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The Warlock has limited high level spell casting capability due to the Mystic Arcanum feature. The Warlock can choose 1, and cannot change, spell of level 6 to cast once per long rest.

Mystic Arcanum

At 11th level, your patron bestows upon you a magical secret called an arcanum. Choose one 6th-level spell from the warlock spell list as this arcanum. You can cast your arcanum spell once without expending a spell slot. You must finish a long rest before you can do so again.

At higher levels, you gain more warlock spells of your choice that can be cast in this way: one 7th-level spell at 13th level, one 8th-level spell at 15th level, and one 9th-level spell at 17th level.

You regain all uses of your Mystic Arcanum when you finish a long rest.

(PHB, pg.108 / SRD, pg.48)

The spell choices for level 6 are:

  • Arcane Gate
  • Circle of Death
  • Conjure Fey
  • Create Undead
  • Eyebite
  • Flesh to Stone
  • Mass Suggestion
  • True Seeing

Since I can take only one 6th-level spell, I want to be certain that mass suggestion is a good choice before I take it instead of something else on that list. So I want to make sure it is more useful than the 2nd-level suggestion spell that works similarly.

What are the ways in which the 6th-level mass suggestion spell is better or worse than the 2nd-level suggestion spell?

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    \$\begingroup\$ @InfernoIV I fail to see how this isn't entirely opinion-based. It is your choice and entirely situational whether you would choose to learn mass suggestion. Maybe you never learned suggestion at all, or maybe you want a suggestion spell that can affect multiple targets. Please rephrase the question to make it not so opinionated. My suggestion (heh) is to ask directly for a comparison between suggestion and mass suggestion rather than framing it as a subjective choice. \$\endgroup\$
    – LegendaryDude
    Mar 1, 2017 at 14:29
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    \$\begingroup\$ Maybe the answer can only be opinion-based, since it asks for the preference. I'll stick to the old answer where the question was the comparison between suggestion and mass suggestion. \$\endgroup\$
    – Inferno IV
    Mar 1, 2017 at 14:38
  • \$\begingroup\$ I'm glad the edit helped. I'm going to start cleaning up my comments here. \$\endgroup\$
    – Bloodcinder
    Mar 1, 2017 at 22:17
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    \$\begingroup\$ Why not accept one of the given answers if you're sticking to your old question? \$\endgroup\$
    – BlueMoon93
    Mar 7, 2017 at 10:21

3 Answers 3

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Because Mass Suggestion hits up to 12 targets.

That makes its usability, well, 12 times better than regular Suggestion. Consider a fight against a group of enemies. Mass Suggestion can target possibly all (or at least a large portion) of them. You could turn a villain's thugs against himself. Suggestion could not do it.

Because it requires no concentration.

You can take damage at will without losing the spell's effect. You can cast other concentration spells while Mass Suggestion is working. This also implies that you can have several Mass Suggestion spells active at once, as long as you have a long rest between one act of casting it and the next.

Longer range and duration.

It also has double the range and lasts 24 times longer (24 hours is a really long time).

Level

The level 2 Suggestion automatically fails against a Dispel or Counterspell, but the level 6 Mass Suggestion forces a DC 16 (10 + spell level) save to negate it (props to Joel Harmon for that).

However

Mass Suggestion is indeed more expensive than Suggestion. For Warlocks, you can only cast Mass Suggestion once per long rest, while you can cast several Suggestion per short rest.

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    \$\begingroup\$ I don't think you can cast several Mass Suggestion at once, since you need to set a specific spell for Mystic Arcanum: Choose one 6th-level spell from the warlock spell list as this arcanum. You can cast your arcanum spell once without expending a spell slot. Or you need to set all your Mystic Arcanum spells to Mass Suggestion. \$\endgroup\$
    – Inferno IV
    Feb 28, 2017 at 10:19
  • \$\begingroup\$ You can cast it, then long rest (to get your Mystic Arcanum back), then cast it again. \$\endgroup\$
    – BlueMoon93
    Feb 28, 2017 at 10:27
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    \$\begingroup\$ No Concentration is such a big deal that if it only effected one target and lasted only as long as simple Suggestion, I would still pick it. \$\endgroup\$
    – András
    Feb 28, 2017 at 11:44
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    \$\begingroup\$ As a higher level spell, it is also harder to Counterspell or Dispel. \$\endgroup\$
    – Joel Harmon
    Feb 28, 2017 at 17:59
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  • double the range might sometimes come up. Especially when considering that you can target multiple targets of up to 12.
  • duration of 24 hours and no Concentration vs duration of 8 hours and a required concentration.
  • The possibility of increasing power with higher spell level slots. Mass suggestion can become 10 days, 30 days or year and a day duration.

Those might be selling points to some people. If you have done it with 2nd level suggestion, your concentration is used for the next 8 hours. If you start a new concentration spell, including another suggestion, the suggestion ends and it might not have been triggered at all.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ I didn't really check the range: 30 feet isn't much, but 60 feet is a lot better \$\endgroup\$
    – Inferno IV
    Feb 28, 2017 at 10:17
  • \$\begingroup\$ Since OP is a Warlock, they cannot upcast Mass Suggestion to higher levels. (Warlocks automatically upcast all spells up to 5th level, but cannot upcast any spells above that, due to Pact Magic vs Mystic Arcanum) \$\endgroup\$
    – Taxi4Dave
    Aug 9, 2019 at 12:02
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Suggestion only has one benefit over Mass Suggestion: It is a cheaper alternative for suggesting one target.

Mass Suggestion can affect more people, at a longer range, but it is a 6th level spell, and a Warlock will only be able to cast the 1 sixth level spell per day (Magic items not included)

Suggestion uses up one of your 3 spell slots (assuming an 11th level warlock), but you recover your spell slots after a short OR long rest. This means that it is significantly less expensive in terms of resource cost to use the regular Suggestion spell when:

  • there is only 1 target that you want to suggest and
  • the lower duration/range isn't a factor and
  • concentration isn't a factor

In every other circumstance, Mass Suggestion is superior

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