Is mass suggestion to powerful for your game? How would you handle it in your game, what can be allowed.
What can mass suggestion do?
By RAW it can make a knight give his horse to a beggars or it can have soldiers give all their money to beggars. This seems very powerful and not at all reasonable, especially if the knight raised his horse since he was a kid.
It auto fails, if you suggest any self-harming actions. Stab self, burn itself, etc.
So where is the power level of this spell. Is it any better than a persuasion/deception check. My thought is yes. This is the rating of charmed effects.
Charm person = best friend (weakest)
Suggestion = (next more powerful)
Domination = (Full creature control)
What could you suggest can be allowed?
Say to enemies in battle: Report back to your boss and tell him that we are coming. (This could be handled like a fear effect and I think this should be allowed).
Say to enemies in battle: I will pay you double what he is paying you to fight for me. (The power of this might be too much as it would allow a player to have multiple creatures. Note: This could also be done with a persuasion or deception check, realistically. Especially if you were out of combat and they were mercenaries to begin with.
Say to enemies in battle: Your boss is using you, attack him and you can be the leader. (I am not sure if this would or should work or not. Again, a persuasion check could be successful if the bosses follower wanted to take the throne and he thought he could win during the distraction.)
Out of combat all of these things could potentially happen with appropriate persuasion checks. I could even see the party hiring a party of giants for double pay without even using this spell. Using this spell should provide a better affect.
So from a GM perspective how would you allow this spell to be used? Should the spell not be allowed to be used?
What way can we limit the spell so it provides a valuable use but is not too powerful. Animate dead gives a certain amount of minions, can this spell give a certain amount of HD of followers?
I like dealing with villains that do these sorts of things.
Charm person = best friend (weakest)
Suggestion = (next more powerful)
Domination = (Full creature control)
I typically tell my enemies to walk to Kara-Tur.
IMO: attacking your boss would (usually) be suicide.
a boss attacking his minion would (usually) not be.
telling someone to leave is (usually) not suicide.
and remeber the spell ends as soon as they do it. so a knight giving away his horse, might simply take it back, and a boss killing his own minion, would quickly return his sights on you.
Could you walk into a village of giants/orges/human guards and say.
"Follow my orders for weath and fame" to have people following you.
"I will pay you 10 gold per day if you follow and defend me. I am your leader now"
Would the spell work? I assume there could be reprocusions of doing such an action.
If you offered gold would you need to pay while the spell was active? Would they follow you if you didn't offer gold?
Jared711 wrote:
The way I handle suggestion or mass suggestion is to interpret "reasonable" as (1) not causing immediate physical harm to the target and (2) actually be a course fo action the target could perform, even if, he, she, or it normally wouldn't. For example, a knight generally wouldn't give up his or her warhorse to a beggar, but could do it in a physical sense. It also doesn't cause him or her immediate physical harm. Therefore it is reasonable. Telling that same mundane knight to "fly to the moon and wait there," however, isn't reasonable. It's something that the knight can't do and thus fails the test of being reasonable.
iserith wrote:
Jared711 wrote:
iserith wrote:
randl wrote:
iserith wrote:
jaelis wrote:
iserith wrote:
iserith wrote:
randl wrote:
jaelis wrote:
randl wrote:
iserith wrote:
Jared711 wrote:
Jared711 wrote:
Jared711 wrote:
iserith wrote:
randl wrote:
iserith wrote:
Suggestion is not dominate. It is not a tool to use in lieu of being able to socialize. The absolute best uses I always see of it are from a charisma sorceror I play with a lot, or from succubi/incubi on my end as DM 
. The main power of suggestion is in utility. It has so many more out of combat uses than chain lightning, it should not always be as powerful in combat. Like when sabotaging someone's reputation. Instead of just doing it yourself, grab 12 random people, and have them all repeat the same story next time they are at the bar. Suddenly the story is being heard everywhere. Or use it to create willing patsies for something else. Works better with the 7th level slot as in 10 days you can gather a crowd of 120 people to show up for a specific event. Build your own flash mob! AKA a distraction to whatever the group needs to do in that area, all without expending a single resource on the day of the event (though only up to 108 people at that time).
