Planar binding == Geas?

[magicalmagicman]

After having a huge RAW debate with my DM and other players, one guy suggested that the planar binding spell is simply a voluntary geas.

He claims that the charisma check shows how good of a suck-up, negotiator, charmer, or verbal bully you are and if you succeed, you got the outsider to agree to have a geas placed on him and upon completion of his task, he is teleported home.

Is this a valid RAW interpretation? (No house ruling invovled?)

Cause if it is, then it would basically solve all disputes we are having, and lore-wise validate Tippy's tricks (not that anyone in our group uses tippy's tricks).

[Beheld]

No, that is not even remotely valid by the rules. When you Planar Bind something and make the check, you are requesting a service, and you get that service. Geas Quest does nothing to compel obedience to anyone with fast healing or two castings of cure light wounds a day. Lesser Planar Binding is a 5th level spell. Wizards who can't even cast Geas Quest are allowed to compel services.

As a general rule, if the DM wants the bound outsider to not perform the requested service, he can either rely on the impossible or self destructive clause, or he can just not allow planar binding or houserule it's effects. Because Planar Binding does not let the creature you bind just skip out of the service and laugh at you.

[Deadline]

Because Planar Binding does not let the creature you bind just skip out of the service and laugh at you.

No, but he can have resentful ones do their best to subvert your intent but still follow the letter. The easy way around that is to form a mutually beneficial binding by sweetening the deal with some beneficial payment or favor to the creature being bound.

[Psyren]

Please note this often-overlooked clause in Planar Binding: "Impossible demands or unreasonable commands are never agreed to." Agreeing to be Geased by a mage who has effectively kidnapped them would probably qualify as unreasonable for most outsiders.

Now, having said that, you can always just (Lesser) Geas them anyway; your spells and abilities can cross the circle after all, while theirs cannot. Even with massive SR and unbeatable Will, you will roll a 20 and/or they a 1 eventually if you keep them bound for days, weeks, months - and there are ways to improve your odds considerably like True Casting. And of course, once you do that, you can do the standard trick of penalizing their Charisma down to 1 and making the check much easier for you. But even if they will lose every Cha check from now until the end of time, the bold clause above still applies.

[Beheld]

No, but he can have resentful ones do their best to subvert your intent but still follow the letter. The easy way around that is to form a mutually beneficial binding by sweetening the deal with some beneficial payment or favor to the creature being bound.

You can play literal genie if you really want. But since neither you as the DM nor your player is an Int 34 Wizard with practice playing literal genie against outsiders and access to divinations, you may just want to skip past that point when the player says what they want the Outsider to do, and it does that without the DM trying to punish him for casting a spell.

If you have a balance concern with Planar Binding, it is probably best addressed by houserules, not by playing a minigame of literal genie where if the player wins, he is overpowered, and if he loses he just lit some spells on fire for nothing.

[Deadline]

You can play literal genie if you really want. But since neither you as the DM nor your player is an Int 34 Wizard with practice playing literal genie against outsiders and access to divinations, you may just want to skip past that point when the player says what they want the Outsider to do, and it does that without the DM trying to punish him for casting a spell.

You are, of course, assuming that is what is happening. The Planar Binding line isn't nearly well enough defined, which leaves a bunch of room for abuse on both sides of the DM screen. Most of the abuse I've seen comes from the player side of the screen, you appear to have had a different experience.

That said, as Psyren mentions, the bolded text is important, and seems clear that unless you can put out an offer that the bound creature will agree to, you are out of luck without other spells. It's why spellcasters with the Planar Binding line often pick up things like Geas or Dominate (if you want free cannon fodder), or Charm (if you just want to put the negotiation in your favor so it's "cheaper" to convince said creature to agree to your terms). Otherwise, you need to get the creature to agree for the magic to work. If you think you can just cast Planar Binding and get a free minion, you'd better have enough Diplomacy skill to make the check to turn them into a fanatic, because you're unlikely to simply convince them to do dangerous things for no payment otherwise.

Edit - If you aren't asking the bound creature to endanger itself or unduly burden itself, then all you need is to succeed on the charisma check. So calling up a creature to relate some knowledge it can share without putting itself in danger, getting a creature to use it's abilities to buff you and your team for a reasonable period of time, etc. It's a great utility spell for stuff like that. If you want a brute to wade into combat with you and endanger itself, that's probably going to require the expenditure of the above mentioned resources. And, any properly paranoid summoner should probably make a plan to kill any powerful bound creatures before they complete their service, naturally.

[Psyren]

Edit - If you aren't asking the bound creature to endanger itself or unduly burden itself, then all you need is to succeed on the charisma check.

There's also requests that go against its fundamental nature - these could be considered "unreasonable." For example, binding a Glabrezu or Efreet and making a wish that only adds good to the world (and can't be twisted in any way) could be considered "unreasonable" to them.

[Deadline]

There's also requests that go against its fundamental nature - these could be considered "unreasonable." For example, binding a Glabrezu or Efreet and making a wish that only adds good to the world (and can't be twisted in any way) could be considered "unreasonable" to them.

True, for something like that you'd need additional magic to compel them.

