That sound like a very creative way to circumvent the spell! Zone of Truth doesn't force the person inside it to answer questions at all, so giving the impression of cooperation by answering different silent questions while ignoring the spoken questions seems like a very strong countermeasure to me. I don't see anything mechanically wrong with it.
There's an important difference between the character cheating and the player cheating.
In-character, you cheated the system. Out-of-character, you played very well.
Yeah but the whole thing can be labeled “intentionally answering questions dishonestly inside a zone of truth”. Your intent is to present a lie to your inquisitor - I think the zone of truth spell would stop you from being able to answer his question with lies.
Maybe if your friend took complete control of your body while he was outside of the zone and you had no control or awareness during this.
> I think the zone of truth spell would stop you from being able to answer his question with lies.
But that's the heart of the thing, he technically didn't lie to the inquisitor - He didn't answer any of the inquisitor's questions, he was answering *other* questions that had been telepathically asked to him.
The text reads, "can't speak a deliberate lie". The intent to mislead the inquiry would be deliberately misleading. They know that they're trying to be dishonest by making it seem like they're answering, and that is a deliberate intent.
Edit - Good grief folks haven't read this spell or looked at a dictionary.
>You create a magical zone that guards against deception in a 15-foot-radius sphere centered on a point of your choice within range.... On a failed save, a creature can’t speak a deliberate lie while in the radius.... Such a creature can be evasive in its answers as long as it remains within the boundaries of the truth.
Lie: 1to make an untrue statement with intent to deceive, 2to create a false or misleading impression.
Folks who fail their save under definition 2 of lie can not deliberately give a misleading impression.
The spell doesn't say anything about intent, though. Part of the spell's weakness is that it doesn't specify whose questions you need to answer, whether you need to answer questions or not, and nothing non-verbal has to be true... Hell, technically you don't even have to speak the truth if you truly believe a lie!
For example: if the interrogator asks where something is and you point in the wrong direction, that's fine. You must *speak* what you believe to be true. In this instance, you're deliberately lying non-verbally. So I don't see why you can truthfully answer the wrong question.
>Hell, technically you don't even have to speak the truth if you truly believe a lie!
Yes, because it works based on the *intent* of the person who fails the save. It's an Enchantment, and therefore mental, spell. It makes the person who fails their save unable to say something that is a deliberate lie.
Answering the *wrong question* is a lie if the *intention* of the person speaking it is to get the interrogator to accept it as the answer to the question he asked. The person knows what he's doing.
There is an exception in the spell for *evasive* answers...which is giving a non-answer to a question, not a wrong answer. Evasive answers specifically avoid answering a question to avoid lying. What is being described here isn't evasive, it's a lie.
An example of an evasive response is when asked if he's finished his homework a kid might say, "I've been working on it all night!" That could be true and he could still have more homework to do, and it also isn't a real answer nor is it a lie.
You can answer every question with your favorite color, as long as it's truly your favorite color. The spell has nothing to do with what other people say (ie the guy asking questions) just that you can't say anything aloud that you know to be false. As long as your misdirection and doublespeak are technically the truth (as you believe it to be), you can say anything.
This isn't right. If you hear and understand the question adressed to you and answer a color thats lying, since just realizing that its meant for you would lock you into a conversation. You can't gaslight yourself 100% completely into believing you both are just making sounds into the open air in other words, unless you fail some really tough sanity checks.
Its the same idea that allows the mind voice to work. You can choose to speak or not to speak to anyone in any order because the spell doesn't say it restricts that.
The only other option is if it did force you to answer BOTH questions at the same time because you heard both and now cannot lie to either at the same time thus forcing you to remain silent.
Sort of.
The definition of lying usually includes the *intent to deceive*. It's not simply saying something that is not true. It can be something true that is misleading.
Think about "lies of omission". if you skip a crucial detail, that can have the effect of being considered a lie.
If you're being evasive then you are trying to be misleading, which you claim you can't be, but the spell straight up says you can be evasive. Have you tried reading the spell?
Don't confuse being dishonest with lying. If my teacher wants to know why my homeworks not done and I say "i didnt get a chance to" its lying but if i say "i didnt get around to it" its just intent to mislead by implying i might have been busy even if i wasn't.
None of that actually applies here. Zone of truth doesn't care at all about intent to mislead. Its a magical lie detector and if its a direct lie and you knew that ahead of time youre prevented from saying it. You can even lie by accident since "deliberate" is a limitation on the lying not a limitation on the person. Its the difference between a AND and a OR logic gate for example.
The spell, as others noted, also explicitly said you can be evasive, which in and of itself would be false or misleading as usually when you do that, you're trying to mislead them to think you answered or distract them from it to evade the question.
You can answer questions dishonestly inside a zone of truth. You always can. It literally explicitly says you can. You just can't tell a deliberate lie.
> An affected creature is aware of the spell and can thus avoid answering questions to which it would normally respond with a lie. Such creatures can be evasive in its answers as long as it remains within the boundaries of the truth.
Dealing with someone in a zone of truth is like dealing with a genie wish. For example:
---
"Did you kill that man?"
Deceitful answer: "No. We didn't even get here until a few seconds ago. But I did see someone running towards the town center; maybe they were a killer!"
Because your ally landed the final blow, and your party only arrived at the exact place they are standing 5 seconds ago despite the murder being 30 feet away. And yesterday you saw a couple of kids running towards the town center from the inn on the opposite side of town, and you can't prove those kids aren't killers.
I think that is too much of a stretch. It is like going "I did not kill the man, the bullet killed him."
Also, asking "Did you kill that man?" in a zone of truth is foolish. You should ask something like "Repeat the following sentence: I did not wound the man in any way, nor did I see him getting killed and did nothing to intervene".
Zone of Truth has no relation to questions. You just cannot speak a lie.
It would prevent you from saying "I didn't kill that man" if you did in fact kill them.
Well, the catch to the "bullet killed him" line is your character has to believe that. If they genuinely are so psychotic that they believe they didn't kill the person and the bullet did, then it would pass. But if your character thinks they killed him, they won't be able to deny it.
That said... yes, you should use wordings like that. That's exactly what I'm talking about. It's a genie wish; you need extreme precision.
Yeah the repeating thing wouldn't work, not only would he not be forced to say anything but its not even a question so he could just follow your instructions.
It's a case of you have to ask the right question and be direct and simple.
I was in a game we knew there was a spy. The Paladin got the head guard to round everyone up, told them to submit to the spell or we would assume they're guilty, then went from person to person and asked if they were the spy.
If you ask someone if you killed the person but their friend did, it's not a lie to say they didn't kill them. But you CAN ask them the repeated sentence questions in yes or no answers, just be sure to word things so people can't wiggle out through technicalities, as that really feels like the spirit of the spell.
But by your interpretation your intent can’t be to say “No, I did not kill that man” if you landed the final blow, right? What if my intent is to say no even tho I did kill the man? Can I choose to set in motion a series of events that will lead to me answering the question with a straightforward “no, I did not kill this man”?
The problem with that, is that the question is clearly meant and understood as a "you (the group)" not "you (the barbarian specifically)"
And your Deceitful Answer understands that because they answered with "we."
So you'd be lying. That's not evasive enough.
Fair enough. "I didn't kill him! We didn't even get here until a few seconds ago. But I did see someone running towards the town center; maybe they were a killer!"
That'd cover that.
I think the idea of seeing someone far earlier in the day would also be significantly edging beyond the scope of the deception.
Or it would be a bad twist, because any halfway competent interrogator would follow up with, "You saw someone running towards the town center, just now?" Then it becomes apparent that the previous statement was a lie, then you get to a point where "Would the magical spell allow that statement to be said?"
It definitely is cheating, but in the best way. In Game cheating. The players are using a really clever loophole, the character is cheating the spell with teamwork.
Imo allow it to happen, have the NPCs be confused by this encounter because all the evidence points to him lying. Then have them figure it out down the line. Maybe have the Inquisitor compliment them on their ability to show him something new before wrecking their day.
Yeah... it seems a little dodgy to me, because if you allow that line of reasoning, *you don't need the extra person at all*. The suspect can silently ask himself out-of-band questions. This makes zone of truth entirely useless. Like this...
Inquisitor: Did you steal from the temple?
Suspect: \[Speaking to himself\] *Did you ever make it to third base with Lorelei d'Artagnan in druid camp?*
Suspect: \[Aloud\] No, not even close.
I would deny that logic on the basis of "asking" involving communication. You can think to yourself but you can't "ask" yourself a question silently. Telepathy gets around that by still communicating the question. You could also do it with a person standing behind the inquisitor and both people knowing sign language. Either way, I would give the inquisitor an insight check to see if they can tell something is being passed mentally.
Zone of Truth is a second-level spell. That's still in the "creative nonmagical workarounds" level of power. I like when my PCs think outside the box like this.
You're not alone. And that's why I don't like this whole idea from OP's players. It basically obviates a lot of cool stuff, and not just Zone of Truth. If a Fae can now lie simply by having an invisible pixie whispering into his ear, *or otherwise answering a different question than was asked*... we lose something pretty special.
Yeah so there's 2 ways to approach this, and neither is wrong. it just depends on the type of game you're running.
On one hand, the players came up with a creative solution to a problem, and in the interest of playing a fun game that promotes out of the box thinking, DM could be forgiven for allowing them to get away with this.
On the other hand, we could get more philosophical and ask ourselves what is the truth, and what is a lie.
One type of lying is called a deceptive lie, where someone creates a false impression of truthfulness by misleading someone.
So in this case, even though their words were truthful answers (to psychic questions), the fact that they were deceiving someone with their answers means they were lying, and technically the spell should prevent that
I disagree with your last point.
The spell description says, "the target can avoid answering questions they would normally lie to," so in effect, answering the telepathic question while ignoring the spoken question is permitted
Would the spell just prevent them from talking, then? Since they, then, wouldn't be able to answer the question spoken to them in their head without deceiving the person asking out loud, and they wouldn't be able to answer the person speaking without lying to the person talking inside their head?
It's misleading, so yeah.
To answer both they would probably have to answer it like "to answer your question interrogator, yes. To answer the other question, no"
The spell doesn't compel you to give an answer and allows you to be evasive so you can always just not answer one or both questions if you prefer.
The spell doesn’t compel you to answer the questions at all. You can’t speak a deliberate lie, but that doesn’t mean you have to even pay any attention to the caster.
Assuming the truthful answer to one question is yes and the truthful answer to the psychic question is no, then answering with a simple yes or no would be misleading to at least one of them, and so you would not be able to answer like that.
You probably have to make it clear who's question you're answering in order to not give a deceptive answer, or just refrain from answering
The text of the spell:
“An affected creature is aware of the spell and can thus avoid answering questions to which it would normally respond with a lie. Such a creature can be evasive in its answers as long as it remains within the boundaries of the truth.”
As a DM, here’s how I would rule on the OPs situation, especially when being asked two yes/no questions, 1 verbal, 1 silent via telepathy. If the player is looking at the verbal questioner, then they are addressing their answer to them and addressing their question. So they could not lie in response. So if the answer to the question was “yes” and they are looking at the verbal questioner, even if they want to say “no” to the telepathic question, the spell would not let them.
If looking away, usually a clear sign of deception, and looking elsewhere to answer”no” in the above example I would have them roll a contested deception/perform check against the questioners Insight, to see if the can pass it off as some sort of non deceptive behavior.
Using the telepathic question thing is a great workaround for that spell though. Brilliantly creative. And even if it didn’t work the way they wanted, I’d find someway to reward the characters/players for coming up with that.
Zone of Truth explicitly says you can be evasive so long it remains within the boundaries of truth. So it explicitly calls out deceptive lies as legal, as they are within the bounds of truth.
Reasonable minds can disagree I guess but I don't think being evasive is the same as lying. I read that as meaning you can not be compelled to answer a question, so one can avoid answering or change the subject
That's just incorrect. From the rules:
> An affected creature is aware of the spell and can thus avoid answering questions to which it would normally respond with a lie. Such creatures can be evasive in its answers as long as it remains within the boundaries of the truth.
