Couldn't find a thread that reached a consensus... so I'm wondering what are the intended limits of the spell and what is a reasonable course of action.
For example, in a Kingmaker encounter you can read :
"If necessary, she casts suggestion to convince an opponent to
defend her or force an attacker to leave combat."
The Baron is out for 10 hours in the woods..?
"these are not the droids you are looking for"
or
"your allies are conspiring against you, I am your friend, help me/us out"
When said ally is chewing on your friends, the reasonable part goes out of the window.. So I guess the intent is that it works as some sort of dominate with a 1 hr per level duration?
When said ally is chewing on your friends, the reasonable part goes out of the window.. So I guess the intent is that it works as some sort of dominate with a 1 hr per level duration?
Not exactly; dominate lets you give multiple commands or change your mind for the duration, etc.
Suggestion, at best, lets you make one "command" that the subject follows for an hour per level.
You can't do "kill this guy, now stop and kill this guy instead, now go over here and wash my underwear" but you can do "Your group is overmatched here; you should run back to town and get help right now."
I used the "run back to town" part and the group was getting roughed up quite bad so it kind of makes sense but I'm not sure about the second part they are proposing in the AP..
"Defend me while I'm killing your friends" is a reasonable course of action?
"Defend me while I'm killing your friends" is a reasonable course of action?
That, to me, pushes the bounds of the spell and I'd probably not do it / disallow it.
Unless they could come up with some way of making it sound reasonable.
Whenever I'm GMing a game and PCs try to use this spell to turn a creature against it's allies, I allow them to persuade a creature to attack a target of their choice for a single round. They will carry out an action for 1 hour per level, or until that action has been completed. "Kill that guy" pushes the boundries of the spell too far, in my opinion, but "attack that guy" is fine (though I'll insist on wording more clever than that). They'll move towards him until they've spent one round attacking him, then the suggestion has been carried out.
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IMO that nerfs the spell too much. It is a 4th level spell after all.
I agree that the spellcaster has to make the suggestion sound reasonable as the spell is not dominate person.
For example, "Those fire ants biting you must hurt something terrible! If you take your armor off, you'll be able to scrape them off of you!"
Or, "I am a messenger of <insert_deity_here> -- these people [points at party] have committed sacrilege and must be punished!" The deity can be determined by looking at emblems on the creature's gear. Lots of variations of this one exist.
Question about suggestion and Spellsong. If i use Spellsong and then suggestion, and will the victim know that they were affected
Helps if you link to items in question: SpellSong "...First, you can conceal the activity of casting a bard spell by masking it in a performance. As a swift action, you may combine your casting time of a spell with a Perform check. Observers must make a Perception or Sense Motive check opposed by your Perform check to realize you are also casting a spell. This uses 1 round of your bardic performance ability, regardless of the spell's casting time."
Suggestion Spell
Knowledge Skills "Identify a spell that just targeted you - Arcana - 25 + spell level"
Saving Throw "...Succeeding on a Saving Throw: A creature that successfully saves against a spell that has no obvious physical effects feels a hostile force or a tingle, but cannot deduce the exact nature of the attack. Likewise, if a creature's saving throw succeeds against a targeted spell, you sense that the spell has failed. You do not sense when creatures succeed on saves against effect and area spells."
So an observer has a chance to spot the spell, somebody making the save knows they were the target of a spell (And may identify it with a Knowledge (Arcana) check).
"Attack that guy" = if the spell target feels that his target is dangerous, he wont comply, because it threatens his life. So an orc would never attack his chief or a clearly stronger creature.
"Stop your friends from attacking me" = The target will comply, but as soon as he convince his friends to stop attacking him, the spell effect ends and he will be wondering why they stopped attacking.
"Stop attacking us and flee" = The target will comply, and he might get a penalty on his save if the party is specially threatening, or if his group is outnumbered (5 PC vs 4 orcs).
Remember, harmful actions immediatelly cancel the spell effect. If the target feels his life is in danger because of what he was asked to do, the spell breaks.
And if he completes what he was asked to do, the spell effect immediatelly ends.
So be careful when using suggestion in combat, it is not charm person or a dominate spell.
But if you come into a church and tell the priest "you should quit priesthood and try a new life on that kingdom south of here", that is a clearly valid suggestion and he will try to comply for the next few hours.