EOL
First Post
So I'm DM'ing last night and the party is in a fight that I've tried warning them repeatedly is too tough for them to win. It's a frontal assault against a group of about 100 classed bugbears including some 10th lvl sorcerers and clerics and some 12th lvl fighter 1/2-Dragon Bugbears (they're about 12th level). But they seem intent on going for it anyway so I modify my tactics to capture rather than kill.
It gets to the point where one of the Half-Dragon's has the main fighter pinned, everyone else is out of the fight except for the wizard who casts mass suggestion, and says, in goblin, "Kill all other bugbears". So I tell him that doesn't sound like a reasonable suggestion and though I'm not saying it completely negates the spell it may have not work exactly the way you want it to.
So he changes it to "Protect me and my friends." So the half-dragon fails his will save, but I have him maintain the pin (though cease doing any damage) since as far as he's concerned holding the guy is as good as any other method of protecting him (The secret service protection), plus I was trying to capture rather than kill, which can be sort of difficult to do with high level characters (especially those who seem intent on dying).
In the end half the party was captured and half the party got away, the other half can be rescued and will probably get all their equipment back, but despite the relative non-impact of the combat, the main fighter is upset about the way I handled the suggestion. So that's what this somewhat long winded thread boils down to is how should suggestion work.
From the PHB (pg. 258):
The other argument is that I was forcing the player (who's not especially inventive) to be clever about the wording of the suggestion. I can see this, but I did give him advice on the first suggestion and I don't think it would have required being too inventive to accomplish what they wanted (release of the fighter).
Also suggestion is a compulsion spell and under charm and compulsion in the DMG it says, "Compulsion is a different matter altogether. A compulsion overrides the subject's free will...a compulsion makes the subject obey the caster." But under no circumstances does the general description in the DMG override the actual text of the spell, and that's still only valid if the intial suggestion is valid.
I wanted to also get a feel by comparing it to other spells, certianly it was more effective than chain lightning would have been (Bugbears have lots of hit points). When you look at the number of people under it's effect it was better than a summon monster and would have been enormously better than a summon monster if I gave it a carte blanche.
The final question is how do you work the "must be worded in such a manner as to make the activity sound reasonable" clause of the suggestion spell? Is this a suggestion (unintentional pun) that the DM can twist the wording, in a fashion like a traditional wish(which is basically what I did)? Or is it just flavor text? I would think not, that phrase made it into the SRD and they give several examples of what they mean by it (in the PHB, not SRD). Or is it black or white either you rule the suggestion is immediately negated or it works, no middle fuzzy ground? Perhaps in this situation I should have gave a save bonus (similar to charm), but nothing like that is in the description.
In any event sorry for the length of the post, but I feel that at least one of the characters was very unhappy with last night's session which makes me feel like I could have handled it better.
It gets to the point where one of the Half-Dragon's has the main fighter pinned, everyone else is out of the fight except for the wizard who casts mass suggestion, and says, in goblin, "Kill all other bugbears". So I tell him that doesn't sound like a reasonable suggestion and though I'm not saying it completely negates the spell it may have not work exactly the way you want it to.
So he changes it to "Protect me and my friends." So the half-dragon fails his will save, but I have him maintain the pin (though cease doing any damage) since as far as he's concerned holding the guy is as good as any other method of protecting him (The secret service protection), plus I was trying to capture rather than kill, which can be sort of difficult to do with high level characters (especially those who seem intent on dying).
In the end half the party was captured and half the party got away, the other half can be rescued and will probably get all their equipment back, but despite the relative non-impact of the combat, the main fighter is upset about the way I handled the suggestion. So that's what this somewhat long winded thread boils down to is how should suggestion work.
From the PHB (pg. 258):
In my mind there is a heirarchy of enchantment spells. Charm, which is generally useless as an in combat spell. Suggestion, which can be used in combat, but only redirect people in a limited fashion, and dominate which finally gives you total control. Nicely spaced at 1st level, 3rd level and 5th level. The player's point was that suggestion should only not work in obviously suicidal situations and that dominate has a much longer duration. I'll grant the duration though in game play terms there's not a huge difference between an hour per level and a day per level, but on the suicidal point even dominate doesn't allow that.
The other argument is that I was forcing the player (who's not especially inventive) to be clever about the wording of the suggestion. I can see this, but I did give him advice on the first suggestion and I don't think it would have required being too inventive to accomplish what they wanted (release of the fighter).
Also suggestion is a compulsion spell and under charm and compulsion in the DMG it says, "Compulsion is a different matter altogether. A compulsion overrides the subject's free will...a compulsion makes the subject obey the caster." But under no circumstances does the general description in the DMG override the actual text of the spell, and that's still only valid if the intial suggestion is valid.
I wanted to also get a feel by comparing it to other spells, certianly it was more effective than chain lightning would have been (Bugbears have lots of hit points). When you look at the number of people under it's effect it was better than a summon monster and would have been enormously better than a summon monster if I gave it a carte blanche.
The final question is how do you work the "must be worded in such a manner as to make the activity sound reasonable" clause of the suggestion spell? Is this a suggestion (unintentional pun) that the DM can twist the wording, in a fashion like a traditional wish(which is basically what I did)? Or is it just flavor text? I would think not, that phrase made it into the SRD and they give several examples of what they mean by it (in the PHB, not SRD). Or is it black or white either you rule the suggestion is immediately negated or it works, no middle fuzzy ground? Perhaps in this situation I should have gave a save bonus (similar to charm), but nothing like that is in the description.
In any event sorry for the length of the post, but I feel that at least one of the characters was very unhappy with last night's session which makes me feel like I could have handled it better.
