Geas for One Year with a Behir

I now have the opportunity to work a monsters merits and flaws into the story. In the last game of PotA, I added a water version of a behir to the water node. My sorcerer player decided to cast geas at 7th level on the behir to end combat. The behir failed the saving throw. Now I get to bring all the merits and flaws of this Int 7 creature that is NE into the group.

What type of creature should this behir act like? Should it be snake like in attitude? I understand that it desires to eliminate dragons, so I believe the dragon encounter coming up will be more interesting.

Would this behir attempt to eat livestock? Demand gold from peasant? I would consult the 2nd ed monster manual for behavioral clues

While Geased, it still bears no love for the party nor the caster (especially). It will certainly be a snake in the narrative sense: sneaky, underhanded, etc

I would take a simple, core idea and filter every decision it makes through that. e.g. NE is pure selfish so any decision is based on its selfishness. Helping the party is selfish if it means it comes out further ahead than not helping. Something like that.

Geas takes a minute to cast. How long was that combat?

That aside, I would have the behir always be climbing, even when it's totally unnecessary, and complaining roundly when it can't. I would also have it constantly make cracks about dragons or dragonborn. It would also demand a lot of food, an amount that is burdensome to the party and creates a logistical challenge to keep it fed. It then goes completely dormant after being fed which potentially slows down the party unless they plan around it.

Is it even required not to harm the party. Likley the caster is the only one safe from the Behir. What was the task you gave the Behir anyway.

The fact that the casting time is one minute slipped past two players eyes and my eyes. I talked with the player about the error in game play and she wanted to keep the behir rather than letting it die in the combat. I gave her heads up that geas is not a way to get a pet. She responded that it was a way to instill Stockholm syndrome. This seems in character for the Drow sorcerer. I also gave the player a warning that the behir will become a pain in the butt, so she is at least forewarned that something unpleasant is coming.

***Princes of the Apocalypse Spoilers Ahead***

I like the ideas of the behir consuming a large amount of food and water resources. I think this could lead to some interesting character development for the sorcerer. If the character doesn't feed or water the animal enough it will start to experience exhaustion and eventually die. I wonder how the characters sympathy will evolve with this new "pet." Since the party is in PotA and they have yet to go to the fire node, then I entirely expect the behir to ignore any pain caused by the geas spell and attack the dragon found there.

I'll also check the 2nd ed MM for a little history on the behir.

Thank you for the feedback.

I’m not familiar with the adventure, but a snake-like creature heading with the party to a Fire Node should lead to some “warm rock!” hijinks, as it decides it’d rather take a Short Rest in the middle of a big battle.

While the Behir can't directly target the caster, there's nothing stopping it from eating everything and every one else in sight including fellow party members, allies, random people on the street. While it might be funny the first time or two it eats the fighter while the caster demands the behir spit it out right now, the fighter may not agree. Besides, ignoring an order causes less than 30 points of damage on average and that's only once a day.

Maybe I just don't see Geas as some sort of super-long duration dominate. If it's going to starve to death because it's not getting enough to eat and you tell it to stop eating the fighter, that to me would be justification to end the spell (it's an activity or lack therein that will end in certain death). While it's charmed by the caster and follows whatever command it was given when the geas was cast, it still has free will. Even if the geas was "obey my every command", even a low intelligence creature would try to subvert those commands by being over literal.

It's totally up to you if you want to make it into a slave (it's too intelligent to be a pet), and it's not going to break the game if you do. I would just run it as a dull, hateful slave that snivels platitudes at the sorcerer while making sure that "accidents" happen to everyone else around her. Play up the duplicitous nature, the snakelike aspects and it's truly evil nature. This is a creature that enjoys eating sentient creatures alive, and is happiest when it can surprise and ambush. So lying, secretive, malevolent, not too bright, wants to always hide away in a dark corner or crawl on the ceiling.

I’m thinking it’s a big, 12-legged, serpentine, lightning breathing version of this guy:

Oofta said:

Maybe I just don't see Geas as some sort of super-long duration dominate.

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This. Especially since Geas is 5th level and Dominate Monster is 8th level. Geas should require a fairly specific and not open-ended command. Anything equivalent to "Act as if I had cast Dominate Monster on you" should not qualify.

Also note that the creature has to be able to understand the caster. So either the Sorcerer had to speak Draconic or your behir variant spoke something else in common with the caster (which is perfectly possible, but did you check?)