Liar Liar pants on fire.

[D4rtagnan]

So one of my most recent campaigns I've end up in a group filled with a bunch of Bluff-a-mancers.
It is getting fairly confusing for my character to tell which person is telling the truth and which person is not.

I was wondering are there any spells for an arcane wizard (I can cast up to six level spells) that boost sense motive or detect lies.
I know there is zone of truth but most of them can easily make the DC for that.
Beside I want something more subtle.

[Deophaun]

Probe thoughts. Though as a sixth-level spell, kinda expensive for just seeing if your companions are lying or not. You can probe to see what they've lied about in the past, however, and they don't necessarily get to know you're doing it.

Generally, unless I'm intentionally playing someone that's just flat gullible, when my character's been repeatedly lied to by the same person, I go with the whole "don't care" mode of thought. Are you telling the truth? Are you lying? Don't care!

[herrhauptmann]

Are the other players taking it as something like:
"When I tell you all the traps are disarmed, you have to believe it, because you can't beat my bluff score. So if you act like you don't believe me, you're metagaming."
Even if every time they say that, they actually just found the traps and left them there for you to walk into?


Yeah, screw them. They're lying. They're always lying. If they told the truth just now, it's because the truth got them more than a lie would.
A custom item of detect thoughts might be useful. Probably a pair of earrings I think. Or maybe a headband. You'd need 3 rounds to get surface thoughts, which allows a will save. Getting a response of "This tool is so stupid" or something would be a good indication they're lying. Deactivate, and reactivate the item if they make their save.

Psi-power 'read thoughts' is the same level, but faster, so it's another option for a custom item.

[TypoNinja]

I'm with Deo, if you know they are lying nine times out of ten your sense motive vs their bluff is irrelevant. You are not going to believe a word they say no matter if they are actually lying or not.

You could be standing on a glacier and if one of them says "its chilly out there" you'd still go check for yourself.

The fun option is to start wearing only illusionary clothing. Want to condition the party to voluntarily fail any will saves coming from you? Great method. Had a wizard who did that in one of my games once. I started calling him Captain Sausage after I made the save.

[Toliudar]

It's also useful to establish consequences for lying to you. You have access to 6th level wizard spells! I normally advocate avoiding PvP like the plague, but if it's getting to the point that you can't tell what's true and what's false any more (and not in a fun intrigue-campaign kind of way), then leaving them hanging in a crisis situation just like their lies may be doing to you seems entirely justified, once your character has realized, IC, that they're surrounded by lying liers who lie.

[BowStreetRunner]

When a PC has been repeatedly lied-to by another character (PC or NPC, it doesn't matter) there is nothing wrong with taking on the approach of 'trust everybody, but cut the cards'. This is simply a survival strategy that a veteran would employ, based on experience.

Having a low sense motive score does not mean you are gullible. It just means you can't tell whether someone is lying. What matters is whether your character knows he is bad at judging such things. If he knows he is terrible at telling lies and the truth apart, he can ignore his sense motive score and just use common sense to protect himself from potential consequences either way.

I used to play darts a lot in college. In fact, I was a very poor shot and knew it. So instead of aiming for the numbers I wanted, I aimed at the numbers between them figuring if I missed in either direction I would hit something good. While I was never a 'dart-league' caliber player, I managed not to embarrass myself when I played because I knew my weakness and worked around it.

[Duke of Urrel]

Having a low sense motive score does not mean you are gullible.

Not only this, but if a liar lies to you multiple times, and you are aware that he or she has lied to you in the past and is likely to lie to you again, this should make anything the liar says so implausible to you that your Sense Motive check adds a hefty bonus. Indeed, the RAW allow for a bonus of +5 to +20 for implausibility. So even if you've been lied to only once that you've been aware, you should add +5 to your Sense Motive check the next time the liar lies to you. After a few more times, the bonus should go up to +10, and eventually it should (in my opinion) rise even to +20, as it becomes hardly conceivable that you can believe anything this person says, ever.

