Quote from: Headless;919288Anyway bunch of suggestions.  Are they going to work for you?  How much are you going to change the system?  Can you give a couple example of your problems?

The thread has been very clarifying. I'm mulling over several of the suggestions right now. My parameters are as follows.

I want to avoid major alterations to the system because I regularly get new players who have come looking for the 'D&D experience'. My regular players are also busy adults who crave the assurance that their PHB is familiar and authoritative. I'd rather work within the existing mechanics of the system and tool around with the setting expectations. For example, I don't want to add any "make a check when you cast each spell or turn into a drooling chaos demon" type rules because then it has strayed too far from D&D. Adding things like spells or feats or monsters (for instance the spell-breaker) is a long established tradition in D&D so it works within the system.

Quote from: Headless;919288Can you give a couple example of your problems?

My two biggest problems are:
1) Casters making a laughing stock of the setting's social reality and normal procedures. Of course PCs are supposed to break the rules, that's part of the fun, but things shouldn't start to feel like the spellcasters are the only smart people wandering around the setting equivalent of an Idiot Plot:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/IdiotPlot

2) Casters making non or partial casters feel pointless. I must admit to a bit of projection. As I player I love fighters and rogues, and I'd be pissed if casters routinely invalidated every moment I could shine or even the entire adventure. A sticking issue in my most recent finished campaign was the rogue and monk players twiddling their thumbs while the druid and warlock used their golf bag of 10-12th level tricks and brilliant lateral thinking skills to repeatedly turn missions into anti-climaxes.

There's a reason this is my favorite Penny Arcade comic and I post it all the time:
http://www.treknews.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/efficiency.jpg

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;919312The thread has been very clarifying. I'm mulling over several of the suggestions right now. My parameters are as follows.

I want to avoid major alterations to the system because I regularly get new players who have come looking for the 'D&D experience'. My regular players are also busy adults who crave the assurance that their PHB is familiar and authoritative. I'd rather work within the existing mechanics of the system and tool around with the setting expectations. For example, I don't want to add any "make a check when you cast each spell or turn into a drooling chaos demon" type rules because then it has strayed too far from D&D. Adding things like spells or feats or monsters (for instance the spell-breaker) is a long established tradition in D&D so it works within the system.

I'm not familiar with 5th edition specifically, but it sounds like you're hosed. Any countermeasures you put in are going to go against the nebulous "D&D experience". And that includes adding spells or feats or monsters. They will probably be perceived as "artificial" restrictions on spellcasting, which they essentially are.

QuoteMy two biggest problems are:
1) Casters making a laughing stock of the setting's social reality and normal procedures. Of course PCs are supposed to break the rules, that's part of the fun, but things shouldn't start to feel like the spellcasters are the only smart people wandering around the setting equivalent of an Idiot Plot:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/IdiotPlot

2) Casters making non or partial casters feel pointless. I must admit to a bit of projection. As I player I love fighters and rogues, and I'd be pissed if casters routinely invalidated every moment I could shine or even the entire adventure. A sticking issue in my most recent finished campaign was the rogue and monk players twiddling their thumbs while the druid and warlock used their golf bag of 10-12th level tricks and brilliant lateral thinking skills to repeatedly turn missions into anti-climaxes.

There's a reason this is my favorite Penny Arcade comic and I post it all the time:
http://www.treknews.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/efficiency.jpg

Speaking as a player now, I would really appreciate a DM who, instead of coming up with all kinds of convoluted countermeasures, simply came out and said "Hey guys, I'm worried about caster supremacy problems, so I'm going to tone down some of the caster abilities."

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;919128Go back to the original edition of D&D.

And how is this not yet again, a subtle poke at how everyone who's not playing it YOUR favourite game doing it wrong?  

Quote from: estar;919283OD&D is not special in this regard.

Pretty much.  Healing magic is even MORE important than later editions.  Then again, it's also the version in which you bring a small army with you and let THEM do all the work.