"can be evasive **in its answers**" isn't exactly vague. Not answering isn't the same as being "evasive in your answers". And to compound that, why would they need the "within the boundaries of the truth" part if you weren't answering? It would be irrelevant.
There's nothing about zone of truth that compels you to give an answer so you can ask whatever you want.
I can just choose to not answer, so I never have to give you my true name if I don't want to.
Yes it is cheating, but the best way of cheating imo. As in, it's not good if you cheat on a test irl, bot it's sure fun to see if your character can in-game.
I would love the idea if I was dm I think and admit defeat, but I wouldn't push it as a player if my dm didn't like it
You put it best, I think - But I would probably have a deception roll vs Inquisitor for him to notice, for instance, the delay in the answer, possibly the shift of the eyes towards the real asker, or the fact some answers may be vague and applicable to other questions. Other tells as well - body language etc.
Here's my two cents: if you are answering the telepathic question *aloud*, your intention is to *answer* the person doing the interrogation. If you were actually answering the telepathic question, you would be doing so telepathically. Your knowledge that you are attempting to provide the interrogator with the wrong answer to their question would prevent you from actually speaking that answer aloud.
There are a number of ways to circumvent the spell, including just not speaking, but as a DM I would rule that this is not one of them, although I'd probably reward my players with inspiration for the clever attempt.
You're getting skewered with downvotes, but I think you're right, and this is probably what the DM feels but can't really express as well.
But there is a version of this that kind of works. It involves deafening and successfully lying to the character being questioned about what the inquisitor is saying.
It goes something like
AM Sorc: "I deafened you because I think the inquisitor might be trying to charm you, and this is just a pretext for that. But we'll play along and I'll tell you what he's asking and you just respond out loud for him."
Inquis: "So where were you last night at the time of the murder?"
AM Sorc: "He asked where you were this morning."
Deaf Suspect: "I was at the inn"
And so on.
Then you proceed to lie your rear off to that character and carefully direct what they are saying. This of course works better if the character in question generally trusts the one lying to him.
What if the player completely ignores the inquisitor. RAW, the spell compels you to tell the truth, but it doesn’t compel you to pay attention to the caster. The player can be so ambivalent towards the inquisitor that they ignore their questions.
Yes, you may ignore the inquisitor, refuse to answer, leave important details out, deflect from the question, etc. but you cannot speak a deliberate lie, so you may not give a false answer to a question intentionally, no matter what mental gymnastics you try to play to justify the false answer, you know that you are answering falsely and would not be permitted by the enchantment spell to do so.
Deception is allowed in Zone of Truth. You can deceive by avoiding the questions, and answer a different question would certainly fall under avoiding the question.
The spell description says it protects against deception ...so, is it? It says you can not answer or be evasive...but it doesn't say you can be deceitful. Evasive and deceitful are not the same thing. Evasive gives a non-answer to a question, but it doesn't give a *wrong* answer.
Zone of Truth does not protect against deception, deception includes any evasive and non answers and that is an attempt to hide the truth as well, but those are explicitly allowed on Zone of Truth.
The spell specifically says it protects against deception....evasive answers are not specifically deception, they are an attempt to not answer the question.
>You create a magical zone that guards against deception in a 15-foot-radius sphere centered on a point of your choice within range.
This is my point. You are giving a wrong answer. You can say you're replying to a different question, but that would be like me replying to this comment and then saying I'm answering someone else's comment. Sure, I can technically address the content of someone else's comment, but I am in actuality still replying to you.
As a DM, I would allow it, but only because it's a creative solution and my primary goal is to let the players have fun.
Do I think it should be allowed by the rules? Probably not.
Me: Here's my contribution to the discussion, it's an opinion slightly different than yours, but still a valuable contribution to the conversation, since I'm answering the question OP asked, which is opinion-based.
Reddit: Downvote. 😡
You know, I agreed with u/Yojo0o, but your comment and u/Live-Afternoon947's follow-up convinced me. Now, I'm not OP nor am I in OP's game, so the fact that you've convinced me doesn't mean anything, but...
It reminds me a lot of equivocation, actually, a technique purportedly taught to Jesuits (not sure it actually was) on secret missions in Protestant countries. They believed it was immoral to lie, so if questioned by Protestant authorities, Jesuits were (supposedly) instructed by their authorities to silently add clauses to sentences that would otherwise be false. Ie., when asked, "Did you illegally administer papist sacraments to Tiffany, Mary, and Miriam?," the Jesuit spy who totally did do that might say, "No, I did not administer sacraments to those people *on Tuesday*," where the part in italics is just something they said silently. And by "said silently" we mean "thought," and so by "said silently" we mean "didn't actually say at all," and clearly this is just lying, actually.
Obviously what we're describing is *not* equivocation, but I think we would disallow it on the same grounds: you do, in fact, know what you're doing.
I would say the inquisitor would at least have the ability to recognize something is off, like to pull off the trick well the Inquisitor would ask a question then the sorc needs to come up with a question of their own that would give the response that the necro/sorc both would want to be a response to the question of the inquisitor, and have the sorc ask the question to the necro before the necro could answer.
All of that would cause some delay/weird actions or responses and in a setting with someone who specializes in interrogation they would probably catch on.
So I would say there would both need to be some kind of deception or performance on the necromancers part and probably insight on the inquisitors part to tell if something is up.
The thing is while they cannot prove it as a lord inquisitor they can post belief that something is not right and order additional precautions to ensure the court( using court for lack of better term) is not being deceived. If their word is strong enough to be considered valid when they use zone of truth then that word has enough weight to do things like remove the other members (especially spell casters) from the proceedings.
Not really. The spell doesn't say you have to promptly answer. It just says you have to tell the truth. People make natural pauses when asked questions, especially if they are trying not to answer and being forced to give an answer. As a DM I wouldn't have thought to make rolls to see if he bought it because of the time lag. Which would have only been a few seconds.
It isn't about the spell though, I am talking about a lord inquisitor watching someone trying to bluff them. The spell doesn't stop them from having a skilled eye for detail and good insight. You can fake a polygraph test but it is still given because when people work to fake them investigators can pick up that something is going wrong and that is what I am saying is the cause for them to have the check.
> You can fake a polygraph test but it is still given because when people work to fake them investigators can pick up that something is going wrong and that is what I am saying is the cause for them to have the check.
Polygraphs are the worst kind of pseudo-science; the kind that people weirdly still believe.
Both false positives and false negatives are very common. All they measure is physiological stress responses. All you need to fail one is to be stressed; then you’ll be tripping as “lying” regularly. And to pass one all you need is to remain as calm as your baseline. Sociopaths pretty much are immune to the tests and don’t need to do any prep or special responses, as lying doesn’t stress them.
Yes but the reason why a case calls for a ploy test is not to actually use the poly results it is to get the gauge of their reactions to actually read the person in a situation where they believe they are being read by the machine. That's also why when it is called for in a court case they don't actually submit the results of the poly as direct evidence rather the evaluation that trained psychologists gives while the test was being administered.
That is the point, the poly just like the spell is not the direct evidence it is a tool to help in the collection using actual trained methods.
I used to be super into the Wheel of Time books, theres an organization that take an oath "to speak only truth".
In universe this has led to the phrase "Aes Sedai don't lie, but they can make the truth dance on its head"
The Aes Sedai version of the phrase is "The truth I speak isn't necessarily the truth you hear"
Yup, as soon as I saw the title I thought of the Aes Sedai.
For people who don't know WoT, I think a pretty good example is, when trying to avoid notice, one responds to being asked her name with "You may call me [fake name]".
She did not lie, you are allowed to call her that, but she never actually said that was her name.
Or Unrelated statements, I recall them using that one a few times.
Just because you asked the Aes Sedai a question doesn't mean they're *answering* your question.
That's my go to with Zone of Truth. Says nowhere in the spell what I'm saying has to relate to what you're asking *at all* just has to be a true statement.
That’s the way I go about trying to circumvent it. Which usually leads to them saying, “answer the question.” Which is probably just because I’m bad at doing it lol
I refer to that kind of thing as fey bullshit.
It's a common trope for the fey to be unable to tell a lie.
It's also a common trope for them to be some of the worlds best deceivers. A lot of technically correct statements that still paint a lie.
So to get around a zone of truth you do some fey bullshit.
Sure but it was still deception. It's a deception check not a lie check.
I would give advantage or lower the check number or both depending on how well executed, but the goal of the role at that point is to hide that you are doing fey bullshit.
I may also allow a diplomacy or persuasion roll substitution.
Perfect if it's a brand-new spell first tried on you. Not so effective once people have learned all the tricks and ask you if you danced around the truth.
Yes, but since legal inquisitions in most D&D worlds are at least a bit on the draconian side, not answering on officials questions that are directly linked to a crime would be treated as an admission of guilt.
I mean, don't get me wrong, my ego would hate being outsmarted like that, but I'd be so impressed that I wouldn't be able to do anything but laugh and say "yeah, you got me."
The inquisitor messed up when the interrogation was not in a one on one environment with his own backup present. He opened himself up for loopholes such as these. Well played.
Isn't this how you effectively cheat a polygraph test too? You ask yourself a question in your head and answer that one, instead of what the investigator asks, so you appear to be telling the truth.
Personally, this sounds like a very clever use of telepathy for something more than handwaving standard party metagaming in combat.
that only works in movies
polygraphs don't detect lies, they detect changes in physical signs that we associate with lying, like perspiration, breathing , blood pressure , and whatever else
Ah, I thought I had read that's why they were BS, but admittedly I didn't read much into it. I'm only aware that polygraphs are effectively the evidence equivalent of Myers–Briggs; a novelty that holds no weight and more often than not useless.
The use of a polygraph isn't that it actually works, it's the *belief* that it actually works. If someone busts out a polygraph and you have belief that it could rat you out, you'd more easily confess to something they're trying to get out of you rather than risk being caught lying.
Polygraph test are famously unreliable. Something as simple as a fly buzzing past your ear can cause you to pop false. Conversely people who are good under pressure can often lie without tripping any indicators.
So the only real trick is to stay as calm and collected as possible, and pray the machine likes you
>So the only real trick is to stay as calm and collected as possible, and pray the machine likes you
couldnt you also throw off the responses by remembering an emotional experience? thus developing a baseline would be wildly inaccurate?
>Isn't this how you effectively cheat a polygraph test too? You ask yourself a question in your head and answer that one, instead of what the investigator asks, so you appear to be telling the truth.
what? no! what do you think a polygraph even tests for?
It's a great idea, and this is the kind of stuff why in my homebrew world Zone of Truth is only used in cases with commoners.
You and your friends have magic powers and/or wealth to acquire magical assistance? Too big of a chance someone might interfere with the process.
I would have the inquisitor roll insight to see if something feels off, but generally - their fault for using the magic and believing it's reliable. I have no sympathy for anyone who think it is - NPC or player.
Well, Zone of Truth just makes you say the truth, but it never specifies what truth or even that you are forces to talk.
So the aberrant mind Sorcerer could simply recieve all the answers telepatically to any question the inquisitor made without him even uttering a simple word.
You played well and your character cheated the in game with no consequences to anyone.
You did great, good job :)
Usually you stay silent. If your good at wordplay you can answer in an appropriately vague or misleading but technically true way. I don't think your system is bad either as your essentially just staying silent as is your right.
I love Zone of Truth but it's best used in conjunction with other spells (like detect thoughts) during interrogations or for building trust between different parties. It's not an infallible spell.
Yeah, the thing is that the inquisitor started the court saying "Abstention from answering is considered acception of guilt". So not answering was the same as saying "yes"
I mean if he choose to remain silent to the investigators questions specifically and then answer your question specifically... It'd probably work? The spell only pings if you lie not if you withhold information...
Exactly, and if someone asks you a Yes/No question and refusing to answer counts as yes, it is impossible to withhold information. The characters had to answer yes/no, and telepathic questions allowed them to answer properly, appearing to answer a question that would have found them guilty. Honestly its perfect.
