I'd go with how immediate the threat is there for the obviousness of the harm to you. Spellbooks? A well-phrased suggestion could probably give him access. A magic item he could use immediately to harm you? Obviously harmful. If they're all stored together and you couldn't just retrieve the spellbooks? Obviously harmful.
Zarius, I actually told you how to finesse the situation in my earlier post. Make sure that his spellbooks are bound to something immediately dangerous and the suggestion hangs on the obviously harmful act.
If you can't be bothered manipulating the situation to your own benefit, then yes, the wizard is going to win this little PvP episode.
So, yeah. My GM and I are arguing over a question of "obviously harmful." My PC and his cohort have deemed one of the party members to be a Hostile Entity. If, in theory, I were to steal all of this hostile PC's stuff - including his spell books, etc - and hide it all in an extradimensional space that only these two people can access (pocket dimension keyed to a specific bloodline), would I be within my rights to consider giving his stuff back "an obviously harmful act" for the purposes of Suggestion?
The problem has nothing to do with definitions and the Suggestion spell, and everything to do with a party dynamic so dysfunctional that the game has turned into a weapon against one another.
The answer to the question is irrelevant. You all need to step back from the game and sort this party dynamic out, because this is not a situation that arises from characters having a disagreement. It's a situation that arises from players being antagonistic toward one another, and that's one of the fastest ways to torpedo a game.
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Yeah, stop worrying about in game stuff and start worrying about yourself and this other player being antagonistic towards one another.
The GM shouldn't allow this in this sort of behavior in the first place, not unless both players have openly agreed to it.
"Obviously" is an ironically pretty vague or subjective term. Giving the wizard the spellbook is as harmful as giving a fighter a sword. I don't think suggestion protects you from arming your enemies.
My opinion: obviously harmful act is read as immediately harmful act.
Such as the difference between:
Suggestion: "go jump off that cliff"
vs.
Suggestion: "Go stand next at the very edge of the cliff and face outwards and away from me while I stand behind you"
vs.
Suggestion: "Go stand next at the very edge of the cliff and marvel at the beauty of the landscape"
.
In the first suggestion, this is a no-brainer. Obviously harmful.
In the second suggestion, this is a grey area. The target of the suggestion is still allowed to perceive this as harmful/not-harmful. If the target of the suggestion has previous knowledge that the caster is hostile, the spell fails because it is obviously harmful to stand at the edge of a cliff in a position where you're unable to defend yourself against being pushed off the cliff. If the target of the suggestion has previous knowledge that the caster is friendly, the spell succeeds because it is obviously not harmful.
In the third suggestion, this is a no-brainer. The spell succeeds, whether the target of the suggestion perceives the caster to be hostile or not.
So in my opinion, the OP’s suggestion to retrieve a spellbook for a hostile wizard would qualify as the 2nd suggestion example I posted earlier, except it would fall under obviously harmful. It would be the same as retrieving a +5 vorpal dagger for a hostile rogue, or the same as a suggestion to "prostrate yourself in front of that hooded executioner (who is wielding an executioner's axe)".
However if the hostile wizard is clever with his wording of the suggestion, such as “put the spellbook on the table and open the spellbook to page 10 and go retrieve the reagents for that spell”, it would succeed.
If you're not sure if it counts as obvious, it's not obvious.
That said, I usually think the best way to look at these definitions is... what else would and would not be ruled out? Like, Dominate Person's "actions against its nature". Clearly they don't mean you can only order the target to do things it would do anyway of its own free will, because that would be a pretty lousy level 4 spell. It makes much more sense as the difference between "kill your wife" and "kill that person down the street". For Suggestion's "obviously harmful", they don't mean "if you think about it, would it have bad results" or "you have a theory this is dangerous", they mean "heck no, nope nope nope I am not getting near that bomb for a million dollars" type of things.
You ever look out over a cliff or a balcony or something and get this random urge to jump, or briefly imagine doing something horrible to hurt somebody? And then you think "wtf no" and move on? Something like that, that you can dismiss even when it's actually your own thought (if mental illness isn't a particular factor, anyway) is the kind of thing those spells can't make you do.
Unless the action of handing a book to someone (what that person may do with the books is not relevant) is likely to result in immediate, grave bodily injury, the answer is no. This is not an obviously harmful act.
