Mass Suggestion and rules lawyering- a test case

[Lt-Murgen]

Short synopsis: 12th level Halfling bard who failed his save against Mass Suggestion. Suggestion was to “leave town and never come back.” In the next two rounds, I cast fly, scooped up a downed familiar, and then healed it as I flew into the woods outside of the city. Once I was outside of the city, I tackled an ally who was also under the effect and smacked her- breaking the suggestion.

Now my DM got upset because:

1- I did not use my action to dash- I cast a spell instead. I argued that I was not told to “Flee as fast as possible.” And that using a fly spell to leave an area with an invisible spellcaster was reasonable to avoid being attacked.

2- I used an action to pick up a familiar on my way out (on the next round). Same argument- I was leaving and was not told to “Do everything possible to flee.”

3- I only went to the very edge of the forest, literally just past the sign that denoted the city. My argument was “I fulfilled that entirely reasonable suggestion to flee.”

4- I acted to break an ally out of their suggestion. I argued “As a bard who has cast many suggestion spells, I can recognize the symptoms in my ally, even if I believe I wasn’t affected.” Also, there is nothing in the spell description that says you don’t recognize that you were affected by a spell.

So my question is, did I overstep by stretching the limits of the spell, or was what I did reasonable considering my character’s innate manipulative nature as a bard and knowledge of the spell’s workings.

[sophontteks]

Short synopsis: 12th level Halfling bard who failed his save against Mass Suggestion. Suggestion was to “leave town and never come back.” In the next two rounds, I cast fly, scooped up a downed familiar, and then healed it as I flew into the woods outside of the city. Once I was outside of the city, I tackled an ally who was also under the effect and smacked her- breaking the suggestion.

Now my DM got upset because:

1- I did not use my action to dash- I cast a spell instead. I argued that I was not told to “Flee as fast as possible.” And that using a fly spell to leave an area with an invisible spellcaster was reasonable to avoid being attacked.

2- I used an action to pick up a familiar on my way out (on the next round). Same argument- I was leaving and was not told to “Do everything possible to flee.”

3- I only went to the very edge of the forest, literally just past the sign that denoted the city. My argument was “I fulfilled that entirely reasonable suggestion to flee.”

4- I acted to break an ally out of their suggestion. I argued “As a bard who has cast many suggestion spells, I can recognize the symptoms in my ally, even if I believe I wasn’t affected.” Also, there is nothing in the spell description that says you don’t recognize that you were affected by a spell.

So my question is, did I overstep by stretching the limits of the spell, or was what I did reasonable considering my character’s innate manipulative nature as a bard and knowledge of the spell’s workings.
You followed the suggestion properly except 4, which was pretty metagamey without additional context. Your argument doesn't stand up well in its own, and hitting an ally doesn't break suggestion anyway. It says "If you or any of your companions damage the target." You in this case is the caster, and you are not the caster's companion.

[Zanthy1]

All are fair and reasonable except maybe number 4. To me that seems metagamey (the bad kind) where you the player know they are under the affect but your character wouldn't. Yes as a bard you may be familiar with the spell, but if you are leaving town and a party member is also leaving, that doesn't spell suspicion to me, if anything the rest of your party who stayed behind are the ones that would be suspect for being under an imprisonment spell or something.

[Deox]

1- I did not use my action to dash- I cast a spell instead. I argued that I was not told to “Flee as fast as possible.” And that using a fly spell to leave an area with an invisible spellcaster was reasonable to avoid being attacked.

Reasonable reaction to a reasonable suggestion. In no way were your actions out of line, as flying as a means of travel (as well as being invisible) would protect you from any potential threats on your way out.



2- I used an action to pick up a familiar on my way out (on the next round). Same argument- I was leaving and was not told to “Do everything possible to flee.”

Reasonable reaction. You were grabbing a companion, ensuring it survives while escaping.



3- I only went to the very edge of the forest, literally just past the sign that denoted the city. My argument was “I fulfilled that entirely reasonable suggestion to flee.”

Reasonable reaction, if the suggested action was simply to leave.



4- I acted to break an ally out of their suggestion. I argued “As a bard who has cast many suggestion spells, I can recognize the symptoms in my ally, even if I believe I wasn’t affected.” Also, there is nothing in the spell description that says you don’t recognize that you were affected by a spell.


Iffy. Unsure one way or the other without more information. Based on what was provided, seems a bit 'gamey'.

[CorporateSlave]

You followed the suggestion properly except 4, which was pretty metagamey without additional context. Your argument doesn't stand up well in its own, and hitting an ally doesn't break suggestion anyway. It says "If you or any of your companions damage the target." You in this case is the caster, and you are not the caster's companion.

