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<blockquote data-quote="Uller" data-source="post: 66415" data-attributes="member: 413">Comparing Suggestion to Dominate Person is fine.&nbsp;&nbsp; But don't forget that with Dominate Person, you use telepathy to control your target.&nbsp;&nbsp; With Suggestion, your target must understand you.&nbsp; So while Suggestion can work on anything that has a mind, you must know the language of the target.&nbsp; So I would say the numbers of targets available is roughly balanced for the two in most campaigns(unless you have the Tongues spell).&nbsp; If you are in a campaign where most of your foes are humans who speak your language, then you probably will want to take a more conservative interpritation of the spell.Anyway...Hold Person's major limitation is that you get one or two sentences to get your point across.&nbsp; Beyond that, you have no control over the target.&nbsp; You also have to make the command sound reasonable.&nbsp; This is rather subjective and different DMs may have a different standard.&nbsp; The example of a reasonable suggestion given in the book is that a pool of acid is actually cool water and the target should take a quick swim.&nbsp; I assume the target KNOWS the caster is an enemy and that the acid is indeed acid in this example(although I have nothing to back that up).&nbsp; So if that is a reasonable suggestion, so too is the suggestion that your allies have betrayed you and you should change sides or stay out of the fight.&nbsp;&nbsp; Obviously, this will be more effective if you can provide some evidence of treachery...I don't have a problem with the PCs using Mass Suggestion to get weak willed fodder monsters to change sides any more than I have a problem with using Circle of Death to outright kill several weak creatures or Disintegrate to kill even a powerful one...</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Uller, post: 66415, member: 413"] Comparing Suggestion to Dominate Person is fine. But don't forget that with Dominate Person, you use telepathy to control your target. With Suggestion, your target must understand you. So while Suggestion can work on anything that has a mind, you must know the language of the target. So I would say the numbers of targets available is roughly balanced for the two in most campaigns(unless you have the Tongues spell). If you are in a campaign where most of your foes are humans who speak your language, then you probably will want to take a more conservative interpritation of the spell. Anyway...Hold Person's major limitation is that you get one or two sentences to get your point across. Beyond that, you have no control over the target. You also have to make the command sound reasonable. This is rather subjective and different DMs may have a different standard. The example of a reasonable suggestion given in the book is that a pool of acid is actually cool water and the target should take a quick swim. I assume the target KNOWS the caster is an enemy and that the acid is indeed acid in this example(although I have nothing to back that up). So if that is a reasonable suggestion, so too is the suggestion that your allies have betrayed you and you should change sides or stay out of the fight. Obviously, this will be more effective if you can provide some evidence of treachery... I don't have a problem with the PCs using Mass Suggestion to get weak willed fodder monsters to change sides any more than I have a problem with using Circle of Death to outright kill several weak creatures or Disintegrate to kill even a powerful one... [/QUOTE]

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