If it is clear that the action will cause you damage it is obviously harmful. Otherwise it is probably not.
Giving someone a weapon, even if they might (or are likely to) hurt you with it, it is not something that is obviously harmful. Giving someone something is not going to hurt you. That is the action we are talking about, not some future action of another person that might hurt you.
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Mid combat, disarming yourself by giving over a weapon or divine focus is harmful. Harm does not have to be damage.
Again using the broadest definition of harm found in Webster's "loss of or damage to a person's right, property, or physical or mental well-being."
Being in a standoff and having to give up my weapon is both unreasonable and loss of mental well being.
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If you are in a knife fight and you hand over you knife you are now just being held at knife point this is a "loss of mental well being" harm by the dictionary definition of the word.
If you think the game uses a different, more restrictive definition of harm, I'm open to evidence but in lue that using the broadest definition of the word will necessarily cover the most interpretations of the rule.
An other example go fight that dragon. Real world equivalent "go fight 5 weight catogories above your own." These order are mentality detrimental, and will most likely result in direct physical harm."
If you go by that defintion, being compelled to obey someone else's suggestion is a 'loss of mental well being' so suggestion would never work. I submit that this is not a useful definition.
The most common, simplest definition of harm is 'injury.' Pretty much as I said earlier, if the action will cause you to take damage it is harmful, if it is readily apparent that that will happen, it is obvious.
Dropping a sword won't hurt you. Stabbing yourself with your sword will.
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Only if you ignore the order of operations obvious harm criteria only applies to the question being asked, not the effects of the spells or the mental controll.
Every request has to fulfil 2 criteria reasonable and does no obvious harm. Droping a weapon in a fight, at minimum does not fit reasonable, and it is arguable the it does harm.
Buff your allies, protect the wizard, focus on accuracy and see what your gms limits are. The spell is hard to use by design. Subjective language let's gms target the power to their games, but the spell containing multiple restrictive qualifiers means the spell's abilities are meant to be restricted and qualified.
Only if you ignore the order of operations obvious harm criteria only applies to the question being asked, not the effects of the spells or the mental controll.
Every request has to fulfil 2 criteria reasonable and does no obvious harm. Droping a weapon in a fight, at minimum does not fit reasonable, and it is arguable the it does harm.
Buff your allies, protect the wizard, focus on accuracy and see what your gms limits are. The spell is hard to use by design. Subjective language let's gms target the power to their games, but the spell containing multiple restrictive qualifiers means the spell's abilities are meant to be restricted and qualified.
The limitations put in effectively prevent the caster from ordering the target to coup de grace himself.
They do not prevent the caster from ordering the target to place himself into a disadvantageous position.
Doesn't seem "obvious" danger to me. While a wizard with a spellbook may be dangerous it's not putting you in direct immediate danger to give him one.
Except immediate isn't a requirement.
Only obvious.
Giving the BBEG the key to Hell with which he can bring a diabolical horde isn't immediate danger, but it's obvious danger.
Doesn't seem "obvious" danger to me. While a wizard with a spellbook may be dangerous it's not putting you in direct immediate danger to give him one.Except immediate isn't a requirement.
Only obvious.
Giving a wizard a spellbook is not inherently dangerous. A wizard may, or may not, choose to act against the target at a later time, but that is a matter of conjecture. He could just as easily choose to leave, or take any number of other actions.
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Doesn't seem "obvious" danger to me. While a wizard with a spellbook may be dangerous it's not putting you in direct immediate danger to give him one.Except immediate isn't a requirement.
Only obvious.
Giving the BBEG the key to Hell with which he can bring a diabolical horde isn't immediate danger, but it's obvious danger.
The spell states "An affected creature never obeys suicidal or obviously harmful orders, but it might be convinced that something very dangerous is worth doing." Obvious danger is not necessarily a deterrant...and the OP was asking about obvious HARM. In the case of suggestion/charm person/etc I would think that the term HARM would be the same as Hostile Action, which is defined as "A hostile action is any attack or effect that causes direct harm to an opponent in the form of damage, negative conditions, or any other effect that penalizes or hinders a creature."
