D&D (2024) Command is the Perfect Encapsulation of Everything I Don't Like About 5.5e

[MarkB]

Fleeing into a dangerous situation can be seen as directly harmful to some.

Let's not get caught up going back and forth over minutiae. The point is that the existing examples in the spell description offer a degree of guidance as to what will and won't work.

 

[Hussar]

Fleeing into a dangerous situation can be seen as directly harmful to some.

Again, you guys are just proving my point. While this discussion is cool on a message board, it’s far less cool in the middle of a combat at a table.

And it’s this kind of discussion that virtually only happens because of the vague wording of spells. No one has lengthy discussions in the middle of combat about what the push effect does from a battle master or open hand monk.

But spells? Wahoo! We get to grind the game to a halt every session while we argue over what “the” means.

 

[Minigiant]

Again, you guys are just proving my point. While this discussion is cool on a message board, it’s far less cool in the middle of a combat at a table.

And it’s this kind of discussion that virtually only happens because of the vague wording of spells. No one has lengthy discussions in the middle of combat about what the push effect does from a battle master or open hand monk.

But spells? Wahoo! We get to grind the game to a halt every session while we argue over what “the” means.

Psst... that was my point.

Let's not get caught up going back and forth over minutiae. The point is that the existing examples in the spell description offer a degree of guidance as to what will and won't work.

But the whole point of this thread is to talk about the stuff that isn't aligned with the guidance.
And like @Hussar and I stated, it bogs down the game when 2 people have different expectations.

All this for a 1st level spell that can be casted multiple times AND easily snagged.
Nope for me.
Limited commands please.

 

[Remathilis]

What is considered directly harmful?

Again it's a concept that differs table to table.

If the action would result in loss of hit points, it's harmful.

Jumping in such a way that the subsequent fall would deal fall damage is harmful.

The same would be true if you surrounded the target with a wall of fire and declared "approach" or "flee" where the only way they could move is though the wall.

I find it funny that people are trying to adjudicate this spell like it's dominate person. Anymore expecting damage out of this spell should opt for guiding bolt or dissonant whispers instead.

 

[SableWyvern]

Again, you guys are just proving my point. While this discussion is cool on a message board, it’s far less cool in the middle of a combat at a table.

And it’s this kind of discussion that virtually only happens because of the vague wording of spells. No one has lengthy discussions in the middle of combat about what the push effect does from a battle master or open hand monk.

But spells? Wahoo! We get to grind the game to a halt every session while we argue over what “the” means.

If you have a group that are going to grind the game to a halt arguing over semantics every session, nothing written in the book is likely to change that fact.

 

[DinoInDisguise]

Again, you guys are just proving my point. While this discussion is cool on a message board, it’s far less cool in the middle of a combat at a table.

And it’s this kind of discussion that virtually only happens because of the vague wording of spells. No one has lengthy discussions in the middle of combat about what the push effect does from a battle master or open hand monk.

But spells? Wahoo! We get to grind the game to a halt every session while we argue over what “the” means.

When is a problem a rules problem?

I think this question plagues this community, on this forum and beyond. Many issues are misintrepreted as being rules issues when they are not. An example would be a background that gives a feature, one with no hard mechanical benefit, being ignored or made useless by a DM. This could be attributed to a rules shortfall, a balance issue per say. But in reality this is a DM issue, one where the severity varies by player expectation.

In this case we have a spell with a open ended spell description. If that spell causes a prolonged rules debate, is that an issue with the spell? Or is that a DM issue as the prior example was?

My inclination is that both of these are DM issues. I think hyper-specificity on rules hems in games with good DMing to prop up those with bad. Removing options from players in an ill-fated attempt to "fix" bad DMing. My biggest fear in this hobby is that we "rule" our way out of dungeon masters and into a video game, and sadly this is a small step in that direction.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I don't think it matters to 99% of the time and the removal of the target understanding the words greatly increases it's utility. I can't imagine how this one spell makes more than the tiniest of dents in the versatility of things that happen in a D&D game.

It's such a minor change to be a hill to die on.

