D&D 5E Suggestion: Broken?

[FrogReaver]

And a demand is no suggestion...

Pure pedantry.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

'Retreat to your lair and leave this to your minions' seems reasonable to me.

Which is how I interpret 'f**k off'

It is not the task of the victim of the spell to translate it into a proper and reasonable suggestion. That is the task of the spellcaster.

An even better suggestion would have been:
"Why risk your own life when your Minions can easily handle us, so better retreat!"

The relevant quote from the spell description:
"The suggestion must be worded in such a manner as to make the course of action sound reasonable."

The spell is 2nd level and should be handled in that way. If you as a DM fill in the blanks, you really **** yourself or any non-spellcaster.
A good marker about how reasonable a suggestion is would be how your PCs would react to it. And I bet they would not be quiet if you suggested that or even worse: "Go, **** yourself!"

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Pure pedantry.

Nope:
The relevant quote from the spell description:
"The suggestion must be worded in such a manner as to make the course of action sound reasonable."

read the rest in the post above...

 

[Flamestrike]

And a demand is no suggestion...

A demand is a forceful suggestion.

Would it help if he said 'I suggest you foojooble off' instead? I mean come on.

'Foojooble off' is as legit and reasonable as 'Go away' is. That's clearly what it meant and you can only argue otherwise from an obtuse position.

Language, please.

 

[Flamestrike]

It is not the task of the victim of the spell to translate it into a proper and reasonable suggestion.

it is proper and resonable to suggest to an adversary that they go away or foojooble off instead of fight you.

Aboleths are minion masters who prefer to avoid direct combat in any event. Retreating to its lair is emmenintly reasonable, and there was nothing in the suggestion that indicated it couldn't let its minions do its dirty work for it.

Id totally allow it in this case, and would likely baulk at a DM that made the arguments youre making here.

Language, please.

 

[Krachek]

The spell say that the suggestion must sound reasonable to the target.
Does it sound reasonable to an aboleth to stop attacking when he feel he is in good position?
or does it sound reasonable to a devil to start acting like a good character?

 

[Dausuul]

Id totally allow it in this case, and would likely baulk at a DM that made the arguments youre making here.

My response as DM would be "What specifically are you suggesting that the aboleth do?"

I mean, all questions of balance and reasonableness aside, "F*** off" is far too vague. But I assume that an experienced spellcaster would know such a command was too vague, and wouldn't burn the spell power on an obviously ineffective command.

It's like if a player announces they are throwing daggers at a dragon flying 100 feet above them, I'm going to point out that the dragon is way out of range; I'm not going to say "Okay, it's out of range so you lose your daggers and waste your round." The character would realize that the dragon was too far to hit even if the player missed that detail.

 

[Stormdale]

I'm all in favour of player creativity ending encounters early, good play within the limits of the rules are to be applauded and I am stoked when my pcs outsmart me as the DM or doing something out of left field for me to deal with. My job is to to set up an encounter or situation, not pre determine outcomes or lenght of time (or rounds) that will take for the pcs to overcome it.

We've had nail biters that have gone 10+ rounds and encounters that have gone one round due to smart or creative play (or unexpected use of spells) that's the way it is.

You think suggeston is a show stopper, wait till our BEEG gets banished, his minions smashed and when the BBEG reapears there is a welcome committee of pcs, healed up and all ready to finish the job

It's D&D, roll with it and move on I say

 

[MarkB]

My response as DM would be "What specifically are you suggesting that the aboleth do?"

I mean, all questions of balance and reasonableness aside, "F*** off" is far too vague.

What's vague about it? If somebody said it to you, would you really have any trouble understanding what they were telling you to do?

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

What's vague about it? If somebody said it to you, would you really have any trouble understanding what they were telling you to do?

If I was talking to someone and they told me to f-off, I'd assume they didn't want to talk to me anymore. It wouldn't suggest anything else like, where to go or what to do. Or maybe the F-off was because of the direction of the conversation. Foojooble off, I don't want to talk about it anymore. So, maybe he meant change the subject? It doesn't always mean 'go away'.

"Did you hear that Bob ate a whole Scorpion Pepper? He was sweating from his eyes!"
"Foojooble off!" (Translation: No Way, really?!)

"So, it sounds like you're having a bad day, do you want to talk about it?"
"Foojooble off!" (translation: No.)
Response: "Ok... So how about those Stanley Cup Playoffs,..."

So, to me, I'd have to weigh what was going on in the conversation. It certainly doesn't automatically mean walk away and leave them alone.

Which is why it's always better to make your suggestions more clear. A player shouldn't be surprised if a DM interprets it different from what the player expects when they aren't being clear.

Language, please.