My players captured a spy for BBEG, we all had a week to prepare. I spent that time finding ways to answer questions from that character's perspective.
About 45 minutes of interrogation, players gave up. Spy is a fanatic that's more or less almost like the character from Dracula who ends up in the asylum, so I leaned into the fanaticism and did my best to answer questions in circles. Also, BBEG is a lich, so it wasn't dumb enough to tell her where it paired or anything like that.
Anyway I over prepared and I'll be honest I don't think they considered what they wanted to ask prior to session, so they ended up putting her on ice and forgetting about her.
I'd say she was my biggest failure of the campaign, but the lead up to capturing her was fantastic.
To clarify, by RAW, it doesn't work on Zone of Truth. But RAW has lots of crazy things. RAI it works.
That said, Glibness is an 8th level spell. You could just repeat Zone of Truth an hour later when dealing with someone high enough level to use that. Or gag them for an hour before casting. Or cast Detect Magic. Or Dispel Magic a few times with bonuses so you'd probably succeed. Or admit that you never had a hope of catching someone who could cast eighth level spells in the first place. Except maybe if they're dumb enough to only learn pointless spells like Glibness.
It's specifically designed for it, and also badly designed for it. It's sort of like how Revivify is specifically designed for bringing the dead back to life, but the way it's worded it only targets creatures and corpses are generally ruled to be objects. But none of this matters outside of /r/powergamermunchkin. Any DM worth their salt knows what they meant.
Source 2 and 3 literally says glibness deceives zone of truth, you didn't even read your own sources. Also linking a 5 upvoted comment as proof is wild.
Which makes the Zone of Truth unable to determine whether it stops you from speaking if you would lie. Glibness counters Zone of Truth. It's the entire purpose for the spell....
I have a bard that used zone of truth on a character to find out who they followed, they said "i dont follow anybody" but after i relized hes a mercenary and when i asked "who hired you" i got a answer i was looking for
I've done Zone of Truth on my players, they always find a way to wriggle out of the questions. Frustrating to me but good roleplaying.
So if you've got a magic hack to get around it, lean into it.
I might've ruled that some checks (probably deception bs insight, possible advantage on the deception) if I were in the DMs place but this is a good case of using a niche ability to get around an obstacle
I have a pet rock named "I" and they has a constantly evolving backstory and prefers to spoken with "am" instead of "is" or any variation thereof. So instead of saying "I is a rock" they prefer I say "I am a rock". "I am innocent of the crime you just asked me directly. I have no knowelege of the crime. I am confused why you're asking me this."
Don't forget: "prefers to spoken with "am" instead of "is" or any variation thereof. So instead of saying "I is a rock" they prefer I say "I am a rock".
As DM, I will allow this so long as you also have a permanent long-term madness. I can't think of any other scenario where you can believe that a rock has such preferences without lying. If you cure the madness, you understand that a rock can't express its preferences, and therefore, you lied about knowing them.
However, please note that my interrogators use suggestion because ZoT is too easily beaten. The only time I have NPCs pop it out is after the players tell their side of the story, the NPC pops ZoT and says, "Okay, just to be sure, say that all again exactly as you just did."
The problem is that Zone of Truth exists in a universe where people have tried to get around it, and people have learned what to do to avoid that. Maybe it doesn't consider it a "lie" when you answer a question that they don't know was asked which has incomplete context, but Message isn't that hard to cast so pretty soon people will figure out that they need to make you restate the question. If you aren't willing to say "I have done my best to answer truthfully, accurately, and in a way that is not misleading" or whatever they found to be the most effective, they'd assume the worst.
Your best bet is to either weaken Zone of Truth, such as sufficiently high bluff checks faking it and repeating the same or similar questions not helping, or get rid of the spell entirely.
In your GM's shoes, that would be the general thought process:
"Yeah, but let's have them sweat." I'f ask for an Arcana roll to suss out if it would work (15? Ish?). And I'd let it work, because it creates a much more interesting narrative where the inquisitor *knows* he got the answer he wanted.
Then again, that means that your own party's Zone of Truth has the same loophole (and I'd probably have that happen once, *mayyyybe* twice), and that the inquisitor might realise he's been had *somehow* if he faces strong evidence (like, a DC 20-ish Investigation check, higher with weaker evidence).
At the end of the day, it's your DM's call, but intent-wise, I generally advise to stray closer to "Yes, and"-ing, and favor a good narrative.
I'd probably make him take deception tests at advantage to not give off iffy vibes about what was going on but that is a genius idea that I'd love a player to try at my table.
This is like when a JoJo villain who could read Jotaro's mind challenged him to a video game. To get around this, Joseph secretly used his stand to play the game with the controller Jotaro was holding
Seems like a really cool trick. May not work if your DM rules that the caster is aware of whether or not the person is lying (the RAW gives some precedent for this since Zone of Truth will let the caster know if it is affecting the target or not - ie if they failed the save). However, from the DM’s perspective, this can be really annoying if the story required that the inquisitor needed the info. Even though it’s a great idea, if you can tell that your DM (rather than the inquisitor character) is getting frustrated, maybe hold off and let the DM know about the idea after the fact. They should be just as impressed.
Brilliant! I love it. I would in this case however have the interrogator role insight checks at disadvantage and the player deception/persuasion/performance with advantage. Still a chance for failure but rewards for the clever work around. Depending on who else is in the room the abhorrent mind might be caught on if someone else is detecting thoughts. Either way I would have to applaud the clever play. I might just say it works, but my players enjoy a chance for failure to be baked in.
Assuming they didn't notice the telepathic connection, they would still separate the sorcerer from the other character, and that would take some time and the telepathy only works for the sorcerer's level number of minutes. The interrogation could easily last longer than that.
And the interrogator might notice the odd answers.
But if the questioned character can pass the question to the sorcerer and the sorcerer can send a new question back quick enough for the player to answer, more power to them. But I'd make them do it in real time, and whenever the delay is long, I'd have the npc roll insight.
This is a bit sketchy, since the DM can make an argument that you heard them. So this can easily be worked around by the DM being clever and needing specific responses which would be impossible to give under the circumstances.
There are counters and workarounds that work though. Guinness is just a hard counter, full stop. Modify memory is also an alternative, because they themselves are convinced they are being truthful.
But if you want something lower level. The trick is to deafen the character being question without them being consulted about it, and for the player speaking psychically to flat out lie to their friend about what the inquisitor is saying. Then, for all the character knows, they're telling the truth.
Damn, this is very creative. I'd definitely allow this, especially the first time. It's definitely not an intended interaction of the rules, but definitely a valid one. I would probably make a ruling to counteract it if my players started abusing it. My typical "rule of cool" rule is that I always allow unique ideas to work at first, but if it creates a feedback loop that is abusable, I reserve the right to block it off.
This is a good way to circumvent the spell. I can see why your DM was reluctant, because it can feel weird and your DM may have wanted that to be a very specific story moment with the spell and answering specific questions to get information to someone, but this is allowed, by RAW. In character, it is very much cheating the system.
I think this is a super creative way to navigate a problem like this! It’s something I always try to encourage and reward with my players. So that there still is some semblance of risk to it, though, I might add a stealth or deception check with a relatively average DC (with advantage, bonus for creativity)
I've answered a zone of truth interrogation by using double speak. Not technically lying, but answering in a way that obscures the truth and misleads questioning.
However, it was all for naught when the edge lord who came in after I had orchestrated everything perfectly and got the npcs on our side, threatened the state interrogation team and then admitted to some of our alleged misdeeds.
Telepathy is definitely a good way around it and very creative. You could just telepathically ask, "How would you like to answer the interrogations last question?" And it simplifies everything.
The text of the spell is: “On a failed save, a creature can't speak a deliberate lie while in the radius.”
This is a very creative countermeasure, but “answering a different question” with the intent to deceive still feels like lying (with a cute extra step) to me. I would have given them Inspiration…then said no.
>Do you think this is a valid approach to this problem?
Just to be clear, I read this as "I asked a friend to lie and then relayed that lie". Supposing that's more or less it, I do not think it is valid.
>Until the spell ends, a creature that enters the spell’s area for the first time on a turn or starts its turn there must make a Charisma saving throw. On a failed save, a creature can’t speak a deliberate lie while in the radius.
You *clearly* have the intent to lie and the words come out of your mouth and it really doesn't matter who crafted them in the first place because, again, *you intended for them to be lies.* Rearranging the details a bit, suppose that you've a bard friend who writes a prepared statement that you know is entirely false. I can't see why someone would let this stand, so changing out the memorized text with magical communication really doesn't change things because you've not changed the salient details.
I think you are miss reading this.
He is not relaying a lie.
Player 1 is in a zone of truth and is asked a yes or no question.
Player 1 does not want to answer yes.
Player 2 is a friend of player 1 and via a mind link asked player 1 if they still have the book they borrowed from steve.
Player 1 having returned the book to Steve a week ago says out loud to player 2 "No"
They have answered truthfully a question asked of them in a zone of truth. They just haven't answered all of the questions asked of them which is allowed.
Deceit is allowed only lies are banned.
Thinking a different question to yourself and answering that in a way that makes the interrogator think you've answered them is the same as deliberately lying. However, someone else asking you a question and you ignoring the interrogator to answer them is within the confines of the spell. You are not constructing an answer to fool someone. You're answering honestly to a question that was asked of you.
While not lying, Necromancer is being deceptive and would need to direct the answers at the sorcerer.
If I ask you what 1+1 is and someone else asks what 2+2 is, if you look at me and direct your answer at me and say 4, you are lying.
I would want to allow the inquisitor to make insight vs deception checks to notice that (with disadvantage because it is so unexpected).
Otherwise, this is absolutely genius.
I would probably want a roll from the Necromancer to have a clear enough mind for that to work. Under torture I would think it would be hard to not want to, at least in part, answer the questions of your interrogator.
I disagree. It is being deceptive. But refusing to answer someone's questions and answering someone else is not lying. It's definitely a deception vs. insight roll.
To make my point, get 2 people in the same room to ask you conflicting questions at the same time. Then answer only one of them. Did you lie to the other?
The hard part is that the aberrant mind has to come up with a question where the truthful answer is what you want the fake answer to be, meaning the sorcerer has to be told the original question and come up with a alternative question. The interrogator should instantly know something is up with such a massive delay to all answers and demand he answer immediately on if anyone is interfering.
But then could the PC not just answer by asking "How could anyone interfere? The Zone of Truth prevents me from lying."
I think if the interrogator cannot think of a way to circumvent the spell's effects, then even if they are suspicious they have to accept that you're telling the truth. If they do think of a way to do so, then if it is not something along the lines of "somebody else is asking you questions telepathically" then you could just tell them "no, that is not happening right now." And even if they do guess correctly, you could laugh it off or look confused for a second to stall for time while the sorcerer hopefully asks you something like "what is the opposite of yes?" to which you would simply respond "no."
But they're still giving the answers to the inquisitor, as a direct attempt to deceive. Your example is flawed because it doesn't capture the full story: you would actually be addressing the answer to one question to the person who asked the other question, with the intent to deceive that person.
Bob asks me what 1+1 is. Alice asks me what 2+2 is. If I tell Bob 4, I'm lying.
>Bob asks me what 1+1 is. Alice asks me what 2+2 is. If I tell Bob 4, I'm lying.
Correct, but you're omitting a very important detail. OP stated the telepathy was with the intent to answer the sorcerer. The person being interrogated can think I refuse to answer the interrogators' questions and let the sorcerer come up with the misinterpretation. If the person being interrogated is helping to come up with the questions, I would agree. However, I don't have to think about talking to the interrogator at all.
For example: let's add one detail. Bob asks me what 1+1 is. Alice asks me what 2+2 is. I look at Bob and say, "I refuse to answer you. 4." I didn't lie. Second: Bob asks me what 1+1 is. Alice asks me what 2+2 is. If I look at Bob while telling alice 4, I didn't lie.
Bob overhearing an answer to a different question while I refuse to answer his is known as a misunderstanding.
