# Forum > Gaming > Roleplaying Games > D&D 5e/Next >  Dealing with Mass Suggestion

## TheOldOne

Looking for your opinions on how everyone deals with a spell that is so open to interpretation like Mass suggestion. During our last session we had a very long debate as to what is a "reasonable suggestion". A quick recap of encounter goes like this.. The players, a Paladin, Barbarian, and Cleric all 7th lvl and two NPCs warlock and wizard to help fill in for missing players. The Baddies, 4 melee minions, 2 ranged minions, and Sorcerer boss. The Paladin goes first and engages the melee minions, as they block access to the sorcerer. The minions go next and focus fire on the Paly and bring down to 10hps. Next the Sorcerer comes in and casts Mass Suggestion "You all tire of combat and wish to return home to rest." Now only the Paladin and Cleric make their saves, the 2 NPCs turn around and head home. The Barbarian argued that this was not a reasonable suggestion since it would mean leaving his friends to certain doom. The DM counters that since the suggestion did not ask for him harm his companions or himself that it was indeed a reasonable suggestion. As stated earlier this created a long debate as to what is a "reasonable suggestion". I am curious as to how everyone else has dealt with a similar situation or how they would deal with this particular one.

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## Segev

The limits of a "reasonable" suggestion seem to be pretty generous. Consider the example in the spell about taking a refreshing dip in the pool: as long as the victim doesn't know the pool to be inherently dangerous, it is apparently "reasonable" to suggest he go swimming (or at least wading) RIGHT NOW. 

One way I'm considering it is this: if the suggestion has to be "reasonable" to somebody unaffected by magic, why is the spell needed at all? You could achieve the same thing just by...suggesting it. Nonmagically. 

I think all it takes is for it to make sense in a narrowed context that ignores what's going on in favor of the immediate suggestion. 

"It's hot; you should take a dip in that pool. Remember to take off your armor so you don't drown!" is totally unreasonable if you consider most contexts, but if the suggestion is ALL that is being considered, it makes sense and seems reasonable. The overriding nature of the suggestion and its context makes it so that the guard you're trying to get to strip to his skivvies goes for a swim rather than standing there and keeping you from entering makes the suggestion "reasonable."

I would actually argue that the suggestion in the OP's case was NOT reasonable, but not because it leaves their friends in danger. It isn't reasonable because they have no reason to believe that quitting the fight won't get them stabbed in the back. Now, if they were offered a deal of some sort that implied such a thing, that would work just fine. In the context of the deal alone, "you're tired of this fight; if you leave now, we'll let you go and it can be over," is a "reasonable" suggestion.


But yeah, it's a tricky one. What is "reasonable?" If it's reasonable, why do you need magic? I think the key is that "reasonable" means "not blatantly stupid even within its own context," honestly.

"I'll trade you this gold piece for your bag of 1,000 gp" is not reasonable even ignoring any other possible context. "This idol is the key to a great treasure which I'll sell you for 1000 gp" is, because in the context of the idol being a "key to a great treasure," it could well be worth more than 1000 gp. The fact that you might be (and probably are) lying is glossed over by the magic of the spell.

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## SharkForce

i'd agree with segev's ruling.

although i would say that the effect, rather than making those hit by it leave immediately, will rather cause them to choose the first safe option to leave that they are offered; that is, the barbarian will want to go home (as will the NPCs) and should start to direct the fight in such a way that it would be possible. if, in the process of fighting, it becomes immediately obvious that the fastest way to safely "go home" is to win the fight (for example, if there is a single enemy left and they're blocking your escape, or if you know that there are a lot of minions coming up behind you and you think defeating the BBEG will stop that) the barbarian could certainly win the fight, but most likely the barbarian's decisions should reflect that he is less concerned about winning the fight than he is about going home.

so, for example, a suggestion that someone should run away from a fight because they can't win is likely to make them disengage and then go look for a place to hide, or find a place that will be hard for you to follow. it won't make them turn tail and use the dash action so that you get an opportunity attack.

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## Hudsonian

Does the spell itself have any sort of Teammates can break the charm rule? Because I would argue that some suggestions like, "Your armor is heavy, you want to take it off", that could happen in a round or something like that could be irreversable, but that if you go for the "everybody leave" hail mary, it could be relatively be defeated by the "safety" (sports analogy alert) that managed to succeed on the saving throw. The more severe the deviation from the current actions being taken the easier it is for others in the area to convince the affected member that the suggestion had, in fact, not been "reasonable". 