[Beheld]

You are, of course, assuming that is what is happening. The Planar Binding line isn't nearly well enough defined, which leaves a bunch of room for abuse on both sides of the DM screen. Most of the abuse I've seen comes from the player side of the screen, you appear to have had a different experience.

No, I've never experienced an actual DM trying to play literal genie with planar binding, or wish. But I see it a lot as advice on forums, and I think it is really bad advice. In games where Planar Binding is a balance problem, you are better off houseruling it to not be. That is what I do in my games. I just don't think playing literal genie is a good balance system, very fun, or a realistic depiction of the gameworld when you rely on player skill. I also don't rate my players skill at convincing NPCs based on demanding in character speeches, and then tell them diplo failed because they didn't have a good enough speech. I just have them roll diplomacy (and houserule diplomacy to not be stupid).


That said, as Psyren mentions, the bolded text is important, and seems clear that unless you can put out an offer that the bound creature will agree to, you are out of luck without other spells. It's why spellcasters with the Planar Binding line often pick up things like Geas or Dominate (if you want free cannon fodder), or Charm (if you just want to put the negotiation in your favor so it's "cheaper" to convince said creature to agree to your terms). Otherwise, you need to get the creature to agree for the magic to work. If you think you can just cast Planar Binding and get a free minion, you'd better have enough Diplomacy skill to make the check to turn them into a fanatic, because you're unlikely to simply convince them to do dangerous things for no payment otherwise.

Edit - If you aren't asking the bound creature to endanger itself or unduly burden itself, then all you need is to succeed on the charisma check. So calling up a creature to relate some knowledge it can share without putting itself in danger, getting a creature to use it's abilities to buff you and your team for a reasonable period of time, etc. It's a great utility spell for stuff like that. If you want a brute to wade into combat with you and endanger itself, that's probably going to require the expenditure of the above mentioned resources. And, any properly paranoid summoner should probably make a plan to kill any powerful bound creatures before they complete their service, naturally.

:( I mentioned the impossible and unreasonable clause. But I seriously question your interpretation of unreasonable. If I am teleported across dimensions and locked in a perfect cage with flamethrowers all around me ready to burn me to death, I think "Either you can agree to fight with me for a day, or you will literally die" is a reasonable request. I think, if anything, calling a Demon and then locking it in a cage for 20 days would be a thousand times less something it would want to do than have a chance to rip out some throats. Planar Binding compels obedience to the task agreed to, and the task can involve fighting, fighting on someone's side is eminently reasonable. And I'd much rather have a system where players bind demons who agree to fight for them than one where they teleport demons into a trap where they dominate their mind and then keep them as a pet until they kill them off. If your system incentivizes murdering all called creatures then that seems like a bad system to me. I'd much rather they enter into mutually agreed upon deals that are backed with cosmic power, and that they develop longstanding relationships with called creatures that are mutually profitable.

[Piggy Knowles]

Geas Quest does nothing to compel obedience to anyone with fast healing or two castings of cure light wounds a day....

Planar Binding does not let the creature you bind just skip out of the service and laugh at you.

You realize Geas/Quest is a compulsion spell, don't you?


Enchantment (Compulsion) [Language-Dependent, Mind-Affecting]

The geased creature must follow the given instructions until the geas is completed, no matter how long it takes.


A compulsion spell forces the subject to act in some manner or changes the way her mind works. Some compulsion spells determine the subject’s actions or the effects on the subject, some compulsion spells allow you to determine the subject’s actions when you cast the spell, and others give you ongoing control over the subject.

The penalties associated with the Geas occur if the subject is prevented from following those instructions. But unless prevented, the subject may no more voluntarily disobey a geas than they could disobey a suggestion spell.

[Jowgen]

Planar Binding is far closer to Charm than a Compulsion liek Geas.

The charisma check mechanic to give orders, the "no-unreasonable" clause and the technical retaining of free will are common to both. I would go so far as to argue that, being bound and having agreed to serve you in some way, makes the creature your ally and thus, by definition, friendly to you; making the conditions of the two effects near indistinguishable. The only real difference I can not is that you only get to Cha-check the bound creature once at the start, as opposed to being able to Cha-check it over and over with any other charm effect.

[Crake]

Planar Binding is far closer to Charm than a Compulsion liek Geas.

The charisma check mechanic to give orders, the "no-unreasonable" clause and the technical retaining of free will are common to both. I would go so far as to argue that, being bound and having agreed to serve you in some way, makes the creature your ally and thus, by definition, friendly to you; making the conditions of the two effects near indistinguishable. The only real difference I can not is that you only get to Cha-check the bound creature once at the start, as opposed to being able to Cha-check it over and over with any other charm effect.

Honestly, I would agree it's more like geas, because the outsider only needs to obey the initial command/agreement. So if you command them to guard a room for example, you can't come back and order them to do something else (in fact, if you worded it poorly, they might even kill you while 'guarding' the room), without re-binding them.

