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

[plisnithus8]

I would argue that command does not rely in the intent of the caster, it relies on the definition and literal wording of the command....
Similarly command-grovel on a flying creatur will make him drop prone, which RAW makes him fall and would kill many a flying creature at high altitude (as would shoving the same creature or casting ensnaring strike on it or a number of similar things).

The spell says it does rely on caster's intent or literal definition but DM's discretion. Wouldn't that more likely mean that it's how the creature interprets the word, likely the simplest interpretation?
Grovel making a flying creature fall prone would cause it to harm itself which the spell would not allow.

 

[Hussar]

I dont think it's a slippery slope argument. The argument is any change under this reasoning of "preventing malicious behavior" is incorrect. And it's incorrect because it won't achieve the stated goal.

I'm arguing against the reasoning for the change, not the change itself.



It doesn't matter how you change the rule, the rule change is presumed incorrect because the reason is unachievable. The presumption of DM malice is the problem.

We can look at this another way. If I want to change magic missile to have 7 darts. My reasoning is 7 is my lucky number and therefore I'll do more damage if it has 7 darts. That justification holds no weight. Its absurd. So is presumed malice.

We should change rules under the presumption of good faith, and not malice. Because if malice is presumed, the entire system is, largely, unworkable.

Hopefully that better states my position

There is no presumption of malice though. There is a presumption of a difference of opinion in the interpretation of what can be achieved.

And the various arguments in this thread show that pretty clearly. No one here is acting in bad faith. But these open ended spells with vaguely defined effects can result in friction at the table.

The loss of creativity is worth the reduction in that friction IMO because the freedom for creativity is limited to the users finding exploits which are very often against the RAI of the effect.

Painting this as a “bad actors” issue ignores the fact that these creative uses are very often exploiting poorly or vaguely written rules and not actually engaging in the in game fiction.

 

[Oofta]

I dont think it's a slippery slope argument. The argument is any change under this reasoning of "preventing malicious behavior" is incorrect. And it's incorrect because it won't achieve the stated goal.

I'm arguing against the reasoning for the change, not the change itself.



It doesn't matter how you change the rule, the rule change is presumed incorrect because the reason is unachievable. The presumption of DM malice is the problem.

We can look at this another way. If I want to change magic missile to have 7 darts. My reasoning is 7 is my lucky number and therefore I'll do more damage if it has 7 darts. That justification holds no weight. Its absurd. So is presumed malice.

We should change rules under the presumption of good faith, and not malice. Because if malice is presumed, the entire system is, largely, unworkable.

Hopefully that better states my position

So is it "DM malice" if a DM decides that the NPC targeted by a command responds in the way the player did not intend?

 

[DinoInDisguise]

There is no presumption of malice though.

To illustrate why I am here. Why I made the comments I made. I want to address this, as the text of the debate over the last day or two continually asserts otherwise. To do this I'm going to do a lot of quoting, so I apologize to people who get pinged and don't want to engage.

I encourage you to read the posts, as I do not intend to misrepresent anything here. But it is very clear that a portion of the argument is to fix malice. I wont comment on the individual quotes because my thoughts are known. Here's the, far from complete, list:

The "creative" uses of Command are not the same. The rule in 5e is simply that "the DM determines how the target behaves". Presumably - given that if the save is failed, the victim "must . . . follow the command on its next turn", the GM's decision as to how the target behaves is supposed to correlate, in some fashion, to the word that the caster has uttered; but there is no reference to player (or character) intent

work the way a caster intends even though the spell specifically says they are for the Dm to decide.

The new version actually empowers players.

Me: I like the new version because I've seen it abused.

his means the DM has full authority to determine whether it includes actions or not and nothing in the spell states or implies it shouldn't.

All of this is why I want a set list. If a DM tells a player the intent of "jump" is to jump off a ship at sea, it's a bad DM. If a player tells an NPC to "jump" while on board a ship at sea and the DM says they jump in place, it's DM malice.

 

[pemerton]

the 5E version of the spell also says specifically that the DM resolves uses other than the "typical" uses described. This means the DM has full authority to determine whether it includes actions or not

If we presume good faith, we have to ask ourselves what purpose removing options like this serves. As any removal of options limits player and DM agency.

The purpose it serves is to remove the need for the GM to make complex decisions about the balance of the spell economy vs the action economy during the moment of play.

That is a big issue with the philosophy I'm arguing against. I don't see how it doesn't presume bad faith on one part or the other. Please explain to me, proponents of stricter rules, how it doesn't.

It does not presume bad faith to take the view that a game with multiple intricate and interacting economies - action economy, rationed spell slots of varying levels intended to reflect spell power, etc - should tell the participants how those economies work, rather than rely upon the GM to establish and maintain the economy on a moment-to-moment basis.

The game notoriously doesn't do that for straightforward combat - the creative action declaration "I chop off the Orc's head!" gets resolved simply as an attack which if it hits does the appropriate weapon dice of damage. (Which contrasts with RPGs that are able to resolve that action declaration literally.) It's a sheer oddity that there is a history of treating non damage-dealing spells differently.

Every rule change has a cost. Every time a rule specifies more precise action, you remove a tiny bit of creative freedom from the players. Each table becomes slightly more homogenized. You inch closer to determinism.

This isn't true in general. I mean, D&D has always had an action economy that regulates the number of attacks a player can declare for their character per round. That is a pretty precise specification of actions! Would the game involve more creativity if there were no action economy? I don't know of any argument that it would.

If the Command spell is limited to a specified suite of effects (whether a list of commands, or a list of parameters of action that can be effected - eg movement + action denial) then player can be as creative as they like in deploying those effects.