For example, if I had been a DM in your scenario, I probably would have said that the barbarian was affected by the spell and began to leave, but if any of the other characters had said, "Hey Joe! What the Hell are you doing?!!! The bad guy is THAT way!". I would have AT LEAST given the character another save. If a second player did the same thing, AT LEAST advantage on an additional save. Mind you, this would all happen on those players turns meaning that one spell would have taken almost an entire round away from the party.... that's still pretty powerful.

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## Specter

I see reasonable as what isn't harmful or obviously wrong.

But that 'feel tired' part is totally outside of the spell: it doesn't make you feel anything, just do something. The most that could be done is tell those guys to go somewhere. And even so, a spell that breaks enchantments or returns the foe to its senses like Calm Emotions should be a counter to that. In the very least, Dispel Magic.

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## MaxWilson

> The limits of a "reasonable" suggestion seem to be pretty generous. Consider the example in the spell about taking a refreshing dip in the pool: as long as the victim doesn't know the pool to be inherently dangerous, it is apparently "reasonable" to suggest he go swimming (or at least wading) RIGHT NOW.


What dip in what pool? I don't see that in the spell.




> 6th-level enchantment
> 
> Casting Time: 1 action
> Range: 60 feet
> Components: V, M (a snakes tongue and either a bit of honeycomb or a drop of sweet oil)
> Duration: 24 hours
> 
> You suggest a course of activity (limited to a sentence or two) and magically influence up to twelve creatures of your choice that you can see within range and that can hear and understand you. Creatures that cant be charmed are immune to this effect. The suggestion must be worded in such a manner as to make the course of action sound reasonable. Asking the creature to stab itself, throw itself onto a spear, immolate itself, or do some other obviously harmful act automatically negates the effect of the spell.
> 
> ...


I agree with your conclusion--"reasonable pretty much means 'not physically impossible and not suicidal'"--but I don't know what you're quoting unless it's the AD&D version, which says:




> When this spell is cast by the wizard, he influences the actions of the chosen recipient by the utterance of a few words--phrases or a sentence or two--suggesting a course of action desirable to the spellcaster. The creature to be influenced must, of course, be able to understand the wizard's suggestion--it must be spoken in a language that the spell recipient understands.
> 
> The suggestion must be worded in such a manner as to make the action sound reasonable; asking the creature to stab itself, throw itself onto a spear, immolate itself, or do some other obviously harmful act automatically negates the effect of the spell. However, a suggestion that a *pool of acid was actually pure water and that a quick dip would be refreshing* is another matter. Urging a red dragon to stop attacking the wizard's party so that the dragon and party could jointly loot a rich treasure elsewhere is likewise a reasonable use of the spell's power.


(Note that Suggestion was a 3rd level spell in AD&D.)

The Red Dragon example is useful too. It's not binding as rules, since AD&D is a different game, but it does at least provide historical context, especially since the 5E writers went out of their way to copy some of the same wording.

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## Segev

I was, in fact, recalling the 3e version. My apologies.

Given the 5e text, it seems that you could potentially go as far as saying that anything that isn't obviously harmful is "reasonable," since there is no definition for "reasonable" and the only thing expressly barred is "obviously harmful."

I'd still stick with a slightly less-generous reading than that, but not too much. No, it's not "reasonable" to lock yourself in the cell while letting the prisoners you guard go. At least, not for nothing but the _suggestion_.

It might be "reasonable" to do it to impress the sexy sorceress asking you to, though. Say, in exchange for a kiss.

Notably, the _suggestion_ spell in 5e runs off the Charmed condition. While that condition doesn't actually do anything relating to making people like you, despite its name, its oft used in places where the writer of the effect seemed to think it would make the victim predisposed to agree with you. So treating "reasonable" as "something you'd do for a friend or somebody to whom you looked up" might be fitting.

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## MaxWilson

I like the idea that a reasonable suggestion has to leave the target in a consistent mental state afterwards. He has to have at least a rationalization for his behavior. The PHB-provided example "give all your money to the next beggar you meet" would only work, then, if you provided a rationale: "Repent and cast your treasures to the next beggar you meet that ye may find mercy in the sight of God!" If the guy you're using it on happens to hate God, then the Suggestion automatically fails.

IMO this makes Suggestion more interesting.

I also like your idea of "lock yourself in this cell instead of us and I'll give you a kiss when I get back [wink]". In this case, it only works if the guard is attracted to the sorceress, so there might be a Con check or Charisma check or something involved as a precondition.

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## Buurg

I also had balance issues with Suggestion in my campaign. We resolved to the following:

99.999% of things have masters. Soldiers have captains, lords have kings, goblins have leaders, orcs have warlords, dragons have their superiors, etc. A "Suggestion" is like a creature's master telling it to do something, but of course not actually coming from the master. That is the level of regard they give to the command.