Just using the example in a book, tell the soldiers to give their money to the first beggar they meet. Run ahead up the road, disguise self as beggar. Make the disguise and bluff checks, now you have all their money with them none the wiser.
Knight giving his horse to a beggar? Will it deny him the horse, probably not. If that was the intent, it was a bad command. If the intent is to mess with his reputation it may work quite well depending on how the knight goes about getting his horse back. People who simply say, the command ends and the knight takes his horse back, are missing the portion where it is no longer his horse. As soon as he gave it away, it now belongs to the beggar. Is the proud knight going to have to beg the beggar for it? Find a way to rebuy his horse, and have the story of how he accidentally lost his horse, the very horse he trained from a foal into his trusted companion, and then had to buy it back from a common beggar told at every tavern. Or just take it back as it was clearly a mistake, and now the knight refused to honor a bargain/contract he made the the people he is sworn to protect. Again, the better way is suggestion combined with planning and social skills. It lasts 24 hours, that is plenty of time to set something up. "Tonight around 9pm (an hour after sunset however it needs to be phrased) go to the Snorting Dragon Inn and stable your horse while you go have a drink inside." You then arrange by bribe or impersonation to have the stable hand on your side. Knight comes out of the inn after getting a drink, and no horse to be found.
I think a more apt comparison for the power level the spell should have in combat is to compare it to hold person. Suggestion and Hold Person are at the same level to start. A hold person in a 6th level slot can target 5 people. Mass suggestion targets more than double that. Mass suggestion gives only a single saving throw to prevent the effect. A well worded request can take them out of the entire battle easily. Hold person wins out slightly in that it doesn't end when the targets are attacked. Mass suggestion is a bit more swingy, as they may interpret instructions in ways you do not intend.
However, now compare the out of combat uses between mass suggestion and chain lightning or a heightened hold person. Compared to mass suggestion they will have a very limited use in any situation that doesn't involve combat. Maybe its just the campaigns, but we often have uses for non-combat applications. Especially in an intrigue campaign where you know who you will eventually be fighting, and can interact with them and their guards ahead of time. Over the course of the week, find the guard schedules, find out who will be where, then simply find them in town and suggest that on such and such day they leave their post at X time. Voila, an entrance is unguarded. With mass suggestion you can pre empt the bodyguard's actions days in advance. This takes planning and carefully wording things.
As I like to keep Player is not the Character in mind, I often allow an intelligence check to allow proper wording. By that I mean if the player gives a command that it seems like the opponent may not follow, I give an intelligence check to see if the character, not the player, gave better wording. On a success I will generally go with the player's intent on the command. Unless dealing with extremely intelligent creatures, especially devils or fey, then it, may be an opposed check, or an intelligence save. Some of this is influenced by my years in law school. As a DM I simply do not expect most players to quickly think of a command that I could not weasel around. 20 int wizard giving a command to a 10 int person, that should probably work most of the time.
Actually, I think an intelligence save usually works better, but players like rolling dice (I know I do), so letting the caster roll seems more fun.
randl wrote:
iserith wrote:
iserith wrote:
jaelis wrote:
randl wrote:
iserith wrote:
iserith wrote:
OK, let me come up with a less fraught example. A fanatical soldier is 100% willing to die for his country. Can you use suggestion to make the soldier betray his country into certain ruin?
jaelis wrote:
jaelis wrote:
randl wrote:
randl wrote:
iserith wrote:
jaelis wrote:
OoftaMeg wrote:
Godwyn wrote:
To be fair iserith, while I disagree with your ruling, you apply it very consistently, and it is easy to understand as a player what will and will not work. I would have no problems playing with a DM ruling the exact same thing. I simply do not agree that is how the spell should work .