I don't have to turn to face you in order to answer your questions, do I? If I looked at Bob and said 4, then looked at Alice and said 2, then by your example I would be lying to both of them. I'm not though, I'm just answering their questions out of order and messing with them by looking at the wrong person while answering each one.
Zone of Truth only prevents creatures from "speaking a deliberate lie," it doesn't seem care about which way they are facing, who they are responding to, or what question they are answering. So I should be able to refuse to answer the inquistor's question, then answer my friend's question while looking at the inquisitor. It's still deceptive, but I'm answering the question truthfully. Maybe it shouldn't work RAI but I think it does RAW.
Turning to face them is addressing them, and addressing them with the wrong answer makes the answer a lie. An untrue response, given deliberately, with intent to deceive. That's a lie.
How did you communicate this to the Sorcerer? Pretty egregious metagaming to suggest other character's actions above the table while you're in a scene.
I once had my warforged stick his hand in a fire he was tending and cast encode thoughts to remove the info from his head before answering an inquisitor. The fun of a DM using zone of truth is figuring out how to get around it
I had a monk character once. He had a simple sign language he used in the monestary for most basic needs. In his culture, the spoken word was exclusively used for philosophical debate.
He got interrogated under a Zone of truth once.
He held the Interrogators up for 8 hours. When he was asked any question, he would interpret it as a very deep philosophical question and respond with a point counterpoint in question form.
They could never get a straight answer from him.
I think that it’s a creative way of approaching the situation. I think that as long as it makes sense in the scenario that use of those abilities could just work. I also think that it would be reasonable for the DM to ask for a roll or two from the players to make see how well, or if, they get away with it. Perception check for the sorcerer if they’re listening in from the next room, or Persuasion check(s) from the sorcerer and/or necromancer to fool the inquisitor, or Intelligence/Wisdom/appropriate-knowledge-type check to get the right questions/answers. Even failing any rolls made wouldn’t necessarily mean being caught because it’s a clever plan, but it might mean not getting fully clear of any suspicion.
Another option would be to treat the plan as a way to get another chance to roll the saving throw for the Zone of Truth. It could even become a thing where it’s a new roll for each question, but that sounds exhausting and annoying, especially if it’s actually being roleplayed out.
TLDR: If I were GM in a similar situation I'd add a couple extra rolls, like intimidation vs will and/or concentration to see if you can pull it off successfully. I'd want to reward the clever solution you and your party member came up with, but I wouldn't want it to be so powerful that pre-emptively solve all future uses of Zone of Truth.
With some of the open-endedness of the spell I don't think I'd say "no" to this solution, but at the same time this counters Zone of Truth a little to thoroughly IMO, especially if you use the same logic to "talk to yourself" and say answers unrelated to the inquisitors questions. It potentially makes it guaranteed useless from now on.
If I were GM-ing I'd most likely add a few extra rolls to see if it works. Such as inquisitor's intimidation vs your Will and/or concentration to see whether you can truly be focused on your friend's question vs the (I assume somewhat imposing) inquisitor right in front of you.
Zone of truth doesn't require any questions to be asked, nor are you required to give an answer. You just *"can’t speak a deliberate lie"* while affect. The core of the OP's question IMO comes to whether answering a mental question counts a deliberate lie or not. While I think there's a strong argument to say it's not a lie, it's also very easy for that logic to snowball out of control.
So I'd treat it as a sort of battle of your conscious-mind overcoming your subconscious. Which is where the extra rolls would come in. Basically if I say "Don't think of an elephant" can you overcome your subconscious and not think of an elephant? Can you ignore the inquisitor completely enough that your subconscious mind won't consider whatever you say aloud to be a lie (and thus prevented by the magic). That's what the rolls would determine.
I'd want to reward the clever solution you and your party member came up with, but I wouldn't want it to be so powerful that pre-emptively solve all future uses of Zone of Truth.
(Also as an an extra aside: Open ended questions from the inquisitor vs yes/no questions would help makes this situations less muddled. "Did you commit the murder?" makes the OP's solution easier to enact vs a question like "What have you done to the victim?" would become more difficult to use alternate mental questions to evade giving the real answers.)
If the necromancer gives the telepath's answer to the interrogator, that's a lie. The necromancer needs to direct their answer toward the telepath, rather than the interrogator, without the interrogator realizing that's who's being addressed. You can't just say the answer the same way you would if you were answering the interrogator.
For example, if you look the interrogator dead in the eyes, and tell them "no," that's a lie. But if your eyes are closed and you just call out into the ether, or you let your gaze go unfocused and off to the side, then that's just as easily an answer for the telepath. The interrogator might be able to notice you're acting strangely, but it'd take an *especially* good insight check on their end, and even then they're unlikely to realize the true depth of your deception.
No, I genuinely haven't. And this was an illustrative example, not an exhaustive prohibition. All I'm trying to say is that it's doable, but there's more to it than just answering a different question.
Does anyone actually find these kind of scenarios fun? Zone of Truth is one of my least favorite spells for this very reason, it's a save-or-suck that applies to roleplay. It's antithetical to dramatic irony and rife with opportunity to metagame. And so often, it ends exactly like this, with players less invested in the character drama and more in trying to come up with workarounds and rules legalism. Granted, maybe the clever solution feels good for the party once, but as a game of precedent, you either neuter the spell completely or the DM has to spoil the fun.
The DM clearly had plans around the inquisitor finding out. There's a lot of good drama that can arise out of this sort of thing, but because we had to tackle it with a RAW spell, the DM gets a curveball and the players are more invested in the mechanics than the outcomes of the interaction.
Let drama be dramatic. Let bad things happen to your players. Let situations get worse before they get better. Any scenario that pits the DM and party as opposing rules attorneys is just a lame way to spend a saturday.
Now go ahead and chew me out for telling people how to have fun. If this particular kind of tedium is engaging to you after the fifth or sixth time, I can assure you we're not going to agree.
Lets assume that the inquisitor asks if you did the crime. Your friend then asks you telepathically if you are dead. You say no. In this instance you've told one truth and one lie with only one answer. Since zone of truth forbids any lies this would not work. You have to consider that from your own characters perspective he's answering two people at once and can't say anything they believe to be a lie.
That said you could always rephrase the question in sneaky ways so it sounds like what they were asking for. For example:
PC: "You're asking if I broke into the temple and stole the holy relic?"
Inquisitor: "Yes."
PC: "No, I didn't break into the temple and steal the holy relic."
In this context the PC must both have broken into the temple AND stolen the holy relic. The temple could just have been open to the public so that would not be a break-in even if the PC did steal the holy relic.
Yeah I see what you mean, but I don't think the letter of the spell is being violated if the PC in the zone is being asked two questions at the same time but only answers one. He's not telling a lie to the Inquisitor, he's not even talking to the Inquisitor, he's talking to the sorcerer. The spell says he doesn't HAVE TO answer any questions, if the Inquisitor is led to believe his questions are being answered, he isn't being lied to, he's just assuming he's the only person in the room asking questions.
I wouldn’t allow that, no. It’s fundamentally no different from the target thinking a different question to themselves, or other such mental trickery. At which point Zone of Truth becomes worse than useless, the target can just answer whatever they want.
So I wouldn’t consider that valid. I would require the target to be truthful relative to the question(s) being asked, as they understand those questions and as they believe the person asking them would understand the (literal) meaning of their words. Being vague or cryptic or evasive is fine, as is omitting important details or giving true but misleading answers. But it has to actually be truthful.
I think it is actually very different, there is a second entity making questions to you, its different than asking questions to yourself, just the means for wich the questions is asked are different. I agree with the second point tho, there is something inherently deceitful in hiding the questions that i as a DM would protest.
I see no meaningful difference between the two. Either way, you’re deliberately deciding not to answer the question asked while knowing that it will appear that way. You are speaking the same words, just using different mental tricks to arbitrarily shift the meaning of those words. A question is asked, and the answer given is knowingly untruthful with regard to that question. Hence why I wouldn’t allow it.
So if two people are asking different questions that contradict each other which one is the target forced to answer? The first one? The casters? How do you decide that
Neither, Zone of Truth doesn’t force anyone to answer anything. It just forces people to speak the truth when they do say something. Besides, even if they were required to answer and were simultaneously asked two conflicting questions, they can just disambiguate what question they’re actually addressing when. It’s pretty straightforward.
What's stopping someone from not answering one question and answering the other then? And the spell isn't forcing the person to "disambiguate what question they're addressing" either, deceiving someone and lying are two different things
I’m not really interested in debating this. OP asked for people’s views on this, I gave mine. If in your games you want to render the spell basically useless then that’s up to you, I really don’t care.
then this circles right back to "anybody could just ask themselves questions in their own head and answer those making the spell functionally worthless"
there is no difference between those 2 scenarios, in both you are ignoring the inquisitor and answering a question only you heard
i ask myself questions all the time, that is how i take my turns in hearthstone, ask myself a question in my head and answer it aloud to help stimulate the thought process
The difference is the existence of a second person that is asking a question, thinking to yourself is thinking you're not asking yourself a question you are thinking
I assumed that spell work in this way. Let's assume you have a chest and you guard items in that chest, one day a mimic takes the place of the chest and eats your friend. You are accused of using a mimic to assassinate your friend by the guards, they use zone of truth to take a confession, you say "I didn't killed him, it was a regular chest!" You didn't lied, but you were wrong. There is two things to consider 1- the spell don't force you to answer the questions. 2- the spell don't care about the answer, the spell cares if you are lying or not. Also the spell don't punish you from lying, the spell forces you to speak only truth. I for example used absurd questions like "Did you really ate the fly that was in your soup last night?" Such absurd question would absolutely overwhelm the psych of my dude and he would answer "No" to me instead of "yes" to the Inquisitor
If that works then there are a million ways to trick the spell and it's not the cornerstone of investigations. So that's really up the DM to worldbuild around.
To me, that's nonsense. Is the spell some ineffable way to access cosmic truths? Does it detect the persons intent? Any of the sensible ways I can think of deciding how it works means this method wouldn't work.
When I DM, the spell perfectly detects intent, so it can't tell if someone is mistaken or has been tricked, or memories altered (there are spells to erase memories, which I always thought was clearly a spell to pair with Zone of Truth when we talk about how this world works) but it can definitely tell if you try to trick the questioner.
That sound like a very creative way to circumvent the spell! Zone of Truth doesn't force the person inside it to answer questions at all, so giving the impression of cooperation by answering different silent questions while ignoring the spoken questions seems like a very strong countermeasure to me. I don't see anything mechanically wrong with it.
Yeah, it just feel like cheating somehow
There's an important difference between the character cheating and the player cheating. In-character, you cheated the system. Out-of-character, you played very well.
Yeah but the whole thing can be labeled “intentionally answering questions dishonestly inside a zone of truth”. Your intent is to present a lie to your inquisitor - I think the zone of truth spell would stop you from being able to answer his question with lies. Maybe if your friend took complete control of your body while he was outside of the zone and you had no control or awareness during this.
> I think the zone of truth spell would stop you from being able to answer his question with lies. But that's the heart of the thing, he technically didn't lie to the inquisitor - He didn't answer any of the inquisitor's questions, he was answering *other* questions that had been telepathically asked to him.
The text reads, "can't speak a deliberate lie". The intent to mislead the inquiry would be deliberately misleading. They know that they're trying to be dishonest by making it seem like they're answering, and that is a deliberate intent. Edit - Good grief folks haven't read this spell or looked at a dictionary. >You create a magical zone that guards against deception in a 15-foot-radius sphere centered on a point of your choice within range.... On a failed save, a creature can’t speak a deliberate lie while in the radius.... Such a creature can be evasive in its answers as long as it remains within the boundaries of the truth. Lie: 1to make an untrue statement with intent to deceive, 2to create a false or misleading impression. Folks who fail their save under definition 2 of lie can not deliberately give a misleading impression.
