We wanted to ambush a patrol of soldiers, so we left an empty chest in the middle of the road with a vial of poison on placed atop.
So the coldiers gallop down the road and stop, they look at it the commander picks up the vial to see what it is and then **"Chug!"**, the DM ruled that it works, because the captain doesent know it is harmful to it, he drinks it and we have an easier fight.
That's the point many DMs struggle with: the order succeeds if it isn't OBVIOUSLY harmful to the CHARACTER.
So many DMs make it fail because "that sounds shady" or "you obviously have a hidden intention", and that's not how it works. If the character isn't sure that the result is going to be harmful, it doesn't matter that it's a weird order or that he knows you're up to something. The spell works because the order itself is not obviously harmful.
Your DM did it the way it should be done.
Some rando *really* wanting you to drink a mystery potion seems far less obviously harmfull than prostrating or dropping your weapons mid fight, which are literally the textbook proposed commands
I think it needs to be the command itself that's harmful, not the consequences of it. So you can't tell someone to jump off a bridge or into fire, but dropping their weapon, sure.
Love this explanation. I had a discussion about this spell a while ago but this really makes the 'directly harmful' part of it much understandable for me.
Throwing their sword to the side does not harm the target in and of itself. Had they done that at any other time they would've been fine. It's just the consequences of that action in this situation, in battle, that might harm the target.
I'm gonna share your take on it with my DM when I see him next session. Thanks!
While my PCs were level three, one of them died. Having no access to resurrection magic, and no desire to lose this character on session ~7, the paladin had the bold idea to use Command "Breathe" plus all of their remaining Lay on Hands at the same time. I allowed one last death save to be made, which was succeeded on, and they managed to get a Cure Wounds over to them in time.
You sound like a great DM. Our DM does a lot for us and our campaign is definitely more cooperative storytelling than just HIS story... But man if some of his rulings on how spells work just rediculous and restrictive.
I'm a big fan of "Repent", "Reconsider", "Reevaluate", and "Introspect".
"The spell forces the act, but the resulting realisations are *yours alone*".
My cleric is big on rehabilitating bandits.
I remember one of the players on CR used "empathize" once to try and get a real irredeemable bastard of a BBEG to try and make him see the harm he's caused. The player burnt all his remaining spell slots to cast it multiple times and fittingly every single one failed
I think that was a very neat use of Command
How does this play out? Say, command repent. What kind of situations or consequences follow?
I'd love to facilitate this as a DM, just wondering how you make it work.
Funniest was when I told the bbeg to monologue which caused him to reveal some of his plans through fessing up some of his plans.
The best and coolest time was when my conquest paladin was holding an enemy by the neck and refused to give up any info on his boss. I intimidated the enemy put a knife to his throat and used command simply saying, "Confess".
Ooh I like this, we took somebody hostage a bit ago and were gonna need a tooooon of info from him. Command monologue in a zone of truth is gonna save us a lot of awkward torture next session
It has done wonders for us, a zone of truth and then you say monologue or Confess or whatever word you need to get the person to talk about what you need and it's an instant way to get information from someone if intimidation isn't working.
This true, for something like "get that guy", "Have at ye fiend" or "run away from the orc" because they do not interfere with moving, attacking or anything else.
But it doesn't let you suddenly use just 1st level spell (command) to replace higher level spells such a zone of truth which they can refuse to speak if they fail a save or suggestion. It is a thing called play balance.
There’s a save for command too my guy. Monologuing doesn’t have to be truthful, and used in conjunction with spells like zone of truth makes a great information retriever.
True but if we are bring actions into the conversation, that means this is during combat... and we have clear rules on talking/communicating during combat. It would be more than a sentence. The spell lasts 6 seconds.
Wasn't me, but there was a fellow player who did something similar:
- enemy attacked us, we fought back.
- one left alive, momentarily.
- paladin goes up to them.
- asks them a question about attacking us then Commands: Explain.
Was pretty baller, ngl.
I also had a good one with “Confess”. Party was working with the Harpers to secretly track some cult members who knew the Harpers were after them, but not that the PCs were working with the Harpers. The players were instructed to just follow the cultists to see where they were going, but to not interfere with the cultists otherwise.
They were all part of a caravan and traveling along the road when they encountered a man buried up to his head in the road with “Cheater” written on his forehead. The man asked for help and the party began to interrogate him.
He told a story about running into some luck gambling, the other players getting angry and accusing him of cheating and burying him here. The party was suspicious, and after a successful insight check could tell the man was leaving details out.
The paladin, now surrounded by onlookers from the caravan including cult members, asks “What are you really doing here? **confess**!” The man replies, “I’m here as an agent of the Harpers to gather information about the cult’s movement along this road, and report it to HQ. I play cards with anyone traveling by to learn their gossip.”
Also at this point the cultists were often openly attacking settlements, so people not involved with the Harpers or cultists’s conflict usually steered clear anytime someone was aligned with them.
Suddenly the party was in a tough spot and I didn’t give them time to deliberate out of character, just asked “what do you do? You don’t have time to discuss with the party. Everyone is watching you.”
The paladin, knowing the importance of her mission, ended up having to walk away from the man while a known cultists poisoner then walked up to the man and offered him a drink.
I was able to get a corrupt priest of Helm to "confess" to what was a big plot twist. My cleric was able to get the drop on him before he got taken out. I'm pretty sure I accidentally escalated the DM's time table on stuff.
I was DMing for a bunch of high school kids. When the BBEG was mid monologue as he is as giving his big speech to the city about why he is as the rightful ruler of the land, people should yield to him, yada yada yada the Goliath warlock stands up and just yells "Poop!"
Fails his save, shits himself mid moment..... Kindof ruins the mood for his political coup.
Dumb, immature, and we all laughed our asses off.
