The Power of Suggestion

[brehobit]

So I just had a baddy NPC with suggestion and a crazy high DC.

I chose to use it to just take PCs out of combat ("drop your weapon and surrender") rather than try to turn them against the party.

Interestingly one of the PCs cast "command" on the "surrendered" PC to "attack". I let that work based on a caster level check against the person who cast the suggestion. It turned out to turn the battle.

So two questions I guess
1) A suggestion to attack your party members ("they are all dopplegangers and we need to stop them"?) seems too close to dominate person. Thoughts?
2) How would you have handled the command spell (there was only one character (PC or NPC) the character didn't consider a "friend". The character did fail in his save vs the command.

Mark

 

[James McMurray]

1) The suggestion has to be worded to sound reasonable. For a typical "heroic" party it would be very hard to word something to get them to kill people that might be their friends. They may try to disarm or otherwise restrain them though.

2) I'd have allowed it. command gives an action but can't give parameters. If the caster wants to use something like that and run the risk of them interpreting it differently I'm cool with it. For instance, "attack!" doesn't say who to attack or how. In most combat situations it would be worthless because they were likely already going to perform some sort of attack on somebody.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

As for #1, the Suggestion spell allows the suggestion of "a course of action". But attacking your allies is only reasonable if:
(1) They are dopplegangers
(2) These dopplegangers are a real threat
(3) I need to stop them myself
(4) I need to stop them now instead of fleeing immediately
(5) The urgency of doing something about these dopplegangers is greater than the urgency of doing something about the other enemy (didn't that guy just cast a spell?)

That is an awful lot for a 3rd level spell. Especially as most sensible PCs would attempt to retreat if hopelessly outnumbered.

I personally think you should avoid in combat Suggestions more complex or controversial than fleeing.

I think the Command is reasonable. As JM points out, you generally cannot guarantee results when you use Command in this manner, and such uses are usually superfluous anyway.

 

[Cheiromancer]

I think a series of Bluff checks could make all kinds of things reasonable.

For instance. (Starting at "Oh, I still have one more deception up my sleeve...")

 

[brehobit]

Thanks all!

Mark

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

I think a series of Bluff checks could make all kinds of things reasonable.

For instance. (Starting at "Oh, I still have one more deception up my sleeve...")

That would be a good example of my point.

The Suggestion is set up with a number of successful Bluffs that have circumstance modifiers. Then the Suggestion is pushed. But we do not really know for a fact that Elan will attack his party member. He might. He might not.

Yet another Suggestion would be a good idea at this point. (And you better hope the target fails his save...)

Looks to me like 4-5 Actions to prepare the target before "Attack your party member" becomes reasonable.

I am okay with that.