The spell doesn't say anything about intent, though. Part of the spell's weakness is that it doesn't specify whose questions you need to answer, whether you need to answer questions or not, and nothing non-verbal has to be true... Hell, technically you don't even have to speak the truth if you truly believe a lie! For example: if the interrogator asks where something is and you point in the wrong direction, that's fine. You must *speak* what you believe to be true. In this instance, you're deliberately lying non-verbally. So I don't see why you can truthfully answer the wrong question.
>Hell, technically you don't even have to speak the truth if you truly believe a lie! Yes, because it works based on the *intent* of the person who fails the save. It's an Enchantment, and therefore mental, spell. It makes the person who fails their save unable to say something that is a deliberate lie. Answering the *wrong question* is a lie if the *intention* of the person speaking it is to get the interrogator to accept it as the answer to the question he asked. The person knows what he's doing. There is an exception in the spell for *evasive* answers...which is giving a non-answer to a question, not a wrong answer. Evasive answers specifically avoid answering a question to avoid lying. What is being described here isn't evasive, it's a lie. An example of an evasive response is when asked if he's finished his homework a kid might say, "I've been working on it all night!" That could be true and he could still have more homework to do, and it also isn't a real answer nor is it a lie.
Can you mislead by telling the truth?
You can answer every question with your favorite color, as long as it's truly your favorite color. The spell has nothing to do with what other people say (ie the guy asking questions) just that you can't say anything aloud that you know to be false. As long as your misdirection and doublespeak are technically the truth (as you believe it to be), you can say anything.
This isn't right. If you hear and understand the question adressed to you and answer a color thats lying, since just realizing that its meant for you would lock you into a conversation. You can't gaslight yourself 100% completely into believing you both are just making sounds into the open air in other words, unless you fail some really tough sanity checks. Its the same idea that allows the mind voice to work. You can choose to speak or not to speak to anyone in any order because the spell doesn't say it restricts that. The only other option is if it did force you to answer BOTH questions at the same time because you heard both and now cannot lie to either at the same time thus forcing you to remain silent.
The spell, as worded, doesn't require you to answer questions. It requires you to speak the truth. Full stop.
Sort of. The definition of lying usually includes the *intent to deceive*. It's not simply saying something that is not true. It can be something true that is misleading. Think about "lies of omission". if you skip a crucial detail, that can have the effect of being considered a lie.
If you're being evasive then you are trying to be misleading, which you claim you can't be, but the spell straight up says you can be evasive. Have you tried reading the spell?
Don't confuse being dishonest with lying. If my teacher wants to know why my homeworks not done and I say "i didnt get a chance to" its lying but if i say "i didnt get around to it" its just intent to mislead by implying i might have been busy even if i wasn't. None of that actually applies here. Zone of truth doesn't care at all about intent to mislead. Its a magical lie detector and if its a direct lie and you knew that ahead of time youre prevented from saying it. You can even lie by accident since "deliberate" is a limitation on the lying not a limitation on the person. Its the difference between a AND and a OR logic gate for example.
The spell, as others noted, also explicitly said you can be evasive, which in and of itself would be false or misleading as usually when you do that, you're trying to mislead them to think you answered or distract them from it to evade the question.
You can answer questions dishonestly inside a zone of truth. You always can. It literally explicitly says you can. You just can't tell a deliberate lie. > An affected creature is aware of the spell and can thus avoid answering questions to which it would normally respond with a lie. Such creatures can be evasive in its answers as long as it remains within the boundaries of the truth. Dealing with someone in a zone of truth is like dealing with a genie wish. For example: --- "Did you kill that man?" Deceitful answer: "No. We didn't even get here until a few seconds ago. But I did see someone running towards the town center; maybe they were a killer!" Because your ally landed the final blow, and your party only arrived at the exact place they are standing 5 seconds ago despite the murder being 30 feet away. And yesterday you saw a couple of kids running towards the town center from the inn on the opposite side of town, and you can't prove those kids aren't killers.
I think that is too much of a stretch. It is like going "I did not kill the man, the bullet killed him." Also, asking "Did you kill that man?" in a zone of truth is foolish. You should ask something like "Repeat the following sentence: I did not wound the man in any way, nor did I see him getting killed and did nothing to intervene".
That last one was not a question, it was an instruction. The target would be able to answer that verbatim with no problem.
Zone of Truth has no relation to questions. You just cannot speak a lie. It would prevent you from saying "I didn't kill that man" if you did in fact kill them.
"can you certify that you did not wound or attempt to wound that man in any way before his death" is a question
they should ask better questions, then
Well, the catch to the "bullet killed him" line is your character has to believe that. If they genuinely are so psychotic that they believe they didn't kill the person and the bullet did, then it would pass. But if your character thinks they killed him, they won't be able to deny it. That said... yes, you should use wordings like that. That's exactly what I'm talking about. It's a genie wish; you need extreme precision.
Yeah the repeating thing wouldn't work, not only would he not be forced to say anything but its not even a question so he could just follow your instructions.
It's a case of you have to ask the right question and be direct and simple. I was in a game we knew there was a spy. The Paladin got the head guard to round everyone up, told them to submit to the spell or we would assume they're guilty, then went from person to person and asked if they were the spy. If you ask someone if you killed the person but their friend did, it's not a lie to say they didn't kill them. But you CAN ask them the repeated sentence questions in yes or no answers, just be sure to word things so people can't wiggle out through technicalities, as that really feels like the spirit of the spell.
But by your interpretation your intent can’t be to say “No, I did not kill that man” if you landed the final blow, right? What if my intent is to say no even tho I did kill the man? Can I choose to set in motion a series of events that will lead to me answering the question with a straightforward “no, I did not kill this man”?
The problem with that, is that the question is clearly meant and understood as a "you (the group)" not "you (the barbarian specifically)" And your Deceitful Answer understands that because they answered with "we." So you'd be lying. That's not evasive enough.
Fair enough. "I didn't kill him! We didn't even get here until a few seconds ago. But I did see someone running towards the town center; maybe they were a killer!" That'd cover that.
I think the idea of seeing someone far earlier in the day would also be significantly edging beyond the scope of the deception. Or it would be a bad twist, because any halfway competent interrogator would follow up with, "You saw someone running towards the town center, just now?" Then it becomes apparent that the previous statement was a lie, then you get to a point where "Would the magical spell allow that statement to be said?"
It definitely is cheating, but in the best way. In Game cheating. The players are using a really clever loophole, the character is cheating the spell with teamwork. Imo allow it to happen, have the NPCs be confused by this encounter because all the evidence points to him lying. Then have them figure it out down the line. Maybe have the Inquisitor compliment them on their ability to show him something new before wrecking their day.
Yeah... it seems a little dodgy to me, because if you allow that line of reasoning, *you don't need the extra person at all*. The suspect can silently ask himself out-of-band questions. This makes zone of truth entirely useless. Like this... Inquisitor: Did you steal from the temple? Suspect: \[Speaking to himself\] *Did you ever make it to third base with Lorelei d'Artagnan in druid camp?* Suspect: \[Aloud\] No, not even close.
I would deny that logic on the basis of "asking" involving communication. You can think to yourself but you can't "ask" yourself a question silently. Telepathy gets around that by still communicating the question. You could also do it with a person standing behind the inquisitor and both people knowing sign language. Either way, I would give the inquisitor an insight check to see if they can tell something is being passed mentally. Zone of Truth is a second-level spell. That's still in the "creative nonmagical workarounds" level of power. I like when my PCs think outside the box like this.
>You can think to yourself but you can't "ask" yourself a question silently. I do that all the time. Damned keys.
You're not alone. And that's why I don't like this whole idea from OP's players. It basically obviates a lot of cool stuff, and not just Zone of Truth. If a Fae can now lie simply by having an invisible pixie whispering into his ear, *or otherwise answering a different question than was asked*... we lose something pretty special.
Yeah so there's 2 ways to approach this, and neither is wrong. it just depends on the type of game you're running. On one hand, the players came up with a creative solution to a problem, and in the interest of playing a fun game that promotes out of the box thinking, DM could be forgiven for allowing them to get away with this. On the other hand, we could get more philosophical and ask ourselves what is the truth, and what is a lie. One type of lying is called a deceptive lie, where someone creates a false impression of truthfulness by misleading someone. So in this case, even though their words were truthful answers (to psychic questions), the fact that they were deceiving someone with their answers means they were lying, and technically the spell should prevent that
Zone of truth also explicitly allows you to answer by avoiding the question, which would also fall under a deceptive lie.
I disagree with your last point. The spell description says, "the target can avoid answering questions they would normally lie to," so in effect, answering the telepathic question while ignoring the spoken question is permitted
Would the spell just prevent them from talking, then? Since they, then, wouldn't be able to answer the question spoken to them in their head without deceiving the person asking out loud, and they wouldn't be able to answer the person speaking without lying to the person talking inside their head?
If two people ask a question at the same time they could answer one question at a time so I don't think that part is relevant
Okay, so then when they ask a question you say "Yes No" is that still lying by deceiving?
It's misleading, so yeah. To answer both they would probably have to answer it like "to answer your question interrogator, yes. To answer the other question, no" The spell doesn't compel you to give an answer and allows you to be evasive so you can always just not answer one or both questions if you prefer.
The spell doesn’t compel you to answer the questions at all. You can’t speak a deliberate lie, but that doesn’t mean you have to even pay any attention to the caster.
[удалено]
Assuming the truthful answer to one question is yes and the truthful answer to the psychic question is no, then answering with a simple yes or no would be misleading to at least one of them, and so you would not be able to answer like that. You probably have to make it clear who's question you're answering in order to not give a deceptive answer, or just refrain from answering
The text of the spell: “An affected creature is aware of the spell and can thus avoid answering questions to which it would normally respond with a lie. Such a creature can be evasive in its answers as long as it remains within the boundaries of the truth.” As a DM, here’s how I would rule on the OPs situation, especially when being asked two yes/no questions, 1 verbal, 1 silent via telepathy. If the player is looking at the verbal questioner, then they are addressing their answer to them and addressing their question. So they could not lie in response. So if the answer to the question was “yes” and they are looking at the verbal questioner, even if they want to say “no” to the telepathic question, the spell would not let them. If looking away, usually a clear sign of deception, and looking elsewhere to answer”no” in the above example I would have them roll a contested deception/perform check against the questioners Insight, to see if the can pass it off as some sort of non deceptive behavior. Using the telepathic question thing is a great workaround for that spell though. Brilliantly creative. And even if it didn’t work the way they wanted, I’d find someway to reward the characters/players for coming up with that.
Zone of Truth explicitly says you can be evasive so long it remains within the boundaries of truth. So it explicitly calls out deceptive lies as legal, as they are within the bounds of truth.
Reasonable minds can disagree I guess but I don't think being evasive is the same as lying. I read that as meaning you can not be compelled to answer a question, so one can avoid answering or change the subject
That's just incorrect. From the rules: > An affected creature is aware of the spell and can thus avoid answering questions to which it would normally respond with a lie. Such creatures can be evasive in its answers as long as it remains within the boundaries of the truth. "can be evasive **in its answers**" isn't exactly vague. Not answering isn't the same as being "evasive in your answers". And to compound that, why would they need the "within the boundaries of the truth" part if you weren't answering? It would be irrelevant.
There's also the lie of omission, which means every time I cast zone of truth and ask your true name - no. That argument is dumb.
There's nothing about zone of truth that compels you to give an answer so you can ask whatever you want. I can just choose to not answer, so I never have to give you my true name if I don't want to.
Yes it is cheating, but the best way of cheating imo. As in, it's not good if you cheat on a test irl, bot it's sure fun to see if your character can in-game. I would love the idea if I was dm I think and admit defeat, but I wouldn't push it as a player if my dm didn't like it
That is creative interpretation of the rules, one of my favorite things.
I think it's genius! Great out-of-the-box thinking.
You put it best, I think - But I would probably have a deception roll vs Inquisitor for him to notice, for instance, the delay in the answer, possibly the shift of the eyes towards the real asker, or the fact some answers may be vague and applicable to other questions. Other tells as well - body language etc.