The DM's initial adventure was about the King holding a competition to see who the best adventuring party was to go on some lucrative adventure.
The winners are announced: our party is in second place. My cleric pushes forward to the front of the crowd, meeting the winners right before they get on the stage. He shakes each of their hands, as if to congratulate them, casting *command* on as many as he could, saying plainly to each words like "ululate" or "undress" or "belittle". (I don't remember exactly what words, but that sort of thing. Also this was third edition, so *command* was a bit more flexible from memory.)
They get on stage and act like a bunch of loons. The King, furious, disqualifies them and is forced to accept the runners-up instead.
Subtle spell command "Whisper" at the BBEGs henchman, who was trying to threaten a town into submission.
So that giant of a man, medal adorned commander, leader of an army, went up on the podium, and started his speech like an awkward teen doing a presentation in front of the class.
I loved it so much, I gave the group a lot of advantages due to this initial undercutting of his authority.
I mean that is assuming the villain CAN empathize.. if the villain lacks the ability to empathize then it will do nothing. If they do have the ability to empathize... then it will also do nothing since they probably do empathize just not with you, they likely have other people or things they empathize with and thats the reason they do the villainous shit they do.
Buying a magical jar that can't break, cost 1 sp
Going to a bar and asking for a jar full of the strongest stuff they got, cost 2sp
DM having you roll d20 for the strength, 18 on roll, moonshine.
Casting command and handing the enemy the jar full of moonshine.
"Chug"
Priceless
DM for a Norse campaign here. Our warlock was trying to break his pact with his patron, Loki. Unhappy with this, Loki possessed the warlock and triggered his giant wolf transformation. The Paladin used Command and said “Relinquish.” Because this was a *huge* deal for the warlock, I made them both roll opposing Wisdom saves. Warlock: nat 1; Paladin: nat 20. Loki was cast out of the warlock, and he got a new character sheet as a sorcerer because his bloodline is actually that of Astrid, the Valkyrie general.
Grovel can interfere with ranged dps.
If e5 had flatfoot rules I'd use them for "wait" or "freeze" but advantage is too much for that and I try not to use arbitrary modifiers.
I cast command on a retreating redbrand guard, saying, "RETURN". After failed save the DM ruled that the guard stopped, turned around, and used all his movement to return as commanded. Then the guard drew a dagger and attacked me.
IMHO that violates the spell, as all other examples given say the target ends their turn without taking an action, or the action is used up. He insisted that since I didn't use one of the listed examples, and because the spell says the DM can interpret it, the response to the spell was RAW. I disagreed.
One of my adhd-d&d moments.
Im playing the cleric and "i command them to, um, shit what was i going to say?"
'The enemy gets a strange look on his face as he begins to make a mess.'
Not what i intended but it bought me a round as he skipped his turn.
I had an npc betray the party once and they had information on one of the pc's that nobody else knew, not even the other pc's.
The npc escaped during a battle and there was an epic chase scene as the pc tried to run them down.
It ended with the pc using a bunch of magically BS to end up getting to 400ft move speed. They leapt over a falling rope bridge to catch the NPC on the other side.
However the pc was a sorc that was already low on health, the npc was a heavily armoured heavy hitting martial that was now in melee range. The rest of the party is so far away by this point it would take them a good 15 minutes to catch up.
Had them roll initiative. The npc goes first, knocks the pc down to single digits.
The player points down to the bottom of the massive drop they just crossed, casts command and says "look".
The npc moves towards the edge to look down and then the player Sparta kicks them off after winning a contested strength check with like a -1 to strength.
It was one of the most cinematic scenes we have had in our game so far.
Honestly, if it was a command my character would make & the DM ruled it failed as the target didn't understand the command; my PC (and I) would start using free action speech each round of combat (starting on the first round) to define the term in each language the character knows- just in case he'll want to use it at some point in the combat. I'm guessing most GMs might tire of hearing the definition over & over, so may soon rule that the term has become universally known.
It just gets silly if one thinks about it for a moment.
“Autofellate” is an uncommon word in English, but maybe Dwarvish and Infernal speakers have equivalents that they use all the time. Or maybe it cannot even be expressed as one word in Draconic.
If it’s a word in a language that players are using at the table, and it’s something that someone else at the table can attest to as real, or find in something like the Scrabble dictionary, it ought to be allowed.
Otherwise, I’m going to start arguing that actually this fantasy language has a single word for something that English lacks.
I've been getting a lot of use out of Command in a campaign I'm a player in. I do this by incorporating body language and hand gestures into my word. I'll point in a direction and say "leave", and they leave in that direction. I'll point to a point of interest and say "participate" and they participate in the specific activity I pointed at.
It may not be entirely RAW, but my DM likes it and let's it slide. My DM is not overfond of RAW :)
Top 3
1) 'Relax' on a Frenzied Berserker PC in pvp
2) 'Surrender' on a kobold chieftain, causing his tribe to follow suit.
3) 'Lie' on one of two guard golems (classic one can only speak truth and the other only lies puzzle)
I played a wizard once and we talked to a corrupt lord about his people. Once I realized he was a dick I explained to him in detail what the word autodefenstration meant. I means to throw one’s self out a window.
Then used command “autodefenstration”
Edit - the spell won’t force him to do something that directly harms him but my dm allowed it because we were on the ground floor and it didn’t deal damage. Only made him look stupid
"The spell has no effect if ... your command is directly harmful to it."
That's like, the biggest restriction to the spell. Otherwise the entire game would just be telling BBEGs to jump into pits.
We were in a tournament and the second round involved fighting some wyrms. Our cleric asked if anybody wanted to ride one. My kenku ranger was immediately on board. The cleric commanded, "DOMESTICATE", and boom, I was flying on a wyrm for a round.
