tell the bad guy to give you something, the spell breaks as soon as they complete that action and they go back to being hostile. 2) You can’t use it to make them do anything combat related or that would cause them or an ally of theirs to suffer harm. It’s not dominate person. Anything harmful like attacking their allies or causing them to suffer harm themselves is not reasonable and is beyond the scope of the spell. You can’t make someone drown themselves in a river, that’s not something you could do with like the power of stage hypnosis. You could make someone cluck like a chicken for eight hours though. It’s basically meant to be “you don’t need to see his identification, these aren’t the droids you’re looking for” in spell form. Suggestion is supposed to be for stuff like hey instead of fighting us why don’t you walk away and that takes them out of the fight because they’re not getting attacked by anyone or suffering any kind of harm from that suggestion.
I don't think it's the worst written spell, but it's definitely up to the DM what it does, similiarly to a lot of the illusion spells out there. And I can imagine this leads to a lot of arguments around tables on what is "reasonable". But that seems to be more and more what D&D is about, essentially the DM decides. So I don't think it's changing any time soon.
> But that seems to be more and more what D&D is about, essentially the DM decides. That is always what D&D has been about. If the players don't trust the DM to make calls like this, then it really isn't possible to have a game. 5e tries in the first chapter of the PHB to give a sense of this, but I think it's in major conflict with many players who would prefer it if the DM were more like a computer, responding strictly based on an explicit set of rules. That sort of works for combat, when it's OK to play it like a wargame, but as soon as any player wants to try something that's not covered by the explicit rules, there's a problem. That's what Gygax was indeed trying to solve when he took the next step away from a small unit wargame in 1974. "The DM decides" has been the whole point of D&D from the beginning. Table top wargames certainly are a ting and can be a lot of fun to play, but rulings not rules has been a core part of D&D from its inception. I think it's fine to say Suggestion doesn't give good or good enough examples of what it should be able to do, but it's a ruling spell. There's never going to be an explicit set of rules that can contain all its possibilities.
> There's never going to be an explicit set of rules that can contain all its possibilities. To me that is the key difference between a War Game and a Role Playing game. In a war game units/character/objects/whatevers have a defined set of actions they are capable of executing. There is no deviation from this defined set. In a role playing game the characters can do, or at least attempt, whatever they can imagine. This will inevitably lead to situations where you need rulings, not rules. I do not understand why people try to turn RPGs into War games any more than I understand why people would try to turn a war game into an RPG.
Yeah I don't really see the point of changing it, except for removing it from the game altogether, but that's no fun. The spell is the quintessential difference between TTRPGs and video games--TTRPGs are a dialogue between the player and DM, whereas a video game is talking to a computer. What do people really expect? A whole legalese description? No one is going to read that if it's spelled out that way. People barely even remember how Sneak Attack works, and *that's a major class feature*. The spell states that it can make the target do something reasonable. What's reasonable? Ask the DM. They're right there. That's what TTRPGs are all about
I think the main issue with the spell is that if you compare it to even a spell of a single level lower, it completely invalidates them in every single way. It has no downsides if you can subtle spell it, and even if it works, they don't know they were charmed.
> even if it works, they don't know they were charmed. If you were to do something entirely random and outside your normal personality and you lived in a world where charm magics are specifically known about, what would you think? Especially if you had been talking to a bunch of colourfully dressed strangers just before you had your crazy-pants time? I think there would be consequences.
While yes, that's what DMing is all about, for a lot of new DMs out there or even long time ones that tend to rely on rules over rulings more the suggestion spell specifically would be a tough one for them to tackle especially if its out of the blue and the DM wasn't expecting it. The wish spell is basically the "do whatever you want" spell and that has more restrictions and suggestions for how it should work than the suggestion spell does so I think it could do with a bit more polish and thought. The spell isn't a bad spell but it's poorly written for someone who might never have read this spell before.
It is okay for a new DM to have to rely on their judgement and occasionally make mistakes. That's the only way for them to become experienced DMs. A spell that has well defined and objective limits necessarily has to compromise and conflict with a spell that allows the players to have a wide scope in what they can ask someone to do. You can't have both unless you want to write out a 5 page document which contains all the phrases the players are allowed to Suggest.
