So I didn't realize how op this spell is.

[Sir cryosin]

So long story short are party had are characters taken away and turn into npcs for Strahd. Most of the party turned evil and said we will work for Strahd after kill other party members. So it new characters storming the Castel I'm playing a bard and casted suggestion on the enemy wizard lv 9 and took her out form almost the hole fight. If they fail the first save they don't get another one till the task is done or if party damage them or you lose concentration. And it's a 2nd lv spell.

[Gastronomie]

It's extremely strong but not overpowered.

-Requires DM approval to determine whether the suggestion is applicable.
-Requires concentration.

There could have been many ways to end the effect. It's just that the DM couldn't think those up at the moment, or they didn't work due to the situation.

[Ninja_Prawn]

Suggestion is definitely one of the best spells going. From an optimisation perspective, it's hard to justify not picking it if it's available to you.

This is what Legendary Resistance is for!

[Tanarii]

What was the suggestion?

As a DM, I'm pretty strict on interpreting suggestions in combat situations. Wording one in a way to actually get a hostile opponent to abandon a fight entirely should be difficult. IMO.

[NNescio]

What was the suggestion?

As a DM, I'm pretty strict on interpreting suggestions in combat situations. Wording one in a way to actually get a hostile opponent to abandon a fight entirely should be difficult. IMO.

Against evil disloyal enemies, Suggestion can be used to make them abandon their teammates, especially if bribes (including promise of favors) are used to sweeten the deal. Outright enemy infighting can also be induced if they mistrust one another.

I suspect that the bard was familiar (in-character) with the ex-PC Wizard, and knew which buttons to push. Alternatively, maybe some metagaming (the player is familiar with the Wizard's motivations) was involved.

[Sir cryosin]

I try to not meta game as much as posable. My exact words were. " help us in this fight" the DM didn't have her do much she help stabilize one pc. And a couple of others things that were insignificant but it was technically helping us. But I didn't care because it keep her from dropping anymore fireballs on us. The DM finally realized that he could just cast dispel Magic. But by then we had the other enemy spell caster killed. And the barbarian vampire on the run. So we were able to take the wizard out in a turn. And started to try and find invisible Strahd who was some were in the room. Lucky that freed up my concentration so I could cast animate objects 10 tiny metal balls that have blinesight is nice. To have when you have no other way to find a invisibility person.

[Ninja_Prawn]

"help us in this fight"

A Suggestion needs to be made to sound reasonable. If you'd said this in my game, I would have prompted you to add something to make it sound more reasonable, such as "I suggest you help us in this fight, because if you do, we'll let you live." Or something. Obviously it depends on what the NPC would find 'reasonable' and the general tone of your game.

[Giant2005]

A suggestion has to be reasonable. If the DM (or the NPC) doesn't think the request is reasonable, then the spell is useless. It is only powerful because DM's often ignore that part and let the players get away with anything they like. Unlimited power on a level 2 spell is always going to be powerful.
When you think about it, when ruled upon properly, the spell is actually fairly useless. If your request was as reasonable as the spell demands, then the target would likely follow the reasonable request even without magic being involved. The only time the spell would be useful is if it was cast on a person so unreasonable that they are essentially immune to reason; although an argument could be made that someone immune to reason would be immune to the spell anyway.

[NNescio]

A suggestion has to be reasonable. If the DM (or the NPC) doesn't think the request is reasonable, then the spell is useless. It is only powerful because DM's often ignore that part and let the players get away with anything they like. Unlimited power on a level 2 spell is always going to be powerful.
When you think about it, when ruled upon properly, the spell is actually fairly useless. If your request was as reasonable as the spell demands, then the target would likely follow the reasonable request even without magic being involved. The only time the spell would be useful is if it was cast on a person so unreasonable that they are essentially immune to reason; although an argument could be made that someone immune to reason would be immune to the spell anyway.

Well, an explicit use of the spell is to make a knight give his horse to the first beggar he meets, which means that's quite some leeway on what exactly constitutes a reasonable request.

[Giant2005]

Well, an explicit use of the spell is to make a knight give his horse to the first beggar he meets, which means that's quite some leeway on what exactly constitutes a reasonable request.

I don't think that is as much leeway as it sounds. Knights are supposed to be charitable people that tend to the needs of the needy. The Knight would be inclined to give the beggar something, the spell is just giving you the ability to choose what that something is (which is actually a pretty useful way of using the ability within the rules, so you are right - it isn't completely useless).

[Kurt Kurageous]

My standard for this is, "Would they do it voluntarily under any circumstance?"

A knight would give away it's horse if it were suicidal or going to atone for some grave error. A foe would prevent the outright death by stabilization of a PC if it felt the combat was unjust (or in this case planned to farm the PCs blood later). An ordinary mook/follower could be given a suggested to take no part in this fight in order to observe the battle skills of their leader and peers so they may praise/flatter hem later in order to gain favor.

I would also break suggestion if the enemy's allies did direct in their face damage to them. It would shock them out of the state of suggestibility in the same way that an attack by the suggester or their allies would, as it represents a new threat to the victim's existence.

[NNescio]

I don't think that is as much leeway as it sounds. Knights are supposed to be charitable people that tend to the needs of the needy. The Knight would be inclined to give the beggar something, the spell is just giving you the ability to choose what that something is (which is actually a pretty useful way of using the ability within the rules, so you are right - it isn't completely useless).

I dunno, no matter how charitable someone is, making him give away his prized horse (or prized car for a modern analog) isn't exactly a reasonable request. It might sound reasonable when a person is mentally impaired (by drugs, or in this case, a mind-affecting spell), I give you that.

(Plus I have the impression that knights are nobs who exploit the peasants, with chivalry only being a make-up ideal standard of behavior that they pretend to adhere to when other nobs are looking.)

So yeah, you could use it to suggest a punchclock villain to maybe stand down or flee to avoid immediate harm to himself, even though he'll probably risk greater harm from his boss once he finds out (and even if his side appear to have an advantage in combat). Sweetening the deal with "take this gold pouch and flee for your life" would increase the odds of success.

This wouldn't work on omnicidal villains though, but an alternative suggestion that might work is to suggest he head over to a nearby undefended village (or the classic orphanage) or some nearby encampment of low level soldiers instead of fighting the party (this would be going against alignment for good PCs though), even if it's detracts from Johnny McEvilguy's immediate objective.

Another use I would imagine is to suggest to a merchant to part away with his goods for use in defending the village/town/city from an immediate attack. Even if the merchant is a total skinflint who wouldn't part with anything for free under normal circumstances (that is, no Persuasion check can work).

Edit:
My standard for this is, "Would they do it voluntarily under any circumstance?"

A knight would give away it's horse if it were suicidal or going to atone for some grave error. A foe would prevent the outright death by stabilization of a PC if it felt the combat was unjust (or in this case planned to farm the PCs blood later). An ordinary mook/follower could be given a suggested to take no part in this fight in order to observe the battle skills of their leader and peers so they may praise/flatter hem later in order to gain favor.

I would also break suggestion if the enemy's allies did direct in their face damage to them. It would shock them out of the state of suggestibility in the same way that an attack by the suggester or their allies would, as it represents a new threat to the victim's existence.

Hmm, this is a good and very consistent way of handling the spell. Might be a bit too strong, but it makes adjudicating what constitutes as reasonable far more easier. I think I'll go with this.

[Dalebert]

" help us in this fight"

It's not a command. It's a suggestion. You plant a thought in their mind that, if they fail their save, they perceive to be their reality. They hopefully then alter their behavior appropriately.

Suggestion examples by Crawford:

"Flee! A dragon comes."
"Don't attack; I intend no harm."
"Your sword is cursed. Drop it."

A couple of those include a command but they also include an explanation of why doing that action makes sense, e.g. "your sword is cursed".

[Sir cryosin]

I see suggestion more like a Jedi minds tricks, and like in one of the x-man's movie were someone made strider just keep walking. And when some one found him he looked like hell and his feet were torn to pieces and bloody.

[Ninja_Prawn]

Suggestion examples by Crawford:

"Flee! A dragon comes."
"Don't attack; I intend no harm."
"Your sword is cursed. Drop it."

@Cryosin: note how each of these provides both a course of action and a justification of why it's reasonable. Telling someone to drop their weapon in a fight is not going to fly 99% of the time, because it's patently unreasonable. Suggesting that it might be cursed gives then something they could believe (setting aside the fact that most curses aren't broken by dropping the weapon...), so the spell's magic is allowed to work.

This isn't just a hoop to jump through either; it's a test of how well your character understands their target's motivations, a creative opportunity, and something that can potentially come back to bite you generate further storylines.

None of this is opinion. It's in the RAW for the spell.

[imneuromancer]

Well, an explicit use of the spell is to make a knight give his horse to the first beggar he meets, which means that's quite some leeway on what exactly constitutes a reasonable request.

Agreed, "reasonable" seems to be to do something that doesn't IMMEDIATELY harm the opponent.

So, "Help us kill your [friends] and we will let you live and give you gold" is more than reasonable for about 99% of encounters because it a) is explicitly not a clear and present danger, and b) is reasonable that the person would get a benefit from doing the action (which the "give your horse to the nearest beggar" doesn't even do).

If the GM is worried that the Suggestion would cause harm, "Keep [your friends] from harming us and we will let you live and give you gold" would Suggest to them to do something like Grapple, cast a spell that disables their friends, etc. at no physical harm to the victim.

If you want to really screw with things, Suggest "[your friends] are actually working against you and there is nothing worse than a traitor. Kill them!!"

Looking back on previous editions, forum boards, etc. I see very little evidence that the above is not 100% appropriate. Note that Suggestion gives leeway to the victim as to how they interpret and go about doing the suggestion, unlike Dominate spells.

ON ANOTHER ANGLE: it all depends on what your GM thinks is reasonable. Giving your horse up is definitely NOT REASONABLE and yet it is a specific example. If the spell was doing JUST what was reasonable, then it would be a Persuasion check. The Suggestion is implanting something in the person's head that they are compelled to do as long as it is not a clear and present danger to themselves.

In previous editions, you could even change peoples PERCEPTIONS! A specific example from IIRC 1st and 3rd edition Suggestion was, "that pool of acid is a pool of water, you should go take a swim in it" WHAT! This means that you could change the perception that ACID is actually WATER and that the person should just randomly go take a dip. NONE of that is "reasonable" as most people seem to define it. And yet that is literally the examples given in the spells. This edition backs away from Suggestion being able to change perceptions, but it literally keeps the wording that states that you can't make the person do something *immediately* harmful to them.

Something that can be harmful in the long term is not ruled out. Would the knight and his family have harm to themselves if they no longer had a warhorse? In the middle ages, this was basically a death sentence for the knight's ability to be a knight, so that is not "reasonable" and causes harm to them

[RickAllison]

@Cryosin: note how each of these provides both a course of action and a justification of why it's reasonable. Telling someone to drop their weapon in a fight is not going to fly 99% of the time, because it's patently unreasonable. Suggesting that it might be cursed gives then something they could believe (setting aside the fact that most curses aren't broken by dropping the weapon...), so the spell's magic is allowed to work.

This isn't just a hoop to jump through either; it's a test of how well your character understands their target's motivations, a creative opportunity, and something that can potentially come back to bite you generate further storylines.