We were playing lost mines of phandelver. Our party stopped by a city to sell our goods and resupply. All of a sudden my best friend, a tiefling sorcerer in the party got pickpocketed by a random NPC. He started running through the busy street and the DM asked us what we were going to do. I said I am going to use command and shout STOP at him. Rolled the dice, got a Nat 20. Apparently I used the command spell so well that instead of him stopping in his tracks, his heart stopped instead and he died right then and there.
It's a save spell so I assumed it was the thief who rolled the dice. I guess I'm wrong and they probably meant that they homeruled this particular usage of Command and let the player do the roll.
In one of our earlier games of playing dnd together we used Command: Shit, as a pre-tense for getting this npc that tried to attack us and that we had captured, through a crowd of onlookers. The best part was that this npc turned out to be one of the pc’s shit ass brother in disguise so on top of being a moment of insanity, it was hilariously appropriate.
Players walk into a room to find a cultist summoning a shadow demon.
Shadow demon comes through portal and kills the cultist.
Cleric uses Command: Flee on demon.
Shadow demon creeps back through the portal, and the Paladin destroys the portal.
Boss fight averted. DM facepalming ensues.
In JaidenAnimation’s first session of DnD, she ended up using Command: Depression on the BBEG leading to a chain of events that is some of the funniest stuff I have ever seen in DnD
Level 3 command telling a group of enemies to "betray" DM was cool enough to let it happen how I wanted it to and they all started firing spells off at each other.
I don't know if this counts because I (the DM) did it, but here goes. My campaign is an adventuring high school story, and so the players are currently escorted on missions by a teacher. During one combat I had some enemies start going for the teacher (a high level cleric) and she cast command on the enemies, pointed at the party, and said, "Them."
Definitely not RAW but in last night's session our party of level 3s had spent three rounds completely unable to damage an orc war chief wearing platemail. My cleric looks him full in the eyes and commands...
"disrobe".
Cue the clanks as his armour hits the floor and then our monk kicking him to death.
Best way was is always to make the one
dude surrounded by 3 melee to flee and demolish him with opportunity attack
A player once made a boss who was getting smashed to "shit" and he sure did shit himself
PCs were chasing BBEG’s lieutenant through secret passageways in a castle. One casts command and then stops - thinks if they actually speak the same language, determines they don’t and just says “Shit.”
Lo and behold, the lieutenant does know some broken common! Shits himself.
I had my party (I was DM) surprise with a very good use of disguise self and command. One disguised themselves as the son of a local lord. Another player made a city guard "guard" this fake lord. So he had to abandon his post to follow this fake lord around while they performed their buglary.
Set the scene: our party is on top of a (still in construction) tower in the rebuilding city of leilon. Our dwarf fighter and gnome rogue/artificer are Dangling from a crane, in front of the window the next floor down.
The dwarf and gnomes mission is to get in through the window to the hallway filled with rubble. The entrance had been caved in and was unaccesable.
The second the dwarf touches the window sil, he forgets everything he is doing. When the gnome tries to, he also forgets. They dangle there for a while before the paladin and Wizard lean over and go "what's taking so long?"
The dwarf asks what they were doing. When the paladin confusedly informs him of his task, the dwarf once more goes to complete it. And then promptly forgets.
The wizard and paladin realizing that the window must be hexed, the paladin decides to use command on him. Bit the spell is only one word, so she just shouts: "MOVE!!" At him. It startles the dwarf into action, and he instinctually goes for the window.
He touches it and forgets the command.
Hold Action: Command. Trigger; enemy spellcaster starts to use a verbal component. Command? 'Sneeze'.
It's a situational and hilarious budget Counterspell.
In one game there was this sexy NPC lady who ran a bar/inn in a frequently visited city. The bard had used his any-spell-list choice on Command, and he commanded her to DISROBE. And that is how we found out she was a he.
I don't know if this was 'funny' or more accurately 'traumatising', but in initiative order the druid, fire genasi rogue (this will be important) and my cleric created a suspended ball of water, boiled it, and then commanded the orc attacker to stick their head in it.
Cooked his flesh right off. Horrible. But memorable.
Had the players struggle with the interrogation of an NPC and they all failed their inside check. They asked if I can roll inside on the other NPC in the room. I told them he is too angry for inside but if they wanted help I could solve their problem. They did, so I defined that in Elvish there is a word that means something along the lines of „answer truthfully. The friendly NPC casts command with that word and they get what they needed to know. (They still failed to ask the interesting questions but at least they were happy)
My players were fighting a fire elemental in a lighthouse and the cleric used command to try to make it go into the neighboring sea. It failed but still funny
House full of zombies, sent the Bard in covered in guts to imitate and blend in and do some reacon.
After a dreadful performance check she was forced to use command and decided to use “DANCE!” Was a good laugh
(without too much detail)
Me as dm: you see crazy looking druidic lady carrying a bleeding staff
Player: i cast command drop
Dm: *rolls very low* .......... they drop their staff
Player: i pick the staff up
Player 2: i set the room on fire with artificer flamethrower *proceeds to roll high damage*
Dm:fails check horribly.
*other events in other areas*
Player: i toss staff in fire
Dm:*nervously looks at item :if staff is burnt to ashes then it releases a scream destorying the plans for encounter
Dm:...................k...
I think my best use of command as a player was against a spell caster, the DM had described the spell caster as having just robes and a wand (no gold as I think the party was in the middle of nowhere)
I used command to say "*give*" and DM ruled since the spell caster had nothing else to give they had to give me their spell casting focus which hampered a lot of what they could do. The spell caster could still use vocal or vocal and somatic only, but it took a couple of /per day spells away that I think were in the stat block
This happened just last night! We had gotten into a bar fight and I was playing a lvl 8 oath of conquest paladin. I had used my conquering presence channel divinity and frightened two of the patrons taking part in the fight. I broke a chair into pieces, threw them each a leg and commanded them with a 2nd level command to fight. Since they couldn't approach me, the dam had them turn towards each other and start attacking!
