How powerful is the geas/quest?

[Magus_Jerel]

The major abuse of this spell comes in trying to geas someone "not" to do something.

This fails - as you can "not" do something for a moment - and discharge the geas...

I have seen other traps as well...

 

[Henrix]

Normal spells are dispelled upon the death of the character who has the spell effect on them,...

Are they?

 

[Kae'Yoss]

I'd say, the geas lasts till you fulfill it. (If it were otherwise, I could well imagine some high level characters falling into their sword to get rid of a geas, only to be resurrected with true resurrection, taking the easy way out....)

 

[Bluemail]

That´s a 5000 gold easy way... anyways, I gravely suspect gease to be a DM´s tool, created by the designers.
Your character does´nt want to fight the dragon, eh, Bob? Well now he does!(court wizard casts geas).

I do think I agree with some of you... e.g. death does not end the geas, neither death of the caster nor of the recipent.
However, this spell is somewhat useless in combat, because it´s ill effects are by the day. One could kill the caster and then march of to the nearest temple.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

That´s a 5000 gold easy way...

That can be MUCH cheaper than to fulfill the quest (e.g. go to the pantheon temple in waterdeep and hand the man priest over all your belongings ;-)). I'd rather pay 5000 GM than have to fight a red great wyrm dracolich.

Of course, that's a couple of extremes, but it could still be worthwhile. And later on 5000 really aren't that much!