None of this is opinion. It's in the RAW for the spell.

So something like, "Tyr [for a noble knight] is displeased with you. As penance, give your horse to a beggar."

To get an Orc to turn against his allies: "Gruumsh sent an omen that your allies are weaklings. Destroy them for the glory of Gruumsh!"

[R.Shackleford]

Suggestion is definitely one of the best spells going. From an optimisation perspective, it's hard to justify not picking it if it's available to you.

This is what Legendary Resistance is for!

And why Action Surge is broken on MC, really helps whittle that down or helps make spells like Suggestion stick.

Knowledge Clerics are sick.

[Dalebert]

"Reasonable" depends on context. That's why creativity in this area should be rewarded. Don't just have a go-to suggestion that you always use. Tailor it to the target.

An orc is unlikely to give his horse to a beggar for penance but might be more likely to take violent action because his cohorts are weaklings per a judgement by Grummsh and a cleric of a less violent religion would be more likely to do penance for something you've suggested is necessary. If there are multiple wizards, suggest to one of them that one of the others is waiting for him to be weakened by combat with the PCs and wants to steal his spellbook.

Point is, you work with the particular triggers of your opponents.

[NecroDancer]

Another example is "we are stronger than you, surrender now" assuming you in the middle of a fight and you are doing ok.

[Tanarii]

I try to not meta game as much as posable. My exact words were. " help us in this fight" the DM didn't have her do much she help stabilize one pc. And a couple of others things that were insignificant but it was technically helping us. But I didn't care because it keep her from dropping anymore fireballs on us. The DM finally realized that he could just cast dispel Magic. But by then we had the other enemy spell caster killed. And the barbarian vampire on the run. So we were able to take the wizard out in a turn. And started to try and find invisible Strahd who was some were in the room. Lucky that freed up my concentration so I could cast animate objects 10 tiny metal balls that have blinesight is nice. To have when you have no other way to find a invisibility person.Yeah no way that would have passed the "reasonable" bar for me as a DM. Enemies do not reasonably help their enemies in a fight.

At the minimum, this one would need a lot of additional justification added to make it seem reasonable.

Edit: I interpret the 'reasonable' clause as intentending to make Suggestion and Mass Suggestion very difficult, bordering on almost impossible, to use as a combat spell. (Ie IMO that's the RAI of the clause.)

[Gastronomie]

It seems this is a problem of the DM being too acceptive. That, or he/she completely overread the part how the suggestion needs to be "reasonable".

What you're doing isn't "suggesting". It's called "Dominate Person", and it's a level 5 spell. Of course its effect would be broken as a level 2 spell.


Another example is "we are stronger than you, surrender now" assuming you in the middle of a fight and you are doing ok.I actually let my characters do this without using up a level 2 spell slot (most enemies will have no motivation to keep on fighting after it's clear they're gonna lose anyways). Depends on DM though.

[Sir cryosin]

Another example is "we are stronger than you, surrender now" assuming you in the middle of a fight and you are doing ok.

Why waste a 2 lv spell when you can do that with command spell which is 1lv spell.

[R.Shackleford]

Why waste a 2 lv spell when you can do that with command spell which is 1lv spell.

Command doesn't last nearly as long? Or do the things go that Suggestion can do?

[RickAllison]

You all are bad people for reminding me how versatile this spell is, especially when I'm a Knowledge Theurge...

"This dress looks perfect on you, my dear. You simply must get it." If the save succeeds, they would just see it as standard seamster talk. If not, you have a guaranteed sale! Not a big deal when you are selling an ordinary dress, but proper silk clothing like a kimono can fetch both a high price (based off the DMG, at least as high as 250 GP!) and be harder to sell. This could easily seal such a deal and it doesn't tip the buyer off!

[Giant2005]

RickAllison sounds like he plans on opening his own Needful Things store.

[Sir cryosin]

The way ya'll are talking about it your makes the spell. Completely useless and could be done with a Charisma persuasion check. I believe the reasonable part is to keep people from telling thr target to kill them self or to keep the target from trying something out of there abilitys to do.

My next plan if she was going to get back in the fight. I was going to use suggestion on her again saying.
"You should use all your spells to take down that statue."

[Sir cryosin]

You all are bad people for reminding me how versatile this spell is, especially when I'm a Knowledge Theurge...

"This dress looks perfect on you, my dear. You simply must get it." If the save succeeds, they would just see it as standard seamster talk. If not, you have a guaranteed sale! Not a big deal when you are selling an ordinary dress, but proper silk clothing like a kimono can fetch both a high price (based off the DMG, at least as high as 250 GP!) and be harder to sell. This could easily seal such a deal and it doesn't tip the buyer off!

This was the reason why I took the spell in the first place.

[Erys]

You all are bad people for reminding me how versatile this spell is, especially when I'm a Knowledge Theurge...

"This dress looks perfect on you, my dear. You simply must get it." If the save succeeds, they would just see it as standard seamster talk. If not, you have a guaranteed sale! Not a big deal when you are selling an ordinary dress, but proper silk clothing like a kimono can fetch both a high price (based off the DMG, at least as high as 250 GP!) and be harder to sell. This could easily seal such a deal and it doesn't tip the buyer off!

This could make for a very interesting encounter. The general rule is: people know you are casting a spell- so on a made save I guess the seamstress would think it was normal talk, but also know you were doing some kind of mojo...

On a failed save I guess she might have instant buyers remorse for buying a gown she suddenly doesn't feel was a must have. Fortunately the spell doesn't have the Friends caveat.

[R.Shackleford]

You all are bad people for reminding me how versatile this spell is, especially when I'm a Knowledge Theurge...

"This dress looks perfect on you, my dear. You simply must get it." If the save succeeds, they would just see it as standard seamster talk. If not, you have a guaranteed sale! Not a big deal when you are selling an ordinary dress, but proper silk clothing like a kimono can fetch both a high price (based off the DMG, at least as high as 250 GP!) and be harder to sell. This could easily seal such a deal and it doesn't tip the buyer off!

Get some sorcerer levels, you don't even need to say anything, just give her that knowing look, a small smile, and not your head.

Edit

Huh, all those times in movies where someone sees another person who nods/winks at them and the main character takes it to mean "go do it" or whatever ... Suggestion. (W/subtle spell)

Edit 2

Rob Synder wasn't very subtle about it...

[Giant2005]

The way ya'll are talking about it your makes the spell. Completely useless and could be done with a Charisma persuasion check.
That is the point - through magic the Wizard can do things that are otherwise outside of his skillset. It is the same reason that the Knock spell (another level 2 spell) exists.


My next plan if she was going to get back in the fight. I was going to use suggestion on her again saying.
"You should use all your spells to take down that statue."
I think you would have a hard time convincing your DM that that is reasonable. You didn't even bother giving a reason.
The way I'd rule Suggestion's reasonable clause is simple - if they fail their save, they absolutely believe what you have said is true. However they react to that new knowledge depends on the character of that person. For example, regarding the "your sword is cursed. Drop it" example, the NPC will absolutely agree that the sword is cursed, but whether or not they consider dropping a cursed sword reasonable is up to the individual. Dropping a cursed sword probably sounds reasonable to most, but on the other hand the sword's curse hasn't caused them any harm yet, so they could reasonably believe that the curse wouldn't harm them this fight either. In that case, they would not likely be throwing away their means of defense.

[RickAllison]

Get some sorcerer levels, you don't even need to say anything, just give her that knowing look, a small smile, and not your head.

Edit

Huh, all those times in movies where someone sees another person who nods/winks at them and the main character takes it to mean "go do it" or whatever ... Suggestion. (W/subtle spell)

Edit 2

Rob Synder wasn't very subtle about it...

*coughsevenCharismacough*

However, is there a rule that says people know you're casting a spell? I'm not waving anything around, my material component is going to be bergamot oil (which is used as a common scent, to the point that it is an essential part of Earl Grey tea, and so having it on my person would be completely ordinary for someone who is used to having to cover up nastier scents in medieval eras), and I'm just talking. Unless there is a magic rule that that people always know it is being cast, I don't see how there is any real indication.

[R.Shackleford]

*coughsevenCharismacough*

However, is there a rule that says people know you're casting a spell? I'm not waving anything around, my material component is going to be bergamot oil (which is used as a common scent, to the point that it is an essential part of Earl Grey tea, and so having it on my person would be completely ordinary for someone who is used to having to cover up nastier scents in medieval eras), and I'm just talking. Unless there is a magic rule that that people always know it is being cast, I don't see how there is any real indication.

I believe the base assumption that yes.

Spellcasting is a specific thing, especially this spell as it has material components.

Though you could be selling snake tongues, honey, or sweet oil and people might not notice... :p


Edit

Counterspell suggestion wouldn't work if spellcasting wasn't assumed to be its own thing.

[Sir cryosin]

Swe that's the problem with the wording
you can twist any suggested action to be reasonable or unreasonable

[R.Shackleford]

Swe that's the problem with the wording
you can twist any suggested action to be reasonable or unreasonable

Good thing bosses have plot armor.

[Giant2005]

*coughsevenCharismacough*

However, is there a rule that says people know you're casting a spell? I'm not waving anything around, my material component is going to be bergamot oil (which is used as a common scent, to the point that it is an essential part of Earl Grey tea, and so having it on my person would be completely ordinary for someone who is used to having to cover up nastier scents in medieval eras), and I'm just talking. Unless there is a magic rule that that people always know it is being cast, I don't see how there is any real indication.

Not all spells are obvious, but anything with a verbal component pretty much is for sure, and that includes Suggestion. The Verbal Component is "the chanting of mystic words.", those mystic words are in addition to whatever your suggestion is and for many people would be a giveaway.
You could pull off what you want with the Enchanter's level 14 ability though.

[Ninja_Prawn]

Swe that's the problem with the wording
you can twist any suggested action to be reasonable or unreasonable

That's what I was meaning about it not being a hoop to jump through. The very act of twisting your Suggestion has value from both roleplaying and storytelling perspectives. Especially if you can resist the temptation to metagame.

Also, I think it's harsh to say you could replace Suggestion with a Persuasion check. Persuasion is not magic, and generally can't compel somebody to act. My attitude is something like Suggestion is to Persuasion as Detect Magic is to Arcana.

[Giant2005]

Also, I think it's harsh to say you could replace Suggestion with a Persuasion check. Persuasion is not magic, and generally can't compel somebody to act. My attitude is something like Suggestion is to Persuasion as Detect Magic is to Arcana.

I don't think comparing Suggestion and a Persuasion check is a bad analogue. The suggestion has to be reasonable and I don't see why someone wouldn't be willing to do something that is perfectly reasonable, after someone makes a particularly convincing argument.
If persuasion can't convince people something reasonable, then what can persuasion do?

[RickAllison]

I believe the base assumption that yes.

Spellcasting is a specific thing, especially this spell as it has material components.

Though you could be selling snake tongues, honey, or sweet oil and people might not notice... :p


Edit

Counterspell suggestion wouldn't work if spellcasting wasn't assumed to be its own thing.

