Suggestion Sucks

[noeuphoria]

I agree except for abandoning his allies. Granted, paladins are a special case, but if a paladin felt like the party needed to retreat (a reasonable suggestion, especially since we're doing hit and run on a city with an insanely large garrison), and he sounded it, I still don't think he'd just leave the party wizard, stunned and surrounded by mind flayers, to get his brain scarfed. I think the Paladin would sound the retreat, begin retreating, and make sure all his allies were safe before he left. He would fight to save the wizard from the illithids, putting his life on the line if necessary, because paladins are big losers like that. Note I'm not trying to negate the spell (he does WANT to leave, like he was suggested), but the leaving part is the extent of the spell, the paladin doesn't become any less conscious of his environment, any less caring about his friends, or any less commited to upholding his vows.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

Suggestion is already on of the most powerful spells in the game outside of combat. I see no reason to make it into a Super Urgent Geas because someone wants it to be powerful in combat as well.

It has a lot of tactical uses in combat, but it just is not reliable unless you are extremely clever. The only reliable Suggestion we use is something like: "The guys (the PCs) look scary dangerous so I will hang back for a bit to see who is winning before moving forward." Most greedy evil monsters get a negative mod to their save for that.