Thus, causing mental distress by having someone drop their weapon mid combat is "harm" in that it is causing an immediate hinderance. Asking that someone to hand their SPARE weapon over is not harm. By the same token, to the OP's question, asking someone to return stolen property is NOT harm even though you might perceive it to be something dangerous to do. It is not causing you immediate injury to do so, inflicting any penalties, nor is it doing even so little as just hindering you.
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Mental well-being has no bearing (on 'obvious harm', which is the discussion), and assuming you aren't talking about mental damage and drain or effects that would cause a mental condition like confusion or insanity. For example, depression, embarrassment, shame, etc. from being compelled to do something you later realize you shouldn't have done isn't prevented.
That's not actually true. Ultimate Intrigue discusses the use of enchantments at length:
The main danger with enchantments lies in removing agency from a character, either a PC or NPC, and the main difficulty in running them is adjudicating just how much they do so. As such, they are much easier to deal with than divinations, as they have less variety in the difficulties that arise. In all cases, a DC 25 (or lower) Sense Motive check notices that someone is enchanted. (See Skills in Conflict for more information on using Sense Motive to detect enchantment.) Charm Person: The main thing to remember about charm magic is that it is not a compulsion (that is a different subschool of enchantment), which means it doesn’t directly force someone to do something. Instead, the spell basically makes someone feel like the caster is a friend, and puts what the caster says in the best possible light. Just like in the Diplomacy section of Skills in Conflict, being someone’s friend doesn’t mean the caster gets to dictate everything they do, and even the opposed Charisma check the spell grants can only go so far; it doesn’t compel them to act exactly as the caster desires.
For instance, an evil necromancer might be willing to allow her friend to sit as her new right hand, but she won’t quit her entire life’s goal just because a friend asked, even with an opposed Charisma check. This advice applies equally as well to other charm spells (such as charm animal and charm monster).
Suggestion: Suggestion and its ilk, on the other hand, actually are mind-controlling spells. The key to suggestion is that it has to be presented in a reasonable fashion—and certain suggestions would simply never be reasonable for the target in question.
The more creative the player, or the sharper his understanding of an NPC’s motivations, the more often he can use this spell to his advantage. Players should be rewarded for this type of ingenuity, especially at lower levels when suggestion is one of the most powerful spells available. In mid-level play (or for a resourceful low-level villain), adversaries might start to succeed at Sense Motive checks to notice suggestion effects, potentially using protection from evil or similar spells to either protect against them or end ongoing compulsions.
In mid-level play, enchantments become more versatile, affecting more creature types, and dominate spells also come into play.
Dominate Person: Unlike suggestion, this spell gives the caster total control over another character, and the demands don’t need to be reasonable. The one saving grace in a game that employs intrigue is that the Sense Motive DC to detect the effect is only 15, so someone is very likely to notice it. Still, the effect is quite powerful, and it can potentially ruin a player’s time if her character becomes dominated, or it can ruin a plot if players dominate a vital NPC. The spell even allows a caster to use the dominated creature as a spy and see through its eyes, though again, the low DC of the Sense Motive check means that there are usually better ways to do so. In addition to other means of protecting against compulsions, dominate person has two special escape clauses.
First, the creature never takes obviously self destructive actions. The spell doesn’t mention whether this means only bodily harm, but there are many sorts of destruction beyond the physical. For instance, a command to make a king announce something that will obviously irreparably destroy his reputation and tear his kingdom apart likely counts. Even if something isn’t obviously self-destructive, each time a command forces the dominated person to take actions against his nature, he receives another saving throw with a +2 bonus. It’s up to you to determine how often to give these new saving throws if orders result in many successive acts against a character’s nature, but be fair in applying them at the same rate for both PCs and NPCs. Since being dominated can be highly frustrating for PCs, you can consider choosing a particularly fast rate in applying these new saving throws in both cases, though be sure to let the PCs know about this if it looks like they can use a dominate effect before the NPCs do. The advice here also applies to dominate monster.
So:
(1) Non-bodily harm, including social or political harm, can be included in "self destructive actions."
(2) The reactions of others to your actions can be considered in determinging whether harm is obvious (eg the physical act of making an annoucement doesn't ruin a reputation and destroy a kingdom, others' reactions to the announcement do that).
(3) Actions that aren't obviously self-destructive can still be unreasonable per Suggestion. The requirement to phrase your Suggestion reasonably is an intended limitation on the spell, but it's also intended to be exploitable by a creative caster.