Maybe that should actually be a thing. Why should we assume that an unprepared spellcaster can automatically detect and counterspell non-obvious effects? Sure, in combat a guy rattling off "Your sword is cursed, drop it!" is probably safe to consider a spellcaster. But why should we assume without text evidence that spells are automatically identifiable as such? Here's a scenario:

The God-Emperor of the eastern mountains orders a petitioner to "Kneel." Do you Counterspell?

[R.Shackleford]

That's what I was meaning about it not being a hoop to jump through. The very act of twisting your Suggestion has value from both roleplaying and storytelling perspectives. Especially if you can resist the temptation to metagame.

Also, I think it's harsh to say you could replace Suggestion with a Persuasion check. Persuasion is not magic, and generally can't compel somebody to act. My attitude is something like Suggestion is to Persuasion as Detect Magic is to Arcana.

I would love it if the magic system was a part of the ability check system.

To cast spells you needed specific classes and skill proficiencies.

Want to cast Suggestion? Better be proficient with Persuasion. You then use your magic energies to vastly improve your Persuasion skill.

Edit

Or Deception but you have to word things right.

[Giant2005]

Maybe that should actually be a thing. Why should we assume that an unprepared spellcaster can automatically detect and counterspell non-obvious effects? Sure, in combat a guy rattling off "Your sword is cursed, drop it!" is probably safe to consider a spellcaster. But why should we assume without text evidence that spells are automatically identifiable as such? Here's a scenario:

The God-Emperor of the eastern mountains orders a petitioner to "Kneel." Do you Counterspell?

I wouldn't, because he is just telling someone to kneel. But if he says "Vas Kal An Mani In Corp Hur KNEEL!", then I would. Verbal components are identifiable.

[RickAllison]

I don't think comparing Suggestion and a Persuasion check is a bad analogue. The suggestion has to be reasonable and I don't see why someone wouldn't be willing to do something that is perfectly reasonable, after someone makes a particularly convincing argument.
If persuasion can't convince people something reasonable, then what can persuasion do?

I've always thought that spells like Suggestion work best when used in combination with Persuasion, actually. A Persuasion check is, well, persuasive, convincing someone that something is more reasonable that it appears to be. Based purely on it being more reasonable, they might consider it but decide not to do it for other reasons. However a Suggestion then takes what was just a reasonable seed and makes it a compulsion.

Same with Arcana and Dispel Magic. DM allows one dispel magical effects, but an Arcana check is likely required to know whether something can be dispelled outside of combat. Same kind of point with Arcana and Detect Magic, both have their uses and compliment the other.

[Sir cryosin]

I don't think comparing Suggestion and a Persuasion check is a bad analogue. The suggestion has to be reasonable and I don't see why someone wouldn't be willing to do something that is perfectly reasonable, after someone makes a particularly convincing argument.
If persuasion can't convince people something reasonable, then what can persuasion do?

Like he said. And I would not compare detect magic to a arcana check. Because detect magic let's you see magic and what type it is. Arcana just let's you know if something is magical.

[SharkForce]

You all are bad people for reminding me how versatile this spell is, especially when I'm a Knowledge Theurge...

"This dress looks perfect on you, my dear. You simply must get it." If the save succeeds, they would just see it as standard seamster talk. If not, you have a guaranteed sale! Not a big deal when you are selling an ordinary dress, but proper silk clothing like a kimono can fetch both a high price (based off the DMG, at least as high as 250 GP!) and be harder to sell. This could easily seal such a deal and it doesn't tip the buyer off!

you're a knowledge theurge, silly.

your knowledge channel divinity lets you use detect thoughts, find out if they made their save, and then just upgrade it to a suggestion spell without allowing a saving throw ;)

[Sir cryosin]

I wouldn't, because he is just telling someone to kneel. But if he says "Vas Kal An Mani In Corp Hur KNEEL!", then I would. Verbal components are identifiable.

You could make the augment that the suggested phrase are the verbal components of the spell you're weaving magic into those words. For the hand movements a lot of people talk with their hands so that wouldn't be uncommon to see somebody just normally talking with their hands waving around. Now in combat situations. I would say a enemy could tell that the person is casting a spell.

[RickAllison]

you're a knowledge theurge, silly.

your knowledge channel divinity lets you use detect thoughts, find out if they made their save, and then just upgrade it to a suggestion spell without allowing a saving throw ;)

You are so right! Also, I can time it to happen when she is most in love with the dress so the desire seems natural!

Detect Thoughts would be a great spell to run as a shopkeeper. Preempt their desires and concerns, figure out what they would be willing to pay before starting to haggle, and so on. Also, any verbal components can just be delivered and disguised as part of a song! The joys of having multiple languages known :smallsmile:. Heck, my PC is a minotaur from another land/world, so he can just pass it off as being a nursery song from his mother.

EDIT: Yeah, Cryosin, spellcasting loses much of its subtlety when the target already hates you :smallbiggrin:

[Giant2005]

You could make the augment that the suggested phrase are the verbal components of the spell you're weaving magic into those words.

Well the words themselves aren' important to the verbal component, so you are right. However the pitch and resonance is important. So you could say your magic words in the right pitch and resonance for the spell and then make a suggestion, or if you were really talented you could work the words of your suggestion into the spell by saying them with that pitch and resonance.
Either way, neither option is going to sound much like ordinary conversation.


Also, any verbal components can just be delivered and disguised as part of a song! The joys of having multiple languages known :smallsmile:. Heck, my PC is a minotaur from another land/world, so he can just pass it off as being a nursery song from his mother.

I think most people would assume some weird phrase with unusual pitch and resonance was a spell. In the world of DnD, assuming someone just randomly broke out into song and dance in an alien language would definitely be the zebra of the situation.

[RickAllison]

Well the words themselves aren' important to the verbal component, so you are right. However the pitch and resonance is important. So you could say your magic words in the right pitch and resonance for the spell and then make a suggestion, or if you were really talented you could work the words of your suggestion into the spell by saying them with that pitch and resonance.
Either way, neither option is going to sound much like ordinary conversation.

Have you ever been a hair or nail salon? I don't think any of those count as ordinary conversation :smallwink: (but darn it, those pedicures are wonderful...)

And it wouldn't be a weird song and dance. This is like a dressmaker who is just softly singing an odd little song as he properly fits and drapes the dress. Someone singing while working isn't some weird song-and-dance routine, it's a relatively common thing.

[Giant2005]

And it wouldn't be a weird song and dance. This is like a dressmaker who is just softly singing an odd little song as he properly fits and drapes the dress. Someone singing while working isn't some weird song-and-dance routine, it's a relatively common thing.

That seems fairly reasonable. I was imagining shop clerk standing there, singing away while someone was angrily standing at the counter trying to be served.

[R.Shackleford]

That seems fairly reasonable. I was imagining shop clerk standing there, singing away while someone was angrily standing at the counter trying to be served.

To be fair, I've seen this happen.

Shop owner gave zero... well yeah.

[RickAllison]

That seems fairly reasonable. I was imagining shop clerk standing there, singing away while someone was angrily standing at the counter trying to be served.

Yeah, that would be odd :smallbiggrin:. However a clerk who was singing while working on or organizing some wares while the customer was deciding would also be a fairly natural thing. Again, this works best if the clerk is also running Detect Thoughts so he can properly manipulate the victim's customer's desires!

[Tanarii]

Like he said. And I would not compare detect magic to a arcana check. Because detect magic let's you see magic and what type it is. Arcana just let's you know if something is magical.
I wouldn't compare the two, because Arcana doesn't let you know if something is magical. All Arcana lets you do is recall lore about magical things.

[Citan]

So long story short are party had are characters taken away and turn into npcs for Strahd. Most of the party turned evil and said we will work for Strahd after kill other party members. So it new characters storming the Castel I'm playing a bard and casted suggestion on the enemy wizard lv 9 and took her out form almost the hole fight. If they fail the first save they don't get another one till the task is done or if party damage them or you lose concentration. And it's a 2nd lv spell.

I try to not meta game as much as posable. My exact words were. " help us in this fight" the DM didn't have her do much she help stabilize one pc.

Well, it has been powerful because your DM has been extremely lenient on you.
While I'm not aware of how your old PC could be turned evil, because I don't know the campaign at all, what I don't understand is that you basically told (borderline ordered) an evil creature to fight alongside its obvious enemies.
I fight it very difficult to consider this either "a suggestion" or a "reasonable" one.
Because your near-command would make the creature adopt a behaviour that is rightly opposite to what it should have...
I would never have allowed it personnally, unless context gave probable cause (such as, Wizard knew all the new characters as friends since a long time so she already struggled against her new condition in her heart, or something like that).
While I may very well have accepted something such as "your opponents seem far too strong to handle, fleeing seems the best choice for now": resulting all the same in removing her as a threat, but not asking her to act in direct contradiction with her normal behaviour.


The way ya'll are talking about it your makes the spell. Completely useless and could be done with a Charisma persuasion check. I believe the reasonable part is to keep people from telling thr target to kill them self or to keep the target from trying something out of there abilitys to do.

My next plan if she was going to get back in the fight. I was going to use suggestion on her again saying.
"You should use all your spells to take down that statue."
Not at all. It just requires you to actually THINK.
Your DM allowed you to use it to basically order a creature around.
The right way to use Suggestion is to give a false information to a creature to make it change his action or behaviour, depending on its usual morals and goals.
Because there is usually several ways to react to any given situation. If you know your opponent enough to guess how he would react in a situation, you can try and change his perception of the situation so his reaction also changes. ;)

Yes, sure, it's difficult. That's why it's a second level spell, while Dominate Person is a 5th level.

On that topic, I'd be interested in examples of Suggestions that were accepted or refused by your DM, since it's indeed difficult to draw the line...

[Pex]

So the takeaway is:

Suggestion is too powerful in the OP because the DM is too permissive letting players dictate everything. The proposed solution is interpret the spell so strictly to find any excuse not to let it work the way the player wants using the cop-out of what the definition of reasonable is might as well just ban the spell and stop being passive aggressive against it already.

:smallsigh:

I think there's a reasonable middle ground somewhere such that the player gets to have his fun using the spell even in combat. It just requires everyone to be . . . reasonable.

[Sir cryosin]

Well, it has been powerful because your DM has been extremely lenient on you.
While I'm not aware of how your old PC could be turned evil, because I don't know the campaign at all, what I don't understand is that you basically told (borderline ordered) an evil creature to fight alongside its obvious enemies.
I fight it very difficult to consider this either "a suggestion" or a "reasonable" one.
Because your near-command would make the creature adopt a behaviour that is rightly opposite to what it should have...
I would never have allowed it personnally, unless context gave probable cause (such as, Wizard knew all the new characters as friends since a long time so she already struggled against her new condition in her heart, or something like that).
While I may very well have accepted something such as "your opponents seem far too strong to handle, fleeing seems the best choice for now": resulting all the same in removing her as a threat, but not asking her to act in direct contradiction with her normal behaviour.


Not at all. It just requires you to actually THINK.
Your DM allowed you to use it to basically order a creature around.
The right way to use Suggestion is to give a false information to a creature to make it change his action or behaviour, depending on its usual morals and goals.
Because there is usually several ways to react to any given situation. If you know your opponent enough to guess how he would react in a situation, you can try and change his perception of the situation so his reaction also changes. ;)

Yes, sure, it's difficult. That's why it's a second level spell, while Dominate Person is a 5th level.