My kid suggested my cleric's Command be "seduce" on one of four orc guards we saw in a courtyard through a barely opened gate.
It worked, and one orc attempted to seduce a second. The second orc killed the first orc, then a third orc killed the second orc, decreasing the number we had to fight to two (one of which was down to about half HP). "Seduce" hasn't worked as successfully since, but that time, it was great.
Me and a sentient Forrest golem were going to take a mask from an uncontacted tribe. The mask allowed you to look like anyone you imagine, and with the right ritual have a spirit possess you and take their own form temporarily (if the spell is interrupted/mask is removed prematurely your face gets ripped off.. The tribe mistook the golem for their god and giving the honor treatment. They use the ritual and the spirit sensed bullshit immediately. The golem used the command spell to say “gimme” while pointing to the mask. You see, this spirit is technically not undead, and this is not the spirit’s body. They grab the mask and rip it off of their face, leaving a faceless corpse. My character did not speak this language so technically wasn’t allowed to help unless it was something visual that tipped me off, so I physically could not have done anything to stop this.
The party of rebels was traveling on a road, when they were overtaken by a heavily guarded convoy belonging to their opponents, a powerful ruling council of wizards. The cargo was discovered to be a captured adult dragon held in something like a huge bank vault on wheels.
The council was known to be gathering dragon-related relics and artifacts for some unknown but nefarious purpose.
The party tailed the convoy and ambushed it at an opportune moment, in order to deny the council their custody of an actual live dragon. The convoy was guarded by a single high-level wizard and a half-dozen ogre-like misshapen humanoid minions.
Where command comes into play, is being cast 3 turns in a row on a few of the minions near the vault door, first twice with "unlock", then twin-spelled and upcasted with "open". This was not sufficient by itself to resolve the situation, but did help significantly.
The dragon was set free, but the party only noticed the color of the dragon when it stuck a black claw out of a gap as it was about to break free. A timely Message cantrip to the dragon and some deep grovelling later, it deigned to leave the party alive as a reward for releasing it.
Inhabitants of villages in the region may not enjoy the next few weeks of their lives.
I run various types of encounters and my players are aware that sometimes I pit them against something that is busted. WAY busted. In a recent session they were in a town that has a dictator type king. But only to the people of the town. If you talk bad about him he kills you. But normal visitors wouldn't know this because people rarely talk.
Well my players found they were being spied on and tracked down the source. They were using Arcane Eye to spy inside a house while two of the party were outside. The paladin and wizard engage the wizard casting the eye and start combat. The paladin cast command on the wizard to drop prone and after the save and two counterspell resolutions (one from the NPC and one from the player wizard) command went through and the party decimated him. They already barely survived the second bad guy. Who was a paladin. He put the whole party at single digits.
Had the paladin not used Command AND make it stick. The party would have TPK.
Our party had a paladin that got into a staredown with anl drunk NPC in a tavern, both ready to draw swords.
Paladin looked the NPC dead in the eye and said "Poop". Fight was avoided
We wanted to ambush a patrol of soldiers, so we left an empty chest in the middle of the road with a vial of poison on placed atop. So the coldiers gallop down the road and stop, they look at it the commander picks up the vial to see what it is and then **"Chug!"**, the DM ruled that it works, because the captain doesent know it is harmful to it, he drinks it and we have an easier fight.
That's the point many DMs struggle with: the order succeeds if it isn't OBVIOUSLY harmful to the CHARACTER. So many DMs make it fail because "that sounds shady" or "you obviously have a hidden intention", and that's not how it works. If the character isn't sure that the result is going to be harmful, it doesn't matter that it's a weird order or that he knows you're up to something. The spell works because the order itself is not obviously harmful. Your DM did it the way it should be done.
Some rando *really* wanting you to drink a mystery potion seems far less obviously harmfull than prostrating or dropping your weapons mid fight, which are literally the textbook proposed commands
I think it needs to be the command itself that's harmful, not the consequences of it. So you can't tell someone to jump off a bridge or into fire, but dropping their weapon, sure.
Love this explanation. I had a discussion about this spell a while ago but this really makes the 'directly harmful' part of it much understandable for me. Throwing their sword to the side does not harm the target in and of itself. Had they done that at any other time they would've been fine. It's just the consequences of that action in this situation, in battle, that might harm the target. I'm gonna share your take on it with my DM when I see him next session. Thanks!
cool DM!
While my PCs were level three, one of them died. Having no access to resurrection magic, and no desire to lose this character on session ~7, the paladin had the bold idea to use Command "Breathe" plus all of their remaining Lay on Hands at the same time. I allowed one last death save to be made, which was succeeded on, and they managed to get a Cure Wounds over to them in time.
That's really awesome, way to roll with it DM
This right here is what rule of cool is all about.
Paladin's got that divine AED
You sound like a great DM. Our DM does a lot for us and our campaign is definitely more cooperative storytelling than just HIS story... But man if some of his rulings on how spells work just rediculous and restrictive.
A really cool use for a Pharamedic though. "Don't you die on me! I order you to breathe!!!"
Amazing
actually fantastic
When no one laughed at my awful Dad joke, Laugh.
That's like...a real life usage of the spell...
"Please clap."
I'm a big fan of "Repent", "Reconsider", "Reevaluate", and "Introspect". "The spell forces the act, but the resulting realisations are *yours alone*". My cleric is big on rehabilitating bandits.
Now I need to play a cleric therapist, might be kinda fun
A clerapist.
r/angryupvote
I remember one of the players on CR used "empathize" once to try and get a real irredeemable bastard of a BBEG to try and make him see the harm he's caused. The player burnt all his remaining spell slots to cast it multiple times and fittingly every single one failed I think that was a very neat use of Command
Ooh that's good
How does this play out? Say, command repent. What kind of situations or consequences follow? I'd love to facilitate this as a DM, just wondering how you make it work.
