Our group are the proud owners of a rod of rulership that we pried out of the dead coils of a defeated Spirit Naga. We since have successfully employed this device in a couple of large encounters with lots of minions.
Our DM is fond of springing monster-ball encounters on us: all the monsters of a given faction ambush us at the same time. These encounters are up to 10 times the XP value of a "deadly" encounter, and include lots of opponents. The rod has proven helpful to not only survive these, but give us a fighting chance.
Our DM is not happy with this outcome. They have made rulings to nerf the effect, arguing that the effect makes fights "too easy" and the rod states creatures cannot be commanded to do something contrary to their nature. This is of course their right to call. At the same time, they like to play RAW. So we are trying to understand what is and is not within RAW for the Rod:
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You have to present a convincing narrative on why you should be their leader to the targets when presenting the rod (similar to what suggestion demands)
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Attacking any member of the opposing group will break the charm on those that are charmed
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Ordering charmed targets to attack their former allies will break the charm
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Commanding hostile, agressive creatures not to attack your companions will break the charm
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You cannot charm creatures with the rod when already in combat or direct conflict
I'm in particular interested in this last one — as I read the item, the earliest point at which the charm could be broken is when you issue a command that goes against the charmed creature's nature.
We already resolved if it is possible to command targets against commands of an uncharmed leader they report to as up to DM ruling.
I would appreciate answers that cover the individual unresolved points explicitly, with the rationale for why it should or should not be possible to do each one.
I'm grateful and appreciate the recommendations to work with the DM on how we'd like to play, but still would be interested in the actual question about how Rod of Rulership works.
Best Answer
The thing here is that, when it comes to interpreting how the rod of rulership works according to RAW, there aren't very many written rules to interpret. The only relevant text is the description of the rod itself, and the effect of the charmed condition. In their entirety, these are:
So, with these rules in mind, let's address your questions.
There is no RAW support for this. As written, you simply invoke the rod's power, and anyone who fails their save now treats you as their trusted leader. No mention is made of any requirement to justify your leadership to those affected. (In fact, such may not even be possible; the rod works on creatures that do not understand any language at all, and on creatures that share no language in common with you.)
That's not to say that the affected creatures will follow your orders unquestioningly, however; while charmed they trust you and will respect you as an authority, but if you give them orders that seem dangerous or nonsensical in context, you might need to justify those orders to them, or they might try and do what they think you meant rather than what you actually said. This should vary between creatures; quarrelsome academics, for instance, would seem much more prone to question their orders than disciplined soldiers, who are trained to do what they're told even if they don't understand why.
Remember that while a creature is charmed you have advantage on social interactions with them, so it will be easier to persuade, deceive or intimidate them into doing what you want them to do.
This also doesn't have RAW support. From the rod's description, emphasis mine:
The rod's effect applies to many individual creatures, not the concept of a group of creatures. If a creature is affected and you harm that creature, the charm effect ends for that creature. The text does not mention harming the creature's allies as a condition that will end the charm, whether those allies are also charmed or not.
An affected creature may be very confused if you attack other creatures they regard as their friends and allies, though. They trust you, but if someone you trusted suddenly attacks your friend, you wouldn't just sit passively and let it happen. They might try to interpose themselves to prevent you hurting their friend, try and calm you down or otherwise interfere with the attacks, though they cannot attack you directly due to the charm.
The point at which the charm might break is if you order them not to defend their ally - then it is the DM's judgement call as to whether or not it would go against their nature to follow that order. Again, this is behaviour that will vary between creatures; a coward would probably find that command within their nature, but a brave and honourable sort probably would not.
This is not explicitly a condition that breaks the charm as described by the rod, and ultimately comes down to DM ruling on whether or not attacking their (former) allies would be "against their nature". For an enemy already predisposed to fractious infighting - say, a group of poorly disciplined bandits - it's easy to argue that a bunch of them switching allegiance to support a new leader they like better, and turning on those who still support the old, is entirely within their nature. Conversely, for a group of honourable knights, the idea of turning their weapons on their comrades-in-arms may be utterly abhorrent.
But don't forget you also have advantage on checks to persuade and deceive the charmed creatures; you might be able to convince them that the others are traitors who are about to betray them and they need to fight back! If the honourable knight honestly believes they've been betrayed by their former ally, their compunctions about fighting them are probably less of an issue.
DM adjudication is required here, but the fact remains that attacking a former ally is not inherently a charm-breaking condition; it depends on the nature of the creatures and the circumstances.
Again this is not RAW and is a question of whether or not such restraint is against the creature's nature. For some creatures, the idea of not attacking an enemy could well be against their nature; one imagines many kinds of demons, for instance, would never be able to restrain themselves in that way. But this doesn't seem like it should be true for most intelligent creatures, who are capable of obeying an order from a trusted leader to stop fighting, or even to surrender entirely. If a disciplined soldier hears their commander order them to stand down, then they'll stop; especially if their enemies are also stopping (since otherwise they will break the charm by harming the creature anyway!). They might Ready an action to attack anyway in the event that hostilities continue, of course - they're not magically compelled to follow your orders to the letter, just to treat you as an authority.
This is not RAW by any means. The rod's text and the charmed condition simply include no such limitations. Some charm effects may not work on creatures who are already hostile; some charm effects are saved against with advantage if you're already fighting the creature. This is always specified in those effects, though, and is not a general rule. The rod works on any creature regardless of how it originally felt about you and whether or not you are in combat with it.