On that topic, I'd be interested in examples of Suggestions that were accepted or refused by your DM, since it's indeed difficult to draw the line...

But I still could say the same thing as you said for a example. DM have you roll a Charisma persuasion check and with expertise in it would most likely get the same results. So again why bother taking the spell.

[Tanarii]

I think there's a reasonable middle ground somewhere such that the player gets to have his fun using the spell even in combat. It just requires everyone to be . . . reasonable.There certainly is a reasonable middle ground. It's where the player to come up with a reasonable suggestion, as opposed to telling a hostile opponent "help us" and expecting that to be considered reasonable. By many DMs. As evinced by the number of DMs speaking out in this thread, anyway. Take that anecdotally or as non-representative if you like.

Apparently it flew in this game in this session, and was considered OP. So the solution is for the DM and player to work together to interpret the requirement that the suggestion be reasonable more strictly than they did.

I personally interpret it really strictly (Edit: enough so your criticism is probably valid against me in particular), especially if they're trying to remove someone from combat for the entire duration, or make them switch sides for the entire duration. But I tell players that before they select the spell. Personally I've found that mostly encourages them get really damn inventive with their suggestions.

[GlenSmash!]

If I were the DM in the OP's example, and the suggestion was something like "Strahd is going to betray you, don't fight for him" I would (reasonably in my opinion) rule that the wizard was out for the fight.

This seems like a nice middle-ground to me. This also seems like a very useful spell for a low charisma character.

[kladams707]

How to make that suggestion work:

"Have you always served a master? Help us in this fight and be free".

Though that's still not as reasonable as above.

[RulesJD]

Something that hasn't been noted yet:

Suggestion spell is a charm. This means that creatures immune to the charmed condition are immune to the spell. DMs need to pay more attention to the conditional immunities.

[Citan]

But I still could say the same thing as you said for a example. DM have you roll a Charisma persuasion check and with expertise in it would most likely get the same results. So again why bother taking the spell.
Well, I admit I didn't use the best example to explain my understanding of the Suggestion spell, and its difference with Persuasion.
Let's try in an abstract way: as I see it, the main advantages of Suggestion over Persuasion (beyond avoiding the skill proficiency and high CHA) is that you can use blatant lies and you can bend situations where Persuasion would require to beat too hard a DC.

Not sure if it's a good example or if others will agree with this but, let's say you are a small group of adventurers on the verge of being outnumbered and surrounded in the forest. The enemies are led by an blatant archetype of orc, who kills first and then maybe consider talking. Even if DM could accept the basis of discussion with the Orc chief, considering the situation is obviously very bad for you, any try for a peaceful out would probably fail, because the DC would be insanely high. After all... "Why bother hearing from someone who is already at my mercy?"

Also, enemy scouts have given proper information to the chief that they didnt notice any reinforcements (which is very probably true because scouts are supposed to be good at detecting presence). So any try to persuade the Chief that you are not in fact in deep sh** but actually dominating would fail, because the Chief could immediately double-check and assess the lie so he would read through the bluff right away (and may end up sufficiently pissed off to immediately kill you as a backfire effect XD).

In this case, Suggestion could save you:
- either by at least "forcing" the negociations to open ("killing them is not the best choice, they may have something to trade for their lives").
- using it on an enemy sentinel to make it believe it heard a massive force (so it will report to the chief, that will reevaluate its options: keeping heroes alive would be the best choice if he's going to be overpowered, because it makes trading commodity).
- or suggesting directly to the chief, against reasonable assumptions, that there is in fact a powerful army waiting in ambush or closing in (although I as a DM would only accept this if another player uses illusions at the same time to create false sounds or images), in the hope that he will instead regroup and retreat.
As long as the target fails the saves and the DM accepted your suggestion as valid, the target will consider the new information/vision/behaviour as true and "born" from it, so will have no reason to doubt it, so no reason to try and double-check with its actual senses whether it's true or false.

Also, I find it difficult to Persuade a creature to act in a way that would not be in its interest (otherwise said, you have to Persuade it that your proposed course of action is as good as, or better, than what it wanted to do in the first place). Whereas you can use Suggestion to propose a behaviour that is not specially (or not at all) in its interest, as long as it's reasonable (I admit I don't have any examples to provide for this at the moment though. Maybe others?).

[Sir cryosin]

The spell is **** because it just a persuasion check that takes a spell slote and a wisdom save. For it to be a auto success.

[Tanarii]

But I still could say the same thing as you said for a example. DM have you roll a Charisma persuasion check and with expertise in it would most likely get the same results. So again why bother taking the spell.Oh I totally missed this. For the same reason that Knock exists as a spell independent of Thieves' Tools proficiency. It removes the need for a check in some cases, but it's not always superior.

Knock makes a lot of noise. But it opens the door without a check immediately. Thieves's tools can do it silently, but takes time and a possibly check.

Suggestion needs to be worded in a way that sounds reasonable (among other limitations), but is instant and doesn't require a check. Persuasion can attempt to persuade of something unreasonable, but takes time and a possibly a check, even for something reasonable.

Edit: Also, the bar for "sounds reasonable" might still result in a damn high Persuasion check.

[Citan]

The spell is **** because it just a persuasion check that takes a spell slote and a wisdom save. For it to be a auto success.
Did you not read my post just before, or do you disagree in my reasoning on the differences between plain Persuasion check and Suggestion?
Because in the latter case, I'd like your own thoughts. ;)

[Sir cryosin]

Did you not read my post just before, or do you disagree in my reasoning on the differences between plain Persuasion check and Suggestion?
Because in the latter case, I'd like your own thoughts. ;)

As soon as we were caught I would yell out john run back and tell the army were we are and tell them to attack if they don't hear from us. Then I'll say unless you want main camp annihilated by a legion of 100 Calvary soldiers 200 foot soldiers and 50 Battle Mages. You might want to take use to your cheif. When we get to the Chieftain and just lying and talking my way out.
The spell waste a spell slot to have the same chance to persuade events whatever tag you want to put on it. To accomplish the same thing. Only up side is if you have **** charisma or not proficient in any of the charisma skills.

[Citan]

As soon as we were caught I would yell out john run back and tell the army were we are and tell them to attack if they don't hear from us. Then I'll say unless you want main camp annihilated by a legion of 100 Calvary soldiers 200 foot soldiers and 50 Battle Mages. You might want to take use to your cheif. When we get to the Chieftain and just lying and talking my way out.
The spell waste a spell slot to have the same chance to persuade events whatever tag you want to put on it. To accomplish the same thing. Only up side is if you have **** charisma or not proficient in any of the charisma skills.
Ok so you just adapt the situation I created to make it fit your own opinion instead of accepting it and discuss of the reasoning itself. Guess we'll have to stay as is then. ;)

I'd love to have other's opinion on my example though, would you accept the options I proposed as a DM?

[Addaran]

Citan, your propositions are very reasonable. =)



The spell waste a spell slot to have the same chance to persuade events whatever tag you want to put on it. To accomplish the same thing. Only up side is if you have **** charisma or not proficient in any of the charisma skills.

Knock is also a waste then, unless you have **** dex and not proficient in the thieves' tools.
Darkvision (spell) is a waste, only upside is if you don't have darkvision.
Only upside to Fly is if you aren't an aarakocra.
Charm person is worthless unless you have **** charisma or not proficient in any of the charisma skills.
etc

[IShouldntBehere]

Which of these suggestions are reasonable:

"I am the world famous stuff multiplier. Hand over everything you have to me and in one week's time your things will be returned to you, but at the double quality and with a pile of money equal to the value of your newly improved items"

"You should stop what you're doing right now and go bake a cake because being a baker has always been your #1 secret dream, so secret even you didn't know about it"

"Your allies are all secretly piles of snakes wearing human clothing that continue to look human even after you've cut them open. You better fight them now because 2 Thursdays from now they're going to bite you with their snake bites."

"Don't fight me, I'm a helpless orphan child. You wouldn't want to kill a helpless orphan child would you?"

"Your mom told me you should do whatever I say from now on"

"Poop in your pants right now. It is lots of fun. Do nothing but poop your pants. People have always said it is a bad thing because they are trying to keep all the fun for themselves. Also pooping your pants makes you invulnerable to all attacks. If you do nothing but poop your pants for 10 minutes you will turn into a dragon"

[SharkForce]

Citan, your propositions are very reasonable. =)



Knock is also a waste then, unless you have **** dex and not proficient in the thieves' tools.
Darkvision (spell) is a waste, only upside is if you don't have darkvision.
Only upside to Fly is if you aren't an aarakocra.
Charm person is worthless unless you have **** charisma or not proficient in any of the charisma skills.
etc

- knock is pretty much a waste regardless. you want a loud way of opening doors? i recommend you obtain a large bludgeoning implement of some form. truthfully, even with a not very good dex and no proficiency in thieve's tools, you can probably pick most locks eventually in 5e.
- darkvision spell is generally regarded as pretty lousy even if you don't have darkvision from some other source, actually. level 2 spells can do some really awesome stuff. preparing (taking up a prepared slot) and using a bunch of level 2 spells per day to have darkvision isn't one of those things.
- fly is actually the only decent spell you've listed here. still, probably pretty low priority as a spell.
- charm person is pretty awful actually. you want advantage on charisma checks? use the help action. as an added benefit, it doesn't work only for one specific person, and there's no save. the help action that is. not the spell, which is pretty bad.

[Giant2005]

"Don't fight me, I'm a helpless orphan child. You wouldn't want to kill a helpless orphan child would you?"

"Your mom told me you should do whatever I say from now on"

These two could work depending on who you are Suggesting to.
The others are simply too long.

[NNescio]

- knock is pretty much a waste regardless. you want a loud way of opening doors? i recommend you obtain a large bludgeoning implement of some form. truthfully, even with a not very good dex and no proficiency in thieve's tools, you can probably pick most locks eventually in 5e.
- darkvision spell is generally regarded as pretty lousy even if you don't have darkvision from some other source, actually. level 2 spells can do some really awesome stuff. preparing (taking up a prepared slot) and using a bunch of level 2 spells per day to have darkvision isn't one of those things.
- fly is actually the only decent spell you've listed here. still, probably pretty low priority as a spell.
- charm person is pretty awful actually. you want advantage on charisma checks? use the help action. as an added benefit, it doesn't work only for one specific person, and there's no save. the help action that is. not the spell, which is pretty bad.

Darkvision can be useful on a Moon Druid who prefers to remain in a form without darkvision, especially when scouting. It's harder for you to carry a light source, after all (or harder to douse, in case you decide to jury-rig some sort of light tied to a harness on your body). Can be very useful on levels where wildshapes in the CR2 range are available (CR1 and CR3 has forms with Blindsight. CR2 also has one [the snake], but only at 10ft range, and it's an awful scout).

It becomes less useful if the DM allows the variant Cave Polar bear with darkvision though.

Otherwise, the only use for this spell is to give that one guy Darkvision (any more than one makes it not worth it) if the rest of party has darkvision and decide to go stealth with all light sources turned off (Pass without Trace is generally the better spell, but it won't help hide the party if they're lit up like Christmas trees in otherwise total darkness, no matter how stealthy they are).