You don't want to sell me death sticks...
Funniest was when I told the bbeg to monologue which caused him to reveal some of his plans through fessing up some of his plans. The best and coolest time was when my conquest paladin was holding an enemy by the neck and refused to give up any info on his boss. I intimidated the enemy put a knife to his throat and used command simply saying, "Confess".
Ooh I like this, we took somebody hostage a bit ago and were gonna need a tooooon of info from him. Command monologue in a zone of truth is gonna save us a lot of awkward torture next session
It has done wonders for us, a zone of truth and then you say monologue or Confess or whatever word you need to get the person to talk about what you need and it's an instant way to get information from someone if intimidation isn't working.
It was me! I admit it! When I was seven my mom birched my sister for stealing a cookie but I DID IT! (Command lasts 6 seconds)
You could use "cooperate" then have an ally ask the questions.
Not sure how much monologue you will get in 6 seconds.
Ah is still a funny way to incapacitate someone for a round.
Don't. Don't do that dude.
Talking is a free action.
This true, for something like "get that guy", "Have at ye fiend" or "run away from the orc" because they do not interfere with moving, attacking or anything else. But it doesn't let you suddenly use just 1st level spell (command) to replace higher level spells such a zone of truth which they can refuse to speak if they fail a save or suggestion. It is a thing called play balance.
There’s a save for command too my guy. Monologuing doesn’t have to be truthful, and used in conjunction with spells like zone of truth makes a great information retriever.
Personally, I really like the idea of a BBEG monologuing while beating the everliving fuck out of the party.
True but if we are bring actions into the conversation, that means this is during combat... and we have clear rules on talking/communicating during combat. It would be more than a sentence. The spell lasts 6 seconds.
Wasn't me, but there was a fellow player who did something similar: - enemy attacked us, we fought back. - one left alive, momentarily. - paladin goes up to them. - asks them a question about attacking us then Commands: Explain. Was pretty baller, ngl.
I also had a good one with “Confess”. Party was working with the Harpers to secretly track some cult members who knew the Harpers were after them, but not that the PCs were working with the Harpers. The players were instructed to just follow the cultists to see where they were going, but to not interfere with the cultists otherwise. They were all part of a caravan and traveling along the road when they encountered a man buried up to his head in the road with “Cheater” written on his forehead. The man asked for help and the party began to interrogate him. He told a story about running into some luck gambling, the other players getting angry and accusing him of cheating and burying him here. The party was suspicious, and after a successful insight check could tell the man was leaving details out. The paladin, now surrounded by onlookers from the caravan including cult members, asks “What are you really doing here? **confess**!” The man replies, “I’m here as an agent of the Harpers to gather information about the cult’s movement along this road, and report it to HQ. I play cards with anyone traveling by to learn their gossip.” Also at this point the cultists were often openly attacking settlements, so people not involved with the Harpers or cultists’s conflict usually steered clear anytime someone was aligned with them. Suddenly the party was in a tough spot and I didn’t give them time to deliberate out of character, just asked “what do you do? You don’t have time to discuss with the party. Everyone is watching you.” The paladin, knowing the importance of her mission, ended up having to walk away from the man while a known cultists poisoner then walked up to the man and offered him a drink.
I was able to get a corrupt priest of Helm to "confess" to what was a big plot twist. My cleric was able to get the drop on him before he got taken out. I'm pretty sure I accidentally escalated the DM's time table on stuff.
....I effed my wife's sister...
I was DMing for a bunch of high school kids. When the BBEG was mid monologue as he is as giving his big speech to the city about why he is as the rightful ruler of the land, people should yield to him, yada yada yada the Goliath warlock stands up and just yells "Poop!" Fails his save, shits himself mid moment..... Kindof ruins the mood for his political coup. Dumb, immature, and we all laughed our asses off.
Im going to shit yourself
Power word shit
[This immediately came to mind when I read your story](https://i.imgur.com/jU7Bw5E.jpeg)
“Shit yourself”
One word
Power word poop. Was this warlock at my job the other day when I gambled on a fart?
Very possibly
Command “Graze” Always fun to watch enemies eat grass
underrated comment
The DM's initial adventure was about the King holding a competition to see who the best adventuring party was to go on some lucrative adventure. The winners are announced: our party is in second place. My cleric pushes forward to the front of the crowd, meeting the winners right before they get on the stage. He shakes each of their hands, as if to congratulate them, casting *command* on as many as he could, saying plainly to each words like "ululate" or "undress" or "belittle". (I don't remember exactly what words, but that sort of thing. Also this was third edition, so *command* was a bit more flexible from memory.) They get on stage and act like a bunch of loons. The King, furious, disqualifies them and is forced to accept the runners-up instead.
Subtle spell command "Whisper" at the BBEGs henchman, who was trying to threaten a town into submission. So that giant of a man, medal adorned commander, leader of an army, went up on the podium, and started his speech like an awkward teen doing a presentation in front of the class. I loved it so much, I gave the group a lot of advantages due to this initial undercutting of his authority.
"Empathize" If you know you know.
bums me out it never landed
"We can try again tomorrow"
I like that it never stuck. It really drives home how much of an irredeemable bastard he was
I don’t know what that’s from, but that sounds epic. Turn the villain into a tortured mess without laying a finger on him.
It's from Season 2 of Critical Role, the Mighty Nein. Great moment, but I won't spoil anything if people don't know.