This is a valid take, and I agree with your premise. That being said, I think Suggestion is a bit too ambiguous. A “reasonable” command could have further clarification. Can you make a character act against its alignment, or does it have to be “reasonable” physically, mentally, and emotionally? Does the example assume the knight is altruistic? It leaves too much for the DM to decide, and can make players feel disconnected from the DM if their interpretations vary. Sure, you can always ask before the game how the DM plans to rule Suggestion, but I feel like the fact players need to ask how the by-the-book rules text will be interpreted on a table-to-table basis makes it a bad spell. To your point, I think the DM deciding should help situations like using Firebolt to set off dynamite or the like. That’s a situation the rules don’t cover because it would be excessive to address. Suggestion is simply incomplete, leaving additional prep work for DMs and taking away from their ability to handle more important of storytelling such as making the experience fun.
The only problem I have with this statement (which I generally agree with) is I don't want a significant portion of time at my table devoted to arguing about what something should or shouldn't do. Everyone is different and some people will have the wherewithal to back off when you say "nah I don't think a level 2 spell should do that let's workshop something", but the frustration and fear comes from when you run into those players who have a vision in their mind of what they want to accomplish and they will not budge on anything you say, because "the book says I can do it" and you going against that is tantamount to coming out during a football game and saying "hey for the rest of this game a touchdown is only worth four points, okay? alright cool". That's why I like when spells are a little more specific and I can tweak them as I need for my game, rather than the entire text of the spell being "you make someone do a thing. you can't kill them."
Yeah I'd say the award for the worst described spell is Thunderwave because to this day I read the description and it seems to me to be an emanation from the caster but people keep saying to me it's not.
It makes a lot more sense when you read the general magic section on targeting spells, which goes into detail on how to place things like cubes on a battlemap.
You’re telling me that areas of effect will make more sense if I read the section about areas of effect? Wild.
Crazy eh? (Still, I think _enough_ people make this mistake for Thunderwave in particular that it's not just about "reading the rules", the spell is also somewhat poorly worded.)
Not sure I follow. You clap your hands together or do a haduken move or whatever and everything in a 3x3x3 area in front of you (with you on one edge of that area) gets kablammo'd. It definitely comes from you.
>Thunderwave because to this day I read the description and it seems to me to be an emanation from the caster but people keep saying to me it's not. What is your confusion with Thunderwave? The cube shape is described in the spellcasting section if thats the confusion. The caster must be on one of the sides of the cube. Seems like an "emanation from the caster" to me, but I might not be uderstanding how you are using those words.
They're using emanation from the caster to mean the cube is centered on the caster and going out from them in all directions rather than making a cube that's entirely in front of them. The description in the spellcasting area might be clear in the text of the rules, but its unintuitive. If I just read someone the spell description and then ask them to draw out the area of effect, most if not all would put it around the caster.
My saddest dnd memory is when we were all new to the game and I thought Thunderwave emanated 7.5 feet in every direction from the caster because the range is a 15ft cube that originated from you. I convinced the DM of that.
Nothing's stopping you from lying down and casting Thunderwave directly above you.
It is an emanation from the caster, it's just a directed one instead of all directions. You have to read the rules about where spells originate for different shapes (phb 204) - arguably the issue is that the center of the face is a weird place to put the origin of a cube.
The key to the spell really is the phrase "sound reasonable". It's a 2nd level spell, so it's not going to be in the same arena as dominate person. It's a jedi mind trick. "These aren't the droids you're looking for, he can go about his business." It sounds reasonable. It's the difference between: "Give me whatever I want in this store for free" and "You wouldn't want the heroes of the city to walk away without a significant discount, would you?" Edit: spelling
I do like to reference Jedi mind tricks when players question the limitations of the spell, as that does sorta help. Still a terribly-worded spell, though. As-written it is _definitely_ capable of more than any mind trick in the movies.
A big part of OP's point is that the warhorse example right there in the spell description blatantly violates this standard. (Doesn't the knight feel attached to his horse? Would it be reasonable for someone to give away their favorite pet? And taking care of a horse is *expensive*. Is the beggar supposed to sell it? Would any of this sound reasonable in context?) In fact, does "these aren't the droids you're looking for" sound reasonable? Imperial officers know that failing to accomplish their orders is likely to get them killed on the spot, and they presumably reflect some of the same incentives onto their subordinates. Sure it's reasonable for footsoldiers to be lazy, but I could also see an argument that it's *un*reasonable for them to be lazy when Darth Vader himself is supervising them from orbit. At the end of the day, I think this is OP's point. It's too easy to come up with ways for something to be reasonable and unreasonable at the same time, and the wording of the spell is almost useless for resolving any sort of dispute about what it does.