[SharkForce]

i dunno. i still don't think i'd expect to see it used much unless maybe you have a shadow monk in the party or something like that (since shadow monks don't get to choose their spells and can recover ki on a short rest anyways, i could actually see a shadow monk actually having the spell ready and then casting it because they're going to get those resources back easily anyways). it isn't so much a matter of the spell being so bad i could never imagine a use for it, it's a matter of the spell being a lot less good than so many other options you could use instead.

for a scouting druid, i would recommend simply relying on senses other than sight. especially because of how vision works in 5e. i guess i could see eventually at some point where you're super high level and you feel like you have more spells than you could ever use or something, but even then, it's still taking up something else useful that you could have prepared instead.

[Citan]

Citan, your propositions are very reasonable. =)

Thanks for the feedback, appreciated.

Which of these suggestions are reasonable:

"I am the world famous stuff multiplier. Hand over everything you have to me and in one week's time your things will be returned to you, but at the double quality and with a pile of money equal to the value of your newly improved items"

"You should stop what you're doing right now and go bake a cake because being a baker has always been your #1 secret dream, so secret even you didn't know about it"

"Your allies are all secretly piles of snakes wearing human clothing that continue to look human even after you've cut them open. You better fight them now because 2 Thursdays from now they're going to bite you with their snake bites."

"Don't fight me, I'm a helpless orphan child. You wouldn't want to kill a helpless orphan child would you?"

"Your mom told me you should do whatever I say from now on"

"Poop in your pants right now. It is lots of fun. Do nothing but poop your pants. People have always said it is a bad thing because they are trying to keep all the fun for themselves. Also pooping your pants makes you invulnerable to all attacks. If you do nothing but poop your pants for 10 minutes you will turn into a dragon"
Well, without any context provided, I'd tend to refuse every one of them actually. ^^
The closest to be accepted would be 2nd and 5th though, especially if the target is a human (I'd say no way the 5th would work on an Orc for example, but this is totally biaised because of my own view of them. Maybe Orcs have a caring heart after all... ^^)

- knock is pretty much a waste regardless. you want a loud way of opening doors? i recommend you obtain a large bludgeoning implement of some form. truthfully, even with a not very good dex and no proficiency in thieve's tools, you can probably pick most locks eventually in 5e.
- darkvision spell is generally regarded as pretty lousy even if you don't have darkvision from some other source, actually. level 2 spells can do some really awesome stuff. preparing (taking up a prepared slot) and using a bunch of level 2 spells per day to have darkvision isn't one of those things.
- fly is actually the only decent spell you've listed here. still, probably pretty low priority as a spell.
- charm person is pretty awful actually. you want advantage on charisma checks? use the help action. as an added benefit, it doesn't work only for one specific person, and there's no save. the help action that is. not the spell, which is pretty bad.
Knock
"Knock is pretty much a waste regardless". Or maybe you just never really tried to use it. ;)
Knock can be cast from 60 feet away, is instant, unlocks any door whatever the lock and also unlocks magickly shut objects during 10 minutes. It's far more flexible and reliable than thieve's tools or STR check in many situations.

1. You're chased and need to open a heavy metal door RIGHT NOW? Good luck stalling the chasers while you either try to lockpick or break it. With Knock you unlock while you dash towards it then you just have to push it. No time loss, and you don't care about sound anyways.

2. You want to attack an enemy camp which keeps savage beasts in a cage. Break the lock from a safe distance to create a nice distraction.

3. You want to access the content of a magically shut chest. Knock away! (can work great in combination with invisible Mage Hand from the Arcane Trickster).


Oh, by the way, the sound "requirement" is not so bad. After all, Silence is a ritual, so you can do both and consume only one slot when you really need to be silent.
Although it's less efficient than lockpicking (because it you have time to set up Silence with a ritual, you would have plenty of time to try and lockpick) when lockpicking is available, it still works well.
So, I'd say only for Sorcerer it's probably a bad choice because so few spell known. For others, it's a good choice for utility.

Darkvision
Sure, most races get Darkvision as a racial ability, but you may have people in your group that still don't get it (humans, halflings, dragonborn, ?). If your group has to travel at night in complete obscurity or is plunged into magical darkness, you will be glad to have it to re-enable yourself or a friend.
Also don't give the "multiclassing" argument, after all, it is an option, and even then, not everyone wants to multiclass just for the sake of darkvision.
So, I agree that for a Ranger or Sorcerer, which learn very few spells, it's probably a bad choice in most campaigns. But for a Druid who "knows" all the spells? Or a Wizard who can grab it as a learnt spell or treasure spoil? It makes a useful spell that can be prepared as soon as you know there is a chance of being in the dark, unless everyone in the group can move and act unhindered by it.

Fly
It's not only decent, it's great, since it's scalable with level. ;)
And beyond the Aarakocra, most characters can only get a flying speed beyond 12th level. So it's a pretty powerful buff throughout the career.

Charm
It's basically the same discussion as with Suggestion. Imo, you don't understand the true power of the spell or your DM is very lenient with Persuasion.
"The creature regards you as a friendly acquaintance".
First, that's the kind of things that seems plain impossible to me with a Persuasion if you're trying to do that on an enemy creature.
Second, there is a big difference in implication between "trying to persuade someone to do something" and "be friend with someone". In the first case, the person will do only what you asked for. Therefore, what you actually can persuade him/her to do will vastly depend on your current relationship with him/her, and also what you know him/her is capable of. For example, it would be borderline impossible to persuade an evil creature you are fighting with (in a death fight) to switch loyalty, unless it so happens you found a very powerful lever to make it change its mind. With Charm, it's possible.
In the latter case, the creature will naturally make efforts to help you, including by acting on its own or doing things you didn't even think of but are indeed beneficial to you.
To take back the example of making a creature switch, either it will start naturally to help you fight the others (although I as a DM would rarely allow such a blatant change, unless the creature was not liking its orders in the first place) or at least it will cease to attack you and be open to persuasion.

Finally, having an ally Help you doesn't always work, and it's very blatant. For a Sorcerer, this spell can do wonders paired with Subtle spell metamagic, making it a must have. :)

[Sir cryosin]

Thanks for the feedback, appreciated.

Well, without any context provided, I'd tend to refuse every one of them actually. ^^
The closest to be accepted would be 2nd and 5th though, especially if the target is a human (I'd say no way the 5th would work on an Orc for example, but this is totally biaised because of my own view of them. Maybe Orcs have a caring heart after all... ^^)

Knock
"Knock is pretty much a waste regardless". Or maybe you just never really tried to use it. ;)
Knock can be cast from 60 feet away, is instant, unlocks any door whatever the lock and also unlocks magickly shut objects during 10 minutes. It's far more flexible and reliable than thieve's tools or STR check in many situations.

1. You're chased and need to open a heavy metal door RIGHT NOW? Good luck stalling the chasers while you either try to lockpick or break it. With Knock you unlock while you dash towards it then you just have to push it. No time loss, and you don't care about sound anyways.

2. You want to attack an enemy camp which keeps savage beasts in a cage. Break the lock from a safe distance to create a nice distraction.

3. You want to access the content of a magically shut chest. Knock away! (can work great in combination with invisible Mage Hand from the Arcane Trickster).


Oh, by the way, the sound "requirement" is not so bad. After all, Silence is a ritual, so you can do both and consume only one slot when you really need to be silent.
Although it's less efficient than lockpicking (because it you have time to set up Silence with a ritual, you would have plenty of time to try and lockpick) when lockpicking is available, it still works well.
So, I'd say only for Sorcerer it's probably a bad choice because so few spell known. For others, it's a good choice for utility.

Darkvision
Sure, most races get Darkvision as a racial ability, but you may have people in your group that still don't get it (humans, halflings, dragonborn, ?). If your group has to travel at night in complete obscurity or is plunged into magical darkness, you will be glad to have it to re-enable yourself or a friend.
Also don't give the "multiclassing" argument, after all, it is an option, and even then, not everyone wants to multiclass just for the sake of darkvision.
So, I agree that for a Ranger or Sorcerer, which learn very few spells, it's probably a bad choice in most campaigns. But for a Druid who "knows" all the spells? Or a Wizard who can grab it as a learnt spell or treasure spoil? It makes a useful spell that can be prepared as soon as you know there is a chance of being in the dark, unless everyone in the group can move and act unhindered by it.

Fly
It's not only decent, it's great, since it's scalable with level. ;)
And beyond the Aarakocra, most characters can only get a flying speed beyond 12th level. So it's a pretty powerful buff throughout the career.

Charm
It's basically the same discussion as with Suggestion. Imo, you don't understand the true power of the spell or your DM is very lenient with Persuasion.
"The creature regards you as a friendly acquaintance".
First, that's the kind of things that seems plain impossible to me with a Persuasion if you're trying to do that on an enemy creature.
Second, there is a big difference in implication between "trying to persuade someone to do something" and "be friend with someone". In the first case, the person will do only what you asked for. Therefore, what you actually can persuade him/her to do will vastly depend on your current relationship with him/her, and also what you know him/her is capable of. For example, it would be borderline impossible to persuade an evil creature you are fighting with (in a death fight) to switch loyalty, unless it so happens you found a very powerful lever to make it change its mind. With Charm, it's possible.
In the latter case, the creature will naturally make efforts to help you, including by acting on its own or doing things you didn't even think of but are indeed beneficial to you.
To take back the example of making a creature switch, either it will start naturally to help you fight the others (although I as a DM would rarely allow such a blatant change, unless the creature was not liking its orders in the first place) or at least it will cease to attack you and be open to persuasion.

Finally, having an ally Help you doesn't always work, and it's very blatant. For a Sorcerer, this spell can do wonders paired with Subtle spell metamagic, making it a must have. :)

I'm not saying I wouldn't accept your ruling and position on on it as a DM if I was your player. I just find it. Lacking as a spell when I can accomplish the same thing by other means that aren't so taxing. I understand that it to help if you don't have the charisma and need to succeed on that persuasion or deception check. Just like if you don't have someone with thieve's tools knock is a spell your going to want.

[imneuromancer]

This is a great idea. Here are the criteria that I am using to judge this based on the RAW of the spell:

* Must be a series of events/action ("a course of activity")

* Limited to a sentence or two

* Cannot do self harm("Asking the creature to stab itself, throw itself onto a spear, immolate itself, or do some other obviously harmful act ends the spell."). Note that in PREVIOUS editions, this could be bypassed by suggesting that certain harmful acts are perfectly safe, but this edition does not make that explicit.

* Reasonable. This is the hardest to adjudicate, but apparently doing something stupid, against your own best interest, or to their own defense is actually reasonable. See the knight example for explicit proof of this.

* Does not have to justify the reasonableness, necessarily. "A a knight [must] give her warhorse to the first beggar she meets" without any justification about charity or any other junk is literally the example given of a good Suggestion. (presumably if the Suggestion is particularly strange you would have to give justification, like "That pool over there is water, you should go for a dip" but the pool is actually acid)



"I am the world famous stuff multiplier. Hand over everything you have to me and in one week's time your things will be returned to you, but at the double quality and with a pile of money equal to the value of your newly improved items"

Acceptable. In a magical world, this would be a series of events, a sentence or two, not self harmful, and completely reasonable.