Counter: Christianity. Burn the witch! Or any other flavor or level of cultural or political repression / control.

Counter: Setting design. Limit the number of people who have whatever it takes to become a magic user, be it knowledge or genes or training or access to ingredients or mana zones or whatever. Also run the numbers on what happens to the population of people who do become magic users, and what they end up doing with themselves for whatever reason.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;9193121) Casters making a laughing stock of the setting's social reality and normal procedures. Of course PCs are supposed to break the rules, that's part of the fun, but things shouldn't start to feel like the spellcasters are the only smart people wandering around the setting equivalent of an Idiot Plot:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/IdiotPlot

Note that there are two broad ways of handling D&D levels, "the special snowflakes", and "everybody got a level". Of the two I am in the everybody got a level camp. This stems all the way back to Judges Guild's City State of the Invincible Overlord. Both have positive consequences, and both have negative consequences.

The rule of thumb I use is
1st - trained novice
3rd - average professional
6th - regionally recognized leader
9th - nationally recognized leader
12th - internationally famous
16th - legendary

I gave the history onto specifics. So you know I have encounter the problems you experienced, in my mind I call this mad dog behavior, because that how the PCs wind up acting like, unpredictable mad dogs frothing at the mouth.

Urban -
this was developed by PCs to use against PCs

The City Guard is organized into 20 man companies which operate in 5 man team. 10 men off 5 men at the barrack, 5 men on patrol. The city is surrounded by walls consisting of three gates 15 or so towers, and 1 castle keep. The City Guard is based on the wall.

Each gate has two companies (40 men), each tower has 1 company, the castle keep has a reserve of 100 men, and support facilities like smiths, ostlers, etc.

Each gate and tower has a handful of holding cells. The first job of the morning patrol is to escort any prisoners to the city jail. The tower has a sector of the city to cover. It not entirely rational and largely based on tradition. The poorer sections are not as well covered and the richer sections will have more towers assigned to them. The Gates handle incoming traffic and area outside of the wall around their gate.

The guards are equipped with chainmail, halberds, knight killer crossbows, two healing potions, and warning sticks.

Knight Killer Crossbow are the nickname my PCs gave to a max strength man portable crossbow. It gets a +2 accuracy bonus, and does 5d4 damage. It can only be reloaded via the windlass which take 6 combat round to crank, load and fire.

They are a one shot weapon mean to be used in the first round of the fight. They are to be used in mass volleys with some misses expected. Their design to level the playing field by doing heavy damage initially. Targeting order is any obvious spellcaster followed by the most well equipped warrior.

The warning stick are two stick that been enchanted so that if you break one the other is broken. The standby reserve stationed at the tower/gate will move down the patrol path until they find the patrol who is in trouble. There is also a master stick at the tower that when broken will break a corresponding stick at the castle keep. This will summon the 100 man reserve.

When novices to my campaign become of aware of this they are generally intimidated and resort to being sneaky. However most of the time it give them just enough pause to go "Is it worth being a maddog over this?" Even at higher levels when they have a change at taking on a hundred or so 1st to 3rd level guards.

Rural
This was developed by me and used in campaign since the late 90s.

It very different in the rural countryside. Because of the feudal background there is nothing like the city guard system. However what is true of my Majestic Wilderlands is that generally the rural landscape is interconnected socially by clans and families with long standing relationship. Although I don't have the population density of western Europe. Most settlements and farms are clustered a half day walk around a keep or a castle. And for every castle or keep there are a dozen or so manors. Multiply by five for the number of farms if agriculture is organized into farms not manors.

Each castle has generally two to five keeps within a day's travel. This forms a cluster about 1 castle, 2 to 5 keeps, and 30 to 80 manors surrounded by wilderness.

What will happen is if the PCs trash a rural tavern, shop or manor is that the survivor will scatter in all directions (heading toward relatives in nearby settlements). Within a half of day word will get to the lords of those manors. They will in turn send word to the keep.

