Forbid Action, Greater

[Ioun]

I recently had a player use this spell to forbid the opponents to attack. Then the remainder of the party easily moved in and slaughtered the opponents.

My question is this, is that how the spell is supposed to function? If so, what prevents the spell from being employed to forbid attacks by opponents in every single fight in which they fail a savng throw?

Would the opponents be broken out of the compulsion if they are directly attacked?

What are the moral implications for a good character using this spell and then allowing the opponents to be killed?

It seems a bit too strong for a 5th level spell with the area of effect of a chain lightning.

Has anyone else encountered this spell in their game and how did you deal with it?

[StabbittyDoom]

This spell can only pick one of 5 categories of actions to restrict (Attack, Move, Draw, Cast or Communicate), and even then only lasts 1 round/level. Also note that the restricted action category MUST be the same for every opponent affected by a casting.

It's also language-dependent (which means you must share a language with the targets, and the targets must all share that language, or the spell simply fails to work against those that do not understand you) and mind-affecting (which a whole category of creatures are immune to).

Lastly, it's close range. This means that in an open field of combat any form of ranged character (other than thrown characters that don't use javelins) could easily avoid this spell by simply staying out of range (20th level range of 75 feet). This is a bit unlikely to happen in your standard dungeon romp, but very likely in a game like Kingmaker.

[JoelF847]

The spell doesn't provide for any way to break out, even if the target is attacked. It's a very similar spell to Command, greater, which does provide a will save each round to break out, but it's also a weaker spell, since while it restricts the options the target has, it doesn't force a specific option. If the enemies are forbidden from attacking, they can run away, closing and locking doors as they go, they can take the total defense action, call for help, sound the alarm, cast buff spells, summon monsters, cast defensive spells, create barriers with magic, etc., so they're not just sitting there helpless.

I guess if they're in a dead end room, then get forbidden to attack, they're pretty screwed, but they can still do some things to make it harder to kill them. They can also negotiate or surrender, maybe offering some useful informaiton to save their sorry skins, and live to make sure not to have an escape route next time.