"You should stop what you're doing right now and go bake a cake because being a baker has always been your #1 secret dream, so secret even you didn't know about it"

Maybe. Baking a cake is completely reasonable. May not be reasonable if there is not way for them to bake a cake.


"Your allies are all secretly piles of snakes wearing human clothing that continue to look human even after you've cut them open. You better fight them now because 2 Thursdays from now they're going to bite you with their snake bites."

Acceptable. Meets all criteria. Second sentence may be a little strained (you could probably simplify this) but saying that a person's friends are actually enemies trying to kill them would be reasonable and it is reasonable that the victim would either defend themselves or flee, depending on situation and Suggestion wording.


"Don't fight me, I'm a helpless orphan child. You wouldn't want to kill a helpless orphan child would you?"

Acceptable. Meets all criteria. The orphan thing may not even be necessary. "Don't fight me." would have been enough, but that wouldn't stop them from beating up on the rest of your party.


"Your mom told me you should do whatever I say from now on"

Not acceptable. There is no actual suggestion of "You should do X" in the sentence. Even if this was changed to "Do what I say because your mom told me," it wouldn't be acceptable because it has to be a relatively straightforward single course of action.


"Poop in your pants right now. It is lots of fun. Do nothing but poop your pants. People have always said it is a bad thing because they are trying to keep all the fun for themselves. Also pooping your pants makes you invulnerable to all attacks. If you do nothing but poop your pants for 10 minutes you will turn into a dragon"

Not acceptable. Too many sentences.

[Giant2005]

Acceptable. In a magical world, this would be a series of events, a sentence or two, not self harmful, and completely reasonable.

I really think that the sentence or two clause should be a grammatically correct sentence or two. Sure, no-one wants to have to be a grammar nazi when they are supposed to be having fun, but those sentences were about as run-on as run-on gets.
If you allow those, then you may as well allow an entire novel's worth of instructions as long as the suggester replaces all of his full stops with "ands".

[SharkForce]

Thanks for the feedback, appreciated.

Well, without any context provided, I'd tend to refuse every one of them actually. ^^
The closest to be accepted would be 2nd and 5th though, especially if the target is a human (I'd say no way the 5th would work on an Orc for example, but this is totally biaised because of my own view of them. Maybe Orcs have a caring heart after all... ^^)

Knock
"Knock is pretty much a waste regardless". Or maybe you just never really tried to use it. ;)
Knock can be cast from 60 feet away, is instant, unlocks any door whatever the lock and also unlocks magickly shut objects during 10 minutes. It's far more flexible and reliable than thieve's tools or STR check in many situations.

1. You're chased and need to open a heavy metal door RIGHT NOW? Good luck stalling the chasers while you either try to lockpick or break it. With Knock you unlock while you dash towards it then you just have to push it. No time loss, and you don't care about sound anyways.

2. You want to attack an enemy camp which keeps savage beasts in a cage. Break the lock from a safe distance to create a nice distraction.

3. You want to access the content of a magically shut chest. Knock away! (can work great in combination with invisible Mage Hand from the Arcane Trickster).


Oh, by the way, the sound "requirement" is not so bad. After all, Silence is a ritual, so you can do both and consume only one slot when you really need to be silent.
Although it's less efficient than lockpicking (because it you have time to set up Silence with a ritual, you would have plenty of time to try and lockpick) when lockpicking is available, it still works well.
So, I'd say only for Sorcerer it's probably a bad choice because so few spell known. For others, it's a good choice for utility.

Darkvision
Sure, most races get Darkvision as a racial ability, but you may have people in your group that still don't get it (humans, halflings, dragonborn, ?). If your group has to travel at night in complete obscurity or is plunged into magical darkness, you will be glad to have it to re-enable yourself or a friend.
Also don't give the "multiclassing" argument, after all, it is an option, and even then, not everyone wants to multiclass just for the sake of darkvision.
So, I agree that for a Ranger or Sorcerer, which learn very few spells, it's probably a bad choice in most campaigns. But for a Druid who "knows" all the spells? Or a Wizard who can grab it as a learnt spell or treasure spoil? It makes a useful spell that can be prepared as soon as you know there is a chance of being in the dark, unless everyone in the group can move and act unhindered by it.

Fly
It's not only decent, it's great, since it's scalable with level. ;)
And beyond the Aarakocra, most characters can only get a flying speed beyond 12th level. So it's a pretty powerful buff throughout the career.

Charm
It's basically the same discussion as with Suggestion. Imo, you don't understand the true power of the spell or your DM is very lenient with Persuasion.
"The creature regards you as a friendly acquaintance".
First, that's the kind of things that seems plain impossible to me with a Persuasion if you're trying to do that on an enemy creature.
Second, there is a big difference in implication between "trying to persuade someone to do something" and "be friend with someone". In the first case, the person will do only what you asked for. Therefore, what you actually can persuade him/her to do will vastly depend on your current relationship with him/her, and also what you know him/her is capable of. For example, it would be borderline impossible to persuade an evil creature you are fighting with (in a death fight) to switch loyalty, unless it so happens you found a very powerful lever to make it change its mind. With Charm, it's possible.
In the latter case, the creature will naturally make efforts to help you, including by acting on its own or doing things you didn't even think of but are indeed beneficial to you.
To take back the example of making a creature switch, either it will start naturally to help you fight the others (although I as a DM would rarely allow such a blatant change, unless the creature was not liking its orders in the first place) or at least it will cease to attack you and be open to persuasion.

Finally, having an ally Help you doesn't always work, and it's very blatant. For a Sorcerer, this spell can do wonders paired with Subtle spell metamagic, making it a must have. :)

knock:

1) leaves the door unlocked behind you, meaning you're spending resources to not really even escape and the guys behind you aren't. a better use would be locking a door that you pass through. or teleporting past the door.
2) lets everyone know it happened (it isn't silent), rather just use an acid flask with a catapult, or a sling. now they don't know you're there and they don't know the cage is open.
3) just take the chest, or break it open, or pry it open with a crowbar. heck, even a magically locked chest isn't that secure against someone with a lot of time and a set of thieve's tools.

darkvision:

the way vision works in 5e, you don't need good visibility to travel. heck, you don't even need particularly great visibility to fight. also, it doesn't work in magical darkness. carrying a torch ready to be lit, or a shuttered lantern, or a wrapped-up rock with a light spell, or knowing one of a variety of cantrips, accomplishes pretty near everything you could get out of darkvision in the majority of situations. is it possible for there to be some super-situational use that's not largely pointless and minor? sure. but if it doesn't come up often, it isn't worth preparing even on the classes that use prepared spells. a prepared spell slot is not an infinite resource, and i can think of a lot of things i'd rather have for general use than darkvision (and of course, that same argument applies to knock. there are simply better options out there). race has very little to do with it. resource management (especially prepared spells) does. schrodinger's wizard might get some occasional value out of darkvision. everyone else? not so much. that prepared spell could be any number of things that will be useful in a much wider variety of situations instead.

fly:

duration is too short for overland travel, and flying in combat when any ranged attack could cause you (and possibly your entire party) to plummet to your doom has some rather obvious drawbacks. that leaves the real value to short-distance non-combat situations. it's certainly a step up from knock and darkvision, but it's not a spell i'd gladly keep prepared constantly in 5e. furthermore, fly in combat competes with the great majority of the worthwhile CC spells in the game. i don't care if your wizard is flying if your wizard can't wizard things while doing it. flight is great for combat. the fly spell is not.

charm person:

single-target, works for a single character, creates an enemy in the long term, and it should be relatively easy to use an equal level (longer-lasting) illusion spell that won't create enemies to get someone to treat you like a friendly acquaintance (or better, with some research). and wouldn't you know, that illusion spell doesn't generally grant a saving throw, and is useful in other situations too, like making your wizard not look like a wizard so enemies don't single you out for killing before the warriors. as for turning someone in the middle of a fight, good luck with that. advantage on the saving throw means you'll have a hard time charming anything in the middle of a fight.

those four spells are not literally useless, but only in the sense that if you could use them without needing to know or prepare them they might be occasionally useful (hence why the shadow monk using darkvision is at least somewhat plausible, because the shadow monk doesn't get to choose to prepare enlarge/reduce or entangle or web or other spells instead).

[Citan]

knock:

1) leaves the door unlocked behind you, meaning you're spending resources to not really even escape and the guys behind you aren't. a better use would be locking a door that you pass through. or teleporting past the door.
2) lets everyone know it happened (it isn't silent), rather just use an acid flask with a catapult, or a sling. now they don't know you're there and they don't know the cage is open.
3) just take the chest, or break it open, or pry it open with a crowbar. heck, even a magically locked chest isn't that secure against someone with a lot of time and a set of thieve's tools.

1) If you are rushing to escape, you probably don't have time to lock the door past you. And even then, the enemy will very probably have keys so you will spare a few seconds at most. And if you find something to barricade with, it works as well with Knock. Also, Teleporting beyond the door? Do you really say wasting your 7th level spell slot (provided you even reached this level, which is generally uncommon because meaning 13th level single-classed) for such a mundane obstacle, when a 2nd level spell would be largely good enough? It's... Interesting to say the least. Weren't you talking about intelligent resource management earlier? :) (Okay, I'm teasing you here, it's obvious you would teleport directly to a safe place ;). But then again, 7th level spells are not available to everyone, and it's a bit cheating to use it to downgrade a 2nd level spell: it's obvious that it will be better XD).

2) You don't care about being silent about it, because you want to create a distraction anyways. So you want them to be focused on the beasts. So sound is a good thing. Also, they know there is a problem, but they wouldn't always understand that it is an enemy force (you have to know the existence of the spell for that). Although I agree your idea with acid flask is a good one, but it takes more time. ;)

3) I'm not sure about how people treat magically locked chests, or how one should treat them by RAW. But my understanding of Arcane Lock is that it's magic that keeps something shut, so no lockpick will work. At least it's how I rule it out, but maybe I'm a singularity here. And prying open will take time or may be just impossible depending on the nature of the object (unless you're willing to destroy the contents, which is kinda ruining the point).



darkvision:

the way vision works in 5e, you don't need good visibility to travel. heck, you don't even need particularly great visibility to fight. also, it doesn't work in magical darkness. carrying a torch ready to be lit, or a shuttered lantern, or a wrapped-up rock with a light spell, or knowing one of a variety of cantrips, accomplishes pretty near everything you could get out of darkvision in the majority of situations.

You speak your own, personal opinion as if it was the truth, so argument is irrecevable. Maybe you have lenient DMs, good for you.
Especially since everything you says "works as well" is basically lighting a flare to any creature in the vicinity saying "hey guys, we're here!". The point of Darkvision is precisely that you don't need light to see, so that's one less mean for others to get aware of your presence. And I have hard time seeing how anyone being in total darkness could be stealthy (or even just walk without hurting) in natural environments, unless someone guides them with voice (thus dampening the stealth efficiency) or telepathy (works well, but not everybody can get it).



fly:

duration is too short for overland travel, and flying in combat when any ranged attack could cause you (and possibly your entire party) to plummet to your doom has some rather obvious drawbacks. that leaves the real value to short-distance non-combat situations. it's certainly a step up from knock and darkvision, but it's not a spell i'd gladly keep prepared constantly in 5e. furthermore, fly in combat competes with the great majority of the worthwhile CC spells in the game. i don't care if your wizard is flying if your wizard can't wizard things while doing it. flight is great for combat. the fly spell is not.