In my opinion, if you are a habitual or even compulsive liar, the only way you can get around the increasing suspicion (and increasing Sense Motive bonuses) of everybody who knows you well would be to avoid being recognized as yourself – by disguising yourself as somebody else who is trustworthy.

[Archmage1]

Pray they never get glibness.
Summon something with sense motive.
Kill them all, burn them into ashes, disintegrate the ashes, and go and join a party of paladins... somewhere.
Assume the paranoid roll, and never go first, and never go in the back. Handle any conversations yourself.

[Acanous]

You are a Wizard. Do you have a Familiar? It is a class feature that you've likely been ignoring. Take a look at "Item Familiar". It can let you pump skills like crazy. Amaze your party when you start beating their bluff checks with a crazy-high Sense Motive.

[NoobForHire]

What I've always done with bluff is that it just makes the subject think the person doing the bluffing believes what they're saying. If it's not plausible, you just think they're crazy.

[Acanous]

Alternatively, you can start playing things a little less meta and more zany. No talk of "Your skill doesn't work on me because!". Instead, start overreacting to what they tell you.

"I didn't steal your purse!"
'Oh, well then. I was hoping it would be someone I could forgive, as that would let me retain my spell slots for the day. Don't worry, I'll just kill people until the culprit comes clean. If he doesn't, I'll slaughter the whole village and raise them as undead so they can't lie to me. Failing that, I'll resort to Divinations.'

"There's no traps here/it's safe for you to enter/Don't worry, I disarmed all the traps"
'Well. There was a trap after all, which you clumsilly seem to have overlooked. Luckilly I brought a potion for just such an occasion. It's expensive, however, and that's going to come out of your share of the treasure. '

If he argues, or attempts to cheat you later..
*Quickened True Strike, Maximized Scorching Ray*
'You're... Fired.'*Puts on illusiory sunglasses*
YEEEAAAAAAH!!

Seriously, play it that you totally believe that they're telling the truth... and that makes them incompetant in your eyes, and thus less valuable as allies.

This works best if you are Lawful Evil.

Even if it doesn't come down to PVP, if every *Single* time they lie to you, the whole campaign is derailed for hours of real time while you roleplay a primary caster doing things to get to the bottom of it, while the rest of the party sits on their thumbs? They'll stop lying to you.

That, or they enjoy that sort of adventure, in which case it becomes the Marvellous and Zany adventures of Mr. Wizard and the bumbling Muggles.

[TuggyNE]

That, or they enjoy that sort of adventure, in which case it becomes the Marvellous and Zany adventures of Mr. Wizard and the bumbling Muggles.

I would like to read this campaign log. :smallcool:

[Chilingsworth]

I would like to read this campaign log. :smallcool:

seconded! (for lengthening purposes only)

[animewatcha]

Disintegrate is a sixed level wizard spell. Disintegrating one or two of their primary weapons might be good enough reason for lying to come to a quick halt. Geas/Quest is also a level 6th spell and allows for no save ( but yes to sr ). Geas them in their sleep SO MUCH ( during time skips ) that if they don't do what you say ( like stop lying ) then damage-wise they die.

[demigodus]

I was wondering are there any spells for an arcane wizard (I can cast up to six level spells) that boost sense motive or detect lies.

I believe there is one called Dominate Person?

Personally I believe in acquiring the child of one of their characters, disguising it, and somewhat distorts its memory (so it doesn't recognize its daddy), without the others players knowing (work it out with the DM). Say that you are babysitting it. Then, when they tell you that there is no traps, ask if there are monsters. Ask if there are other dangers. Once they convince you that it is perfectly safe... send the child in. Your character genuinely believes that no harm will come to the child. Your intentions are perfectly of good alignment. Watch the shock on their faces when they discover they had just duped you into killing their child.

Works with any loved ones.

[TuggyNE]

Geas/Quest is also a level 6th spell and allows for no save ( but yes to sr ). Geas them in their sleep SO MUCH ( during time skips ) that if they don't do what you say ( like stop lying ) then damage-wise they die.

I don't think geas will stack with itself, unfortunately, but you can add lesser geas for more fun. (3d6 damage + -2 stacking penalty to each ability score every day.)

