Geas: the good, the bad, the funny

[Hypersmurf]

And your DM did walk away from that session?

PbEM

-Hyp.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

PbEM

-Hyp.

Huh?

 

[Hypersmurf]

Huh?

The game in question was Play-by-Email, so I suspect the DM had little fear of physical injury resulting from the ruling

-Hyp.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

The game in question was Play-by-Email, so I suspect the DM had little fear of physical injury resulting from the ruling

-Hyp.

Too bad urban arcana isn't real. Online spellcasting would come in so handy in situations like these.

 

[roguerouge]

The sense that I'm getting from the posts is that geas and lesser geas are broken in their actual use. The spells are only successfully used, it seems, by the DM to enforce a linear plotline, by a player on PCs who are good sports, or they automatically backfire.

This, quite frankly, is not good. These two spells are the holy grail of players who like enchanters. If they don't work, then enchanters in general don't work, because the problems cited with these spells are certainly going to be there for charms and suggestion. That would cripple any enchanter, from first level onward. That means bards are even weaker than they already are and that wizards/sorcerers move one step closer to the boring "arcane cannon" style.

If this pattern holds true, enchantment spells need to be fixed. The question I ask now is: how?

roguerouge

 

[Kesh]

Is that even physically possible?

It is possible, though a bit uncomfortable.

*cough*

 

[Delemental]

The sense that I'm getting from the posts is that geas and lesser geas are broken in their actual use. The spells are only successfully used, it seems, by the DM to enforce a linear plotline, by a player on PCs who are good sports, or they automatically backfire.

This, quite frankly, is not good. These two spells are the holy grail of players who like enchanters. If they don't work, then enchanters in general don't work, because the problems cited with these spells are certainly going to be there for charms and suggestion. That would cripple any enchanter, from first level onward. That means bards are even weaker than they already are and that wizards/sorcerers move one step closer to the boring "arcane cannon" style.

If this pattern holds true, enchantment spells need to be fixed. The question I ask now is: how?

The problem with enchantment-type spells is not so much in mechanics, but lies in the fact that any player is going to naturally resist being forced to take actions they don't want to do, just as any DM is going to resist having his NPCs do things he doesn't want them to. When you're dealing with mind-control type powers, you have two choices - either leave the effects open to interpretation (which can lead to the problems you see described above), or layer on clauses and limitations to define as many contingencies as possible (which limits the flexibility of such spells).

I think that if you are going to make use of enchantment magic, or mind-affecting psionics, or whatever, there has to be an agreement of some sort (either implied or openly negotiated) between the players and DM. Either both sides have to agree to play by the spirit of such abilities, or agree to play by the letter of such abilities. If your DM casts a geas on your PC and you start pulling the "the best way for me to get you a ham sandwich is to kill you" trick, expect the DM to do the same. If this is the kind of game that you are going to run, then probably it would be better to just ignore the enchantment school altogether, because the results will always disappoint.

Personally, I would rather play in a game where if I cast a geas to have the bad guy get me a ham sandwich, then the bad guy would do his level best to get me a ham sandwich. But if in return the bad guy geased me to get him a Pepsi to go with his sandwich, I'd do my level best to get his Pepsi. I guess the term I'd use is 'necessary and sufficient'.

As far as that part about 'clever recipients subverting instructions', what I would say to that was that if my character happened to have a slab of salt pork and a couple of chunks of moldy bread in the bottom of my pack, I could slap them together and fulfill the geas;the quality of the delivered product was not defined.

There is one argument I saw that I think bears examination. In the case where someone was saying "I can't deliver your sandwich if I don't know where you are, so I'll kill you so you'll be right here" - I think this is obviously a gross violation. However, what I would say is that in order for the geas to be considered closed-ended, the geased character must be able to actually deliver. Thus if I were charged with said sandwich quest, and the caster then immediately vanished and I had no way to track them down, then I'd say that it was now an 'open-ended' geas, and would only last 1 day/level. If the caster said "I'll be waiting in my fortress on the seventh layer of Hell" and vanishes, well, then...

I suppose that if I were going to 'fix' geas/quest and the lesser version, I would change one thing; increase the casting time to something like a minute. It sounds like the main problem encountered with these spells are when they are used in the heat of battle, whene there isn't time to fully spell out your request. On the other hand, the successful examples I've seen come from situations where there's not a combat going on, and the PCs are in the midst of negotiations. I say save geas/quest for those type of situations, and for those combat scenes, stick with suggestion, command, etc.

 

[Zerovoid]

As the person who posted several days ago that geas is useless, I'm glad to find out I was wrong. Its really cool if the spell can be used. My only question is, if the subject is compelled to obey the geas, instead of simply being threated by a set of penalties if they don't, then when do the penalties actually occur?

We've never had any problems with players/NPC's being willing to go along enchantment spells. Its just that its really unclear how geas works.

 

[Oni]

Personally, I would rather play in a game where if I cast a geas to have the bad guy get me a ham sandwich, then the bad guy would do his level best to get me a ham sandwich. But if in return the bad guy geased me to get him a Pepsi to go with his sandwich, I'd do my level best to get his Pepsi. I guess the term I'd use is 'necessary and sufficient'.

As far as that part about 'clever recipients subverting instructions', what I would say to that was that if my character happened to have a slab of salt pork and a couple of chunks of moldy bread in the bottom of my pack, I could slap them together and fulfill the geas;the quality of the delivered product was not defined.

There is one argument I saw that I think bears examination. In the case where someone was saying "I can't deliver your sandwich if I don't know where you are, so I'll kill you so you'll be right here" - I think this is obviously a gross violation. However, what I would say is that in order for the geas to be considered closed-ended, the geased character must be able to actually deliver. Thus if I were charged with said sandwich quest, and the caster then immediately vanished and I had no way to track them down, then I'd say that it was now an 'open-ended' geas, and would only last 1 day/level. If the caster said "I'll be waiting in my fortress on the seventh layer of Hell" and vanishes, well, then...

The thing is slapping together a ham sammich out of your provisions isn't exactly a subversion. Geas is incredibly potent as written, you just have to be very careful with it. The fetch me said item is a poor way to use it if you ask me (ok, not poor, but if your going to leave it at that your certainly shouldn't expect your safety to be guaranteed as they happily hop off to do your bidding). However I thought the good soldier example given above was very well done. Geas in supposed to be an incredibly literal spell, as long as your in some justifiable way working toward the given goal you can get away with anything (within context of the spell).

 

[Kae'Yoss]

My only question is, if the subject is compelled to obey the geas, instead of simply being threated by a set of penalties if they don't, then when do the penalties actually occur?

If someone keeps you from your work. If the paladin is geased to murder all children in town, his peeps will restrain him, mind you. And to give the friendly restrainers a headache, the victim will suffer if you keep him from doing his work.