Well, sure, it's too short for long flights. There is the Wind Walk spell for that.
As for the potential drawbacks, sure there exists but many things can be done to limit the risks of losing Concentration because of a ranged attacks. Whereas the applications of Fly are limitless, in and out of combat situations.
You sell the spell short because you prefer using dedicated crowd control spells to master the flow of fighting. Great for you. Doesn't mean that Fly would always be the worst choice, nor that a Wizard could not do anything worthwhile just because his Concentration slot is used.
By the way, be sure of not using Haste then, because it has the same drawbacks as Fly (some could say worse): affects only one ally (not even scalable), and affected creature is powerless for a turn when it ends. Totally underpowered compared to Slow right? Funny thing though, many people prefer using Haste over Slow (which I do prefer personally ^^)... Maybe, just maybe, it's because buff is guaranteed success, and they are confident they can preserve their concentration? :)



charm person:

single-target, works for a single character, creates an enemy in the long term, and it should be relatively easy to use an equal level (longer-lasting) illusion spell that won't create enemies to get someone to treat you like a friendly acquaintance (or better, with some research). and wouldn't you know, that illusion spell doesn't generally grant a saving throw, and is useful in other situations too, like making your wizard not look like a wizard so enemies don't single you out for killing before the warriors. as for turning someone in the middle of a fight, good luck with that. advantage on the saving throw means you'll have a hard time charming anything in the middle of a fight.

I guess it depends on how you consider the rule "the creature knows it was charmed by you". There have been several threads on this if I remember correctly. Unless I'm mistaken, the general consensus though was that the charmed creatures knows which creature the spell came from, but does not mean this creature would always perceive you as "the one who charmed it". So, just disguise or Alter self and it's good. Or, if you're evil, just dispatch the person once you're finished with it. XD
And, why the hell are people always thinking only of fighting situations? Never understand that. I just took this example because of OP post, but that's not the point. Never tried to Subtle Charm a Guard into abandoning its duty? Persuade a high noble to give away some money or give keys to secret part? It sure depends on the DMs, but there are many things you can resolve thanks to the Charm Person spell that would be otherwise near impossible to do with just a Persuasion check, and if you plan things well enough, you have a good chance of evading the consequences...




those four spells are not literally useless, but only in the sense that if you could use them without needing to know or prepare them they might be occasionally useful (hence why the shadow monk using darkvision is at least somewhat plausible, because the shadow monk doesn't get to choose to prepare enlarge/reduce or entangle or web or other spells instead).
Please let me rephrase it for you: "I don't like these spells because I never really tried to use them well since I always manage without it or by other means, so I never really saw their usefulness". Which I perfectly understand and respect, I also have some spells I never tried to use creatively.
But these spells are useful, in many more situations than you imply, which make them worth it in spite of the cost of learning and preparing them (well, except Darkvision which is a niche spell indeed because so many races get darkvision as a base, but as long as you don't need to sacrifice one known spell for it...). ;)

[Segev]

Friends is the one that makes the victim hostile.

Charm person, while the victim knows what you did, could still come out okay. "Look, dude, I charmed you so that you'd stop and listen to us. It's worked out well for you and we've not done anything untoward, right?"

A neutral punch-clock minion working for a bad guy might even choose to stick with the guys who acted like real friends towards him (even if they forced the "friend" part initially) just because they're genuinely nicer than his colleagues.

In other words, if you use it right, you can potentially make somebody you've charmed remain friends if they can objectively see that sure, you used magic to do it, but you have been a genuine friend to them in return. Heck, if I ever play a heavy-on-enchantment PC, I plan to be open to my charmed minions about what I've done, and use that to get them to voluntarily fail their saves on the refresh of it. "See, you probably would be mad at me and not be my friend anymore if the spell lapsed. And you like being friends with me and wouldn't want to be mad at me for maintaining our friendship, right?"

That last is more nefarious, of course, but the principle is the same.

[SharkForce]

with extremely limited spells known (which is especially applicable when discussing low level spells), extremely situational is basically the same as bad for the most part. if you could prepare 1,000 spells, then highly situational is fine. but you don't get to prepare 1,000 spells.

if you have to come up with some extremely improbable scenario for the spell to be good, it isn't really a good spell.

(also, you're right that i don't like haste. one extra limited action on one character is not generally as good as a well-placed control spell that can prevent several enemies from acting. it has it's place, i suppose, and that place is typically "i'm fighting a rakshasa and i literally cannot use my crowd control to any effect whatsoever" in my opinion... if i'm blowing a level 3 spell and my concentration, it had bloody well better have a huge impact on the fight to be worth those resources).

(and on a side note, there are many ways to teleport without using the spell of the same name. one of those ways happens to be a level 2 spell that is commonly available to people that can cast knock, for the record, and is also generally more useful. especially while running away, since it leaves your regular action free for dashing *and* moves you farther towards where you want to be. as to enemies having a key... maybe. depends on the door. if you're running through a town, the town guards won't have the keys to every shop, for example. oh, and for the record... higher DC to get through is exactly how the rule books say magically locked doors etc work, so... i'm pretty sure i'm not the only one who rules that way).

[Reaper34]

I've always found that suggestion works when you set the field for it.

example: caster and rogue sneak up on enemy camp. observe for a time to find chief/leader type. caster readies suggestion, rogue fires ranged wep from cover at leader, caster suggests it's a coup. watch chaos. this works best with evil humanoids like goblins and orcs.

every spell has it's place.

[Tanarii]

-
- charm person is pretty awful actually. you want advantage on charisma checks? use the help action. as an added benefit, it doesn't work only for one specific person, and there's no save. the help action that is. not the spell, which is pretty bad.youve tried to make is claim before, but mechanically it's flat wrong. Having the target regard you as a friendly acquaintance is effectively a +10 bonus to your check vs an indifferent target, and a +20 bonus vs a hostile target, because it adjusts the target DC. See DMG for DCs, which scale for friendly, indifferent and hostile targets. That's on top of providing advantage.

[Stygofthedump]

I had a player use the suggestion "help us win this fight and I'll reward you" on bugbears. Bugbear missed his turn considering if this was a self harming action. Once it was clear the battle was lost the suggestion took hold and the bugbear attacked his leader.

[SharkForce]

youve tried to make is claim before, but mechanically it's flat wrong. Having the target regard you as a friendly acquaintance is effectively a +10 bonus to your check vs an indifferent target, and a +20 bonus vs a hostile target, because it adjusts the target DC. See DMG for DCs, which scale for friendly, indifferent and hostile targets. That's on top of providing advantage.

if you assume friendly means the creature's attitude is mechanically the friendly attitude from the DMG, rather than just meaning that they're like a friendly acquaintance as you would use the term in everyday language. which is to say, as a friendly acquaintance you could expect them to do minor things that cost them nothing as a courtesy, but ultimately they're pretty indifferent in D&D terms most of the time... a friend i would expect to step in and help (in some form, possibly including trying to stop the fight) if you got into a fight for some reason. a friendly acquaintance i would expect to not tell the police i started a fight if i didn't, but i would not expect them to risk getting hurt (unless, for example, they just love fighting and would gladly join *any* fight, or hate fighting and would intervene to attempt to stop *any* fight). major difference there, and there's no firm indication which it is.

the people i work with are what i would describe as friendly acquaintances. apart from situations where my job and their job (or my interests and their interests) coincide directly, i would not expect them to step in... for example, i might expect them to readily help if we're both responsible to present some information to someone, and i might be able to expect them to be politely interested in the exploits of my just-for-fun soccer team that i play games with on saturdays, but i don't expect them to genuinely care or desire to help if i want to improve the distance i can kick a soccer ball down the field so the forwards on my team can run past the other team's defense (fun league, remember, lots of times the defense players are not in very good shape. or skilled enough to recognise that they need to hang back). they don't really "want to help" or "wish for me to succeed". they're just people i know that are willing to be courteous towards me. which is certainly better than the lower end of the "indifferent" scale the DMG describes (where they don't care and are not courteous or pleasant to interact with), but not exactly going to make a world of difference.

[Pinjata]

Interesting thread. I'm soon DM-ing Lost mine of Phandelver and final boss has Suggestion spell ready. I'm afraid I'll just have to go Dominate way, since there is no way I can see may players (after failing saves) agreeing with any of the Suggestions final boss may utter.

- Attack the members of your party, we'll split loot after.
PC:NO.
- Run back to Baldur's Gate to get reinforcements.
PC: NO.

- It's time to surrender, violence is not the answer.
PC:NO.
...

Basically I think it is down to a roll and Save DC. If player is stubborn or deems enemy should "know the intricate workings of his mind in order for Suggestion to work", then Suggestion is useless.

Would love to read your opinion regarding this.

[NNescio]

Interesting thread. I'm soon DM-ing Lost mine of Phandelver and final boss has Suggestion spell ready. I'm afraid I'll just have to go Dominate way, since there is no way I can see may players (after failing saves) agreeing with any of the Suggestions final boss may utter.

- Attack the members of your party, we'll split loot after.
PC:NO.
- Run back to Baldur's Gate to get reinforcements.
PC: NO.

- It's time to surrender, violence is not the answer.
PC:NO.
...

Basically I think it is down to a roll and Save DC. If player is stubborn or deems enemy should "know the intricate workings of his mind in order for Suggestion to work", then Suggestion is useless.

Would love to read your opinion regarding this.

Suggestion IS NOT Dominate Person and should not be ruled that way. Open that can of worms, and your PCs will reverse the ruling and smack the boss with the exact same spell, especially if they have a Diviner at hand to make him fail the save.

That said, Suggesting a PC to back off or retreat might work (not the facetanking KROG SMASH kind of barbarian though). Forcing the PC to backstab his friends might also work if he's already demonstrated a tendency to do so in the past. It's not the player judging how reasonable the suggestion is, but his character, given how he roleplayed him in the past. This might raise some arguments, so generally try to get the table to agree on it. Sure, it'll take away some degree of player agency, but mind-affecting spells and effects all have this problem (which is why they should be used judiciously).

(Also, the enemy shouldn't metagame and be aware of each PC's personality to exacting detail.)

[Citan]

with extremely limited spells known (which is especially applicable when discussing low level spells), extremely situational is basically the same as bad for the most part. if you could prepare 1,000 spells, then highly situational is fine. but you don't get to prepare 1,000 spells.
Extremely limited spell known? Yes, sure, the Sorcerer is concerned.
But neither Wizard, nor Druid, nor Cleric. Even Bard could afford to learn a few such spells.
There is also the case of gishes that maximize their weapon attacks instead of casting stat, hence have little use for save or suck spells.

Prepared spells? Hence back on the "situational or not" topic.
Knock is situational, aka "potentially great as soon as you want into a dungeon or castle".
Darkvision is situational, aka "potentially great when you don't have any way go stealthily travel while seeing around".
Charm Person is situational, aka "great as long as you actually think about how to use it".
Same as "Pass Without Trace" is situational: after all you don't always need to be THAT good in stealth, or even be stealthy at all.
Or Gentle Repose: you could probably never need it, but if is so happens that a friend dies and you can't revive him, you'd be glad to have this.
Or Fly: in many situations you could probably cope with rope/harpoon, climbing, jumping or whatever. Except that it would be much more slow and difficult.