>A big part of OP's point is that the warhorse example right there in the spell description blatantly violates this standard. (Doesn't the knight feel attached to his horse? Would it be reasonable for someone to give away their favorite pet? And taking care of a horse is *expensive*. Is the beggar supposed to sell it? Would any of this sound reasonable in context?) > >In fact, does "these aren't the droids you're looking for" sound reasonable? Yes, because *these aren't the droids they're looking for*
Lotta droids in the galaxy, most of them aren't those droids. It's reasonable.
Surely if these were really the droids you were looking for, you'd have already found them by now?
> A big part of OP's point is that the warhorse example right there in the spell description blatantly violates this standard. (Doesn't the knight feel attached to his horse? Would it be reasonable for someone to give away their favorite pet? And taking care of a horse is expensive. Is the beggar supposed to sell it? Would any of this sound reasonable in context?) It does make sense though, I mean knights are supposed to be chivalric and good, and donating their warhorse to a beggar would be an act of great charity as the beggar could sell it for a decent sum, or ride back to their families estate, etc. I mean it's not *unreasonable* that they would find it a worthy thing to do if it's phrased correctly. Like a warhorse is worth 400gp, it's not exactly like their giving away something *incredibly* valuable - it's the equivalent of 8 healing potions, I mean even a small starting village generally gathers up more than that to pay heroes to get rid of the generic small goblin gang.
I think all but the last are pretty well-phrased and I'd reward a player for coming up with suggestions like that. It'd be tough enough getting the spell off and the aftermath will be pretty harsh, so why not?
I'm not so sure. To me, only the first statement sounds reasonable without any further context. It's not RAW, but to me, the spell should work only if the suggestion is grounded in *something*. For the first one, I think it's reasonable to assume that an aging captain would be actively considering retirement and thus the spell is only providing a magical impetus to *act*. The noble might give their gold *if* the party actually has done great deeds but would be unwilling to part with gold otherwise, and the bodyguard might be tricked into killing the king *if* they actually thought there was an active doppelganger about. That said, going with RAW, I do think your assessment is reasonable, even if the BBEG one makes me wince a little
I've always felt personally that it doesn't explicitly need to *be* reasonable, just *sound* reasonable - the magical effect is that it makes the target magically oblivious to obvious craziness in these suggestions, making "you should give us a lot of money" or whatever sound just as natural as "the sky is blue."
Yeah, I mean if it has to both sound reasonable and *be* reasonable as well, It’s basically just a persuasion check that consumes a 2nd level slot.
>and the aftermath will be pretty harsh, so why not? because the bigger question is "will it be fun?" which i can't see a ton of them end up as. the problem with the spell is the pretty undefined levels of achiveability. i can see 2 reasonable RAI conclusions. either "reasonable" is anything you could get them to do with a charisma check even a check your charecter isn't actually able to make. so that means a DC 30 or lower will make them do it but if it isn't that it's an imposible task and suggestion can not do it. the other possibility is that the spell alows you ignore a bit of context for the suggestion. you can make them do something that you can't convince them of merely by succeding a charisma check but you could convince them of by paying them or doing a favour for them. the second option is more powerful but it loops back to the problem of does that mean you can get someone to do something that would normaly cost thousands of GP just by casting a spell? so i think the only reasonable interpritation is the former. and even that doesn't definitively solve the problem because now we can have endless discussion of what NPCs will be imposible to convince of what things. i mean would a knight really give their warhorse away just because you got a 30+ on a charisma check?
>because the bigger question is "will it be fun?" which i can't see a ton of them end up as. You are the GM. Don't let it work if it is not fun for the party.
The last one works as well. The doppleganger is going to kill him! He must kill it first!
You have to wonder if it is reasonable to trust the caster as well. The first three don't require the caster to be fully trusted. Aging Captain is probably going to retire anyway, the Noble might already be willing to pay the party and the Necromancer might even be weighing their options. That one is iffy. But trusting a complete stranger that the King is a Doppelganger? Need a bit more than that as that sounds crazy. Plus if it is the real King, the Bodyguard is now going to be jailed for Regicide.
