Communicating with spirits

[LadyLexi]

How does one communicate to the dead? Speak with dead seems to only let you speak to the body and ask it questions it knew in life. Is there a way to actually communicate with those that have died, to their spirits at least.

I was wondering because speak with dead only lets you know facts, not their opinions or what they think they should do. We lost a fight and lost our NPC master strategist for an upcoming battle. None of us know his troups, the castle defenses or any of the information that might prove relevant. We already asked our questions with Speak with dead but we don't have what we need to win.

Any ideas?

[Urpriest]

Beyond Raise Dead, you don't really have any good options. The guy's spirit has likely become a Petitioner, which means he's lost the majority of his tactical knowledge.

[kharmakazy]

Sor/wiz 3 bard 2"Persuade to Manifest" spell (Ghostwalk, page 56) could work on any soul "that has died and not yet manifested on the Material Plane or passed on to the True Afterlife." and goes on to say "The soul immediately appears on the Ethereal Plane and can immediately make a Wisdom check with a +10 morale bonus to manifest on the Material Plane."

[LadyLexi]

Maybe, Ghost walk might not be allowed, its out of setting.

We attempted resurrection but it failed, we do not know why.

[Gavinfoxx]

Wu jen spell "Commune with Lesser Spirit" and the greater version.

[Lord Tyger]

In Pathfinder, if you feed his brain to a ghoul with the Brain Eater feat, it will absorb some of his skills and knowledge.

[ScionoftheVoid]

I think you'll just have to use more general divinations (maybe fluff it as being his knowledge or guidance for something like Augury), there's not much you can do to interact with souls other than trying to raise them. Read Thoughts on the remaining living people, as well as maybe Memory Modification if you have access to it (can look at the target's memories, and permanently fix up to five minutes of them in the target's mind, which might be somewhat useful?), could get you some extra information, but asking the person you want outside of raising him, Speak with Dead or maybe the spell kharmakazy mentioned is probably a no-go.

[Lord Tyger]

Alternatively, raise him as some form of intelligent undead. I'm pretty sure some of them keep the knowledge of their live selves.

[kharmakazy]

It instead draws on the imprinted knowledge stored in the corpse. The partially animated body retains the imprint of the soul that once inhabited it, and thus it can speak with all the knowledge that the creature had while alive.


I would say he definitely knew his own opinions. Wait a week and ask better questions.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Unless your DM is willing to work with you, you're hosed. The only vaguely Raw-ish options are planar binding (minus the trap aspects) to call him as a petioner; or maybe, just maybe, contact other plane might let you talk to him. In both cases you will get info that's as limited as what you got from speak with dead, albeit limited in a different fashion.

[eggs]

Oriental adventures has a bunch of spells, but Plane Shift+Scry+Teleport would probably cover it.

[Urpriest]

Oriental adventures has a bunch of spells, but Plane Shift+Scry+Teleport would probably cover it.

I don't see how either could help. The guy is a petitioner, any expertise he had is gone.

[Kelb_Panthera]

I don't see how either could help. The guy is a petitioner, any expertise he had is gone.

Even though his tactical skills are gone he died recently enough that he probably still remembers who and what was under his command or, at the very least, who to direct you to for more info. Also of note: if the DM of this game doesn't use MotP, there's no such thing as a petitioner, IIRC.

[LadyLexi]

Hmm, I appreciate the info. We are limited to dealing with NPCs to cast spells of higher level for us. Its an interesting thing to think about.

As a quick follow up, are the material components from resurrection spells still consumed if the spirit chooses not to come back?

[eggs]

I don't see how either could help. The guy is a petitioner, any expertise he had is gone.
Reanimation makes it easy from a level 4 slot, if the body's still around. If the DM's being stingy with the character's memory, Greater Restoration is still cheaper than Raising.

If the DM is ruling against getting the factual information on the character's opinions AND is excluding that petitioner from maintaining its memory AND isn't permitting other all-purpose divinations like Contact Other Plane to disclose the information through 20-questions-interrogation, it's not the spells failing to address the material, it's the DM stonewalling that plotline.

[Kelb_Panthera]

I'll second reanimation+ restoration. He's still dead for any practical purpose, but you've got his whole mind there to pick over. Just do the poor sap a solid, and re-kill him after the interview so he's not stuck at 1hp and move-actions only.

[whibla]

How does one communicate to the dead? Speak with dead seems to only let you speak to the body and ask it questions it knew in life.
...
I was wondering because speak with dead only lets you know facts, not their opinions or what they think they should do. We lost a fight and lost our NPC master strategist for an upcoming battle. None of us know his troups, the castle defenses or any of the information that might prove relevant. We already asked our questions with Speak with dead but we don't have what we need to win.
...
We attempted resurrection but it failed, we do not know why.
...
Any ideas?

Sounds like DM plot device to me. The Res. failed because he chose to refuse to come back. You're intended to solve this on your own.

If you do not know his troops, go and introduce yourselves. If you're now nominally in charge of the situation inform them of that fact (if not find out who is etc.), and ask for their tactical input / opinions / knowledge of the defenses. Your mentor is unlikely to have been the only one who knew anything or everything about the castle and its defenses.

As for interpreting "what they knew in life", it would be a harsh reading to say that the spirit didn't know its own opinions at the point when it died, but it might be more of a stretch for them to form new opinions on information they didn't have at the time.

Sorry, I'm aware I haven't really answered the large part of your question, but I have a sneaking suspicion that you're barking up the wrong tree...

[Urpriest]

Everybody's assuming the guy is refusing to come back. What if he was simply killed with negative energy? You'd just need a higher level spell.

[Bronk]

Or his soul could be trapped somewhere, and the intended plot might be to retrieve it...

[Psyren]

The "ask the gods what to do" divinations will explicitly work for this. From Complete Divine:


ACTIVITIES IN THE AFTERLIFE
...
Respond to Divinations: Many deities assign favorite souls the task of responding to divination spells such as contact other plane, divination, and commune. The deities impart the souls with an instinctive sense of the knowledge they can impart to the living spellcasters who seek guidance. It's possible for a PC spellcaster to wind up conversing with a deceased mentor or ally as part of a commune spell, for example.

This is word-for-word what the OP wants; no special class features are required.

[kharmakazy]

The "ask the gods what to do" divinations will explicitly work for this. From Complete Divine:



This is word-for-word what the OP wants; no special class features are required.

Things being "possible" doesn't mean they happen. It's possible that he isn't really dead at all. That probably isn't the case, but it's possible.

[Psyren]

Things being "possible" doesn't mean they happen. It's possible that he isn't really dead at all. That probably isn't the case, but it's possible.

Well obviously the DM would be the ultimate arbiter on how this plays out. I was merely pointing out that if he or she wanted to allow the party to speak directly to the dead mentor, there are ways in RAW to do that. that don't require one of the PCs retraining to Spirit Shaman, or require the DM to solve the problem via pure fiat/homebrew.

Now, if the DM wants to prevent this from working that's indeed their prerogative. But unless the PCs failing is the goal here then they would need some other solution instead.

As for whether he is dead or not, they need his body for Speak with Dead, so that puts him a bit further (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NeverFoundTheBody) along the algorithm. (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SortingAlgorithmOfDeadness)