I'm just wondering, what can be considered valid uses of the spell Suggestion and the more high-powered Mass Suggestion when they're successfully cast on someone?
I'm stuck with much of anything beyond "Lay down your arms and surrender". I don't think you could use it to make someone attack a friend, but what about, say, "Grab your wizard and then both of you get out of here before you're all killed"?
And while I'm asking, how about Lesser Geas and Geas? Cold they be used to make an enemy into a loyal servant for however long they last, or would that be more along the lines of Dominate Person or Dominate Monster?
I've never been very good with use of enchantment spells, so any help and advice here would be vastly appreciated, thanks.
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For Suggestion:
- (at an archer) Do not use your bow.
- Take off your armor (full plate takes 2-4 minutes to remove).
- Put out that fire.(DM had a succubus tell my character to do this once, it was a large bonfire and there was no water or other material near by which could be used to put out the fire easily.)
- Do not make a sound. (casters cant use spells with verbal components, scouts/guards can't alert the party to incoming, etc.)
- Tie your x together. where x is one of hands, feet, legs, arms, friends, weapons, etc.
- There are a lot of really amazing options once you get creative with it.
For Geas/Quest just make the craziness take a long time such as bring me a pebble from the top of a mountain at the other end of the world, but generally Geas/Quest (and the lesser variants) are used as campaign hooks such as bring me the Sacred Spork of the Southlands (bonuses not given for alliteration).
I'm reminded of a Xena episode where the sidekick had a scroll with powers of fate when written on. She kept sending everybody "to the caves!" to take a nap. I keep meaning to use this.
As for Geas/Quest, you can do a lot with it provided you get past the 10 minute casting time.
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"My next spell will benefit you, I suggest you not resist it."
Best use we had was to suggest to a pair of kobolds to "mate"!
That took them out of combat for a few rounds!
now that I think of it, I want to use it to have someone bake me pastries :D ... or obtain some...
I always ruled that suggestion is basically an idea that you plant into the victims mind for him to be pondered upon. If the circumstances and the persona of the target suggest that the idea could be advantageous to the target in some way then suggestion will work.
So, "Surrender" is a valid suggestion in the case that you showed your opponent that you are merciful and an invalid use if you slaughtered the opponents friends before his eyes. "Run away" might be valid as well (but often is worse than killing the opponent in the good old adventurer style).
But "drop your bow" will never ever be advantageous at all.
Geas/Quest is a completely different thing altogether (really can't stress this enough)!
The 10 minute casting time alone suggests that Geas/Quest is not for combat but for stories. You send someone on a quest and this one must carry out the quest for you. Alternatively you could prevent a target from speaking out against you for a day per level (which might be enough to cover that crucial council meeting).
Like the OP, I like to suggest that enemies should flee from combat. Usually that's even a reasonable suggestion, when faced with an adventuring party :-)
But I like the spell more for out-of-combat use, like Suggesting a guard on duty should go home and rest early, after a long day.
Problem is, the guard notices the you're casting a spell and probably won't take kindly to it. Can you Bluff something like that?
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There are some very good ideas here, thank very much everyone.
And I was figuring that maybe Suggestion would work even better if you used it on someone you'd effected with a Charm spell. Most of us will pay more attention to advice from a friend, after all.
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I always ruled that suggestion is basically an idea that you plant into the victims mind for him to be pondered upon. If the circumstances and the persona of the target suggest that the idea could be advantageous to the target in some way then suggestion will work.
So, "Surrender" is a valid suggestion in the case that you showed your opponent that you are merciful and an invalid use if you slaughtered the opponents friends before his eyes. "Run away" might be valid as well (but often is worse than killing the opponent in the good old adventurer style).
But "drop your bow" will never ever be advantageous at all.
Geas/Quest is a completely different thing altogether (really can't stress this enough)!
The 10 minute casting time alone suggests that Geas/Quest is not for combat but for stories. You send someone on a quest and this one must carry out the quest for you. Alternatively you could prevent a target from speaking out against you for a day per level (which might be enough to cover that crucial council meeting).
There is a reason suggestion allows a will save. You are forcing someone to do something, not requesting it. I might add modifiers depending on the situation (against their nature -2 DC, something they were already considering +2 DC, etc.), but you are just gimping the spell by imposing a restrictive house-rule. Of course, if you feel it needs to be nerfed then that is your right in your home games.