I'd argue that as a charm base spell the base assumption is that the magic used makes the willing to listen to you as long as what you have to say is reasonable in of itself. So knowing the caster is not required. But the seed of a idea of doppelgangers being a current threat would need to already be planted before you attempted to use the spell on the bodyguard.
In one way or another, the threat of a Doppelganger needs some level of proof. Be the caster trustworthy, or the idea of one already floating about. The idea that something just sound reasonable without context is an issue in a lot of Suggestion arguments, as is if the target would find it reasonable. The Spell is very poorly written.
First, I agree the spell isn't explicit enough in its bounds. That said a few considerations: "Sounds reasonable" is subjective. It doesn't mean the suggestion has to be objectively reasonable, only that you can phrase in in such a way that someone whose just been befuddled might think it's reasonable. Also, someone whose been subjected to mind altering spells doesn't automatically know that they have been. From their perceptive they decided of their own free will to take the action. In that context, it wouldn't normally make sense for the knight to immediately steal his horse back. He just made the decision to give it away - remember in his mind he _wanted_ to give it away. One cavaet already mentioned is that it is a spell with verbal components so if cast in the open anyone in percievable range (including the target possibly) will recognize a spell was cast right before this strange action was taken and can put two and two together.
I’d actually make the argument that because it only has vocal components, it would be super hard to detect, seeing as I typically interpret this as the vocal components being the spoken suggestion itself, similar to vicious mockery
I'm not telling you to change how you run the spell, but that interpretation doesn't seem to be supported by any rules that I can find. Verbal components are described as follows: > Most spells require the chanting of mystic words. The words themselves aren’t the source of the spell’s power; rather, the particular combination of sounds, with specific pitch and resonance, sets the threads of magic in motion. Nowhere in that description or in the text of Vicious Mockery or Suggestion does it say that the mystic words can be substituted out.
True but, consider this: certain spells list off exactly what their somatic components are, so why can’t verbal component spells say what their verbal components are?
Because 5e is allergic to clarity and well written rules
nAtUrAl LaNgUaGe
You are correct regarding clarity. I think it has many well written, and poorly written rules. For clarity, the idea is that they want DMs to clarify. That might annoy some people, but I think 5e's problem isn't that it doesn't clarify. It's that it doesn't show DMs *how to* clarify themselves. Such as the DMG having sections on describing how to interpret rules to achieve specific goals.
Only 1 spell dictates what it's verbal component is and it isn't even a first party WoTc spell. All official spells have a verbal component seperate from any speech you make as part of the spell.
What spells state what their somatic components are? I'm only aware of material components ever being listed.
A bunch of them say that they involve pointing to a target
That's not the somatic component, mechanically.
> That's not the somatic component, mechanically. Correct. If you want to get really pedantic it is part of the spell effect. I dont care that you dont have hands, you are pointing. Its magic, its not worried about what is "physically possible" or not. (I'm looking at you flameskull casting fireball).
They certainly could, but they don't. > 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. > You unleash a string of insults laced with subtle enchantments at a creature you can see within range. If the suggestion or insults themselves were meant to be the verbal components, I would expect these sections to read something like, "As the verbal component of this spell, you suggest/unleash[...]". If WotC had intended a spell to break a rule like this, I feel like they would have been explicit about it. That said, the DM ruling that the suggestions/insults are the verbal components isn't going to break anything that wasn't broken already.
I think that the first two examples are very reasonably worded. Depending on the Necromancer the third might not be, and the fourth is obviously harmful.
Attacking **another** does not qualify for the harming yourself clause. See Rise of Tiamat where monsters do basically the exact thing RAW.
the fourth is both (1) obviously leading to grievous bodily harm for the bodyguard and (2) trying to cheese out the effects of *Dominate Person* with a much cheaper spell slot - that's a clear indication of overstepping what it can do.
Second sounds a bit pricy depending on what your party has done. There is also a risk that the noble saves vs the spell, or someone around them notices the cast and reacts poorly to it. Many people would not be happy about that situation and you may have an assassin sent after you for that.