If the leader of the orc tribe commands his troops to let the prisoners go, they will obey.
Similarly, if the captain of the guard commands his troops to leave the gate wide open on one particular night, they also will obey.
The king can command a merchant to give all his gold to a stranger. He will obey.
In all cases, a remotely reasonable request from the superior will be obeyed.

If a captain commands troops to abandon their comrades, as a DM I would rule that after 1 round of slight hesitation they would follow their commander's orders.

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## IShouldntBehere

Something they would otherwise do, but aren't currently. In other words if Bob would walk into a room and upon entering the room would consider doing X, Y & Z but chooses to do Y. One could suggest he do X or Z but not Q.


For example if bob is somewhere between "Could go for Snack" and "Not really hungry right now". "A Sandwhich ain't a bad idea, maybe you should go for one" is generally a reasonable suggestion. If Bob just had a huge seafood dinner suggesting he eat a sandwich is unreasonable because bob would never consider eating a sandwhich when he's already stuffed to the gills with shrimp. 

Similarly if say Bob is guard hungry in front of a gate, it may be reasonable to suggest he go get that sandwhich. If Bob is a lax worker he may even be particularly susceptible to that suggestion. If bob is a stringent worker who would never in his life abandon his post and holds the personal belief that all deserters should put to the gallows, that's probably not a reasonable suggestion to him.

In general it's safe to assume most NPCs can be taken as an average Joe. No extreme views, just trying to make it day by day. 

The way I like to see it Suggestion doesn't really buy you much more than say a 15-ish on a Persuasion check or a bit under that in terms of like actual types of behavior your can coax out of someone. Rather the spell offers the advantage of often your save being harder for them to beat than for you to beat a persuasion DC (barring expertise), and giving you some reasonable assurance of following your request long term. A DC 15 Persuasion check might buy you the same behavior but they're not going to stick with it for 8 hours, the spell makes them stick with it for 8 hours (assuming it can be stuck with that long). 

The default text seems to put the influence more around a DC 20 Persuasion (the warhorse and all) but that seems a bit overtuned to me personally.

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## MaxWilson

> The default text seems to put the influence more around a DC 20 Persuasion (the warhorse and all) but that seems a bit overtuned to me personally.


No way would I let you make a knight give away his warhorse just because you rolled a DC 20 on your Persuasion check. In fact, I wouldn't have you make a Persuasion roll at all unless there was some actual, rational reason why he should give away his warhorse, and you were just trying to get him to accept that reason.

"Give me your warhorse so that I don't have to kill you for it" is a Persuasion check, if the guy believes that you can kill him (perhaps due to a prior Intimidation roll, or due to witnessing you actually kill someone).

"Give me your warhorse because I want it" is not even Persuasion. It's just a raw demand, and it doesn't compute. The answer it gets is "No," unless there's something hinky going on like a _very_ generous person who's made an oath never to refuse a request of anyone poorer than himself.

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## Sigreid

I tend to look at it this way, if you could talk someone 3 sheets to the wind into it it should be fair game.

In the example above this post, I could see "Loan me your horse" but not "Give me your horse".  Unless, as noted above there were some rational as to why giving you his horse is the right thing to do.  Examples might be "You killed my goat, give me your horse in compensation." "You can afford another horse, but without one to pull the plow my family will starve!"  "Your horse is too tired to continue and you can't wait for it to rest, so trade it for this donkey"

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## MrStabby

> I tend to look at it this way, if you could talk someone 3 sheets to the wind into it it should be fair game.


So "see how high up the wall you can pee" is a valid suggestion?

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## MaxWilson

> I tend to look at it this way, if you could talk someone 3 sheets to the wind into it it should be fair game.
> 
> In the example above this post, I could see "Loan me your horse" but not "Give me your horse".  Unless, as noted above there were some rational as to why giving you his horse is the right thing to do.  Examples might be "You killed my goat, give me your horse in compensation." "You can afford another horse, but without one to pull the plow my family will starve!"  "Your horse is too tired to continue and you can't wait for it to rest, so trade it for this donkey"


Are we still talking about Mass Suggestion here or are we talking about basic Persuasion? It's easy to lose track of context on GITP.

"...without one to pull the plow my family will starve" doesn't qualify as a Persuasion check in my eyes, but it is a raw appeal. I'd let you make a Charisma check here (if your target is a normal, relatively nice human being), but your skill at Persuasion doesn't apply because you're not persuading. If you succeed then the target gives you his horse and leaves feeling good about himself. If he's not the kind of person who would feel good about helping out another human being, it doesn't work.

