Can suggestion and geas result in coup de grace?

[gogogome]

Suggestion: Take a nap for the rest of the day and ignore everything around you. Fighting is annoying and your friends can handle this.

Lesser Geas: Do absolutely nothing except sleep for the next hour.

I don't have an issue with these balance wise as they're just a single target save-or-die, but are these legal? I just want to be sure.

[Crake]

Suggestion: Take a nap for the rest of the day and ignore everything around you. Fighting is annoying and your friends can handle this.

Lesser Geas: Do absolutely nothing except sleep for the next hour.

I don't have an issue with these balance wise as they're just a single target save-or-die, but are these legal? I just want to be sure.

Suggestion: Depends on the situation. "The suggestion must be worded in such a manner as to make the activity sound reasonable" so in combat, not a chance. As for "ignore everything around you" i cant imagine anyone in their right mind would ever consider that reasonable. But, if it were a lazy guard at a nightwatch guardpost in a fairly secure city, suggestioning him to maybe close his eyes and take a nap, he can probably get away with it, that would work. You do need to note though that since suggestion is language-dependant, the guard would need to hear you saying that, so if the guard hears you, and you aren't supposed to be there, going to sleep is no longer reasonable. If you perhaps disguised yourself as a friendly guard, or perhaps the cleaning lady, you could probably get away with it.

Lesser Geas: Again, it would depend due to the line "While a geas cannot compel a creature to kill itself or perform acts that would result in certain death, it can cause almost any other course of activity". You could probably come up with a better geas though.

[Doorhandle]

I'd allow it, with the caveat that the target will move so where else to get to sleep,and will take the normal amount of time.

[gogogome]

Suggestion: Depends on the situation. "The suggestion must be worded in such a manner as to make the activity sound reasonable" so in combat, not a chance. As for "ignore everything around you" i cant imagine anyone in their right mind would ever consider that reasonable. But, if it were a lazy guard at a nightwatch guardpost in a fairly secure city, suggestioning him to maybe close his eyes and take a nap, he can probably get away with it, that would work. You do need to note though that since suggestion is language-dependant, the guard would need to hear you saying that, so if the guard hears you, and you aren't supposed to be there, going to sleep is no longer reasonable. If you perhaps disguised yourself as a friendly guard, or perhaps the cleaning lady, you could probably get away with it.

Lesser Geas: Again, it would depend due to the line "While a geas cannot compel a creature to kill itself or perform acts that would result in certain death, it can cause almost any other course of activity". You could probably come up with a better geas though.

Your reasoning for lesser geas is sound to me, so I will ask my players to come up with a better command or pick a different spell.

Your reasoning for suggestion however seems a little flawed. I pressed my players on the "reasonable" clause but the PHB says you can get a guy to think a pool of acid is pure water and take a dip in it, so likewise his reasoning was "your friends can take care of it" will make the whole combat situation non hostile so he will go to sleep right there, with no worries.


I'd allow it, with the caveat that the target will move so where else to get to sleep,and will take the normal amount of time.

This is actually great advice! Why didn't I think of that? This will require the party to become stealthy and try to assassinate the guy normally. All this spell does is force him to change into his pajamas and go to bed.

Coup de grace with suggestion seems underpowered. Unlike charm, suggestion can make a guy turn on his allies and fight for you. Don't know why my players aren't doing that, but not gonna give them the idea!

[Crake]

Your reasoning for suggestion however seems a little flawed. I pressed my players on the "reasonable" clause but the PHB says you can get a guy to think a pool of acid is pure water and take a dip in it, so likewise his reasoning was "your friends can take care of it" will make the whole combat situation non hostile so he will go to sleep right there, with no worries.

Do your players imagine acid as bubbling opaque green fluid? Because it's not. A pool of acid could quite easily be mistaken for a pool of water (clear, colorless liquid), so that is a "reasonable" suggestion. "Your friends can take care of it" doesn't make going to sleep on the battlefield a reasonable idea, although "your friends will be fine, run away, while you still can" might be, but again, depending on the person, and whether or not they consider abandoning their friends "reasonable". Don't confuse suggestion with command or dominate.

[gogogome]

Isn't all acid in d&d bubbly green goo? :smallbiggrin:

The players kept arguing suggestion has the compulsion tag, which overrides their free will, which allows them to do stuff charmed creatures can't do. Anyways, as the DM, I can rule like you said if I wanted to, and I think it's perfectly reasonable too. So it's a matter of how much I want to make a big deal over this v.s. my players :smalltongue:.

Anyways, thanks for your answers, it seems what they're doing is "almost legal", and a few oversights on my part have been letting them coup de grace when they shouldn't. I'll definitely make the suggested guy go home to sleep instead of falling on the floor right then and there. Otherwise what's the point of the sleep spell :smallwink:

[Troacctid]

Well Sleep can hit multiple targets and isn't language-dependent and--oh, that was a rhetorical question, wasn't it.

I don't think you could get someone to fall asleep in the middle of a battle. You could make them sleepy, but even then, the sound of fighting will keep them awake. If you did it in a quiet environment, though, it's a pretty standard hypnosis trick and it should work fine.

As for Geas, it has a 10 minute casting time. If you can keep them still for that long, the coup de gras sounds a little redundant, don't you think?

[Zanos]

Well Sleep can hit multiple targets and isn't language-dependent and--oh, that was a rhetorical question, wasn't it.

I don't think you could get someone to fall asleep in the middle of a battle. You could make them sleepy, but even then, the sound of fighting will keep them awake. If you did it in a quiet environment, though, it's a pretty standard hypnosis trick and it should work fine.

As for Geas, it has a 10 minute casting time. If you can keep them still for that long, the coup de gras sounds a little redundant, don't you think?
You can use Limited Wish to duplicate geas for a standard action. So much for the Save in Save or Lose.

[Deadline]

As already mentioned, there are a ton of save-or-lose spells that turn into save-or-die with a coup de grace. Sleep (1st level spell), Hold Person (2nd level Cleric spell), etc.

I'd generally agree that a command to "sleep" using Suggestion wouldn't immediately result in the target falling asleep.

[EyethatBinds]

Protection from (Alignment) can block all of these spells. And those spells are really easy for most creatures to afford if they can't cast it.

[Psyren]

Getting Suggestion to do this would be a tough sell for me. That would make it more powerful than Hold Person, an equal-level spell - no type restrictions, much longer duration, no subsequent attempts to throw it off. I'd also say that the most logical way of rendering someone helpless this way (asking them to take a nap) would not be "reasonable" unless they were fatigued or exhausted. Similarly, "hold still as if paralyzed and accept whatever is coming to you" is not reasonable either.

I could see allowing this if the caster combined it with a way to make them sleepy first. But simply lying down to sleep is not a reasonable course of activity for someone who is not tired.

[Flickerdart]

Lying down to sleep in the middle of a battle is one thing, but actually getting to sleep is a much bigger issue. Battles are loud!