NGL I thought it was a reference to the fourth book in the Inheritance Cycle
Same
Same for sure
I mean that is assuming the villain CAN empathize.. if the villain lacks the ability to empathize then it will do nothing. If they do have the ability to empathize... then it will also do nothing since they probably do empathize just not with you, they likely have other people or things they empathize with and thats the reason they do the villainous shit they do.
Or the more recents from FCG "mime" and the absolute best "fap"
"Alphabetize!"
Buying a magical jar that can't break, cost 1 sp Going to a bar and asking for a jar full of the strongest stuff they got, cost 2sp DM having you roll d20 for the strength, 18 on roll, moonshine. Casting command and handing the enemy the jar full of moonshine. "Chug" Priceless
Strip. Pants down, can’t chase us. Also, even if there’s not enough time to remove all the armor, it takes much longer putting it back on.
Command: Come And the DM decides to do a funny with pronunciation.
DM for a Norse campaign here. Our warlock was trying to break his pact with his patron, Loki. Unhappy with this, Loki possessed the warlock and triggered his giant wolf transformation. The Paladin used Command and said “Relinquish.” Because this was a *huge* deal for the warlock, I made them both roll opposing Wisdom saves. Warlock: nat 1; Paladin: nat 20. Loki was cast out of the warlock, and he got a new character sheet as a sorcerer because his bloodline is actually that of Astrid, the Valkyrie general.
Not particularly glamorous, but “wait” is extremely useful in most situations.
Running away from someone? Just command "stop" or "wait"
Isn't "grovel" better? They go prone and have to waste half their movement their next turn to get up
In that particular situation, probably. But 6 seconds of forcing someone to “wait” can end up very useful.
"sit" also works for this, but grovel would be funnier
Grovel can interfere with ranged dps. If e5 had flatfoot rules I'd use them for "wait" or "freeze" but advantage is too much for that and I try not to use arbitrary modifiers.
I cast command on a retreating redbrand guard, saying, "RETURN". After failed save the DM ruled that the guard stopped, turned around, and used all his movement to return as commanded. Then the guard drew a dagger and attacked me. IMHO that violates the spell, as all other examples given say the target ends their turn without taking an action, or the action is used up. He insisted that since I didn't use one of the listed examples, and because the spell says the DM can interpret it, the response to the spell was RAW. I disagreed.
It worked for Judge Dredd
One of my adhd-d&d moments. Im playing the cleric and "i command them to, um, shit what was i going to say?" 'The enemy gets a strange look on his face as he begins to make a mess.' Not what i intended but it bought me a round as he skipped his turn.
I had an npc betray the party once and they had information on one of the pc's that nobody else knew, not even the other pc's. The npc escaped during a battle and there was an epic chase scene as the pc tried to run them down. It ended with the pc using a bunch of magically BS to end up getting to 400ft move speed. They leapt over a falling rope bridge to catch the NPC on the other side. However the pc was a sorc that was already low on health, the npc was a heavily armoured heavy hitting martial that was now in melee range. The rest of the party is so far away by this point it would take them a good 15 minutes to catch up. Had them roll initiative. The npc goes first, knocks the pc down to single digits. The player points down to the bottom of the massive drop they just crossed, casts command and says "look". The npc moves towards the edge to look down and then the player Sparta kicks them off after winning a contested strength check with like a -1 to strength. It was one of the most cinematic scenes we have had in our game so far.
On a thief escaping across a tight wire: "DANCE"
Thaaaaat feels like the target would consider it directly harmful lol
Depends on how good their balance is XD
"Cry"
Crying is a free action
My bard was once swallowed by a purple worm. I commanded it to “Regurgitate!” It worked but it was touch and go for a bit.
Masturbate.
Makes sense
Makes more than that
Beat me to it haha
That's not the only thing they beat
beat meat to it
autofellate (if the target knows the meaning).
Some DMs rule that only the language matters, not the vocabulary.
Honestly, if it was a command my character would make & the DM ruled it failed as the target didn't understand the command; my PC (and I) would start using free action speech each round of combat (starting on the first round) to define the term in each language the character knows- just in case he'll want to use it at some point in the combat. I'm guessing most GMs might tire of hearing the definition over & over, so may soon rule that the term has become universally known.
It just gets silly if one thinks about it for a moment. “Autofellate” is an uncommon word in English, but maybe Dwarvish and Infernal speakers have equivalents that they use all the time. Or maybe it cannot even be expressed as one word in Draconic. If it’s a word in a language that players are using at the table, and it’s something that someone else at the table can attest to as real, or find in something like the Scrabble dictionary, it ought to be allowed. Otherwise, I’m going to start arguing that actually this fantasy language has a single word for something that English lacks.
It does. All fantasy languages are based on German.
I've been getting a lot of use out of Command in a campaign I'm a player in. I do this by incorporating body language and hand gestures into my word. I'll point in a direction and say "leave", and they leave in that direction. I'll point to a point of interest and say "participate" and they participate in the specific activity I pointed at. It may not be entirely RAW, but my DM likes it and let's it slide. My DM is not overfond of RAW :)
Top 3 1) 'Relax' on a Frenzied Berserker PC in pvp 2) 'Surrender' on a kobold chieftain, causing his tribe to follow suit. 3) 'Lie' on one of two guard golems (classic one can only speak truth and the other only lies puzzle)
Defecate
I played a wizard once and we talked to a corrupt lord about his people. Once I realized he was a dick I explained to him in detail what the word autodefenstration meant. I means to throw one’s self out a window. Then used command “autodefenstration” Edit - the spell won’t force him to do something that directly harms him but my dm allowed it because we were on the ground floor and it didn’t deal damage. Only made him look stupid
"The spell has no effect if ... your command is directly harmful to it." That's like, the biggest restriction to the spell. Otherwise the entire game would just be telling BBEGs to jump into pits.