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## Sigreid

> So "see how high up the wall you can pee" is a valid suggestion?


Probably...

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## Sigreid

> Are we still talking about Mass Suggestion here or are we talking about basic Persuasion? It's easy to lose track of context on GITP.
> 
> "...without one to pull the plow my family will starve" doesn't qualify as a Persuasion check in my eyes, but it is a raw appeal. I'd let you make a Charisma check here (if your target is a normal, relatively nice human being), but your skill at Persuasion doesn't apply because you're not persuading. If you succeed then the target gives you his horse and leaves feeling good about himself. If he's not the kind of person who would feel good about helping out another human being, it doesn't work.


I was talking about plausible with mass suggestion, or after half a keg of ale.  I view them as similar.

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## IShouldntBehere

> No way would I let you make a knight give away his warhorse just because you rolled a DC 20 on your Persuasion check. In fact, I wouldn't have you make a Persuasion roll at all unless there was some actual, rational reason why he should give away his warhorse, and you were just trying to get him to accept that reason.
> 
> "Give me your warhorse so that I don't have to kill you for it" is a Persuasion check, if the guy believes that you can kill him (perhaps due to a prior Intimidation roll, or due to witnessing you actually kill someone).
> 
> "Give me your warhorse because I want it" is not even Persuasion. It's just a raw demand, and it doesn't compute. The answer it gets is "No," unless there's something hinky going on like a _very_ generous person who's made an oath never to refuse a request of anyone poorer than himself.




Quick Question. If the "Give the beggar your horse" clause of the default description of suggestion is beyond the scope of regular persuasion, do you feel this is an appropriate example in the spell text? If Persuasion can't do it, is it appropriate that Suggestion can? In my mind this would make Suggestion supercede the entire Persuasion skill, which feels odd to me from a metagame perspective and from a fluff perspective means even low-level magic is far reaching beyond mundane means. It's like a Flaming Sphere spell being well beyond the largest possible catapult in power level. 

Put another way. _Should_ Suggestion be able to make the Knight give up his Warhorse as worded in the example text? 
If not, how would you relate the "appropriate" level (not RAW) relative to other charisma skills if at all? 
If so, what is the appropriate level of reach beyond persuasion for the suggestion spell? 

I don't mean to say you're incorrect here as I clearly have my own biases about where the spell "Should" be, I'm just curious to hear you relate the two.

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## TheOldOne

One of the other issues I see with Mass suggestion is the duration. Depending on the spell level used the duration can be up to a year long. Now if we agree that the above suggestion is reasonable (possibly worded a bit better, but the result would be the same) then the party members who failed the save would head home. Now since the party had stepped through a portal that teleported them across the continent and now home was more then a 4 month journey they would continue heading home until the duration expired or the conditions of the suggestion were met, and since there is not another save to "come to your senses" this could mean days, weeks, or months fulfilling the spells suggestion.

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## SharkForce

suggestion can do more than a persuasion check for a few reasons.

1) it is harder to get an extremely effective suggestion DC than it is to get a very good persuasion check. with just someone reasonably charismatic and proficient, you can easily hit DC 15 half the time at level 1, never mind higher levels. with a second person to provide help, that goes up to 75% of the time. to get that kind of success rate on suggestion, you're likely in a situation where it's a high level person casting the spell on a very low level/CR person, and the persuasion-focused character could hit 15 almost without fail (or literally without fail if they have expertise).
2) it's mind control, and is countered by things that counter mind control. it is detected as mind control. it is dispelled as mind control. and it makes people angry as mind control, because people are going to resent you controlling their mind in a way that they won't resent being persuaded.
3) it costs more resources than a persuasion check.

as to ending it later on... uhh, you've got a cleric. you'll probably need a couple of rolls with dispel magic, but removing the effect is completely possible.

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## MaxWilson

> Quick Question. If the "Give the beggar your horse" clause of the default description of suggestion is beyond the scope of regular persuasion, do you feel this is an appropriate example in the spell text? If Persuasion can't do it, is it appropriate that Suggestion can? In my mind this would make Suggestion supercede the entire Persuasion skill, which feels odd to me from a metagame perspective and from a fluff perspective means even low-level magic is far reaching beyond mundane means. It's like a Flaming Sphere spell being well beyond the largest possible catapult in power level. 
> 
> Put another way. _Should_ Suggestion be able to make the Knight give up his Warhorse as worded in the example text? 
> If not, how would you relate the "appropriate" level (not RAW) relative to other charisma skills if at all? 
> If so, what is the appropriate level of reach beyond persuasion for the suggestion spell? 
> 
> I don't mean to say you're incorrect here as I clearly have my own biases about where the spell "Should" be, I'm just curious to hear you relate the two.