See, I don't think intent has priority, especially when it isn't clearly spelled out. In that absence, again the fictional descriptor has precedence.

I would say either use (your suggestion or that of @Remathilis ) would be fair, since the fictional descriptor allows both and the mechanics don't specifically exclude either.

As others have said, these are not primarily "fictional descriptors". They are guidelines for resolution. They point towards some sort of fiction, but as @Remathilis has already said, they do not give a complete description of it.

I mean, in the case of the Command spell the fictional descriptor doesn't even tell us if the spell works via direct mind control, via hypnosis, via the victim treating the word as compelling, etc. Why does "drop" always cause the victim to drop an item that they are holding rather than to themselves drop to the floor/ground? The fictional descriptor provides no answer - it is radically incomplete.

 

[pemerton]

To illustrate why I am here. Why I made the comments I made. I want to address this, as the text of the debate over the last day or two continually asserts otherwise. To do this I'm going to do a lot of quoting, so I apologize to people who get pinged and don't want to engage.

I encourage you to read the posts, as I do not intend to misrepresent anything here. But it is very clear that a portion of the argument is to fix malice. I wont comment on the individual quotes because my thoughts are known. Here's the, far from complete, list:

You quoted me saying the following:

The "creative" uses of Command are not the same. The rule in 5e is simply that "the DM determines how the target behaves". Presumably - given that if the save is failed, the victim "must . . . follow the command on its next turn", the GM's decision as to how the target behaves is supposed to correlate, in some fashion, to the word that the caster has uttered; but there is no reference to player (or character) intent

That says nothing about malice on anyone's part. It quotes the rule, notes that the rule does not refer to player or to character intent, and infers that the target's behaviour should in some fashion correlate to the word used.

In my post just upthread I ask the question, why does the command "drop" cause the target to drop what they are holding rather than to themself drop to the floor/ground? The spell description doesn't answer this question. That's not a proposition about anyone's malice - it's just a simple observation about the rules text.

My primary argument is simple: to take the view that action economy and spell level matter for damage-dealing spells, but not for other spell effects, in a RPG that is one of the most pedantic ever written as far as those sorts of things are concerned, makes no sense. And to put the onus of ensuring the proper working and balance of those things onto the GM, in the moment of play, is poor design.

My secondary argument is also pretty simple: the magic clearly does not depend upon the caster's intent (because the caster might say "drop" intending the target to drop to the ground, yet the effect will be that the target drops what they are holding) nor upon the target's interpretation of what is said (because the target might hear the command "drop" and interpret that as meaning that they should drop to the ground, yet the effect will be to drop what they are holding). The magic depends upon some sort of "objective" meaning of the command uttered. Which means that "creative" uses depend upon the GM deciding what, in the fiction, is the "objective" meaning of some or other uttered command. But also has to do so in the context of the spell forbidding directly harmful commands. This is a challenging task, which in my view is a recipe for friction at the table.

I think the spell would be better if it specified the parameters of victim action that can be affected (movement; action denial; no direct harm) and then said that command will take effect within those parameters, as intended by the caster, and offered a few examples to illustrate.

A one-round dominate effect could then also be spelled out expressly, as a spell of the appropriate level (presumably 2nd or 3rd level? in 4e D&D Command is a 3rd level cleric power that combines action denial with knocking prone or forced movement; and one-round dominate is a 5th level bard power).

 

[Micah Sweet]

All of this is why I want a set list. If a DM tells a player the intent of "jump" is to jump off a ship at sea, it's a bad DM. If a player tells an NPC to "jump" while on board a ship at sea and the DM says they jump in place, it's DM malice.

There are only so many options that make sense to me.

1. The caster (DM for NPCs) gets to decide how the command is followed which is a type of mind control, a mini-dominate.
2. The target (player for a PC, DM for the NPC) gets to decide how to follow the command which means the command may not be followed as the caster was hoping. Can be just as creative as option 1.
3. We have a set list of commands that are followed with clear results. Since it's no longer something the target is interpreting, they don't even need to know what the command was.

Obviously I prefer option #3.

How is forcing someone to do what you say magically, even with Command's limitations, not mini-Dominate?

 

[DinoInDisguise]

If the Command spell is limited to a specified suite of effects (whether a list of commands, or a list of parameters of action that can be effected - eg movement + action denial) then player can be as creative as they like in deploying those effects.

They do lose the creativity of an open end on the spell. You can dismiss it, if you wish. But there is an objective restriction when you "restrict" the spell.

That says nothing about malice on anyone's part. It quotes the rule, notes that the rule does not refer to player or to character intent, and infers that the target's behaviour should in some fashion correlate to the word used.

Sorry if I messed up and incorrectly quoted you.

So is it "DM malice" if a DM decides that the NPC targeted by a command responds in the way the player did not intend?

Malice is based on the intent behind the action. Without knowing intent you cannot know if there was malice. This is a part of the word "malice" as seen in the definition; "the intention or desire to do evil; ill will."

 

[Micah Sweet]

Rat

Your move.

Well, then I suppose you're the Ratslayer of Neverwinter. If someone actually wants to do this with their (IMO) doofus of a PC, you either let them or you don't. Either way, you have a talk and find out why they're doing something so non-sensical from a setting point of view. To me, that's what matters.

Forcing the issue via global rules change does nothing positive IMO.

 

[Oofta]

How is forcing someone to do what you say magically, even with Command's limitations, not mini-Dominate?

If it's limited to the examples given I have no issue with it. Because honestly the spell has never really made a lot of sense. Things like flee make sense, but lying down is just one definition of grovel. It also makes sense that since it's the caster deciding what the effect will be that the target doesn't need to understand the command if they have no say in how it's implemented.