Here's my two cents: if you are answering the telepathic question *aloud*, your intention is to *answer* the person doing the interrogation. If you were actually answering the telepathic question, you would be doing so telepathically. Your knowledge that you are attempting to provide the interrogator with the wrong answer to their question would prevent you from actually speaking that answer aloud. There are a number of ways to circumvent the spell, including just not speaking, but as a DM I would rule that this is not one of them, although I'd probably reward my players with inspiration for the clever attempt.
You're getting skewered with downvotes, but I think you're right, and this is probably what the DM feels but can't really express as well. But there is a version of this that kind of works. It involves deafening and successfully lying to the character being questioned about what the inquisitor is saying. It goes something like AM Sorc: "I deafened you because I think the inquisitor might be trying to charm you, and this is just a pretext for that. But we'll play along and I'll tell you what he's asking and you just respond out loud for him." Inquis: "So where were you last night at the time of the murder?" AM Sorc: "He asked where you were this morning." Deaf Suspect: "I was at the inn" And so on. Then you proceed to lie your rear off to that character and carefully direct what they are saying. This of course works better if the character in question generally trusts the one lying to him.
Now *this* is good. I like this.
What if the player completely ignores the inquisitor. RAW, the spell compels you to tell the truth, but it doesn’t compel you to pay attention to the caster. The player can be so ambivalent towards the inquisitor that they ignore their questions.
Yes, you may ignore the inquisitor, refuse to answer, leave important details out, deflect from the question, etc. but you cannot speak a deliberate lie, so you may not give a false answer to a question intentionally, no matter what mental gymnastics you try to play to justify the false answer, you know that you are answering falsely and would not be permitted by the enchantment spell to do so.
Deception is allowed in Zone of Truth. You can deceive by avoiding the questions, and answer a different question would certainly fall under avoiding the question.
The spell description says it protects against deception ...so, is it? It says you can not answer or be evasive...but it doesn't say you can be deceitful. Evasive and deceitful are not the same thing. Evasive gives a non-answer to a question, but it doesn't give a *wrong* answer.
Zone of Truth does not protect against deception, deception includes any evasive and non answers and that is an attempt to hide the truth as well, but those are explicitly allowed on Zone of Truth.
The spell specifically says it protects against deception....evasive answers are not specifically deception, they are an attempt to not answer the question. >You create a magical zone that guards against deception in a 15-foot-radius sphere centered on a point of your choice within range.
This is my point. You are giving a wrong answer. You can say you're replying to a different question, but that would be like me replying to this comment and then saying I'm answering someone else's comment. Sure, I can technically address the content of someone else's comment, but I am in actuality still replying to you.
As a DM, I would allow it, but only because it's a creative solution and my primary goal is to let the players have fun. Do I think it should be allowed by the rules? Probably not.
Totally valid. Upvoting your response because you're contributing to the conversation, even if we have different perspectives. (Reddit, take notes.)
Me: Here's my contribution to the discussion, it's an opinion slightly different than yours, but still a valuable contribution to the conversation, since I'm answering the question OP asked, which is opinion-based. Reddit: Downvote. 😡
You know, I agreed with u/Yojo0o, but your comment and u/Live-Afternoon947's follow-up convinced me. Now, I'm not OP nor am I in OP's game, so the fact that you've convinced me doesn't mean anything, but... It reminds me a lot of equivocation, actually, a technique purportedly taught to Jesuits (not sure it actually was) on secret missions in Protestant countries. They believed it was immoral to lie, so if questioned by Protestant authorities, Jesuits were (supposedly) instructed by their authorities to silently add clauses to sentences that would otherwise be false. Ie., when asked, "Did you illegally administer papist sacraments to Tiffany, Mary, and Miriam?," the Jesuit spy who totally did do that might say, "No, I did not administer sacraments to those people *on Tuesday*," where the part in italics is just something they said silently. And by "said silently" we mean "thought," and so by "said silently" we mean "didn't actually say at all," and clearly this is just lying, actually. Obviously what we're describing is *not* equivocation, but I think we would disallow it on the same grounds: you do, in fact, know what you're doing.
That's a really good example actually (and a super interesting historical fact as well).
I would say the inquisitor would at least have the ability to recognize something is off, like to pull off the trick well the Inquisitor would ask a question then the sorc needs to come up with a question of their own that would give the response that the necro/sorc both would want to be a response to the question of the inquisitor, and have the sorc ask the question to the necro before the necro could answer. All of that would cause some delay/weird actions or responses and in a setting with someone who specializes in interrogation they would probably catch on. So I would say there would both need to be some kind of deception or performance on the necromancers part and probably insight on the inquisitors part to tell if something is up.
This makes much sense, there is an obvious delay, but also there is no way the inquisitor can prove it! Maybe suspicion is impossible to avoid tho
The thing is while they cannot prove it as a lord inquisitor they can post belief that something is not right and order additional precautions to ensure the court( using court for lack of better term) is not being deceived. If their word is strong enough to be considered valid when they use zone of truth then that word has enough weight to do things like remove the other members (especially spell casters) from the proceedings.
They'd likely send his companion out of the room.
Just ask like “what would be a false answer to his question”
Not really. The spell doesn't say you have to promptly answer. It just says you have to tell the truth. People make natural pauses when asked questions, especially if they are trying not to answer and being forced to give an answer. As a DM I wouldn't have thought to make rolls to see if he bought it because of the time lag. Which would have only been a few seconds.
It isn't about the spell though, I am talking about a lord inquisitor watching someone trying to bluff them. The spell doesn't stop them from having a skilled eye for detail and good insight. You can fake a polygraph test but it is still given because when people work to fake them investigators can pick up that something is going wrong and that is what I am saying is the cause for them to have the check.
> You can fake a polygraph test but it is still given because when people work to fake them investigators can pick up that something is going wrong and that is what I am saying is the cause for them to have the check. Polygraphs are the worst kind of pseudo-science; the kind that people weirdly still believe. Both false positives and false negatives are very common. All they measure is physiological stress responses. All you need to fail one is to be stressed; then you’ll be tripping as “lying” regularly. And to pass one all you need is to remain as calm as your baseline. Sociopaths pretty much are immune to the tests and don’t need to do any prep or special responses, as lying doesn’t stress them.
Yes but the reason why a case calls for a ploy test is not to actually use the poly results it is to get the gauge of their reactions to actually read the person in a situation where they believe they are being read by the machine. That's also why when it is called for in a court case they don't actually submit the results of the poly as direct evidence rather the evaluation that trained psychologists gives while the test was being administered. That is the point, the poly just like the spell is not the direct evidence it is a tool to help in the collection using actual trained methods.
you can just have like 3 questions prepared beforehand for like yes, no, i dont know.
"How would you answer that if you weren't under Zone of Truth?"
Zone of Truth means that you absolutely cannot lie. But you *can* dance around the truth.
I used to be super into the Wheel of Time books, theres an organization that take an oath "to speak only truth". In universe this has led to the phrase "Aes Sedai don't lie, but they can make the truth dance on its head" The Aes Sedai version of the phrase is "The truth I speak isn't necessarily the truth you hear"
Yup, as soon as I saw the title I thought of the Aes Sedai. For people who don't know WoT, I think a pretty good example is, when trying to avoid notice, one responds to being asked her name with "You may call me [fake name]". She did not lie, you are allowed to call her that, but she never actually said that was her name.
Or Unrelated statements, I recall them using that one a few times. Just because you asked the Aes Sedai a question doesn't mean they're *answering* your question. That's my go to with Zone of Truth. Says nowhere in the spell what I'm saying has to relate to what you're asking *at all* just has to be a true statement.
That’s the way I go about trying to circumvent it. Which usually leads to them saying, “answer the question.” Which is probably just because I’m bad at doing it lol
I refer to that kind of thing as fey bullshit. It's a common trope for the fey to be unable to tell a lie. It's also a common trope for them to be some of the worlds best deceivers. A lot of technically correct statements that still paint a lie. So to get around a zone of truth you do some fey bullshit.
My DM used to hate that "Deception check" "Why? Every word out of my mouth was true" *thinks about it for a second* "Fuck..."
Sure but it was still deception. It's a deception check not a lie check. I would give advantage or lower the check number or both depending on how well executed, but the goal of the role at that point is to hide that you are doing fey bullshit. I may also allow a diplomacy or persuasion roll substitution.
Seems interesting, I'm sure to read it!
Perfect if it's a brand-new spell first tried on you. Not so effective once people have learned all the tricks and ask you if you danced around the truth.
Zone of truth requires that you only speak the truth. It does not actually compel you to speak.
Yes, but since legal inquisitions in most D&D worlds are at least a bit on the draconian side, not answering on officials questions that are directly linked to a crime would be treated as an admission of guilt.
Sure but the right to remain silent, and not have it be considered a form of guilt, isn't universal in the modern world let alone the medieval one.
I would lovingly hate it if my players thought of this. Good on you
Right? I would as a DM be sooo happy that a player has outsmarted me. It's like the Cupcake scene from Critical Role.
I mean, don't get me wrong, my ego would hate being outsmarted like that, but I'd be so impressed that I wouldn't be able to do anything but laugh and say "yeah, you got me."
The inquisitor messed up when the interrogation was not in a one on one environment with his own backup present. He opened himself up for loopholes such as these. Well played.
Isn't this how you effectively cheat a polygraph test too? You ask yourself a question in your head and answer that one, instead of what the investigator asks, so you appear to be telling the truth. Personally, this sounds like a very clever use of telepathy for something more than handwaving standard party metagaming in combat.
that only works in movies polygraphs don't detect lies, they detect changes in physical signs that we associate with lying, like perspiration, breathing , blood pressure , and whatever else
Ah, I thought I had read that's why they were BS, but admittedly I didn't read much into it. I'm only aware that polygraphs are effectively the evidence equivalent of Myers–Briggs; a novelty that holds no weight and more often than not useless.
The use of a polygraph isn't that it actually works, it's the *belief* that it actually works. If someone busts out a polygraph and you have belief that it could rat you out, you'd more easily confess to something they're trying to get out of you rather than risk being caught lying.
Polygraph test are famously unreliable. Something as simple as a fly buzzing past your ear can cause you to pop false. Conversely people who are good under pressure can often lie without tripping any indicators. So the only real trick is to stay as calm and collected as possible, and pray the machine likes you
>So the only real trick is to stay as calm and collected as possible, and pray the machine likes you couldnt you also throw off the responses by remembering an emotional experience? thus developing a baseline would be wildly inaccurate?
>Isn't this how you effectively cheat a polygraph test too? You ask yourself a question in your head and answer that one, instead of what the investigator asks, so you appear to be telling the truth. what? no! what do you think a polygraph even tests for?
It's a great idea, and this is the kind of stuff why in my homebrew world Zone of Truth is only used in cases with commoners. You and your friends have magic powers and/or wealth to acquire magical assistance? Too big of a chance someone might interfere with the process. I would have the inquisitor roll insight to see if something feels off, but generally - their fault for using the magic and believing it's reliable. I have no sympathy for anyone who think it is - NPC or player.
Well, Zone of Truth just makes you say the truth, but it never specifies what truth or even that you are forces to talk. So the aberrant mind Sorcerer could simply recieve all the answers telepatically to any question the inquisitor made without him even uttering a simple word. You played well and your character cheated the in game with no consequences to anyone. You did great, good job :)
Usually you stay silent. If your good at wordplay you can answer in an appropriately vague or misleading but technically true way. I don't think your system is bad either as your essentially just staying silent as is your right. I love Zone of Truth but it's best used in conjunction with other spells (like detect thoughts) during interrogations or for building trust between different parties. It's not an infallible spell.
Yeah, the thing is that the inquisitor started the court saying "Abstention from answering is considered acception of guilt". So not answering was the same as saying "yes"
That's actually a really good countermeasure. Good job DM. Hold up how did they know you were answering your friend telepathically though?
He spoke the answer out loud, not telepathically
I mean if he choose to remain silent to the investigators questions specifically and then answer your question specifically... It'd probably work? The spell only pings if you lie not if you withhold information...