Now the families and lords all have alliances, and feuds. However one thing they will unite on without question is when monster attack. Bandits committing acts of destruction are lumped into this. And PCs trashing a tavern, manor, etc would be considered as bandits.

Once the Hue and the Cry is raised the countryside will rise up against the PCs. Within two days they will be facing a force of a half dozen knights of 3rd to 5th level, 20 or 30 men at arms ranging from 1st to 3rd level. And it bad enough the militia will be called out raising a temporary force about 300 or so peasants armed with bows and spears. ALong with this will be a local wizard from 3rd to 6th, the local clerics ranging from 3rd to 6th, two dozen healing potions, a dozen knight killer crossbow and zero to three individual with special talents that support the locals.

A group of PCs could be aware of this and ride like hell out of the area before the locals have time to organize. But if they were that smart they would not be maddogs would they?

If they did what would happen afterward that the local lords would complain to their liege lord and to the sovereign ruler (king, overlord). Within the month, the kingdom would be on a vague lookout for people matching the PCs description. Note this is a medieval culture so there is a lot of wiggle room. But the general rule of thumb, is that given time you will be recognized and the hue and cry will be raised.

As for Charms and the like, when incidents like occur it erupts in the middle of people going about their daily business. Unless the PCs are clever or circumstances are right somebody outside the range or power of the spell will notice and the shit rolls downhill from there.

Also understand that in both cases that this is the BASELINE, the center from which I detail the variations in specific locales. When I roleplay all this it doesn't work like clockwork. Very few City Guards and very few regions will have all their forces ready to bear on the PCs in the alloted time.

Now PCs that act as maddogs generally as a rule are idiots at strategy and sometime even tactics. So when it comes to this this will wind up looking the same. Where it makes a different if the PCs decide that is important to forment a rebellion, or subvert the guards, or any number of schemes involving interacting with the local hierarchy. Then the local specifics will be in full view.

If you give specifics on where you set your campaign, I will be glad to give you my thought on how the locals would be handling things.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;919323Pretty much.  Healing magic is even MORE important than later editions.  Then again, it's also the version in which you bring a small army with you and let THEM do all the work.

With OD&D is it item that are the source of abuse not character abilities. Healing magic is just a stop gap, for group trying to optimize healing potions and scrolls are the ticket. The exception is a extremely high level magic-user (12+)

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;9193122) Casters making non or partial casters feel pointless. I must admit to a bit of projection. As I player I love fighters and rogues, and I'd be pissed if casters routinely invalidated every moment I could shine or even the entire adventure. A sticking issue in my most recent finished campaign was the rogue and monk players twiddling their thumbs while the druid and warlock used their golf bag of 10-12th level tricks and brilliant lateral thinking skills to repeatedly turn missions into anti-climaxes.

I didn't see this in the campaigns I ran in 5e. I work hard to make the players feel they are part of the life of the setting. So while spellcaster have their spells, life goes own and grants opportunities to everybody fighters, rouges and spellcasters alike. However I do have a similar tension in my campaigns between the freelancers character who generally play fighters, rogues, and wizards versus the characters who are agents, like clerics, druids, and paladins.

Seriously you don' t have to take my work for it. I was lucky to have a player who keeps detailed journals when he is playing and blogs about it. You can see for yourself including the four sessions where they stumbled into taking over a major castle.

Look Squirrel/ We shot the sheriff.

Snip*
 want to avoid major alterations to the system because I regularly get new players who have come looking for the 'D&D experience'.
***************

Not to be difficult but as I keep saying, the kinds of problems you are having are part of 'the D&D experience'

That said.  I really liked the long description of city guards on the last page.  If you want to go a different way, treat it like the old west.  If one crew of PC gun slingers is acting up, the lords or pesants hire another crew of gun slingers.  

That has the advantage of being a plot hook.  The players can be be hired to track down some bank robbers.  And if they step out of line and end up with a bounty on their head they will always be looking over their shoulder.

Actually never mind.  These are solutions for PC dickery, not specifically magic.