Well, there's two answers here: what Suggestion does by PHB rules, and what I think is cool for it to do. I think it's clear that Suggestion, per PHB, is intended to allow you to make someone do something weird and counterintuitive like give up all your money for no reason. By default, that's how I would run it: you can make any suggestion that's not self-destructive or morally repugnant, because it's not a big enough deal for me to want to subvert player expectations unnecessarily--there's real value to the players in keeping house rules under control.

However, I think it would be cooler to restrict the scope a little bit to flesh the spell out and make it more predictable and flavorful. If my players were interested in altering it slightly, I'd propose that Suggestion can make any suggestion which leaves the target in a coherent mental state afterward (can be rationalized as something they would have wanted to do). This means that the warhorse example in the PHB would _not_ work, unless you added extra details to make it work, such as the delusion that the beggar you give the horse to is going to be a holy man. In some ways this makes the spell more powerful (it now includes a delusion component which lasts for eight hours and not just an action component), in some ways it makes it less powerful (it's easier to fail, if you guess wrong as to what the target would want). To me this makes the spell more interesting.

I could even write this new version of the spell up as a variant spell ("Katherine's Irresistibly Appealing Ideation") and drop it into a treasure horde on a spell scroll, without having to make a house rule at all.

In both cases, I think the spell is clearly intended to do things that a simple Persuasion roll cannot. Otherwise you'd be using Persuasion (possibly with advantage from Help) instead of a spell. Persuasion is potentially more reliable than magic (scales with proficiency or Expertise, isn't resisted by saving throws/Legendary Resistance, easy to gain advantage and/or extra bonuses on via Guidance/Bardic Inspiration), lasts longer (no concentration needed), and doesn't have nasty side effects when the delusion wears off.

If you want a rough guide to how I'd compare Suggestion to skill checks, I'd say Suggestion is kind of like five minutes of fast talking, plus maybe a few props, plus a sky-high Deception roll followed by a sky-high Persuasion roll. You'll never persuade anyone to sell their own children into slavery (unless they already hate them) and so you can't Suggest that either, but you certainly could Mass Suggest that "You're clearly overmatched--surrender immediately and be spared!"

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## IShouldntBehere

> If you want a rough guide to how I'd compare Suggestion to skill checks, I'd say Suggestion is kind of like five minutes of fast talking, plus maybe a few props, plus a sky-high Deception roll followed by a sky-high Persuasion roll. You'll never persuade anyone to sell their own children into slavery (unless they already hate them) and so you can't Suggest that either, but you certainly could Mass Suggest that "You're clearly overmatched--surrender immediately and be spared!"


Thanks for the perspective.

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## Zalabim

I get the impression that _suggestion_ is supposed to evoke the feeling of hypnosis, or The Power of Suggestion. They won't do something that they think will hurt themselves or people they care about, but they might be convinced to act like a chicken, give up smoking to improve their health, or give their possessions to charity because their wealth will be returned tenfold.

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## Sir_Leorik

A reasonable suggestion, per the Suggestion and Mass Suggestion spells, is anything that doesn't involve imminent danger to the target.

Here are a few Suggestions I would consider reasonable:

"Leave the city right now."

"Drop your weapons and surrender!"

"Go home."

"Pay my bar tab."

"Donate all your material possessions to Tymora's church."

"Join me, and together we can rule this land!"

Remember that a creature immune to being charmed is immune to the spell, Suggestion requires the caster to concentrate for the duration, and both spells allow saving throws.

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## Demonslayer666

Reasonable means you have a reason to do it, IMO.

I feel like "you're tired, go home and rest" is a reasonable suggestion.  You have a reason to go home and rest magically planted in your head.  

Just because other actions are more reasonable, does not make the suggested course of action unreasonable.

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## Segev

> Reasonable means you have a reason to do it, IMO.
> 
> I feel like "you're tired, go home and rest" is a reasonable suggestion.  You have a reason to go home and rest magically planted in your head.  
> 
> Just because other actions are more reasonable, does not make the suggested course of action unreasonable.


What wouldn't that allow, though, aside from "obviously harmful" suggestions?

Is "give me your horse, and I'll give you 1 copper piece" reasonable? You have a reason! You get a copper piece! 

I think I get where you're trying to go with this, but I don't think that's a good formulation.