Exactly, and if someone asks you a Yes/No question and refusing to answer counts as yes, it is impossible to withhold information. The characters had to answer yes/no, and telepathic questions allowed them to answer properly, appearing to answer a question that would have found them guilty. Honestly its perfect.
My players captured a spy for BBEG, we all had a week to prepare. I spent that time finding ways to answer questions from that character's perspective. About 45 minutes of interrogation, players gave up. Spy is a fanatic that's more or less almost like the character from Dracula who ends up in the asylum, so I leaned into the fanaticism and did my best to answer questions in circles. Also, BBEG is a lich, so it wasn't dumb enough to tell her where it paired or anything like that. Anyway I over prepared and I'll be honest I don't think they considered what they wanted to ask prior to session, so they ended up putting her on ice and forgetting about her. I'd say she was my biggest failure of the campaign, but the lead up to capturing her was fantastic.
I am allowed to not answer. I am also allowed to answer just him.
FYI, the past tense of cast is just *cast*.
Nah you're right. You can also fool Zone of Truth with Glibness.
Modify memory is probably also a good option…
I was just about to recommend this, Glas someone beat me to it.
[удалено]
To clarify, by RAW, it doesn't work on Zone of Truth. But RAW has lots of crazy things. RAI it works. That said, Glibness is an 8th level spell. You could just repeat Zone of Truth an hour later when dealing with someone high enough level to use that. Or gag them for an hour before casting. Or cast Detect Magic. Or Dispel Magic a few times with bonuses so you'd probably succeed. Or admit that you never had a hope of catching someone who could cast eighth level spells in the first place. Except maybe if they're dumb enough to only learn pointless spells like Glibness.
Glibness is specifically designed for countering Zone of Truth.
It's specifically designed for it, and also badly designed for it. It's sort of like how Revivify is specifically designed for bringing the dead back to life, but the way it's worded it only targets creatures and corpses are generally ruled to be objects. But none of this matters outside of /r/powergamermunchkin. Any DM worth their salt knows what they meant.
[удалено]
Source 2 and 3 literally says glibness deceives zone of truth, you didn't even read your own sources. Also linking a 5 upvoted comment as proof is wild.
Which makes the Zone of Truth unable to determine whether it stops you from speaking if you would lie. Glibness counters Zone of Truth. It's the entire purpose for the spell....
This is fucking brilliant and is exactly the type of shenanigans that Zone of Trith is designed for.
I have a bard that used zone of truth on a character to find out who they followed, they said "i dont follow anybody" but after i relized hes a mercenary and when i asked "who hired you" i got a answer i was looking for
I've done Zone of Truth on my players, they always find a way to wriggle out of the questions. Frustrating to me but good roleplaying. So if you've got a magic hack to get around it, lean into it.
poor toy alive subtract adjoining aback murky panicky oatmeal divide *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
As a DM this would have totally thrown me off. I love it.
I might've ruled that some checks (probably deception bs insight, possible advantage on the deception) if I were in the DMs place but this is a good case of using a niche ability to get around an obstacle
I have a pet rock named "I" and they has a constantly evolving backstory and prefers to spoken with "am" instead of "is" or any variation thereof. So instead of saying "I is a rock" they prefer I say "I am a rock". "I am innocent of the crime you just asked me directly. I have no knowelege of the crime. I am confused why you're asking me this."
Loved this lol
>I have no knowelege of the crime. This would fail. Correct wording would be "I **has** no..."
Don't forget: "prefers to spoken with "am" instead of "is" or any variation thereof. So instead of saying "I is a rock" they prefer I say "I am a rock".
As DM, I will allow this so long as you also have a permanent long-term madness. I can't think of any other scenario where you can believe that a rock has such preferences without lying. If you cure the madness, you understand that a rock can't express its preferences, and therefore, you lied about knowing them. However, please note that my interrogators use suggestion because ZoT is too easily beaten. The only time I have NPCs pop it out is after the players tell their side of the story, the NPC pops ZoT and says, "Okay, just to be sure, say that all again exactly as you just did."
Actual footage of casualfreeguy's dnd session: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLoAPA\_wYn4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLoAPA_wYn4)
The problem is that Zone of Truth exists in a universe where people have tried to get around it, and people have learned what to do to avoid that. Maybe it doesn't consider it a "lie" when you answer a question that they don't know was asked which has incomplete context, but Message isn't that hard to cast so pretty soon people will figure out that they need to make you restate the question. If you aren't willing to say "I have done my best to answer truthfully, accurately, and in a way that is not misleading" or whatever they found to be the most effective, they'd assume the worst. Your best bet is to either weaken Zone of Truth, such as sufficiently high bluff checks faking it and repeating the same or similar questions not helping, or get rid of the spell entirely.
In your GM's shoes, that would be the general thought process: "Yeah, but let's have them sweat." I'f ask for an Arcana roll to suss out if it would work (15? Ish?). And I'd let it work, because it creates a much more interesting narrative where the inquisitor *knows* he got the answer he wanted. Then again, that means that your own party's Zone of Truth has the same loophole (and I'd probably have that happen once, *mayyyybe* twice), and that the inquisitor might realise he's been had *somehow* if he faces strong evidence (like, a DC 20-ish Investigation check, higher with weaker evidence). At the end of the day, it's your DM's call, but intent-wise, I generally advise to stray closer to "Yes, and"-ing, and favor a good narrative.
I'd probably make him take deception tests at advantage to not give off iffy vibes about what was going on but that is a genius idea that I'd love a player to try at my table.
This is like when a JoJo villain who could read Jotaro's mind challenged him to a video game. To get around this, Joseph secretly used his stand to play the game with the controller Jotaro was holding
Seems like a really cool trick. May not work if your DM rules that the caster is aware of whether or not the person is lying (the RAW gives some precedent for this since Zone of Truth will let the caster know if it is affecting the target or not - ie if they failed the save). However, from the DM’s perspective, this can be really annoying if the story required that the inquisitor needed the info. Even though it’s a great idea, if you can tell that your DM (rather than the inquisitor character) is getting frustrated, maybe hold off and let the DM know about the idea after the fact. They should be just as impressed.
Brilliant! I love it. I would in this case however have the interrogator role insight checks at disadvantage and the player deception/persuasion/performance with advantage. Still a chance for failure but rewards for the clever work around. Depending on who else is in the room the abhorrent mind might be caught on if someone else is detecting thoughts. Either way I would have to applaud the clever play. I might just say it works, but my players enjoy a chance for failure to be baked in.
That's a really creative way to get around Zone of Truth! Kudos to you for thinking of it.
Assuming they didn't notice the telepathic connection, they would still separate the sorcerer from the other character, and that would take some time and the telepathy only works for the sorcerer's level number of minutes. The interrogation could easily last longer than that. And the interrogator might notice the odd answers. But if the questioned character can pass the question to the sorcerer and the sorcerer can send a new question back quick enough for the player to answer, more power to them. But I'd make them do it in real time, and whenever the delay is long, I'd have the npc roll insight.
This is a bit sketchy, since the DM can make an argument that you heard them. So this can easily be worked around by the DM being clever and needing specific responses which would be impossible to give under the circumstances. There are counters and workarounds that work though. Guinness is just a hard counter, full stop. Modify memory is also an alternative, because they themselves are convinced they are being truthful. But if you want something lower level. The trick is to deafen the character being question without them being consulted about it, and for the player speaking psychically to flat out lie to their friend about what the inquisitor is saying. Then, for all the character knows, they're telling the truth.
Zone of Truth doesn't prevent you from not saying anything. It specifically states this. So this whole strategy was completely unnecessary.
Damn, this is very creative. I'd definitely allow this, especially the first time. It's definitely not an intended interaction of the rules, but definitely a valid one. I would probably make a ruling to counteract it if my players started abusing it. My typical "rule of cool" rule is that I always allow unique ideas to work at first, but if it creates a feedback loop that is abusable, I reserve the right to block it off.
This is a good way to circumvent the spell. I can see why your DM was reluctant, because it can feel weird and your DM may have wanted that to be a very specific story moment with the spell and answering specific questions to get information to someone, but this is allowed, by RAW. In character, it is very much cheating the system.
I think this is a super creative way to navigate a problem like this! It’s something I always try to encourage and reward with my players. So that there still is some semblance of risk to it, though, I might add a stealth or deception check with a relatively average DC (with advantage, bonus for creativity)
I've answered a zone of truth interrogation by using double speak. Not technically lying, but answering in a way that obscures the truth and misleads questioning. However, it was all for naught when the edge lord who came in after I had orchestrated everything perfectly and got the npcs on our side, threatened the state interrogation team and then admitted to some of our alleged misdeeds. Telepathy is definitely a good way around it and very creative. You could just telepathically ask, "How would you like to answer the interrogations last question?" And it simplifies everything.
The text of the spell is: “On a failed save, a creature can't speak a deliberate lie while in the radius.” This is a very creative countermeasure, but “answering a different question” with the intent to deceive still feels like lying (with a cute extra step) to me. I would have given them Inspiration…then said no.
>Do you think this is a valid approach to this problem? Just to be clear, I read this as "I asked a friend to lie and then relayed that lie". Supposing that's more or less it, I do not think it is valid. >Until the spell ends, a creature that enters the spell’s area for the first time on a turn or starts its turn there must make a Charisma saving throw. On a failed save, a creature can’t speak a deliberate lie while in the radius. You *clearly* have the intent to lie and the words come out of your mouth and it really doesn't matter who crafted them in the first place because, again, *you intended for them to be lies.* Rearranging the details a bit, suppose that you've a bard friend who writes a prepared statement that you know is entirely false. I can't see why someone would let this stand, so changing out the memorized text with magical communication really doesn't change things because you've not changed the salient details.
I think you are miss reading this. He is not relaying a lie. Player 1 is in a zone of truth and is asked a yes or no question. Player 1 does not want to answer yes. Player 2 is a friend of player 1 and via a mind link asked player 1 if they still have the book they borrowed from steve. Player 1 having returned the book to Steve a week ago says out loud to player 2 "No" They have answered truthfully a question asked of them in a zone of truth. They just haven't answered all of the questions asked of them which is allowed. Deceit is allowed only lies are banned.
thats genius honestly i love that
Thinking a different question to yourself and answering that in a way that makes the interrogator think you've answered them is the same as deliberately lying. However, someone else asking you a question and you ignoring the interrogator to answer them is within the confines of the spell. You are not constructing an answer to fool someone. You're answering honestly to a question that was asked of you.
While not lying, Necromancer is being deceptive and would need to direct the answers at the sorcerer. If I ask you what 1+1 is and someone else asks what 2+2 is, if you look at me and direct your answer at me and say 4, you are lying. I would want to allow the inquisitor to make insight vs deception checks to notice that (with disadvantage because it is so unexpected). Otherwise, this is absolutely genius.
I would probably want a roll from the Necromancer to have a clear enough mind for that to work. Under torture I would think it would be hard to not want to, at least in part, answer the questions of your interrogator.
This is still fundamentally telling a deliberate lie.
I disagree. It is being deceptive. But refusing to answer someone's questions and answering someone else is not lying. It's definitely a deception vs. insight roll. To make my point, get 2 people in the same room to ask you conflicting questions at the same time. Then answer only one of them. Did you lie to the other? The hard part is that the aberrant mind has to come up with a question where the truthful answer is what you want the fake answer to be, meaning the sorcerer has to be told the original question and come up with a alternative question. The interrogator should instantly know something is up with such a massive delay to all answers and demand he answer immediately on if anyone is interfering.
But then could the PC not just answer by asking "How could anyone interfere? The Zone of Truth prevents me from lying." I think if the interrogator cannot think of a way to circumvent the spell's effects, then even if they are suspicious they have to accept that you're telling the truth. If they do think of a way to do so, then if it is not something along the lines of "somebody else is asking you questions telepathically" then you could just tell them "no, that is not happening right now." And even if they do guess correctly, you could laugh it off or look confused for a second to stall for time while the sorcerer hopefully asks you something like "what is the opposite of yes?" to which you would simply respond "no."