In 5e and D&D in general there are some notable magic counters that keep casters from ever gaining ascendancy.

1: Other casters: "You have spells. Spells I want. Im going to take them off your corpse." or "Your insane actions offend the gods! I am here to end you!" Magic attracts attention. Often the worst sort.

2: Countering items: Brooch of Shielding, Dust of Sneezing & Choking, Iuon Stone, Iron Bands, Mantle of Spell Resistance, Potion of Invulnerability, Ring of Spell Turning, Ring of Resistance, Ring and Cloak of Protection, Rod of Absorption, Rope of Entanglement, Scarab of Protection, Spellguard Shield, and probably a few missed. Some of those, like the Iron Bands, can be crafted in about... 6 months. The Dust can be crafted in about 10 days. A Cloak of Protection in 20.

3: The shear hostile nature of the world: Monsters, natural disasters, naturally magic dead zones, hoards that overwhelm, things with resistances or flat out immunities.

4: Gods: and more gods, and a demon or two. You think that well prepared thief who made off with your spellbook was a coincidence? Those pesky adventurers making mince meat of your guards and monsters? That even more powerful than you fighter whose about to lop your fool head off? Cleric from a rival god whose got more backing than you can muster? Hoards and hoards of orcs with you at ground zero? Guess again.

5: Too busy adventuring trying to amass loot to just pay for the tuition fee, component costs, research, etc.

6: And if you do beat all that? Congratulations. You probably just set off some world altering disaster and the fall of magic/gods/whatever. A looser is you.

Seriously, check my Big 5 list of major caster restrictions again. Martial Interrupt and Finite Cantrips alone really puts the kibosh on so much of the setting warping shenanigans.

(Unstoppable or infinite anything should make any sane designer pause. And no, in-progress interruption (Concentration checks) is nowhere near the same. Physical attacks are stopped by armor, dodge, cover, and distance/reach, so, uh, 'duh' already. Further, skill checks are readily frustrated by setting context (e.g. Help action limits, etc.), so don't be afraid to knuckle spells down hard. WotC is notorious for idiotic wording, trust the CCG player on that.)

After that shift societal culture with well-established counter measures: 1) casting openly is considered an open act of aggression, 2) talismans and other apotropaic counters are ubiquitous, etc.

And stop hiding behind "Bu, bu, bu, but RAW says! Think about the new players!" (/lip tremble). You either own the system or the system owns you (and ergo the system mastery players by proxy). NO SYSTEM is perfection incarnate for every setting or table upon contact. Put on your big boy pants, bust out the editor's blue pencil, and go to town already. So you lose a few players — good! Means you're keeping the ones who either: a) trust you and your visions of fun, b) will follow you through hell & high water to enjoy your company, or c) actually like the proposed shifts. You only gain from this attitude.

So... You got ideas. Now spitball your own. Get specific, throw out exact problems with attemps at exact solutions. Where are you specifically having play problems, most "problematic" spells? Where exactly in Combat, Explore, Social? What ideal setting/play states are you trying to move towards?

C'mon, I know you can do this... :mad:

Alright, sure. I think it might be helpful at this point to tackle these issues one at a time.

PART 1 - MIND CONTROL

5e's mind control effects are actually not so bad this time around thanks to limitations like duration, the concentration mechanic, short-ish ranges and many opportunities for victims to make saves or decide they wouldn't actually do something. In general a society's best defense against them is proficiency in wisdom saves (which many non-combatant NPCs with the sort of authority that interests PCs can easily justify), the presence of other people who can spot the spell being cast or notice the victim acting strangely, the 1st level spell Detect Magic, the 0 level cantrip Resistance, and a healthy paranoia based on the common societal knowledge that there are casters out there who can subvert your will so be on the lookout for radical changes in the behavior of others.

The stand-out spell for abusability is Suggestion.