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## Demonslayer666

> What wouldn't that allow, though, aside from "obviously harmful" suggestions?
> 
> Is "give me your horse, and I'll give you 1 copper piece" reasonable? You have a reason! You get a copper piece! 
> 
> I think I get where you're trying to go with this, but I don't think that's a good formulation.


/shrug
I don't know what it would restrict specifically. Stuff that's obviously not true.  I would probably have the suggestion "Nice wings, jump off that cliff and show my how you fly" fail outright, for example.

That's a bad trade, and there is no reason to make that bad trade, it is therefore unreasonable.

If you suggested the copper piece was a magical lucky coin that granted 3 wishes, you would be on the right track.   :Small Smile:

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## Tanarii

"You're tired, go home" doesn't sound like a reasonable suggestion to me if used against any creature fighting for its life. But "These guys are sure to kill you, best run away" would probably work in many cases.

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## Slipperychicken

> I agree with your conclusion--"reasonable pretty much means 'not physically impossible and not suicidal'"--


I also agree with this interpretation. 




> "Drop your weapons and surrender!"


I think this is reasonable. As a player, I'd probably make it more like "You have no hope in battle against such a foe as us! Disarm and surrender, that we might grant you mercy!" That would have a chance of working even without magic.

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## Kornaki

> If you suggested the copper piece was a magical lucky coin that granted 3 wishes, you would be on the right track.


I hate this because it basically just requires the players ooc to know the magic words to make the spell work.  In character anyone learning the spell would probably read in Otto's 1001 Tips for Better Casting that you can just tell everyone your copper coin is lucky to make the spell work.

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## NotADragonYet

I wouldn't call the OP's example a reasonable request, as it would mean leaving your allies to suffer and possibly die. Now, if the request was to lay their weapons down and make an agreement, that would be more reasonable.

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## MaxWilson

> I think this is reasonable. As a player, I'd probably make it more like "You have no hope in battle against such a foe as us! Disarm and surrender, that we might grant you mercy!" That would have a chance of working even without magic.


I'm often surprised that players don't try this kind of thing (non-magic surrender demand) more often. I suspect that it's a side effect of not having morale rules--without knowing the odds of success, players may feel like demanding surrender will only work when the DM feels like it. Play gravitates to areas in which the players feel knowledgeable/empowered.

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## Slipperychicken

> I'm often surprised that players don't try this kind of thing (non-magic surrender demand) more often. I suspect that it's a side effect of not having morale rules--without knowing the odds of success, players may feel like demanding surrender will only work when the DM feels like it. Play gravitates to areas in which the players feel knowledgeable/empowered.


I never do it because my DMs have not been keen on having enemies surrender, and we rarely learn anything helpful from captives anyway. When I have attempted parley, it just gave the bad guys an extra round on us (since we wasted a turn talking and not attacking) and lead to a TPK.


The choice of whether to attempt social interaction with enemies is kind of a rigged thing. If you try it, the DM will do everything in his power to make it useless, and make your life miserable for it by having enemies do things like sabotage you and escape to become recurring villains. If you don't try it, then the RPG community (and probably your DM too) will denounce you as a psychopathic murderhobo. Frankly, the safe option is to simply kill anyone who raises arms against the PCs (possibly with capture and interrogation preceding the killing), and ignore what people say.

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## Segev

Not a D&D game, but in a game where we were facing magical monsters that often were transformed from beloved pets or even human acquaintances, we kept trying to talk them down, and it never worked. In fact, I'm pretty sure the GM was irritated with us for trying. He has an unfortunate tendency to foreshadow too strongly that the enemies won't always be enemies, and thus never quite gets the "wham" that he might have wanted from the revelation that we now might be able to work towards peace with them.

(I will note that the game was overall good; this is just one particular point of oddity. This particular GM is very much a storyteller type.)

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## MaxWilson

> I never do it because my DMs have not been keen on having enemies surrender, and we rarely learn anything helpful from captives anyway. When I have attempted parley, it just gave the bad guys an extra round on us (since we wasted a turn talking and not attacking) and lead to a TPK.
> 
> The choice of whether to attempt social interaction with enemies is kind of a rigged thing. If you try it, the DM will do everything in his power to make it useless, and make your life miserable for it by having enemies do things like sabotage you and escape to become recurring villains. If you don't try it, then the RPG community (and probably your DM too) will denounce you as a psychopathic murderhobo. Frankly, the safe option is to simply kill anyone who raises arms against the PCs (possibly with capture and interrogation preceding the killing), and ignore what people say.


Wow, that sounds like a sick community. I'm sorry. No wonder you don't try any more.