Oh, I'm not dying on it. Doesn't mean it doesn't matter though, or that @Daztur isn't right about it being an indicator of an unwelcome (to me) shift in design philosophy.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Under the hood it's pretty clearly a question of who's in charge of the game: the referee or the rules?

Some people would be happier with the rules in charge, others prefer the referee to be in charge.

If the game wants the rules to be in charge, it should say so, preferably in the rules.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Psst... that was my point.


But the whole point of this thread is to talk about the stuff that isn't aligned with the guidance.
And like @Hussar and I stated, it bogs down the game when 2 people have different expectations.

All this for a 1st level spell that can be casted multiple times AND easily snagged.
Nope for me.
Limited commands please.

Or maybe leave the spell as it is, and don't allow it in your game?

 

[Daztur]

Trying to reply to everything relevant. Am mostly done with page 16 now . This is going to take a while...

Absolutely agree with the OP.

I sometimes feel like I'm the only one that sees these kinds of design philosophy shifts, or that everyone else who sees them just prefers 2024's philosophy.

I've played every edition from BECMI to 5e and every time I changed to a new edition it was because I actually preferred it (including trying out one and then sticking with the previous because I preferred it).

5e isn't perfect by any stretch, but its original design philosophy is closer to my ideal D&D than any other to date, and 2024 (and I feel like it noticeably started shifting around Xanathar's, even though there is a lot of the stuff I prefer still in that one) just isn't the same.

I feel like 3.5e was, with a few truly minor quibbles, a straight up improvement to 3.0e with the same design philosophy. (Assuming a combat grid was about the biggest philosophical departure, and a grid still wasn't required, just supported in more detail.) And I think the vast majority of 3.0e fans would agree with me, which is why nobody stuck with 3.0e because of a design shift. (A few stuck because they didn't want to re-buy the books, but few other reasons.)

But seems like "everyone" (and I haven't read this thread yet, so judging by other sources) is looking at the 2014 to 2024 transition as the same as 3.0 to 3.5, and from someone for whom 2e was my favorite when it was current, then 3e when it was current, then 3.5e until 5e was current...the change from 5e 2014 to recent products and 2024 just isn't the same as the shift from 3.0e to 3.5e.

Which is my long-winded way of saying thank you to the OP for such a well thought out post showing me I'm not crazy.

Thanks! I think part of it is that the changes in philosophy are fairly subtle since 5.5e isn't the kind of shock and awe change that 4e was and there's been a bit of boiling frog going on with Tasha's etc. already prefiguring a lot of these changes. But the change is definitely there and I think it points out the direction that 5.5e will go with future splatbooks and adventures.
Although 5e has a number of flaws, it tried REALLY hard to be a compromise between different playstyles with at least some success. I just don't see the same spirit of compromise in 5.5e and I think there's been enough turnover in the WotC team that a lot of the people running things now don't always have a good grasp of why the designers of 5e made things they way they are.

I never seen anyone use this spell at all and only ever heard of it from the memes about people finding ways to use this and Suggestion to break the game and make DM cry. Were those spells ever popular outside of problem players like that to even complain about their nerf?

It's been one of the most commonly used 1st level spells in my own campaigns and I hear it often brought up in discussions of good spells to pick (not Bless good, but a very strong second tier pick). If you have a good melee front line positioned around a monster Command: Flee can often be a save or die spell.

Yeah. No thanks. I'm not 12 years old anymore. Something like this would be far more mood breaking and annoying than it would add to the game. He crapped his pants is not an "awesome" roleplay moment for me. It's a cheap laugh and totally breaking in immersion.

Like I said, it's not role playing to me. That's just a player not actually playing in character. The priest of war decides to drop a cheap poop joke, Rick and Morty style, in the middle of combat? Yeah, no thanks.

It very much depends on the character being role-played. Serious war priest? I'm going to be casting Command: Repent. Prankster immature trickery cleric? I'm going to be a lot more immature. Verb selection with command can be a great way of showing the personality of your cleric...if you can actually select the verbs you want of course.

Now, here? Here we totally agree. I love this sort of thing. Cunning plans (harebrained or not)? Fantastic. Just watched my players do that in my current Phandelver game where a brilliant use of strategy and tactics turned a very highly lethal encounter into a fantastic back and forth fight with lots of tension. It was great.