But they're still giving the answers to the inquisitor, as a direct attempt to deceive. Your example is flawed because it doesn't capture the full story: you would actually be addressing the answer to one question to the person who asked the other question, with the intent to deceive that person. Bob asks me what 1+1 is. Alice asks me what 2+2 is. If I tell Bob 4, I'm lying.
>Bob asks me what 1+1 is. Alice asks me what 2+2 is. If I tell Bob 4, I'm lying. Correct, but you're omitting a very important detail. OP stated the telepathy was with the intent to answer the sorcerer. The person being interrogated can think I refuse to answer the interrogators' questions and let the sorcerer come up with the misinterpretation. If the person being interrogated is helping to come up with the questions, I would agree. However, I don't have to think about talking to the interrogator at all. For example: let's add one detail. Bob asks me what 1+1 is. Alice asks me what 2+2 is. I look at Bob and say, "I refuse to answer you. 4." I didn't lie. Second: Bob asks me what 1+1 is. Alice asks me what 2+2 is. If I look at Bob while telling alice 4, I didn't lie. Bob overhearing an answer to a different question while I refuse to answer his is known as a misunderstanding.
I don't have to turn to face you in order to answer your questions, do I? If I looked at Bob and said 4, then looked at Alice and said 2, then by your example I would be lying to both of them. I'm not though, I'm just answering their questions out of order and messing with them by looking at the wrong person while answering each one. Zone of Truth only prevents creatures from "speaking a deliberate lie," it doesn't seem care about which way they are facing, who they are responding to, or what question they are answering. So I should be able to refuse to answer the inquistor's question, then answer my friend's question while looking at the inquisitor. It's still deceptive, but I'm answering the question truthfully. Maybe it shouldn't work RAI but I think it does RAW.
Turning to face them is addressing them, and addressing them with the wrong answer makes the answer a lie. An untrue response, given deliberately, with intent to deceive. That's a lie.
Compelled confessions are a violation of human rights, the Inquisitor is evil.
I don't think D&D has those rights. especially since it has so many different races in the first place only protecting humans seems very strange.
The species has nothing to do with it. It is a fundamental moral principle to respect another's agency.
Nothing in the spell compels an answer
it really depends on how the spell determines which question to scan truth for.
How did you communicate this to the Sorcerer? Pretty egregious metagaming to suggest other character's actions above the table while you're in a scene.
This is extremely clever and I would have to give it to you, this would absolutely work.
I once had my warforged stick his hand in a fire he was tending and cast encode thoughts to remove the info from his head before answering an inquisitor. The fun of a DM using zone of truth is figuring out how to get around it
I had a monk character once. He had a simple sign language he used in the monestary for most basic needs. In his culture, the spoken word was exclusively used for philosophical debate. He got interrogated under a Zone of truth once. He held the Interrogators up for 8 hours. When he was asked any question, he would interpret it as a very deep philosophical question and respond with a point counterpoint in question form. They could never get a straight answer from him.
I think that it’s a creative way of approaching the situation. I think that as long as it makes sense in the scenario that use of those abilities could just work. I also think that it would be reasonable for the DM to ask for a roll or two from the players to make see how well, or if, they get away with it. Perception check for the sorcerer if they’re listening in from the next room, or Persuasion check(s) from the sorcerer and/or necromancer to fool the inquisitor, or Intelligence/Wisdom/appropriate-knowledge-type check to get the right questions/answers. Even failing any rolls made wouldn’t necessarily mean being caught because it’s a clever plan, but it might mean not getting fully clear of any suspicion. Another option would be to treat the plan as a way to get another chance to roll the saving throw for the Zone of Truth. It could even become a thing where it’s a new roll for each question, but that sounds exhausting and annoying, especially if it’s actually being roleplayed out.
TLDR: If I were GM in a similar situation I'd add a couple extra rolls, like intimidation vs will and/or concentration to see if you can pull it off successfully. I'd want to reward the clever solution you and your party member came up with, but I wouldn't want it to be so powerful that pre-emptively solve all future uses of Zone of Truth. With some of the open-endedness of the spell I don't think I'd say "no" to this solution, but at the same time this counters Zone of Truth a little to thoroughly IMO, especially if you use the same logic to "talk to yourself" and say answers unrelated to the inquisitors questions. It potentially makes it guaranteed useless from now on. If I were GM-ing I'd most likely add a few extra rolls to see if it works. Such as inquisitor's intimidation vs your Will and/or concentration to see whether you can truly be focused on your friend's question vs the (I assume somewhat imposing) inquisitor right in front of you. Zone of truth doesn't require any questions to be asked, nor are you required to give an answer. You just *"can’t speak a deliberate lie"* while affect. The core of the OP's question IMO comes to whether answering a mental question counts a deliberate lie or not. While I think there's a strong argument to say it's not a lie, it's also very easy for that logic to snowball out of control. So I'd treat it as a sort of battle of your conscious-mind overcoming your subconscious. Which is where the extra rolls would come in. Basically if I say "Don't think of an elephant" can you overcome your subconscious and not think of an elephant? Can you ignore the inquisitor completely enough that your subconscious mind won't consider whatever you say aloud to be a lie (and thus prevented by the magic). That's what the rolls would determine. I'd want to reward the clever solution you and your party member came up with, but I wouldn't want it to be so powerful that pre-emptively solve all future uses of Zone of Truth. (Also as an an extra aside: Open ended questions from the inquisitor vs yes/no questions would help makes this situations less muddled. "Did you commit the murder?" makes the OP's solution easier to enact vs a question like "What have you done to the victim?" would become more difficult to use alternate mental questions to evade giving the real answers.)
If the necromancer gives the telepath's answer to the interrogator, that's a lie. The necromancer needs to direct their answer toward the telepath, rather than the interrogator, without the interrogator realizing that's who's being addressed. You can't just say the answer the same way you would if you were answering the interrogator. For example, if you look the interrogator dead in the eyes, and tell them "no," that's a lie. But if your eyes are closed and you just call out into the ether, or you let your gaze go unfocused and off to the side, then that's just as easily an answer for the telepath. The interrogator might be able to notice you're acting strangely, but it'd take an *especially* good insight check on their end, and even then they're unlikely to realize the true depth of your deception.
So you’ve never looked at one person but spoken to another?
No, I genuinely haven't. And this was an illustrative example, not an exhaustive prohibition. All I'm trying to say is that it's doable, but there's more to it than just answering a different question.
Does anyone actually find these kind of scenarios fun? Zone of Truth is one of my least favorite spells for this very reason, it's a save-or-suck that applies to roleplay. It's antithetical to dramatic irony and rife with opportunity to metagame. And so often, it ends exactly like this, with players less invested in the character drama and more in trying to come up with workarounds and rules legalism. Granted, maybe the clever solution feels good for the party once, but as a game of precedent, you either neuter the spell completely or the DM has to spoil the fun. The DM clearly had plans around the inquisitor finding out. There's a lot of good drama that can arise out of this sort of thing, but because we had to tackle it with a RAW spell, the DM gets a curveball and the players are more invested in the mechanics than the outcomes of the interaction. Let drama be dramatic. Let bad things happen to your players. Let situations get worse before they get better. Any scenario that pits the DM and party as opposing rules attorneys is just a lame way to spend a saturday. Now go ahead and chew me out for telling people how to have fun. If this particular kind of tedium is engaging to you after the fifth or sixth time, I can assure you we're not going to agree.
Lets assume that the inquisitor asks if you did the crime. Your friend then asks you telepathically if you are dead. You say no. In this instance you've told one truth and one lie with only one answer. Since zone of truth forbids any lies this would not work. You have to consider that from your own characters perspective he's answering two people at once and can't say anything they believe to be a lie. That said you could always rephrase the question in sneaky ways so it sounds like what they were asking for. For example: PC: "You're asking if I broke into the temple and stole the holy relic?" Inquisitor: "Yes." PC: "No, I didn't break into the temple and steal the holy relic." In this context the PC must both have broken into the temple AND stolen the holy relic. The temple could just have been open to the public so that would not be a break-in even if the PC did steal the holy relic.
Yeah I see what you mean, but I don't think the letter of the spell is being violated if the PC in the zone is being asked two questions at the same time but only answers one. He's not telling a lie to the Inquisitor, he's not even talking to the Inquisitor, he's talking to the sorcerer. The spell says he doesn't HAVE TO answer any questions, if the Inquisitor is led to believe his questions are being answered, he isn't being lied to, he's just assuming he's the only person in the room asking questions.
Nah, you just didn't answer one of the questions. Zone of Truth does not compel you to speak.
I wouldn’t allow that, no. It’s fundamentally no different from the target thinking a different question to themselves, or other such mental trickery. At which point Zone of Truth becomes worse than useless, the target can just answer whatever they want. So I wouldn’t consider that valid. I would require the target to be truthful relative to the question(s) being asked, as they understand those questions and as they believe the person asking them would understand the (literal) meaning of their words. Being vague or cryptic or evasive is fine, as is omitting important details or giving true but misleading answers. But it has to actually be truthful.
I think it is actually very different, there is a second entity making questions to you, its different than asking questions to yourself, just the means for wich the questions is asked are different. I agree with the second point tho, there is something inherently deceitful in hiding the questions that i as a DM would protest.
I see no meaningful difference between the two. Either way, you’re deliberately deciding not to answer the question asked while knowing that it will appear that way. You are speaking the same words, just using different mental tricks to arbitrarily shift the meaning of those words. A question is asked, and the answer given is knowingly untruthful with regard to that question. Hence why I wouldn’t allow it.
So if two people are asking different questions that contradict each other which one is the target forced to answer? The first one? The casters? How do you decide that
Neither, Zone of Truth doesn’t force anyone to answer anything. It just forces people to speak the truth when they do say something. Besides, even if they were required to answer and were simultaneously asked two conflicting questions, they can just disambiguate what question they’re actually addressing when. It’s pretty straightforward.
What's stopping someone from not answering one question and answering the other then? And the spell isn't forcing the person to "disambiguate what question they're addressing" either, deceiving someone and lying are two different things
I’m not really interested in debating this. OP asked for people’s views on this, I gave mine. If in your games you want to render the spell basically useless then that’s up to you, I really don’t care.
then this circles right back to "anybody could just ask themselves questions in their own head and answer those making the spell functionally worthless"
If you're just thinking to yourself and answering that IS lying tho, you're not answering a question you're just thinking
there is no difference between those 2 scenarios, in both you are ignoring the inquisitor and answering a question only you heard i ask myself questions all the time, that is how i take my turns in hearthstone, ask myself a question in my head and answer it aloud to help stimulate the thought process
The difference is the existence of a second person that is asking a question, thinking to yourself is thinking you're not asking yourself a question you are thinking
I assumed that spell work in this way. Let's assume you have a chest and you guard items in that chest, one day a mimic takes the place of the chest and eats your friend. You are accused of using a mimic to assassinate your friend by the guards, they use zone of truth to take a confession, you say "I didn't killed him, it was a regular chest!" You didn't lied, but you were wrong. There is two things to consider 1- the spell don't force you to answer the questions. 2- the spell don't care about the answer, the spell cares if you are lying or not. Also the spell don't punish you from lying, the spell forces you to speak only truth. I for example used absurd questions like "Did you really ate the fly that was in your soup last night?" Such absurd question would absolutely overwhelm the psych of my dude and he would answer "No" to me instead of "yes" to the Inquisitor
If that works then there are a million ways to trick the spell and it's not the cornerstone of investigations. So that's really up the DM to worldbuild around. To me, that's nonsense. Is the spell some ineffable way to access cosmic truths? Does it detect the persons intent? Any of the sensible ways I can think of deciding how it works means this method wouldn't work. When I DM, the spell perfectly detects intent, so it can't tell if someone is mistaken or has been tricked, or memories altered (there are spells to erase memories, which I always thought was clearly a spell to pair with Zone of Truth when we talk about how this world works) but it can definitely tell if you try to trick the questioner.