4 may be sort of meta-gamey, but ultimately its on the DM that allowed your "smack" to snap them out of it, when as sophontteks notes above that wouldn't work anyway per the spell description. Given that as a Bard with experience with the spell, your character ought to have known it wouldn't work so just slapping a fellow who seems to be behaving out of character might be reasonable. Still, chances are if it seemed like a good idea to your PC to leave town, they would probably think any other PC doing the same was just making the smart move.

Speaking of questionable DM calls, I hope the actual wording of the suggestion wasn't just "leave town and never come back," as that's sort of a command, and not really a suggestion. Of course, I find that the Suggestion spell, despite the description, is often worded as a command and not a reasonable suggestion as it should be. This may seem like semantics to some, but if you're going to bother to ask (per the spell description) what they PC (or NPC I suppose) are actually saying, why aren't you demanding the wording fit said spell description? Otherwise why not just ask the player what they want the target to do? And in that case, why not just call the smegging spell "Arcane Command" or something?

Regarding the other points, if the words were to "leave town," casting a spell and picking up a downed familiar (I assume your DM has home-brewed that familiars leave a body behind, counter to the spell description?) certainly could make sense, reasonably one would stop to collect their belongings if leaving town, rather than fleeing town. One can cast a spell and move their walk speed towards city limits easily enough in the meantime.

"This place is way too dangerous, you all should leave town as fast as possible and never come back!" That's a Suggestion I could live with, and sounds like what the DM "meant to say." It would sound reasonable to anyone failing their save, and surely they would Dash out of town and never* come back. *for 8 hours, or sooner if the mage drops Concentration of course.

[Rukelnikov]

Points 1 and 2 are perfectly reasonable. However:

3- Your character WANTS to leave town and never come back, why would he set camp on the legal limits of the town?

4- A spell doesn't do stuff it doesn't says. You are unaware you are under a Suggestion spell, compare with Friends. You also don't automatically know your friend is under Suggestion either.

[Keravath]

Most of your actions are within the realm of possibility of the suggestion.

"Leave town and never come back" doesn't say how quickly you have to do it. Casting fly, grabbing your familiar and then moving away are all reasonable.

Stopping at the city limits is also reasonable since all you had to do was leave town. Of course, you can't re-enter until the suggestion ends since you are supposed to "never come back" .. which actually begs the question of why you would wait around if you are never going back ... might as well keep going ... so this too is a bit questionable.

However, the last part about hitting your team mate doesn't work at all. Suggestion is not one of those spells ended by taking any damage. It requires the damage to be dealt by the caster and their allies ONLY. You hitting your party member is only likely to result in them hitting you back or at least ask you why you are hitting them.

Also, the suggestion is worded in a way to make the action seem REASONABLE. This would be reasonable for all affected. So the entire idea that you could recognize a party member under a suggestion doesn't make sense since you have a reasonable motivation to leave town then it isn't difficult to imagine that your team mate also has the same reason and you are leaving together. So your entire meta-gamey reasoning for attacking your team mate IS not reasonable in the circumstances.

The wording in mass suggestion is the following:
"If you or any of your companions damage a creature affected by this spell, the spell ends for that creature."
You or any of your companions refers to the CASTER of the spell. Unless the CASTER was a companion of yours which is unlikely then hitting your team mates won't change anything.

Finally, it is quite possible that you won't be going back to that town for a LONG time. Mass suggestion differs from suggestion .. it is not concentration, the base duration is 24 hours, when upcast this goes to 10 days, 30 days and a year and a day for levels 7, 8 and 9. Depending on the level of the caster, you may not be going back to that town for a VERY long time.

[Segev]

It would actually be very hard to word a suggestion such that taking time to keep yourself safe from perceived threat and rescuing allies and companions that take only a couple extra rounds to grab is not a reasonable obedience to said suggestion. It isn't fear and doesn't cause a Fear Effect. Your rational processes function in all ways save ability to perceive alternatives to the suggestion as worth considering.

As others have said, smacking your ally wouldn't work. However, if you can make the check (whatever it is in 5e; in 3e, it was a Sense Motive check) to detect that your ally is under a mental compulsion, nothing about being under the same spell effect says you can't recognize and act on that. You just utterly fail to note the beam in your own eye as you spot the mote in theirs. I think, given what hte spell does and does not say, that even if you were told and believed you were under the influence of a suggestion, you'd argue that, sure, maybe you're affected, but that doesn't mean it isn't a good idea anyway.

For example, if a crowd of angry (but scared) villagers are working themselves up to attack a great wyrm dragon, and a number of them are only even THERE because the rest of the mob makes them as afraid of looking like cowards as they are of fighting the dragon, and the dragon uses mass suggestion to suggest that the crowd doesn't want to die fruitlessly fighting so obviously superior a foe, and should just leave, grateful the dragon doesn't chase them down individually....