And did not require anyone to play silly buggers with the rules. See, to me, that's the problem. It's not "creative" at all to abuse the wording of spells. It's totally immersion breaking. The player isn't engaging with the scenario or the encounter. The player is simply abusing loosely written rules. It's got nothing to do whatsoever with roleplay. And it certainly has nothing to do with tactical creativity to abuse the writing of game rules in order to gain more power.

Tactical creativity is done in the game world. Role play is done in the game world. If the player is not engaging with the game world - and "creatively interpreting" spells is not engaging with the game world - then there's no actual role playing going on.

As a DM you've got to draw a line between OOC powergaming in which silly players try to rules lawyer the precise wording of a spell and IC cunning in which characters try to use the spell in creative ways in the exact same way that a character in the world would try to use a spell in a creative way.

Generally, the closer that the thought process of the player and the thought process of the character align the better.

If the character is just trying to hit a dude but the player is trying to fine-tune mechanical minutiae about what rules to apply to that attack then that's a problem.

If the character is trying to cast a spell in a way that only makes sense if you're read the PHB then that's a problem.

If the character is trying to come up with a clever verb to use their Command spell with and that's the exact same thing the player is thinking about, then you're golden.

This creates more work for the DM, but I'm OK with that. In my experience more Old School ways to play are harder to DM but easier to play, so they work great with an experienced DM and newbies but often crash and burn with inexperienced DMs and part of that is being able to draw those kind of lines and getting players to respect them and stick to creative tactics instead of stupid rules lawyering.

Clearly you've never met some of my characters, for whom those commands (if they were Clerics and could cast the spell) would be perfectly in character.

My namesake here, for instance. Any command he ever cast (if he could) would be a 4-letter word of some sort, because that's just how he rolls. And it's probably a good thing for the setting he's in that he can't cast Suggestion!

Which in short means that yes, sometimes these things really are roleplaying.

Yeah one thing that has always mystified me is that some people (not calling out Hussar or anyone on this thread here, am thinking back to some ooooold discussions) is that they seem to think that RPing is for out of combat chatting and that when they start fighting you get that Final Fantasy sound effect and all RPing stops. For me often the best RP moments are in fights since HOW my characters fight is VERY much informed by their personalities. In fact often the first thing I do when I'm making a character is think "how would this dude fight a random group of goblins in a way that really shows his personality compared to a generic PC with the exact same stats?" if I can't come up with a good answer then I make another character.

And that brouhaha was always stupid. The DMs job there was to mesh the narrative to the mechanical, if it matters to the group, and its so straightforward to do that: "your attack (effect whatever) creates a resonance wave in the jelly, causing it to wobble, destablising it." Same mechanical effect as prone. Everybodies happy.

"Rulings not rules" was a cop out that left DMs hanging out to dry, without enough tools and mechanics to hang their hat on.

For experienced DMs I doubt it was an issue as they tend to bring their toolbox from edition to edition, even TTRPG to TTRPG. But for newer DMs that kind of help is invaluable. I think what saved them are all the Youtube vids and podcasts to level up as DMs quicker.

The way I DM I'm faaaaaaaaaaaaar more likely to bend the mechanics to the narrative than the other way around. I didn't like that 4e assumed that all DMs should take the mechanics as sacrosanct and then bend the narrative to fit them. I LIKE the approach of "no, it's a freaking cube, of course you can't trip it, I don't care what the rules say" much much more than "it creates a resonance wave." By bending the mechanics to fit the narrative it makes the narrative matter more since it trumps the mechanics and (in my experience at least) makes the players care more about the narrative and get more immersed in it.

And yeah, it's often harder for newbie DMs. In my experience TSR-D&D is hard to DM (I certainly sucked at is as a kid in the 90's) but easy to play (can get kids up and running with a 1e PC in ten minutes) while games like 4e are a lot easier to DM but a lot harder for newbie players to get the hang of (especially newbies without much of a background in computer/board games). 5e was a decent enough compromise somewhere in the middle in my experience. 5.5e a bit less so it looks like...