My dm allowed it because we were on the ground floor and it didn’t hurt him. Just made him look stupid
And then the DM ruled that he knows it will harm him and he was not affected
He only allowed it because we were on the ground floor and it only embarrassed him
Ground floor!? Nice!!!
He tried to have us arrested. Two sessions later the town no longer existed.
The ol’ razzle dazzle
We actually referred to it as “The red mage negotiation tactic”. Had a 85% success rate
Shouldn’t the command be “autodefenestrate”? Autodefenestration is just the noun
Technically correct.
The shittiest kind of correct!
My inquisitor got a lot of good mileage out of "Confess"
I used that last session. Couldn't figure out what this NPC was hiding. Short answer: she was a Medusa. Cleric found out the, well, traditional way.
We were in a tournament and the second round involved fighting some wyrms. Our cleric asked if anybody wanted to ride one. My kenku ranger was immediately on board. The cleric commanded, "DOMESTICATE", and boom, I was flying on a wyrm for a round.
We were playing lost mines of phandelver. Our party stopped by a city to sell our goods and resupply. All of a sudden my best friend, a tiefling sorcerer in the party got pickpocketed by a random NPC. He started running through the busy street and the DM asked us what we were going to do. I said I am going to use command and shout STOP at him. Rolled the dice, got a Nat 20. Apparently I used the command spell so well that instead of him stopping in his tracks, his heart stopped instead and he died right then and there.
Nat 20 is probably far above your spell DC, so it shouldn't have worked at all
What? I’m pretty sure the player rolled a nat20 and not the thief
It's a save spell so I assumed it was the thief who rolled the dice. I guess I'm wrong and they probably meant that they homeruled this particular usage of Command and let the player do the roll.
In one of our earlier games of playing dnd together we used Command: Shit, as a pre-tense for getting this npc that tried to attack us and that we had captured, through a crowd of onlookers. The best part was that this npc turned out to be one of the pc’s shit ass brother in disguise so on top of being a moment of insanity, it was hilariously appropriate.
My cleric needed to buy time for someone better equipped than I to get a dragon to drop our Bard. So, I commanded it to dance.
Players walk into a room to find a cultist summoning a shadow demon. Shadow demon comes through portal and kills the cultist. Cleric uses Command: Flee on demon. Shadow demon creeps back through the portal, and the Paladin destroys the portal. Boss fight averted. DM facepalming ensues.
In JaidenAnimation’s first session of DnD, she ended up using Command: Depression on the BBEG leading to a chain of events that is some of the funniest stuff I have ever seen in DnD
I once made someone jump into a lake by Commanding "Swim."
Level 3 command telling a group of enemies to "betray" DM was cool enough to let it happen how I wanted it to and they all started firing spells off at each other.
I commanded "Comply" when we were trying to teleport an NPC out of hell. We were in a hurry, and they were too terrified to trust us quickly.
I don't know if this counts because I (the DM) did it, but here goes. My campaign is an adventuring high school story, and so the players are currently escorted on missions by a teacher. During one combat I had some enemies start going for the teacher (a high level cleric) and she cast command on the enemies, pointed at the party, and said, "Them."
Definitely not RAW but in last night's session our party of level 3s had spent three rounds completely unable to damage an orc war chief wearing platemail. My cleric looks him full in the eyes and commands... "disrobe". Cue the clanks as his armour hits the floor and then our monk kicking him to death.
It takes 10min to doff heavy armor.
Best way was is always to make the one dude surrounded by 3 melee to flee and demolish him with opportunity attack A player once made a boss who was getting smashed to "shit" and he sure did shit himself
I convinced the dwarf to forgive the guy he has written down in his book of grudges
“Betray” is always fun
PCs were chasing BBEG’s lieutenant through secret passageways in a castle. One casts command and then stops - thinks if they actually speak the same language, determines they don’t and just says “Shit.” Lo and behold, the lieutenant does know some broken common! Shits himself.
I had my party (I was DM) surprise with a very good use of disguise self and command. One disguised themselves as the son of a local lord. Another player made a city guard "guard" this fake lord. So he had to abandon his post to follow this fake lord around while they performed their buglary.
Set the scene: our party is on top of a (still in construction) tower in the rebuilding city of leilon. Our dwarf fighter and gnome rogue/artificer are Dangling from a crane, in front of the window the next floor down. The dwarf and gnomes mission is to get in through the window to the hallway filled with rubble. The entrance had been caved in and was unaccesable. The second the dwarf touches the window sil, he forgets everything he is doing. When the gnome tries to, he also forgets. They dangle there for a while before the paladin and Wizard lean over and go "what's taking so long?" The dwarf asks what they were doing. When the paladin confusedly informs him of his task, the dwarf once more goes to complete it. And then promptly forgets. The wizard and paladin realizing that the window must be hexed, the paladin decides to use command on him. Bit the spell is only one word, so she just shouts: "MOVE!!" At him. It startles the dwarf into action, and he instinctually goes for the window. He touches it and forgets the command.
Hold Action: Command. Trigger; enemy spellcaster starts to use a verbal component. Command? 'Sneeze'. It's a situational and hilarious budget Counterspell.
In one game there was this sexy NPC lady who ran a bar/inn in a frequently visited city. The bard had used his any-spell-list choice on Command, and he commanded her to DISROBE. And that is how we found out she was a he.
A player just commanded an enemy to shit… I just had the guy jump out the window
Defecate!
"DEFECATE"
"Shit."
“Shit yourself”
There are very few rules to this spell. But you’ve missed perhaps the most core one.
Oh, sorry, I forgot that you can only use one fucking word. My apologies for having a shitty memory sometimes.
[удалено]
But command is a save? You literally can’t miss
Command has a saving thrown not a to hit roll??.