Interesting that the initiative system you're using doesn't let you pause to talk, but even in that case you could talk while readying actions and/or disengaging from combat. But then again, if you're on the verge of a TPK you're not in a strong position to be demanding surrenders anyway. I'm talking more about when, once you're clearly dominating the combat (e.g. there's four PCs still standing and ten hobgoblins bleeding out on the ground, and five hobgoblins left on their feet), you have a choice between hunting down enemies and murdering them all, or letting them surrender.

In some ways it's up to the DM to set the tone, e.g. by having the enemy sometimes drop their weapons and surrender instead of fighting to the death. Once it's been established that surrender is a thing at this table, maybe then the players will be more willing to demand surrender proactively.

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## unwise

It seems that most of the suggestions here all rely on the magical ability to force people to believe something, not just take an action. That does not seem to be what the spell does.

I guess I am in the minority, but in examples like "This coin is the key to a great treasure, swap it for your 1000gp" my problem is with the "great treasure" bit. Does the spell let you dictate what they believe? Can you tell somebody "I am your king!" and force them to believe it? That feels like it should be a different spell to me.

Making it so it forces people to believe things changes the nature of the spell, from an action to a belief. It opens up a lot more options, like telling the judge "you believe I am not guilty" or telling the queen "you are in love with me and want to elope".

If a suggestion can make soldiers go and give all their money to the poor, then in the above example, you could have just told them to swap their 1000gp for your 1gp.

Fortunately, my group avoids all of these problems, as the previous game system we used had a suggestion spell that worked as long as it did not go against the very core of somebody's self. E.g. suicide (unless they are depressed), cursing their god if they are very pious, hurting their family if they are not evil etc. This was a good rule of thumb that worked very well for us. It also let people use suggestion to make fanatical samurai (who were losing the fight) kill themselves, as seppeku was not an alien thing for them and they did not fear death, but that was a rare exception.

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## Tehnar

> I'm often surprised that players don't try this kind of thing (non-magic surrender demand) more often. I suspect that it's a side effect of not having morale rules--without knowing the odds of success, players may feel like demanding surrender will only work when the DM feels like it. Play gravitates to areas in which the players feel knowledgeable/empowered.


Its almost like a lack of rules or unclear rules is diminishing players experience.

Ultimately Suggestion and the like are in the class of spells that require talking with the DM about how they work.

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## Segev

"I am your boss, in disguise to fool the enemy. Do as I say!" would work under a lot of circumstances. About the only one where I would say this is not "reasonable" is if a) the guy knew for a fact where his boss was - and you couldn't be him - or b) the guy would lose all respect for a boss who used such tactics (in which case it would backfire in that respect, but might have OTHER consequences that you might find amusing).

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## MaxWilson

> *Its almost like a lack of rules or unclear rules is diminishing players experience.*
> 
> Ultimately Suggestion and the like are in the class of spells that require talking with the DM about how they work.


Oh, that's far from the only area where this happens. Play gravitates to areas where rules exist. Another symptom you see of this is hack-and-slash games, because reaction rolls are no longer a thing. Waaaaaay back in the day, if you saw a group of gnolls, you might have the chance to:

(A) Hide
(B) Parley
(C) Surrender
(D) Attack

While all of those actions are still technically possible at any table, forum talk leads me to believe that at many tables, (D) is the only one which is actually taking place.

Another example: while 5E technically allows custom spell research, it has essentially zero rules for it, especially on the player side. If the players are heading into an adventure where Medusas and Basilisks are prevalent, it was once the case that they would pause beforehand to research a spell which e.g. reflects gaze weapons. In 5E that can still happen, but I only started seeing it happen after I stepped up and wrote up some spell research rules for my players and explained them in detail, plus gave them a bunch of example spells to research (the Book of Lost Spells, a 3PP 5E product from Frog God Games). Forum talk again leads me to believe that my table is now in a very small minority in that spell research is an activity which players actually pursue, and I think it's because now they have rules for it.

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## famousringo

I think a lot of folks are missing something in the wording:




> The suggestion must be worded in such a manner as to make the course of action *sound* reasonable.


The suggested course of action doesn't need *to be* reasonable at all. It only needs to *sound* reasonable.

A lot of statements can sound perfectly reasonable if you just ignore who's saying it, their motivations, second order effects, and all the context around it. The Suggestion spell bypasses all these contextual inhibitions to get somebody to act against their own interests  just so long as it doesn't harm themselves directly  in much the same way a modern political campaign seems to be able to. (Sorry, I couldn't help myself).