By these guidelines, giving a hostile wizard a spellbook might be considered obviously self-destructive depending on how certain you are that he can and will use the spellbook to hurt you. Even if it's not "obviously self-destructive," it could still hazardous enough to be considered unreasonable.
If your character felt strongly enough about the threat posed by the wizard that he took special effort to take and hide his spellbook, then I would say that a simple suggestion to return the spellbook would probably be unreasonable. However, given that your PC is still at least nominally in the same party as the wizard, odds are pretty good that there is some way that the wizard could phrase a Suggestion that would result in him getting the book back. For example, he could Suggest that you give it to a third party member and then get the book from that party member - or otherwise Suggest that you move the book "for safe keeping" in such a way that would actually make it more accessible to the wizard.
Given that in this situation the GM is mediating a PC/PC conflict about what constitutes a reasonable Suggestion, I recommend thinking of at least one such Suggestion your character would consider reasonable, and telling the GM about it. That way the GM can assure the wizard's player that there is a possibility Suggestion would work - but the wizard's player has to figure it out.
I would like to know why your PC views this character as hostile, and the events that lead to you stealing and hiding the equipment in question. That would give all of us insight into whether or not it is obviously harmful.
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Pizza Lord, I am confused about what you are trying to say and what you think I'm saying. I think you may be over-focusing on the details of my post rather than the general ideas.
The OP's ultimate question is not the meaning of obvious harm, but whether a wizard he considers hostile should be able to use Suggestion to compel him to return the wizard's spellbook. The passage I quoted discusses the limitations on enchantment spells, and thus is broadly relevant in determining what Suggestion is intended to accomplish.
While the example about the kingdom was given in the discussion about Dominate specifically, it is still relevant because Dominate is less limited than Suggestion - as the quoted passage states, Dominate gives you total control and your commands don't need to be reasonable, just not obviously self destructive. Thus any limitations on Dominate's interpretation of self-destructive or harmful acts probably also apply to Suggestion. If Dominate is limited in its ability to inflict social harm, then Suggestion is probably also limited in its ability to inflict social harm. If Dominate is limited in its ability to compel not just directly but also indirectly self-destructive actions, Suggestion is probably also limited in its ability to cause indirect harm. Or in other words, just because handing over the spellbook doesn't cause the target immediate physical damage doesn't necessarily mean that it's not considered harmful.
Now, the bar for what is considered "self destructive" on a non-physical level is certainly high. This is why I'm curious about why OP's character thinks the wizard is a threat - does OP-PC actually think that the wizard is practically guaranteed to ruin OP-PC's life if given the spellbook? And if so, why are they still in the same party?
The bar for "unreasonable" is a lower one, though - and the passage I quoted made it clear that that's intentional. Suggestion is supposed to be more powerful if you think creatively about it and understand the target's motivations. It does require a bit of GM adjudication. (From the quoted passage "The main danger with enchantments lies in removing agency from a character, either a PC or NPC, and the main difficulty in running them is adjudicating just how much they do so.") In the case of PVP mind control I think it is particularly important to spend the time to make sure that the spell is adjudicated fairly.
Even if it's not "obviously self-destructive," it could still hazardous enough to be considered unreasonable.This is clearly about 'obvious harm' (forgive me if you are just elaborating on another situation), but this topic has nothing to do with any other reason, that 'obvious harm' ('self-destructive' is dominate). You are stating that a suggestion is considered unreasonable, and that's why it fails, but you're then using the fact that it will fail, flat-out and without question, and that means that it must have been 'obviously harmful'. Those are two different things and you can't use an unreasonable suggestion's failure, as an excuse that it's harmful (it could be both, but since we have no actual phrase or wording for the example, we can only go by the qualifiers, one of which is that it's already unreasonable and that being unreasonable isn't the discussion).
I have no idea what you're trying to say, here.
Zarius, I actually told you how to finesse the situation in my earlier post. Make sure that his spellbooks are bound to something immediately dangerous and the suggestion hangs on the obviously harmful act.
If you can't be bothered manipulating the situation to your own benefit, then yes, the wizard is going to win this little PvP episode.
That's metagaming really hard. "I want to evade a possible spell, so I'll have my character do something he wouldn't do naturally."