There is a reason suggestion allows a will save. You are forcing someone to do something, not requesting it. I might add modifiers depending on the situation (against their nature -2 DC, something they were already considering +2 DC, etc.), but you are just gimping the spell by imposing a restrictive house-rule. Of course, if you feel it needs to be nerfed then that is your right in your home games.I always ruled that suggestion is basically an idea that you plant into the victims mind for him to be pondered upon. If the circumstances and the persona of the target suggest that the idea could be advantageous to the target in some way then suggestion will work.
So, "Surrender" is a valid suggestion in the case that you showed your opponent that you are merciful and an invalid use if you slaughtered the opponents friends before his eyes. "Run away" might be valid as well (but often is worse than killing the opponent in the good old adventurer style).
But "drop your bow" will never ever be advantageous at all.
Geas/Quest is a completely different thing altogether (really can't stress this enough)!
The 10 minute casting time alone suggests that Geas/Quest is not for combat but for stories. You send someone on a quest and this one must carry out the quest for you. Alternatively you could prevent a target from speaking out against you for a day per level (which might be enough to cover that crucial council meeting).
The text of the spell itself says that the suggestion must sound reasonable. If it's sufficiently against their nature, it won't work at all--no save required.
Suggesting to a guard to go take a potty break may or may not have a chance of working. If that guard is one of those crazy Boy Scout sticklers for the rules, someone that would never dream of shirking their duty, the spell fails. For the average guard, though, it's a straight roll. If they just finished relieving themselves, it probably won't work unless the caster invokes the delay clause in the spell. "Hey, did you know that people who wait too long to go to the bathroom end up with kidney damage?"
It's really hard to come up with things that will work in all cases as the spell requires a "reasonable" request.
A lot depends on the exact situation.
I don't think suggesting to an enemy that taking off his armor in the middle of battle is "reasonable," but the same suggestion made to a thug sitting a bar would be. While suggesting an archer use a melee weapon might be reasonable if he was within melee range, I don't think that telling the archer on top of the castle wall to come down and fight is necessarily reasonable.
Lay down your arms and surrender is another situational one. If the enemy easily outclasses you that isn't reasonable. If you're about equal it is questionable, a more reasonable one would be run away and fight another day. If you appear to be more capable then it is reasonable.
In 3.5 there was the example of using the spell to urge a red dragon to stop attacking so the party could jointly loot a treasure as reasonable. It didn't say you could ask the red dragon to just surrender and give you his loot.
GUARD CAPTAIN: Let me see your safe-conduct.
ENCHANTER (with a small wave of his hand): You don't need to see his safe-conduct.
GUARD CAPTAIN: We don't need to see his safe-conduct.
ENCHANTER: These are not the fugitives you're looking for.
GUARD CAPTAIN: These aren't the fugitives we're looking for.
ENCHANTER: He can go about his business.
GUARD CAPTAIN: You can go about your business.
ENCHANTER: Move along.
GUARD CAPTAIN: Move along . . . move along.
Master Arminas
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ENCHANTER: "These are not the fugitives that you are looking for."
GUARD CAPTAIN: "These are not the fugitives we are looking for men."
ENCHANTER: "You do not need to see his safe-conduct papers."
GUARD CAPTAIN: "I do not need to see your safe-conduct papers."
ENCHANTER: "Move along."
GUARD CAPTAIN: "Move along."
Master Arminas
ENCHANTER: "Told you guys that would work."
GUARD RECRUIT: "Captain! What are you doing?!"
GUARD CAPTAIN: "Wait for it... Wait for it..."
GUARD CAPTAIN: "NOW!!"
ENCHANTER: "Why!? WHY!?"
I always ruled that suggestion is basically an idea that you plant into the victims mind for him to be pondered upon. If the circumstances and the persona of the target suggest that the idea could be advantageous to the target in some way then suggestion will work.
So, "Surrender" is a valid suggestion in the case that you showed your opponent that you are merciful and an invalid use if you slaughtered the opponents friends before his eyes. "Run away" might be valid as well (but often is worse than killing the opponent in the good old adventurer style).
But "drop your bow" will never ever be advantageous at all.
But if "Your bow is covered with contact poison," it might by extremely advantageous to drop it.
Suggestions need to be clever. If they're clever enough, you can get away with almost anything.