[animewatcha]

Lesser geas has a hit die limitation that the others more than likely are past.

Ask you DM if you can retrain your wizard or heck start up new character wizard build and proceed to BREAK the encounters. The other characters get caught in the crossfire EVERY TIME they lie.

[demigodus]

Do you have craft magic item? Would your DM allow you to craft custom cursed items? Or actual magic items that "sadly" have a curse on them that activates when the wearer lies (and hence forth the item can not be removed)?

[animewatcha]

Ooo, there is also turning yourself undead or something ( immunity to stun + con damage ) and just start throwing around cursed item of dusts of sneezing and choking.

[TypoNinja]

Do you have craft magic item? Would your DM allow you to craft custom cursed items? Or actual magic items that "sadly" have a curse on them that activates when the wearer lies (and hence forth the item can not be removed)?

That would even be in character for a strongly good aligned character. "If only everyone was honest with each other, the world would be a much nicer place!"

[Amechra]

Just to ask, you just want to know when they're lying or not, and don't want to punish them for it, right?

[TuggyNE]

Lesser geas has a hit die limitation that the others more than likely are past.

So it does. Not sure how I missed that.... :smallredface:

[TopCheese]

I believe there is one called Dominate Person?

Personally I believe in acquiring the child of one of their characters, disguising it, and somewhat distorts its memory (so it doesn't recognize its daddy), without the others players knowing (work it out with the DM). Say that you are babysitting it. Then, when they tell you that there is no traps, ask if there are monsters. Ask if there are other dangers. Once they convince you that it is perfectly safe... send the child in. Your character genuinely believes that no harm will come to the child. Your intentions are perfectly of good alignment. Watch the shock on their faces when they discover they had just duped you into killing their child.

Works with any loved ones.

You are reminding me of Sailor Moon... The later episodes where things get creeeepy...

But I'm sure using dominate person on a kid is evil (since you are taking the kid on adventures as a puppet). There is a difference from using dominate person to make the kid eat their vegtibles but an entirerly different when you have them walk around dungeons and such where there could be monsters/traps just for the sake of teaching someone not to lie or to teach them to be less horrible at their job.

EDIT: Oh and by evil I mean the entire group will kill your character and may not play with you since you are targeting kids.

[Hyde]

The answer is always "psion".

In this case- Dominated allies can't lie to you.

[D4rtagnan]

o.0
Thanks for all the advice folks but I think I'm going to let sleeping dogs lie.
This campaign isn't a very nasty campaign...
....true I'm the only 'good' character in the part but none of the evil members are trying to kill me.
I mainly wanted a good sense motive score so my character could fix all the problems the other three players keep getting them selves into.

(I am the mom of the party.)

[DarkestKnight]

Would forcing someone to always tell the truth fall under Bestow Curse's range of effects? Paying out a bit of extra cash to get one of their Must Have items cursed in such a way could be worth it, especially if they don't catch it right away and start attributing it to something else.

[BowStreetRunner]

Would forcing someone to always tell the truth fall under Bestow Curse's range of effects? Paying out a bit of extra cash to get one of their Must Have items cursed in such a way could be worth it, especially if they don't catch it right away and start attributing it to something else.

Mark of Justice would work here. And you could even differentiate between lying in general and just lying to you.

[Mephit]

You can get an item of Discern lies. If you're level 11+, it should be affordable. Of course, they'll get fairly easy saves, but on the other hand, it's a 24/7 effect that only costs you some money, and no spell slots.

The other option, probably the best one, is the spell Insidious Insight from Races of Eberron. It's a 2nd level spell that grants you a +10 on Diplomacy, Bluff, Intimidate, and Sense Motive checks against one target.
"But Mephit," you say, "level 2 spells have low save DCs, and I can't just use up 10 spell slots to figure out if they're lying!''
Well, here's the thing: the duration is 1 day/level. So if you can cast it on them on a calm day off you're set for [CL] days. If you can do it subtly, without them noticing, there's no reason that they shouldn't eventually fail the save, and they would be none the wiser.