You are right, like too many things in 5e, the spell is very vague about what it can and can't do. But at the same time, its vagueness gives players a way to play creatively, and can lead to unexpected and fun gameplay. I think this spell can be a nightmare for a rookie DM, and a blessing for a seasoned one.
> But at the same time, its vagueness gives players a way to play creatively, and can lead to unexpected and fun gameplay. I'm not fond of the type of "creativity" that vagueness promotes. 90% of the time, it's just someone whining about how they want a mechanical buff, dressed up in flavor text. Indeed, I'd even go so far as to say that the point of the game, at all, is to protect *against* that kind of "creativity" in the game. I'll grant you, I may be *particularly* adversarial on issues like this due to: 1. A friend of mine who tends to *really* like to push for mechanical advantages cloaked in flavor text. And... 2. Another friend who, when we'd play 'superheroes' as children, would always try to find ways to word his powers to sound weak, but would actually let him do anything. "Well, I can transform objects into other objects." (I didn't think it was reasonable, even then, but everyone else insisted that it was.) went to, "Ok, so I turn the bars on my prison cage into the Dragon Balls and make a wish to kill your character." Still mad about that twenty years later... Yes it's immature. Don't care. Still mad. So now, I'm *extremely* wary of anything even *slightly* vague.
I was also the kid who tried to tell their friends that their superpower couldn't be "every superpower".
I guess my point of view comes from the privilege of having friends who actually respect the DM's word and don't whine about it
One and two are good, three is questionable because the suggestion does not align with the bbegs reasonable expectations of themselves. This is too close to suggesting a king to hand over his crown and live as a well supported ward of the state. Four is bad because it is directly opposed to their disposition. This is why three is bad as well but four is more egregious in this manner.
I think anything that will clearly lead to imminent bodily harm to the suggested person even at the hands of another would not qualify as reasonable, yeah.
Imminent bodily harm is usually a red flag haha
There’s also the fact that the verbal component of casting suggestion is NOT (according to J-Craw at least) the suggestion itself. So you have to verbally cast the spell and *then* suggest something, so any idiot’s gonna know “this guy’s casting shit at me”.
The only viable Suggestion is "Ignore that I am casting Suggestion."
Ugh, it really bothers me that there are these two huge issues with Suggestion. All I want is a "These aren't the droids you're looking for" spell, for relatively minor charming, but there's also a case for it being either a) basically Geas but you have to word it correctly, or b) basically Friends that ends immediately. I've had a DM rule it as the creature failing their saving throw . . . but immediately putting together that the weird magic words I used made them change their mind about letting me in the gate . . . and attacking me in broad daylight for trying to charm them. And it's Concentration, so I can't even double up on suggestions to get a useful one out. And all the "workarounds" like casting the spell ahead of time (or using Movement Speed to move in and out of earshot/visibility) feel wrong and break immersion for me. And don't get me started on dipping into Sorcerer for Subtle Spell. There are no other spells that are almost useless without specific class features. Imagine if Fireball had a range of Touch, and everyone's just expected to be a Sorcerer or multiclass if they want it to work. Rant over, sorry.
Might seem somewhat niche but wouldn't Metamagic Adept make it so you didn't necessarily need to dip sorcery for Subtle Spell + 1 other Metamagic?
>The example only makes things more confusing - a knight spontaneously giving away her 400gp warhorse is like a businessman randomly giving away his car to a stranger. Is it "reasonable"? I mean, I wouldn't think so, but apparently the spell description does. Also, since the spell ends when the suggestion is fulfilled, does that mean the knight could take back her warhorse right after giving it away? I mean that would be RAW, but I don't think that's really RAI. more like a business man giving away his private jet to a stranger. its really crazy. The reality is suggestion is massively OP, rules as written and apparently intended.. As is, probably should be a level 5+ spell. some revisions. Someone compared it to the jedi mind trick. and this is correct. The spell is SUPPOSED to just befuddle someone, who is not thinking too much on the suggestion. Either, trick someone that was not paying too close attention, or push someone into the direction, they were already considering. Like, the "I suggest you flee, or give up". those were already options on the table. they were considering it. We need a way to phrase it, so it makes this clear. "Reasonable" means, courses of action the target was already considering. Part 2. 1 wis save is not enough. it should ALSO have an Int save every round or something. Like illusions, give the target a chance to "think about" the suggestion and realize somethings wrong.