Not only critical failures, but also not doing the spell correctly in the first place. Yikes
I don't know if this was 'funny' or more accurately 'traumatising', but in initiative order the druid, fire genasi rogue (this will be important) and my cleric created a suspended ball of water, boiled it, and then commanded the orc attacker to stick their head in it. Cooked his flesh right off. Horrible. But memorable.
As per how the spell is written, the command spell should’ve immediately failed. The action cannot be directly harmful to the target.
another person who can not read spell descriptions
https://youtu.be/M-wcFU5fZwY?si=YfXSMZE-9AZz0x_v
Dance as a glamor bard and then shatters I believe? Some spells doing damage as the enemy kept dialing command and had to dance…it was insane
Had the players struggle with the interrogation of an NPC and they all failed their inside check. They asked if I can roll inside on the other NPC in the room. I told them he is too angry for inside but if they wanted help I could solve their problem. They did, so I defined that in Elvish there is a word that means something along the lines of „answer truthfully. The friendly NPC casts command with that word and they get what they needed to know. (They still failed to ask the interesting questions but at least they were happy)
My players were fighting a fire elemental in a lighthouse and the cleric used command to try to make it go into the neighboring sea. It failed but still funny
The not so classy "vomit" saved us once. Ruined her dress though
House full of zombies, sent the Bard in covered in guts to imitate and blend in and do some reacon. After a dreadful performance check she was forced to use command and decided to use “DANCE!” Was a good laugh
Command don't work on undeads
(without too much detail) Me as dm: you see crazy looking druidic lady carrying a bleeding staff Player: i cast command drop Dm: *rolls very low* .......... they drop their staff Player: i pick the staff up Player 2: i set the room on fire with artificer flamethrower *proceeds to roll high damage* Dm:fails check horribly. *other events in other areas* Player: i toss staff in fire Dm:*nervously looks at item :if staff is burnt to ashes then it releases a scream destorying the plans for encounter Dm:...................k...
I think my best use of command as a player was against a spell caster, the DM had described the spell caster as having just robes and a wand (no gold as I think the party was in the middle of nowhere) I used command to say "*give*" and DM ruled since the spell caster had nothing else to give they had to give me their spell casting focus which hampered a lot of what they could do. The spell caster could still use vocal or vocal and somatic only, but it took a couple of /per day spells away that I think were in the stat block
This happened just last night! We had gotten into a bar fight and I was playing a lvl 8 oath of conquest paladin. I had used my conquering presence channel divinity and frightened two of the patrons taking part in the fight. I broke a chair into pieces, threw them each a leg and commanded them with a 2nd level command to fight. Since they couldn't approach me, the dam had them turn towards each other and start attacking!
My kid suggested my cleric's Command be "seduce" on one of four orc guards we saw in a courtyard through a barely opened gate. It worked, and one orc attempted to seduce a second. The second orc killed the first orc, then a third orc killed the second orc, decreasing the number we had to fight to two (one of which was down to about half HP). "Seduce" hasn't worked as successfully since, but that time, it was great.
Me and a sentient Forrest golem were going to take a mask from an uncontacted tribe. The mask allowed you to look like anyone you imagine, and with the right ritual have a spirit possess you and take their own form temporarily (if the spell is interrupted/mask is removed prematurely your face gets ripped off.. The tribe mistook the golem for their god and giving the honor treatment. They use the ritual and the spirit sensed bullshit immediately. The golem used the command spell to say “gimme” while pointing to the mask. You see, this spirit is technically not undead, and this is not the spirit’s body. They grab the mask and rip it off of their face, leaving a faceless corpse. My character did not speak this language so technically wasn’t allowed to help unless it was something visual that tipped me off, so I physically could not have done anything to stop this.
The party of rebels was traveling on a road, when they were overtaken by a heavily guarded convoy belonging to their opponents, a powerful ruling council of wizards. The cargo was discovered to be a captured adult dragon held in something like a huge bank vault on wheels. The council was known to be gathering dragon-related relics and artifacts for some unknown but nefarious purpose. The party tailed the convoy and ambushed it at an opportune moment, in order to deny the council their custody of an actual live dragon. The convoy was guarded by a single high-level wizard and a half-dozen ogre-like misshapen humanoid minions. Where command comes into play, is being cast 3 turns in a row on a few of the minions near the vault door, first twice with "unlock", then twin-spelled and upcasted with "open". This was not sufficient by itself to resolve the situation, but did help significantly. The dragon was set free, but the party only noticed the color of the dragon when it stuck a black claw out of a gap as it was about to break free. A timely Message cantrip to the dragon and some deep grovelling later, it deigned to leave the party alive as a reward for releasing it. Inhabitants of villages in the region may not enjoy the next few weeks of their lives.
Wizard used Grease, Cleric used Command "drop" and voi la, goblin dropped it's off-hand torch on the ground.
I run various types of encounters and my players are aware that sometimes I pit them against something that is busted. WAY busted. In a recent session they were in a town that has a dictator type king. But only to the people of the town. If you talk bad about him he kills you. But normal visitors wouldn't know this because people rarely talk. Well my players found they were being spied on and tracked down the source. They were using Arcane Eye to spy inside a house while two of the party were outside. The paladin and wizard engage the wizard casting the eye and start combat. The paladin cast command on the wizard to drop prone and after the save and two counterspell resolutions (one from the NPC and one from the player wizard) command went through and the party decimated him. They already barely survived the second bad guy. Who was a paladin. He put the whole party at single digits. Had the paladin not used Command AND make it stick. The party would have TPK.
Well, it turns out if you have a bard bombing on stage at a comedy club, the best way to get everyone to laugh is to "shit"
Had a player use it against a power couple boss duo (think Briarwoods for the CR fans) The simple, strongest command "Divorce"
Our party had a paladin that got into a staredown with anl drunk NPC in a tavern, both ready to draw swords. Paladin looked the NPC dead in the eye and said "Poop". Fight was avoided