D&D 5E An Odd Rules Issue with Suggestion

[Hussar]

Well, that was a thing.

Had a bit of a conundrum come up in today's session and I was wondering if folks could offer some guidance on a ruling here. So, here's the situation:

1. Two goblins are fleeing the party carrying a valuable sword they have stolen. The goblins are also being pursued by the undead guardians who also want the sword back, but, I'm not sure how important that is.

2. The goblins are sort of tag teaming their running away - as one goblin passes the other, the leading goblin passes the sword off to the passing goblin. This allows them to get the sword further away from the party.

3. Bard casts Suggestion on the goblin carrying the sword. Suggests that the only way the goblin will survive is if he throws the sword back. Goblin fails saving throw, and I feel this is a perfectly legitimate suggestion.

4. Second goblin goes before the Suggested Goblin. Second goblin goes past the Suggested Goblin, taking the sword as they have done in the past.

Now, here's where it gets sticky. Does the Suggested Goblin resist? We've always ruled that taking items held in hand by an ally counts as part of the free interaction for the round. But, does the Suggestion spell cause the Goblin to no longer be an "ally" at least for this action?

My ruling on the spot was to make a second saving throw for the Suggested Goblin. Not to break the Suggestion, but, if he succeeded the saving throw, the charm wasn't quite totally complete and he interpreted the Suggestion in such a way that passing it backward counted as throwing away. A failed save would result in the Suggested Goblin resisting and not giving up the sword.

Players were ... less than happy with my ruling.

How would you have ruled this?

 

[werecorpse]

I would have ruled that as handing the sword off to the other goblin was contrary to the suggested action the swordgoblin would not do so, or co-operate with it happening. At which point the other goblin either decides to run off or if his greed got the better of him to try and wrestle the sword off his swordgoblin who resists.

 

[Harzel]

Yeah, sorry, I'd also have treated giving the sword to the other goblin (or letting them take it) as contrary to the Suggestion. I'd make goblin #2 trying to take the sword away a Strength contest between the goblins with some bonus (maybe advantage) for goblin #1 because they have hold of the sword to begin with. Or maybe a Dex contest to see if goblin #2 can grab it and then, if they can, a Strength contest to see if they can yank it away. Probably let one of the players roll for goblin #1.

 

[Quickleaf]

It sounds like one of those ambiguous moments where the goblins were trying to escape combat and initiate a chase scene, and one of the players wanted to cast a spell to thwart their escape? I could be mistaken, but that's what it sounds like based on your description.

Often, in similar moments transitioning from combat turns to a chase scene, I like to give the attackers a chance to short circuit the retreat, but I also like to make it hard for the attackers (usually by limiting line of sight unless a high Perception check is rolled or creative means / resources are used to gain line of sight).

In this case, I think adhering strictly to initiative and movement speeds may have been hampering resolution.

From the outside looking in, I'd wonder whether "the only way you'll survive is to throw the sword back" would appear reasonable to the goblin? Who did the goblin think was the bigger threat – the Undead Guardian or the PCs or the demanding Goblin Boss waiting back at home? Did the goblin believe that the bigger threat would stop chasing if it didn't have the sword? Conversely, if the goblin viewed the Goblin Boss (or whomever it serves) as the bigger threat, did it anticipate surviving its return home empty-handed?

For the sake of argument, let's say it was reasonable. How the goblin might interpret that comment from a scheming sneaky goblin paradigm? Would tossing back a short sword it was carrying, slipping it into the old sword's scabbard as a decoy meet the terms of the suggestion?

From a pure rules standpoint on the wording of suggestion, the key section is:

On a failed save, it pursues the course of action you described to the best of its ability. The suggested course of action can continue for the entire duration. If the suggested activity can be completed in a shorter time, the spell ends when the subject finishes what it was asked to do.

Since it's a concentration spell that can involve a task lasting up to 8 hours long, I think the design intent is to genuinely attempt to accomplish the task to the best of its ability. In this case, that could include defending against anyone (including PCs or goblins) who attempted to wrest the sword away & whom didn't appear to intend to throw the sword back. Now, at that point if the other goblin was savvy to what was going on, it might attempt a Deception check to convince its ally that it has a better throwing arm to toss the sword back, and that this will help them both stay alive.

 

[Hussar]

Yeah, thinking about it more, I can see that argument. The Suggestion Goblin resists anything other than something that makes the sword go back to the undead guardians so it can escape.

Note, the bit about bigger bad guys and whatnot, well, as I said, I ruled that the suggestion was perfectly okay. That's not something I feel I need to reexamine.

Like I said, I left it up to the dice - a second saving throw. But, thinking about it now, that's kinda screwing over the caster.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Personally, I could see the goblin letting it's buddy take the sword as long as it had no reason to believe that the buddy wouldn't give the sword back to him on his turn (at which point he could have tossed it back to the party). He has to follow the command as soon as he can, but letting the buddy take it actually is a more efficient way of following the command than wrestling over the sword. Of course, whether a panicked goblin has the ability to reason to that degree is entirely up to you.

That said, to me this scene is a bit odd. Turn based movement is perfectly sufficient for the average combat, but using it this way in a chase scene borders on comedic. The two goblins were running at the same speed. Unless one was slowing down and the other sprinting ahead (and then they alternated), there's no reason they should have been leapfrogging one another. Removing the leapfrogging eliminates the hand off, which means the goblin carrying the sword would have just tossed it back. Just my 2 cents.

 

[Hussar]

To be fair, it hadn't gotten to a chase scene. It was a combat (three way combat at that) where the goblins were trying to get away from both the party and the undead guardians. And everyone was chasing the sword. In game it actually looked okay as they were scrambling over terrain, sometimes one goblin would take an attack, and not double move, that sort of thing.

Like I said, that part of things wasn't something I was having an issue with. It was just an odd interaction between the Suggestion Spell, Initiative and plausibility.

Although, thinking about it, I kinda screwed over the caster, who succeeded on casting the spell, so, I probably shouldn't have taken that success away. Funny thing is, the Suggested Goblin wound up dying before he even actually got an action. I was going to have him take the sword back from the other goblin, by force if necessary, and throw it back.

 

[MarkB]

How exactly was the whole sword-relay thing making them faster? If it was a matter of encumbrance, wouldn't it have made more sense for them to be carrying it between them?

 

[jasper]

I have no problems with the OP ruling. I would also allow str check vs str check to grab the sword. Sometimes magic and the dice are fickle.

 

[DND_Reborn]

I think the OP handled it fine on the spot. To me that is the type of thing that the table discusses after the fact. While the Suggestion was fine, maybe the goblin realizes it can also survive if it isn't the one with the sword or maybe it thought the other goblin was taking the sword to throw it back? Maybe it was thinking of throwing the sword back and surprised when the other goblin pulled the sword from its grasp?

Allowing a second save is basically like letting fate decide in this instance because you don't want to take the time to hash out how it should work. If I was a player at the table, the result would have been disappointing, but I completely would be behind the ruling on how it worked.

No problem IMO. Take it out later for future issues.