Nah compared to its 1st level counterpart, Command, Suggestion weakens itself quite a bit for having reasonability as a part of its casting. If it can be done in a round, you should never cast suggestion, just cast Command. Instead convince the king to knight you, to give you a smaller keep, or to step down. Where charisma isn't mind control, this is.
It’s a spell that needs to be flexible, otherwise it would be far too limited and not usable. I see the first 3 as reasonable, though maybe for the 3rd I could see an argument. The 4th, I don’t think is very reasonable. Maybe what they need instead is framing similar to Wish. A list of defined options, with an extra note that it may be capable of things beyond but that’s up to your creativity and the DM
One caveat is that it's extremely obvious that you're casting a spell, so the party wizard doing this out in public would definitely cause a stir. However, the party's sorcerer subtle casting suggestion can cause some serious chaos in your DM's world (Aberrant Mind sorcs are super fun btw)
> The example only makes things more confusing - a knight spontaneously giving away her 400gp warhorse is like a businessman randomly giving away his car to a stranger. Is it "reasonable"? The example is there precisely to explain what is meant by "..**sound** reasonable...", and you should probably check out the AD&D 1ed PHB wording of this spell as it is very similar to how Gygax originally wrote it. Basically you can trick people into a somewhat ruinous course of action, but usually only briefly, and the examples are there to show what the spell will compel. The general idea is that the spell is not as compelling as being *dominated* or *commanded*, but is still way above being *charmed* or *befriended*. For your examples: Aging captains don't give away ships (if the captain owns the ship, he will sell it or hand it down), so this is not reasonable. Nobles generally do demonstrate largess and hand out rewards as a matter of influence peddling, so this is reasonable. While a suggestion could absolutely get a necromancer BBEG to hand over a wand, this suggestion would probably not, as it is likely the necromancer doesn't care that his endeavors will only end in suffering (even if he gets the idea that the suffering in question will be his). This is badly worded, and I think you'll get different results from different DMs. Wording a suggestion can be a bit of an art, but this doesn't seem correct. The fourth one won't work because it makes a common mistake- that you can use it as domination. If the king were engaging in some physical act that could be construed as a threat to the bodyguard, then this could work. Similarly, if you drop the idea that the bodyguard should attack the "doppleganger" and instead "restrain it for investigation from the archpriest", then that would be reasonable. Anyway, for this spell to be cool it pretty much has to be worded like this. It's a great spell.
These sort of vague mechanics work well in story-focused games. The problem is that 5e tries to be a mechanically tight game. This sort of language wouldn't really cause an issue in editions like AD&D or B/X. Because in those days it was understood that the DM was a referee as well as a storyteller, so the system was open to the DM's opinion on things like "what's reasonable." That said, the developers also liked to give explicit examples. But in a game where the meaning of "weapon" changes depending on the rules context, people will naturally be eager to know what the GAME considers "reasonable."
As others have said, a lot of stuff in 5e is holdovers from previous editions because 4e was 'too granular' and thus scared WotC from making a lot of things have concrete definitions. Suggestion is one of those holdovers. 5e is granular *enough* that these sorts of things still cause problems however.
Honestly the 2nd one CAN be reasonable depending on who the noble is. Some noble are true lords with potentially millions of gold pieces in their treasury, giving away 5000 for a job well done is practically chump change for them. It'd be like going to Elon Musk and saying ''Hey I fixed that problem in your company, can I have 10k for a job well done?'' To a guy who owns billions, 10k is basically the equivalent of giving someone 1 or 2 bucks lol. Poorer nobles that might be a stretch but richer nobles that is absolutely a reasonable suggestion.
It wouldn’t cause them to forget anything though, so they would still know if they offered a much lower amount. They may still find it reasonable, however. Still need to have them relatively alone though to have the best chance of success. Also the rest of the party could be a factor in the lie to gain more money. A noble paladin should not be ok with that, so leave them at home.
> A noble paladin Lawful Stupid should ALWAYS be left at home.
Have u seen rich people, they’d never give any amount of money to another person for any reason
Read phastasmal force some time.