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## Larpus

> Reasonable means you have a reason to do it, IMO.
> 
> I feel like "you're tired, go home and rest" is a reasonable suggestion.  You have a reason to go home and rest magically planted in your head.  
> 
> Just because other actions are more reasonable, does not make the suggested course of action unreasonable.


Personally, I have it more depending on the variables.

Saying "you're tired" to a non-tired entity, and a (possibly raging) barbarian at that doesn't sound that reasonable, he knows he's not tired.

However, if the party's been stuffed in a dungeon for days and all that, then it starts to sound _very_ reasonable and enticing to just call it quits and go home to some fine meat and beer.

Let's suppose the second scenario, so it initially works, so now the barbarian is convinced to stop the battle and leave; however, two of his comrades are not leaving and instead choose to continue.

Does the barbarian (and arcane folks for extension) care about his comrades? 

If yes, then straight up leaving them to their fate is _not_ reasonable, however if he failed his save, he is still convinced to leave, which means that instead of fighting proactively, he'd just lazyly drag his weight (as in, no rage and no effort at all), protecting his pals while bartering with them to leave (and they, by extension, would try to convince him why leaving is a bad idea, making the proposition less and less reasonable each time, likely calling for a new save).

Basically, until enough reasoning is given so that the ones convinced in leaving get a new save due to not seeing the suggestion as "reasonable" at all, they'd be adamant in leaving, but still bound by loyalty and defend their friends, all the while bickering how it's pointless to try or that they can just come back again after they've had meat and ale to reinvigorate their waining spirits.

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## Rogue Trader

> I think a lot of folks are missing something in the wording:
> 
> 
> 
> The suggested course of action doesn't need *to be* reasonable at all. It only needs to *sound* reasonable.
> 
> A lot of statements can sound perfectly reasonable if you just ignore who's saying it, their motivations, second order effects, and all the context around it. The Suggestion spell bypasses all these contextual inhibitions to get somebody to act against their own interests  just so long as it doesn't harm themselves directly.



This is the correct answer. 

My character is under a MS that will last for a year and a day, so I must perform the same action every night (Pray to the BBEG) until the duration is over else he will kill my entire family.  Ergo it sounds reasonable as my character know the BBEG will do such a thing.

I forgot the important part.  MS has a Wisdom saving throw, which of course my character has failed, thus he is MAGICALLY enforced to think the request sounds reasonable and therefore prays every night for one hour to the BBEG, else the BBEG will kill other members of his family.

It is at the point of conducting the actual Wisdom saving throw you may discuss with the DM, if you think it may not be a reasonable suggestion and quite possibly the DM will grant you advantage on the roll.  BUT either way, you roll to resist and if you fail, you are magically convinced the wording of the request sounds reasonable and should comply, provided the action is not suicidal or harms your character, i.e. running into burning buildings or trying to stab yourself.


Another discussion point.  As it was MS, the paladin in our party also failed his wisdom save, thus he prays to the BBEG AND also to his God.  as it is not unreasonable to pray to many gods and many things.  Bear in mind that one hour of his life per day basically saves some ones life.

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## 5eNeedsDarksun

> Looking for your opinions on how everyone deals with a spell that is so open to interpretation like Mass suggestion. During our last session we had a very long debate as to what is a "reasonable suggestion". A quick recap of encounter goes like this.. The players, a Paladin, Barbarian, and Cleric all 7th lvl and two NPCs warlock and wizard to help fill in for missing players. The Baddies, 4 melee minions, 2 ranged minions, and Sorcerer boss. The Paladin goes first and engages the melee minions, as they block access to the sorcerer. The minions go next and focus fire on the Paly and bring down to 10hps. Next the Sorcerer comes in and casts Mass Suggestion "You all tire of combat and wish to return home to rest." Now only the Paladin and Cleric make their saves, the 2 NPCs turn around and head home. The Barbarian argued that this was not a reasonable suggestion since it would mean leaving his friends to certain doom. The DM counters that since the suggestion did not ask for him harm his companions or himself that it was indeed a reasonable suggestion. As stated earlier this created a long debate as to what is a "reasonable suggestion". I am curious as to how everyone else has dealt with a similar situation or how they would deal with this particular one.


As a general rule, fleeing the battle, by whatever wording, is a fair request for our group (and the most common) when using Suggestion.  To the Barbarian's point, I'd suggest he try to convince his allies to join him, but he's gotta go.
Is the spell overtuned as written?  Maybe, but that's why spells like counterspell and dispel magic exist.

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## truemane

*Metamagic Mod*: more like Mass Raise Unthread.

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