If you go that way...
Hold Person is situational: many creatures you encounters are not humans.
Invisible is situational: because it uses the precious Concentration slot.
Hypnotic Pattern is situational: because you cannot harm the creatures in any way, and you risk affecting allies.
Sleep is situational: because it becomes more and more difficult to use it well since enemy HP scales fast.
Fireball is more situational than Scorching Ray: after all, it's difficult to group enough creatures to make the spell worth it.
Lightning Bolt is even more situational, because it's rarer to get more than 2 enemies aligned.
Going along, most control and offensive spells can be deemed "situational": after all, if you fail, it's just a lost slot and action, so you have to know the right spell for the right creature if you want to get a decent chance at succeeding.
In fact, you could say "it's a situational spell" for 80% of all the spells available.
Only such spells such as Bless, Polymorph, Command, Conjure Animals, Levitate, Suggestion or Enhance Ability to get a few examples are versatile enough to be put to good use in nearly every situation.

This does not prevent many people to keep them prepared, because they actually understand that it's up to them to create a situation where they can best use their chosen spells.

So, as I said, you have every right to not like these spells, or not be confident enough to use them well in a variety of situations. But it's just your personal experience and taste. These are good spells, and many other players are capable enough to use them in a wide enough variety of situations to make them worth it.

[Pinjata]

@NNescio
What if player just disagrees with DMs ruling? "Nope, this does not work on my PC!" Then what?

Also in this case BBEG sees enemies for the first time. There is no way for him to know ANYTHING about players.

This spell seems useless.

[Battlebooze]

@NNescio
What if player just disagrees with DMs ruling? "Nope, this does not work on my PC!" Then what?

Also in this case BBEG sees enemies for the first time. There is no way for him to know ANYTHING about players.

This spell seems useless.

No no, it's not useless.

Ultimate mass suggestion for the BBEG to use on players.

"I'm afraid you haven't planned this out well enough. Until you all agree, discuss among yourselves which of you deserve the best bits of my treasure."

Then slink away... This might take a while.

[SharkForce]

Extremely limited spell known? Yes, sure, the Sorcerer is concerned.
But neither Wizard, nor Druid, nor Cleric. Even Bard could afford to learn a few such spells.
There is also the case of gishes that maximize their weapon attacks instead of casting stat, hence have little use for save or suck spells.

Prepared spells? Hence back on the "situational or not" topic.
Knock is situational, aka "potentially great as soon as you want into a dungeon or castle".
Darkvision is situational, aka "potentially great when you don't have any way go stealthily travel while seeing around".
Charm Person is situational, aka "great as long as you actually think about how to use it".
Same as "Pass Without Trace" is situational: after all you don't always need to be THAT good in stealth, or even be stealthy at all.
Or Gentle Repose: you could probably never need it, but if is so happens that a friend dies and you can't revive him, you'd be glad to have this.
Or Fly: in many situations you could probably cope with rope/harpoon, climbing, jumping or whatever. Except that it would be much more slow and difficult.

If you go that way...
Hold Person is situational: many creatures you encounters are not humans.
Invisible is situational: because it uses the precious Concentration slot.
Hypnotic Pattern is situational: because you cannot harm the creatures in any way, and you risk affecting allies.
Sleep is situational: because it becomes more and more difficult to use it well since enemy HP scales fast.
Fireball is more situational than Scorching Ray: after all, it's difficult to group enough creatures to make the spell worth it.
Lightning Bolt is even more situational, because it's rarer to get more than 2 enemies aligned.
Going along, most control and offensive spells can be deemed "situational": after all, if you fail, it's just a lost slot and action, so you have to know the right spell for the right creature if you want to get a decent chance at succeeding.
In fact, you could say "it's a situational spell" for 80% of all the spells available.
Only such spells such as Bless, Polymorph, Command, Conjure Animals, Levitate, Suggestion or Enhance Ability to get a few examples are versatile enough to be put to good use in nearly every situation.

This does not prevent many people to keep them prepared, because they actually understand that it's up to them to create a situation where they can best use their chosen spells.

So, as I said, you have every right to not like these spells, or not be confident enough to use them well in a variety of situations. But it's just your personal experience and taste. These are good spells, and many other players are capable enough to use them in a wide enough variety of situations to make them worth it.

prepared spells are fairly limited for everyone. they're absolutely brutal for some classes, but there is nobody who couldn't greatly benefit from a substantially increased number of spells prepared (or known, for those that don't prepare).

and yes, everything is situational to some extent. the problem is when you have spells that are only good in rare situations, vs being able to have spells that are good in common situations. for example, "i want to deal damage to a group of creatures" is quite a common need for an adventurer. "i want to pick a lock and i don't care about stealth and i can't just smash the door in or rely on an ally for some reason" is *not* a particularly common need for an adventurer.

there is certainly room for more than the top 27 most useful spells for a level 20 wizard. the problem is that these spells are not even top 50, and might not even reach top 100. at some point, it comes down to "am i going to pay to know a spell i will probably want to use so rarely that the one time i want to use it, i won't even have it prepared anyways, or would i rather have the material components for an extra planar binding spell which i will be able to make use of easily?"

a spell that is only interesting because when all you have is a hammer everything starts looking like a nail is not a great spell, unless you literally only have that choice (which, again, is why darkvision being used by a shadow monk sounds pretty reasonable; the shadow monk couldn't use that spell known to be able to inflict a different useful status effect, or target another save, or get through a tricky situation. it's darkvision whether you want it or not). just to give an example of spells you might want on a level 20 wizard (20 spells prepared, 2 must be level 3)...

feather fall (can save the entire party in a bad situation that is fairly common; falling)
disguise self (a myriad of uses, especially when combined with other spells... one of the big ones is not looking like a wizard, which is to say, not looking like a target)
mage armour (level 20 wizards don't get armour proficiency, so this is a pretty big boost)
shield (an excellent surivability tool, especially when it can be used at-will)
mirror image (non-concentration, protects against a lot of things you really don't want to happen to you)
misty step (escape, getting into hard-to-reach places, etc)
phantasmal force (your options for targeting int saves are extremely limited, and yet they are one of the weakest saves for many monsters)
web (good AoE CC, low cost, inflicts a fairly unpleasant condition and costs an action to escape even for strong creatures that might be able to break free)
counterspell (it protects against the most dangerous kind of enemy)
fear (will save AoE fear effect that can potentially only have one save)
fireball (frankly this is the best AoE damage option in the game against anything that isn't immune to fire)
hypnotic pattern (for situations where fear isn't your ideal will save targeting spell)
major image (if it weren't for this, you'd want silent image)
stinking cloud (your con save AoE crowd control)
arcane eye (the difference between a prepared wizard and an unprepared wizard is widely known)
banishment (your charisma save crowd control)
greater invisibility (a strong combat buff against enemies that can't ignore invisibility)
animate objects (probably the best damage boosting spell in a wizard's arsenal... if not this, then flaming sphere for the lower resource cost)
bigby's hand (among the many things it can do, there are very few melee enemies that can even approach you with this spell active and configured correctly)
wall of force (it offers no saving throw and makes it easy to split many big fights into two easy fights)
globe of invulnerability (if it wasn't a minimum level 6 slot, you could probably ignore counterspell's lower level and rely on this)
mass suggestion (much like globe of invulnerability, while you already have "AoE will save crowd control that relies on charm status to be effective" covered, the level 6 minimum slot makes this something you can't use in every situation. plus of course, this can give you minions, potentially for up to a year).
etherealness (this can get you in or out of so many situations. with your party. through obstacles. also, as if you can fly)
forcecage (it's wall of force's non-concentration older and hotter sister)
antipathy/sympathy (the things you can do with this are truly amazing)
wish/true polymorph/shapechange/foresight (all are desirable, but since you don't have more than one level 9 slot there isn't much point in preparing all of them, so pick one).

so that's 26 right there, without considering specific needs based on subtype or campaign (an illusionist may want at-will silent image, a necromancer might want vampiric grasp and will definitely want animate dead, and so on). so you have one left.

in addition to those, it would be nice to have:

fog cloud (provides a lot of cover)
enlarge/reduce (surprisingly versatile, changing the size of things is quite powerful. among other things, it can also open many doors, and without making a very loud noise to boot)
invisibility (a good scouting tool)
shatter (infrequently resisted damage type, useful for object destruction, and in the event your enemy has good dex but poor con it gives you an AoE option that is likely to work)
blink (another layer of defense that doesn't use concentration)
bestow curse (with a generous DM, this can do all kinds of things. literally, i mean... this spell can basically do whatever your DM agrees it can do).
glyph of warding (the ability to set up traps is not inconsequential)
fire shield (resistance to common damage types, motivation for enemies to not attack, no concentration)
hallucinatory terrain (the shenanigans you can pull with this spell are truly remarkable)
mordenkainen's faithful hound (guess who isn't a creature and can hang out in web spells and similar without difficulty?)
magic circle (an important part of planar binding usage)
geas (depending on certain factors, like alignment and how your DM interprets the part about the target being compelled to do a task)
hold monster (it isn't AoE with significant cost making it less valuable than fear or hypnotic pattern, but if it works, the damage of your party goes through the roof against the targets of this spell)
planar binding (it isn't an every day spell, but you don't want to go without this spell indefinitely)
seeming (like disguise self, but for the entire party)
sunbeam (AoE blind, damage, and can just crush many undead. hilarious against liches).
true seeing (it works against magical darkness, illusions, etc... if there weren't so many more necessary spells, this spell would be a necessary spell)
finger of death (if evil, this spell gives you potentially infinite, through practically finite, minions).
teleport (if it was lower level, it might be on the "must have" list).


and then there are spells that you probably grabbed along the way, because they were nice to have at one point but now you have better options; sleep, tasha's hideous laughter, levitate, conjure minor elementals, polymorph, etc, plus the lower level versions of spells that were good when you first got access like hold person and suggestion (which became less interesting once mass suggestion came on the scene). and, you want to get most of the ritual options if you can, as well as some spells you don't necessarily want prepared while adventuring but which you do want on your list and you still had to learn them somehow also (like leomund's secret chest, clone, fabricate, wall of stone (for building stuff), and so forth).

*and* this isn't touching on spells from, say, elemental evil player's guide (which offers an AoE strength-save spell, for example). plus any possible spells you researched yourself.

plus, this wizard has barely any damage options that aren't cantrips. if you'd like to be able to offer some blasting in addition to crowd control, you'll probably want to add another 5-10 spells onto the "must-have" list.

if suggestion is basically just a persuasion check, you have a pretty damn awful spell. it doesn't work on a variety of enemies (if they're immune to charm), it still isn't guaranteed success by any means (they get a save), it costs a precious resource (a spell known/prepared and a spell slot), and the most potential value you could get (social situations) doesn't work well because anyone worth suggesting probably has other people around to insert pointy objects into your person should you cast a spell while in their presence, which casting suggestion requires that you do.

the spell needs to have an impact that is substantially greater than a persuasion check, because it has a cost and limitations to balance that impact. if it is the same impact but far higher cost and far worse limitations, then the spell shouldn't even exist in your campaigns, because you've just made it into a trap option.