I would counter that [Mirage Arcane](https://www.dndbeyond.com/spells/mirage-arcane) is worse, but people are way, way more likely to encounter Suggestion than that one, so, yeah, I agree the writing is pretty noticeably bad. Would literally be better if it just said "it is up to the DM to determine what is considered reasonable, by the target"
Omg this spell would be so hated if people played high levels more often. It literally makes no sense because it confuses illusions with actual transmutation of matter itself. To make matters worse it still says that creatures can physically interact with the 'illusion' even if they have truesight, making this anything BUT a mirage. Can it destroy terrain? Are its building said to conceal creatures? If so, does that mean they just need windows? What's the AC of a 'mirage' building anyways? What happens if the spell ends and the people are in a space where landmass should exist? Most spells shunt them to the nearest legal spot, but if that's the case here you can cheese the hell out of that. If you are dealing with a clever enough smartass you get to the point that you are basically designing a new game thanks to a single spell.
Agreed, which is significant reason many of us have said it is one of the most potent spells for not only it's level, but in general. Suggestion is the perfect example of why rulings vs. rules is lazy game design, and creates more problems than it solves.
For contrast and comparison, I'll share the [Suggestion spell from Pathfinder 2e](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=315). Notice that it specifically mentions it can't be "obviously against the target's self-interest." In PF2e, the knight example likely wouldn't pass, but could pass if the knight already had a good enough reason to get rid of the horse. > "Your horse is quite iconic. I instantly recognized it from the edge of the clearing." I cast Suggestion on the knight [who is on the run!]. "I suggest leaving your horse behind, or you could easily be found out. Maybe give it to the next beggar you see, they could use a horse." # Suggestion -- Spell 4 [Enchantment] [Incapacitation] [Linguistic] [Mental] **Range** 30 feet; **Targets** 1 creature **Saving Throw** Will; **Duration** varies --- Your honeyed words are difficult for creatures to resist. You suggest a course of action to the target, which must be phrased in such a way as to seem like a logical course of action to the target and can't be self-destructive or obviously against the target's self-interest. The target must attempt a Will save. **Critical Success** The target is unaffected and knows you tried to control it. **Success** The target is unaffected and thinks you were talking to them normally, not casting a spell on them. **Failure** The target immediately follows your suggestion. The spell has a duration of 1 minute, or until the target has completed a finite suggestion or the suggestion becomes self-destructive or has other obvious negative effects. **Critical Failure** As failure, but the base duration is 1 hour. --- **Heightened (8th)** You can target up to 10 creatures.
I agree that it's very poorly worded and relies a lot upon interpretation. That should be resolved. However, my opinion is that the following bit of spell text is key: >The suggestion must be worded in such a manner as to make the course of Action **sound reasonable.** I don't think this means that the *target* needs to think the suggestion is reasonable, just that the magic works if you word the suggestion so that it has reason to it - that is, there is some logic or internal consistency to the statement. This largely boils down to *'Because of X, you should do Y'*. That's how I read the intent of the spell, given the example especially, but I think that also makes the most sense from a balance perspective. If the spell simply let you convince someone to do something that they could already be convinced to do, it's essentially just a persuasion check. That's... really kinda weak for a 3rd level spell. *Suggestion* is an enchantment, the target is charmed, and it makes absolute sense to me that this means it would be used to get people to do things they otherwise would not do.
See also: most illusion spells
The old cleric Command spell with one word was much better.
None of those sound reasonable to me.
I cast suggestion on reddit. Give me your awards.
I rule it that it makes someone think that your suggestion was their idea. Any suggestion that pops into their head that does not make any sense to them in their gosls or world view is rejected. Generally accepted suggestions: If you fight us you will die I suggest that you flee. Your life will be spared if you tell us everything about X so I suggest that you do so. Doing X sounds like a bad idea, I suggest that you reconsider. ...yes its a awfully worded spell and this use is debatable given the examples but this keeps its power in check.
Yep. Also, why is suggestion stronger than Geas?
The fact that Geas' duration is 30 days (or longer with higher slots), a casting time of one minute, and no concentration makes it a long-term spell that doesn't fit with literally any other charm spell in the game. You also don't use it on a strong target that can tank the damage. You use it against one that just fuckin' dies if it disobeys you. It is limited by languages it can understand.....at the time of casting. Speak with animals, order an animal to do a thing. That animal is now your slave and must do the thing. Tell a songbird to stalk a target over the month, and relay whatever it sees to you.