Mass Suggestion

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• Level: 6
• School: Enchantment
• Class: Bard, Sorcerer, Wizard
• Casting Time: Action
• Range: 60 feet
• Components: V, M (a snake's tongue)
• Duration: 24 hours

You suggest a course of activity-described in no more than 25 words-to twelve or fewer creatures you can see within range that can hear and understand you. The suggestion must sound achievable and not involve anything that would obviously deal damage to any of the targets or their allies. For example, you could say, "Walk to the village down that road, and help the villagers there harvest crops until sunset." Or you could say, "Now is not the time for violence. Drop your weapons, and dance! Stop in an hour."

Each target must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or have the Charmed condition for the duration or until you or your allies deal damage to the target. Each Charmed target pursues the suggestion to the best of its ability. The suggested activity can continue for the entire duration, but if the suggested activity can be completed in a shorter time, the spell ends for a target upon completing it.

Using a Higher-Level Spell Slot. The duration is longer with a spell slot of level 7 (10 days), 8 (30 days), or 9 (366 days).

Tactical Usage

Mass Suggestion excels as a powerful crowd control and battlefield manipulation tool, capable of neutralizing up to twelve enemies with a single casting while providing strategic advantages through enforced behavioral changes. Use it to remove multiple enemies from combat by suggesting non-violent activities that take them away from the immediate battlefield, such as investigating false alarms or returning to guard posts. The spell proves invaluable for infiltration scenarios where you need groups of guards or enemies to abandon their positions or adopt behaviors that facilitate stealthy approaches. Apply it during negotiations or social encounters to influence entire groups toward favorable outcomes, suggesting courses of action that benefit your party's objectives. The 24-hour duration makes it excellent for long-term strategic manipulation, allowing you to shape enemy behavior for extended periods. Time the casting carefully during combat to maximum effect, ideally when enemies are clustered and before they can spread out or take cover.

Spell Combinations

Mass Suggestion synergizes exceptionally well with illusion spells that create convincing scenarios supporting the suggested activity, making the suggestions seem more reasonable and natural. Combine it with charm effects like Charm Person or Enthrall to soften target resistance before presenting suggestions, increasing the likelihood of failed saving throws. The spell works excellently with stealth and invisibility magic, allowing you to position for optimal targeting while remaining undetected by the intended victims. Use it alongside divination spells to gather information about target groups, identifying their motivations and concerns to craft more compelling suggestions. Pair it with area control spells that cluster enemies together, maximizing the number of targets affected by the suggestion while preventing their dispersion. The spell complements fear effects by offering alternative suggestions that seem preferable to the frightening stimuli, creating psychological pressure to accept the magical influence. Combine with social manipulation magic like Glibness or Enhance Ability to improve your persuasiveness when delivering the suggestion.

Material Component Details

Mass Suggestion requires a snake's tongue as its material component, representing a symbolic connection to persuasion and the serpentine nature of subtle influence. The component must be an actual snake's tongue, typically preserved through magical or alchemical means to maintain its potency for spellcasting purposes. Many practitioners keep collections of tongues from different snake species, believing that more venomous or exotic varieties enhance the spell's persuasive power. The tongue can be incorporated into jewelry, amulets, or spell component pouches, allowing discrete access during social situations where obvious spellcasting might be inappropriate. Some spellcasters commission specially prepared components from alchemists or magical suppliers, ensuring consistent quality and potency for important casting situations. The component is not consumed during casting, making it a one-time investment that can be used repeatedly throughout adventuring careers. Skilled practitioners often disguise the component as decorative elements or personal accessories to avoid suspicion.

Creator Notes

Mass Suggestion presents significant narrative and balance challenges as it can potentially trivialize encounters or short-circuit carefully planned scenarios with creative application. The spell's power to influence up to twelve creatures simultaneously requires careful consideration of appropriate saving throw bonuses and enemy intelligence levels. When designing encounters, consider how the spell might interact with different creature types and whether certain enemies should have natural resistance to such mental influence. The 25-word limit requires precise wording that accomplishes the desired effect without obvious loopholes or unintended consequences that could backfire on the casters. Be prepared for creative applications that use the spell for problem-solving rather than direct combat, as players often devise ingenious suggestions that accomplish multiple objectives simultaneously. The spell creates excellent roleplay opportunities where the specific wording and delivery of suggestions become critical elements of success or failure.

