Can geas / quest be used to command people to do anything?


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion


Even, say, using it on a paladin and telling them to murder every kid they meet? (Obviously the paladin wouldn't comply and would probably rather die than obey the geas but I am still wondering if you can do that.)


It can be used to force someone to do basically anything that isn't killing themselves or likely to get them killed.

So yes.

But sloppy wording like that just means the paladins stay away from everyone for a year until the geas ends because you gave them an open ended task.

You have to use better wording and some background research, because too many task will count as open ended if not careful and bump up against the time limit.

If you had a census of every citizen in a country, and told someone to kill everyone on the list who is under a certain age it is not an open ended task. They will try to kill everyone on that list, and they can't stay home to avoid it.

But as you said, the paladin would probably just kill themselves or try to seek out someone to remove it during their course of child murder, as your geas doesn't prevent them from doing so.


Geas/Quest has really bad wording. It is basically as useful as a Wish...meaning the GMs interpretation is going to have a huge effect on what it does.

Like a GM can let you make a full contract that specifies a lot of details. Or the GM could simply point out that the spell says you can force a creature to perform an action OR forbid an action. So if you wanted to make sure said Paladin went around killing kids but didn't commit suicide or seek aid to get rid of the Geas then that would require multiple Geas to be cast. One to forbid each action, and one to compel each action desired.


While I get what is meant calling Geas/Quest badly worded I think it also has to be said that these and similar spells (Suggestion etc.) are to an extent deliberately "badly worded". It is expected for the DM to exercise their judgement on what the spell can accomplish, i.e. GM interpretation is going to have a huge effect" Unlike a Fireball which has very clearly defined parameters compulsion spells require a lot of DM interaction and no amount of further rules will be likely to result in the clarity of Fireball or Disintegrate results do to the DM's use of judgement.

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