I sincerely hope that someone has managed to use Command: autodefenestrate in an English-speaking game at some point. It’d have to be in some context where jumping out of the window wouldn’t hurt the subject, but if you’re in a room with a window out on to a canal or something then I’m pretty sure that could be a solid way to get rid of them for a bit
One time my friends and I needed an NPC to empty his bag of holding, since it was magically locked so only he could open it, so we told him “Did you know the word ‘squanch’ means ‘empty your bag of holding?’ No, well, now you do.” and then used Command and said “Squanch!”
Kenkus can only use words they’ve heard before. This implies that other races aren’t limited like that, and automatically know all the words in their language. So you can’t just make up words.
But the entirety of language is just words that someone made up. If you recognize a set of syllables as a word that has a specific meaning, then it’s a word you understand, even if it was just made up and taught to you seconds ago.
No, it’s because kenkus can’t make up words. The entire race was robbed of all creativity by Tharizdun’s Curse of Oblivion, so they can only imitate what they’ve already seen and heard. But other races don’t have that curse, which means they can make up new words. If a kenku heard that freshly made up word, they’d be able to use it.
One could argue that it’s only indirectly harmful. It’s not jumping out of the window that hurts you. It’s the sudden stop before you reach the ground. Or more realistically, you could argue that even taking a little falling damage, you’re in a way better position than fighting for your life, so on the net it’s not harmful.
Or you could just use it on a Monk.
The really long words are nouns, and commands are verbs: calm.
It’s only nouns ? can german not agglutinate several verbs into one super-verb to express an action made up of many components or steps ?
no, thats not how composits work. Sure there are composite-verbs but they are rather limited (unlike composite-nouns which can become extremely long)
Ok I see, thanks
It can’t. German can only make compound nouns and even then it usually can’t combine multiple concepts. Instead, everything except the last component is there to specify what the last component is about.
Source: am German
I see, every qualifier goes first and then the noun. Seems pretty intuitive
So I’ve heard. There probably are other languages that could work. ChatGPT says polysynthetic languages like Inuktitut, Mohawk, and Chukchi do. I don’t have time to double check, but I’m sure if ChatGPT’s wrong there are other examples where it’s true.
Unfortunately, in 2025 they closed the loophole. You only can use the listed commands. And I notice the loophole didn’t work for sending in either version of 5e (or in 3.5). It specifies a “short” message of 25 words or less, so while you could compress an arbitrarily long message into a single word (though possibly having to use some Morse code-type deal) it wouldn’t help because it wouldn’t be a “short” message.
Hm, I don’t like to rely on LLMs to look up definitions to be honest. Thanks for your insight
Fortunately 2024 5e isn’t real and can’t hurt you.