Environmental Interactions

The spell requires targets to hear and understand the suggestion, making language barriers and acoustic conditions critical factors in its effectiveness. Areas with significant background noise might interfere with the suggestion's delivery, though magical speech typically overcomes normal environmental sound obstacles. Cultural and linguistic factors affect how suggestions are interpreted, potentially causing misunderstandings or unintended compliance in societies with different social norms. The spell functions normally in most environmental conditions, though magical silence completely prevents its use due to the verbal component requirement. Areas under divine or magical influence related to truth or mental protection might provide resistance or immunity to the enchantment effects. Zones of wild magic might cause unpredictable alterations to the suggestion's wording or effects, potentially creating comedic or dangerous situations.

Common Rulings & Clarifications

The suggestion must sound achievable and reasonable to the targets, preventing obviously suicidal, impossible, or clearly harmful commands from being effective. Each target makes their own Wisdom saving throw, allowing for different outcomes within the same group of intended recipients. The 25-word limit applies to the entire suggestion, requiring careful phrasing to maximize effectiveness within the constraint. Targets become charmed for the duration and pursue the suggested activity to the best of their ability, but retain their basic personality and intelligence. The spell ends immediately for any target that takes damage from you or your allies, making it incompatible with direct hostile actions. Targets complete the suggested activity if possible within the duration, with the spell ending naturally upon completion of reasonable tasks. The suggestion cannot override strong moral convictions or force actions completely contrary to the target's fundamental nature.

Alternative Applications

Beyond combat and infiltration, Mass Suggestion serves numerous creative and strategic purposes throughout various campaign scenarios. Use it to organize large groups of NPCs for community projects, disaster relief, or construction efforts that benefit both the party and local populations. The spell excels at diffusing tense social situations by suggesting calming activities or redirecting hostile groups toward non-violent solutions to their conflicts. Apply it to influence enemy organizations from within, suggesting strategic changes that weaken their effectiveness or redirect their efforts away from threatening the party's interests. The spell proves valuable for coordinating large-scale operations where you need multiple individuals to perform specific tasks simultaneously without direct supervision. Use it to gather information by suggesting that targets share knowledge or discuss topics of interest in locations where you can observe or overhear. The spell can facilitate diplomatic solutions by suggesting compromise positions or alternative perspectives that break deadlocks in negotiations.

Related Spells

Mass Suggestion belongs to the enchantment school's tradition of mind-influencing magic, sharing thematic elements with Suggestion, Charm Person, and other behavioral control spells. Compare it to Command, which provides immediate but limited control, and Dominate Person, which offers complete control but affects fewer targets. The spell relates to other mass enchantment effects like Mass Charm Monster or Mental Prison, representing different approaches to crowd control through magical influence. Consider it alongside illusion magic that supports deceptive scenarios, creating comprehensive packages for social manipulation and infiltration. The spell shares utility aspects with fear effects like Fear or Cause Fear, offering alternative approaches to removing enemies from combat through psychological manipulation. Geas provides similar long-term behavioral influence but focuses on single targets with more severe consequences for disobedience. The spell connects to social enhancement magic like Glibness or Zone of Truth for comprehensive social encounter solutions.

Scaling Analysis

Mass Suggestion gains dramatically increased duration when cast with higher-level spell slots, extending from 24 hours to 10 days, 30 days, or even a full year at the highest levels. This scaling transforms the spell from a tactical tool to a strategic campaign element capable of creating lasting changes in organizations, communities, or political structures. At higher levels, the extended duration allows for complex long-term operations where influenced individuals can accomplish major projects or maintain altered behaviors for significant periods. Consider the spell's strategic value when cast with 8th or 9th-level slots, as year-long suggestions can effectively permanently alter the campaign landscape through strategic application. The scaling makes it valuable for establishing long-term alliances, creating sleeper agents, or implementing social changes that persist beyond immediate adventure objectives. At maximum duration, the spell approaches permanent behavioral modification, requiring careful consideration of its ethical implications and campaign impact.

Narrative Flavor

When cast, Mass Suggestion begins with the caster speaking in compelling, honeyed tones that carry supernatural persuasiveness and seem to bypass conscious resistance to reach directly into the listeners' minds. The spell manifests as subtle waves of enchantment energy that flow from the caster's words to each target, appearing as faint shimmers in the air or barely visible threads of golden light that connect speaker to audience. Each target experiences the suggestion as if it were their own brilliant idea, feeling sudden enthusiasm and certainty about the proposed course of action despite any previous intentions or concerns. The magical influence appears differently based on the caster's tradition: bards might weave suggestions into compelling performances that seem irresistibly logical, wizards could employ precise psychological manipulation that appeals to rational thought, while sorcerers might tap into primal charismatic forces that make their words seem divinely inspired. As the enchantment takes hold, affected creatures often display subtle changes in posture and expression, showing increased confidence and determination about their new course of action. The spell's subtle nature means that successful targets rarely realize they've been magically influenced, instead feeling as though they've simply been presented with an excellent suggestion that they're eager to pursue.