Suggestion
2nd-level enchantment
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: 30 feet
Components: V, M (a snake’s tongue and either a bit of
honeycomb or a drop of sweet oil)
Duration: Concentration, up to 8 hours
You suggest a course of activity (limited to a sentence
or two) and magically influence a creature you can
see within range that can hear and understand you.
Creatures that can’t be charmed are immune to this
effect. The suggestion must be worded in such a manner
as to make the course of action sound reasonable. Asking
the creature to stab itself, throw itself onto a spear,
immolate itself, or do some other obviously harmful act
ends the spell.
   The target must make a Wisdom saving throw. On a
failed save, it pursues the course of action you described
to the best of its ability. The suggested course of action
can continue for the entire duration. If the suggested
activity can be completed in a shorter time, the spell ends
when the subject finishes what it was asked to do.
   You can also specify conditions that will trigger a
special activity during the duration. For example, you
might suggest that a knight give her warhorse to the first
beggar she meets. If the condition isn’t met before the
spell expires, the activity isn’t performed.
   If you or any of your companions damage the target, the
spell ends.

Notice the 8 hour duration, its availability at 2nd level, its ability to be used even in hostile situations, its incredibly vague and generous parameters, and worst of all it provides an EXAMPLE of a victim doing something utterly contrary to his nature and harmful to his livelihood (knight gives expensive warhorse to beggar). The mass version of the spell even affects dozens of creatures, potentially negating the safety-in-numbers solution to mind control effects.

I bet a lot of GMs (especially new ones) get blindsided by this spell.

My standard solution would be to take a very broad interpretation of what is a "harmful act" to the victim is, thereby negating suggestions that would 'harm' the victim's social standing or livelihood, but that damn example makes that argument untenable, especially in the face of a player who will feel cock-blocked.

[NOTE: I've just run out of time before having to go to work, so I'll come back to this later. In the meantime anyone who wants to comment on my concerns is certainly welcome to.]

SIDEBAR - THE MAGIC INITIATE FEAT

Here's a thought I just had that will probably please Estar.

NPCs in 5e are like those in most other D&D editions - they use much simpler rules than the PCs, and usually have way less features. Most of those features mirror some aspects of what the PCs can do.

Well there's an interesting feat in 5e - Magic Initiate. It allows you to take one 1st level spell and two cantrips from any one full caster class. This simulates a character who has done some very rudimentary magical study. Not the most desirable feat for most players I think you'll agree, but it clearly establishes in the default setting that low level dabbling is possible.

Well going along with Estar's theme of sticking to established tools and medieval themes, let's consider the role of the clergy in dark ages Europe. They may not have possessed the ability to work miracles, but the ranking members were usually literate, educated, informed and enmeshed in affairs of state. They frequently served important bureaucratic and management functions, and many came from well-to-do families whose worldly interests they continued to advance.

Here's where I'm going with this: While the D&D setting discourages making every acolyte a cleric because the cleric class is supposed to be an exceptional representative of the faith, I can easily imagine many educated clergy members picking up the Magic Initiate feat in the course of their religious studies.

Right there we have a significant part of the populace that is likely to pick up the crucial spell Detect Magic, and as a bonus they can grab the Resistance and Guidance cantrips. I don't really need to make a separate Witch Finder profession, he's already right there next to the baron, acting as a spiritual and bureaucratic adviser, ready to detect charm effects, illusions, divination, ability enhancements and anything else that could give unscrupulous casters an unfair edge against his lord. He's even got the high Wisdom and likely Wisdom save proficiency that's so handy against subversion, and can use the Resistance cantrip to protect himself or important people even more. Guidance is an annoying spell in the hands of players, but fun to turn on them when the local priest says a little prayer before trying to crack a disguise or Arcana check a weird PC ability.

In the war against caster supremacy, KNOWING that a spell has been cast or is in effect can be half the battle.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;919494Notice the 8 hour duration, its availability at 2nd level, its ability to be used even in hostile situations, its incredibly vague and generous parameters, and worst of all it provides an EXAMPLE of a victim doing something utterly contrary to his nature and harmful to his livelihood (knight gives expensive warhorse to beggar). The mass version of the spell even affects dozens of creatures, potentially negating the safety-in-numbers solution to mind control effects.