[Beheld]

Indeed, I take the position that Planar Binding is much more like a compulsion effect than charm effect. Regardless of whether creatures literal genie, they should do the requested service, and you can't just keep changing the service every day. Of course, I don't believe it is "a compulsion effect" because if you bind a Nightwing or whatever, that should still be as compelled as anything else.

[Urpriest]

Planar Binding isn't like Geas because it's a Conjuration effect, not an Enchantment effect.

If you were trying to make a different comparison then you wouldn't have brought up a specific spell.

[Grek]

The penalties associated with the Geas occur if the subject is prevented from following those instructions. But unless prevented, the subject may no more voluntarily disobey a geas than they could disobey a suggestion spell.

This. It says in the text of the spell, "The geased creature must follow the given instructions until the geas is completed, no matter how long it takes." Despite the common misconception, there's no qualifier along the lines of "Must follow the instructions OR take some piddly damage"; the spell says "Must follow the instructions AND takes some damage if they are prevented from doing so."

Mechanically, Planar Binding and Geas are different effects that are meaningfully distinct. As an obvious example, Planar Binding is not [Mind Effecting], while Geas is. But thematically and practically (aside from immunities and the like) they produce very similar effects.


The charisma check mechanic to give orders, the "no-unreasonable" clause and the technical retaining of free will are common to both. I would go so far as to argue that, being bound and having agreed to serve you in some way, makes the creature your ally and thus, by definition, friendly to you; making the conditions of the two effects near indistinguishable. The only real difference I can not is that you only get to Cha-check the bound creature once at the start, as opposed to being able to Cha-check it over and over with any other charm effect.
I'd actually say it's more similar to a Suggestion effect.

[Crake]

Planar Binding isn't like Geas because it's a Conjuration effect, not an Enchantment effect.

If you were trying to make a different comparison then you wouldn't have brought up a specific spell.

Nobody's saying that they are functionally exactly the same, just that they achieve a similar effect. There seemed to be a huge misunderstanding about that near the start of the thread, where I think the first reply assumed the OP meant that planar binding literally applies geas to the binded creature, when instead he said that it applied a geas-like effect as part of the planar binding spell itself. At least, that's the way I interpreted it. Essentially (according to my interpretation of the OP) the cha check was to get the creature to agree to an agreement, which the binded being had no way to resist (but could subvert, or "literally genie" as this thread seems to have taken to calling it), similar to how a geased creature cannot resist the geas, but could still subvert it.

[Urpriest]

Nobody's saying that they are functionally exactly the same, just that they achieve a similar effect. There seemed to be a huge misunderstanding about that near the start of the thread, where I think the first reply assumed the OP meant that planar binding literally applies geas to the binded creature, when instead he said that it applied a geas-like effect as part of the planar binding spell itself. At least, that's the way I interpreted it. Essentially (according to my interpretation of the OP) the cha check was to get the creature to agree to an agreement, which the binded being had no way to resist (but could subvert, or "literally genie" as this thread seems to have taken to calling it), similar to how a geased creature cannot resist the geas, but could still subvert it.

The problem is, the extent to which someone can subvert a geas is also pretty ambiguous, so the comparison doesn't actually communicate anything meaningful. Someone could completely self-consistently have totally different interpretations of how geas and planar binding constrain the target's actions. The OP has no way of knowing how we interpret either spell. Thus, the only content we can actually get out of the OP is mechanical: "should planar binding have the [Mind Affecting] descriptor?" And the answer to that question is "no".

[Crake]

The problem is, the extent to which someone can subvert a geas is also pretty ambiguous, so the comparison doesn't actually communicate anything meaningful. Someone could completely self-consistently have totally different interpretations of how geas and planar binding constrain the target's actions. The OP has no way of knowing how we interpret either spell. Thus, the only content we can actually get out of the OP is mechanical: "should planar binding have the [Mind Affecting] descriptor?" And the answer to that question is "no".

Well, considering the OP was asking specifically for people's opinions on this certain interpretation, and it's validity, I don't think that's at all what he was asking. He made no mention of adding the [Mind-Affecting] descriptor to the spell at all, merely how the spell interacts with the creature. In both planar binding and Geas the subject is forced to perform a task, so in a manner, they are similar. What the OP is asking is if the charisma check is like negotiating an acceptable deal, at which point the spell acts as something of a binding agreement, forcing the subject to perform the task, much like a geas would.

OP, feel free to step in and correct me if I'm wrong of course.

While I can see it as a valid interpretation, I personally do not see it that way, I see the charisma check as a battle of wills where the bound subject attempts to resist the will of the caster. The negotiating comes beforehand, and if the subject and caster can come to an acceptable agreement, then the charisma check can be willingly failed by the subject and the deal proceed. Typically this would involve up front payment, since the subject is forced into performing the task regardless (and unless it's an open ended task, the spell lasts until it's complete), and would be included in the deal, with a clause like "once I have paid you (in souls or cash or whatever), you will go off and perform this task for me". The charisma check only comes up if you try to force an unwilling subject to perform tasks against it's will. Obviously, adding rewards and bribes into the picture erodes the will of even an unwilling creature, which is why you can get a bonus on the check. The main thing that leads me to this conclusion is the use of the word compel when referring to the charisma check.