Then, even if some of the less-eager MAKE their saves, they're likely to flee when everyone else does. And no matter whether you tell somebody who made his save or somebody who failed it that the dragon used mass suggestion to convince them to back down and not provoke it to kill them, both would reasonably say, "Okay, sure. But NOT ATTACKING THE DRAGON still sounds like a great idea to me!"

When you're whammied by the suggestion, whatever you were influenced to believe or do sounds exactly that reasonable: it doesn't matter if magic was behind it; you still think it would seem like a good idea even if you weren't whammied, so you're going to stick with that.

[Keravath]

"This place is way too dangerous, you all should leave town as fast as possible and never come back!" That's a Suggestion I could live with, and sounds like what the DM "meant to say." It would sound reasonable to anyone failing their save, and surely they would Dash out of town and never* come back. *for 8 hours, or sooner if the mage drops Concentration of course.

This was MASS Suggestion. No concentration. Base duration 24 hours going to 10 days, 30 days and a year and a day when upcast at 7th, 8th or 9th respectively. Much better than suggestion which isn't unexpected considering that it is a 6th level spell.

[Coffee_Dragon]

My test would be, would the players approve if the DM had NPCs act this way in response to a PC-cast Suggestion?

I can definitely see all of them getting poo-pooed, but primarily 2 and 4.

[CorporateSlave]

This was MASS Suggestion. No concentration. Base duration 24 hours going to 10 days, 30 days and a year and a day when upcast at 7th, 8th or 9th respectively. Much better than suggestion which isn't unexpected considering that it is a 6th level spell.

Ah, indeed! Although it would still eventually wear off making "never come back" more like "don't come back for quite some time."

I still stick by my guns though that it is an entirely inadequately worded "suggestion" as the OP wrote it. In fact, thinking about it a bit further, as a DM if a PC tried to do the exact thing to a group of NPC's, I might well rule that "leave town and never come back" won't work, because "never come back" really isn't an action or course of action, it is forbidding a given action or course of action (and in this case coupled with another course of action..."leave town"). I would probably allow the first part to work, but the spell would end once they've left town.

Again, semantics, but the spell description is what it is, and it seems to me both RAW and RAI this spell is meant to gently compel some creature(s) to do something, not to not do something. Of course, this is easily worked around by simply saying something more like, "This place is way too dangerous, you should flee the town immediately and keep going until you're 100 miles away!" Maybe some would think this is nit-picky, but frankly it can be a devastatingly powerful spell anyway, I don't think careful wording is too much to ask since it specifies it in the spell description to begin with.

[opaopajr]

My test would be, would the players approve if the DM had NPCs act this way in response to a PC-cast Suggestion?

I can definitely see all of them getting poo-pooed, but primarily 2 and 4.

That's a solid metric to apply. The setting's context should be the milieu, not the metagame. If turn about is unfair play, then it asks the players "why is there a difference?" :smallsmile:
The GM is ideally neutral arbiter, yet a spotlight focus fan of the PCs. In turn players are asked to play a role, to be "in character," so their choices do not divest the setting of its suspension of disbelief -- for themselves and others at the table. It's a courtesy thing.

:smallsmile: 'Winning' means nothing since the stakes are imaginary, but the magic of shared suspended belief is a magical, ephemeral goal worthwhile unto itself.

[DrowPiratRobrts]

1 & 2 are for sure fine imo, and I'd say that's fair interpretation if I cast the same spell on NPCs and my DM responded that way.

3 is interesting. Did some of your party succeed the save, and thus not have to leave the town? If so, it's reasonable that you would want to leave the city but wait for them to join you. If you and any important NPCs with you failed the save, I'd say there's no real reason for you to stop.

4 isn't good as others have noted. It's not just that it shouldn't break the spell. It's also that you definitely shouldn't recognize that you or your friend is under a spell in this situation (at least by most DM rulings I'd wager). The issue isn't that "nothing in Suggestion says you don't recognize it." For enchantment spells you need something in the spell that tells you when you do recognize the spell was cast on you. For spells affecting fellow party members a case could be made under certain circumstances that you suspect they've been enchanted, but even then I think most DMs would rightly require some study of the enchanted companion's behavior as well as a good Arcana check to narrow it down to one specific spell. All in all, it doesn't matter that you know the spell.

Imagine if you cast suggestion to sow distrust between two enemies while you were talking to them out of combat. What if the DM said, "The one you didn't target knows Suggestion so she turns to her ally and tells them they've been enchanted with the Suggestion spell." Note that this still wouldn't break the spell for the affected NPC, but it's still bad DMing because there's not necessarily an indication that the affected NPC isn't just having a change of heart or genuinely calling something into question because the PC said something like, "Your friend is holding out on you. Don't trust her."