I bet a lot of GMs (especially new ones) get blindsided by this spell.

Describe to me what I would see if I witnessed a knight giving his horse to a wizard as result of the suggestion spell. Describe it as how you think it would go with the rules as written. Basically what I will be doing is matching your description.

Here how I would describe it.

While walking along in the City-State of the Invincible Overlord, you see a knight insult a young wizard. The wizard casts a spell and suggest the knight to give away the horse to the first beggar he see. The knight stops looks around and starts searching. He passes you as he turns to an alley and spot a beggar. You see him spend a couple of minutes in animated conversation to explain to the beggar that yes he is giving the horse to the horse. You even see the knight flagging down a passing priest and convincing him to write out a statment that yes the beggar is now the owner of the knight's horse.

After this is done and the beggar accepted it and the priest signed as a witness. You see the knight stop and blink a few times. You see him mouth the words "You fucker". He readies his sword and clearly has murder in his eyes. He marches back to where he encountered the wizard and sure enough the wizard is gone.

Later while drinking at the Green Dragon you hear that the knight and his friends along with a couple of constables caught up with the wizard who been charged with witchcraft and also now features several black and blue marks on his face.

Note the spell does not effect memory, nor inflicts permanent alterations of the victim's personality. I am sure with an eight hour duration a clever spell caster could manipulate things so that the entire course of events seemed reasonable. In which case the player has thought about what he is doing and came up with a plan to pursue his goal whatever it may be. And that is OK in my book.

However if the player uses suggestion in a petty and vindictive way, they are rarely smart about it. Leaving obvious trails for the afflicted to come back later to exact vengeance.

Also actions that are reasonable but out of character would also arouse suspicion in bystanders. In my example it is perfectly plausible for the priest suspect the knight to be under some magical influence as it would quickly be obvious that the knight giving a valuable horse to a random person.

You are correct to highlight "The suggestion must be worded in such a manner
as to make the course of action sound reasonable" In fact the example in the description of the spell contradicts that portion. It not reasonable for a knight to give away something that worth a year income of a manor to a random beggar.

And remember it just a 2nd level spell. When it comes to the vague parts, you should interpret it in that light. So in end the spell allows a smart mage to be a con artist regardless of their personal charisma. And a con artist is a skill set like any, there are only few good enough to be dangerous, the rest well basically will get caught.  The spell is a useful tool but in order for it to be problem the person has to be a good wizard and a good con artist a rare combination.

For what it worth, here is my version from the Majestic Wilderlands

QuoteSuggestion
Magic-User, 3rd Level, Range: Shouting distance, Duration: 1 week, Art: Web
This spell will cause the target to carry out a hypnotic suggestion if they fail their saving throw. The spell will only last a week. The suggestion can be set to be contingent on an event occurring.  Any suggestion that causes an obvious direct harm to the victim, like suicide, will only be obeyed if the caster rolls a 25 or higher on a thaumatology ability check.

It is more flexible and powerful than the 5e version and hence a 3rd level spell. It not an issue for me in my campaigns because when players use spells like this they have a reason to do so. Plus I don't care if they "trash" my setting I just note what they did and it get factored in along with everything else.

The reason that my cultures are dominated by mages casting suggestions is because requires you to be at least 5th level to cast a 3rd level. By that time you have carved out a small place for yourself and starting to be respected among your fellow mages. You are not going to be jeopardizing that by randomly casting suggestion or any other type of hostile magic. You will do if you have a damn good reason to do so and it will get you ahead.

And you know certainty by that point what happens to stupid maddog mages that abuses their power.  And you would have heard the story of one Zik Silverring a Elf Wizard who repeatably resorted to torching human villages as his solution to anybody opposing what he wanted to do. How after the 3rd incident the Elven Queen sent her royal knight, captured him, and found him guilty. His sentence was to be polymorphed into a donkey and to offer a ride to anybody approaching the gate of the elven city for a century.

Note that Elves can't die. Literally they can't die. If their body is killed their spirit will goto the Blessed Realm and after a long period of time (a year if they are young, centuries or even millenia if older and more renowned) they will resurrect in a elven glade. So that why Zik wasn't executed as another more suitable elven punishment was meted out. Also for that campaign a friend was a co-DM and it was he who came up with the punishment.

Anyway the player didn't quite learn his lesson, he promptly rolled up a new wizard character, who still used magic aggressively but he did temper his actions to minimize collateral damage as new that I and my co_DM would bag him. After that word got around  locally not act like a frothing mad dog in my campaign.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;919535Here's a thought I just had that will probably please Estar.
Here's where I'm going with this: While the D&D setting discourages making every acolyte a cleric because the cleric class is supposed to be an exceptional representative of the faith, I can easily imagine many educated clergy members picking up the Magic Initiate feat in the course of their religious studies.

...
In the war against caster supremacy, KNOWING that a spell has been cast or is in effect can be half the battle.

Stamp of Approval from me for what it worth. Especially for the campaigns that treat levels and classes as a special snow... err mythic :-) in the setting. And knowing is indeed half the battle. Especially in 5th edition where you really don't want peasant in pitchforks to come after you even at high level. (Bounded Accuracy is a bitch in that regard).

I will only say that bit about not every acolyte is a cleric is advice not a rule. Not everything in the PHB are rules most of it is advice. Even concrete stuff like encounter tables are advice. In my view the rules are those thing that guide the referee and players in resolving specific actions.

Lets see.

1: Suggestion: Note the concentration part and the "must seem reasonable" part.
A: Concentration: This spell can tie up the caster for up to 8 hours. Not so bad in a city setting. But theres lots of potential chances to get it broken along the way.
B: Reasonable: Heres where the designers failed on that entry. There needed to be a followup example of why the knight might refuse the suggestion to give away their horse. Such as... This is their fathers horse. They raised the horse themselves. Its not their horse to give away. Its a reward from the king and not to be given away lightly. What am I going to do with all this barding and packs and saddle and such? (They were only suggested to give away the horse. Not everything on it.)

2: Magic initiate: Oh that was even nicer during playtest! Really wish they'd kept the rest of the initiate chain of feats.
Things to keep in mind.
A: Its a feat. You have to be at least level 4 in a class to get one. And NO variant humans are not an excuse as they are not the norm AT ALL. Sorry. Cant weasel around that. The NPC is going to need about 4 levels then to access a cantrip. So no. Every farmer and their daughter are not going to know Eldritch Blast. Utterly hilarious as that might be. No. Really. Imagine the looks on the PCs faces when they threaten the orphanage and all the kids obliterate them with a barrage of cantrips.
But I can easily see a farmer thats worked hard, or serves in the militia as having gained enough EXP to essentially gain a few more HD and over that time has picked up that feat.

The bigger problem is... SCROLLS!
Why? Because a cantrip scroll is dirt cheap to make. You can crank one out in 2 days and it costs 50 gold to make and can sell for anywhere from 5-75 gold on the market. No. Im not joking. Thats in the DMG and errataed later prints of the DMG. Yes. 50 gold is alot for many non-adventurers. But 5 gold is within possible range. Now imagine those sold instead as charms. Mending, Message, Light, Resistance, Spare the Dying.
Or given out to the faithful of a religion. Or part of militia or guard standard outfitting.

This is where you can really screw with casters as they will never know who does or doesnt have one. Oh. And depending on how you read it. FIRST LEVEL SPELLS can be made at the same cost and speed. Though personally I'd double the sale price. 10-150 gp.

But it gets better. Counterspell. As a scroll or charm. Craftable in 10 days for a cost of 250 gp. Sellable for 25-325 gp. (or 50-750 gp). Can we say Counterspell Charm? Yes. Yes we can.