Zone of Truth (3.5): Fixable or Futile?

[Duke of Urrel]

It seems to me that the Zone of Truth spell has practically no real effect at all.

1. To start with, this spell is an Area spell, which means that when you cast it, you have no way of knowing which creatures are affected by it and which ones resist it by making their Will saves against it. But this is only the beginning of the spell's weaknesses.

2. Creatures that make their Will saves against the Zone of Truth spell feel a "hostile force or tingle," but are otherwise unaffected and can lie normally.

3. Creatures that fail their Will saves, on the other hand, are "aware of the enchantment" and "may avoid answering questions to which they would normally respond with a lie, or they may be evasive as long as they remain within the boundaries of the truth," according to the spell's description.

So it seems to me that if you are a captive within the area of a Zone of Truth spell and you are not a total idiot, you will respond either by lying if you have resisted the enchantment or by shutting up if you have failed to resist. Either way, the spell fails to make you tell the truth.

I would like to ask the Playground: (1) firstly, whether my unfavorable assessment of the Zone of Truth spell is accurate; and (2) secondly, if so, whether there's a decent way to make the Zone of Truth spell better than worthless.

The most I can come up with is the possibility that with a successful Intimidate check, you can compel a captive inside a Zone of Truth both to speak and to tell the truth. However, this proposal assumes that it is possible to intimidate a captive in such a way that he or she cannot be silent or evasive, but must answer a question either falsely or truthfully. That's neither very plausible nor in the rules.

Does anybody here have a better idea? I'm interested in proposals within the rules, proposals of supplemental house rules, and even proposals to alter the rules. I don't want to make this spell too powerful, but I'd like it to be better than totally ineffectual.

[Fax Celestis]

I'm a big fan of coupling it with create water waterboarding and inquisitor bracers.

"TALK, DAMN YOU. TALK" *create water*
"I'LL NEVER TAARGHAARBLLBLGLBLBLGLL"
"I said TALK!" *smack + cure light wounds*

[eggynack]

It seems like the real problem here is the save. Is it at all clear that a given creature failed it? If not, you can't really rely on any answer that you receive from the zone, because it the creature might have passed. Creatures would be allowed to not say stuff, but non-words are sometimes as informative as true words.

[Thrair]

I'm with Fax. Never substitute for Zone of Truth what you can get through actions the Paladin isn't aware of.


Pathfinder fixed this issue somewhat by having a single-target touch version of the spell that puts a floating symbol of the caster's deity over the subject. So you at least know when the spell is working. Doesn't get around the evasive answer / Right to remain silent issue, but it at least is actually useful for something other than a false sense of security on anything with a Will save better than Thog's.

But yah, overall, your assessment is accurate. Junk spell. Not really worth the spellslot. Better to just charm the guy and convince him to spill the beans that way.

[avr]

It does increase the chance that information you receive is accurate. Not to 100% but higher than it was.

I'm not sure that the motivators for questioned captives are substantially different with or without the spell.

If you won't act on info less than 100% reliable then the spell is worthless to you, yes.

[Duke of Urrel]

I'm a big fan of coupling it with create water waterboarding and inquisitor bracers.

"TALK, DAMN YOU. TALK" *create water*
"I'LL NEVER TAARGHAARBLLBLGLBLBLGLL"
"I said TALK!" *smack + cure light wounds*

I have considered something like this. One of Hollywood's great undying conventions is that when all else fails, torture always makes a captive tell the truth, especially when the torturer is a Good guy and the captive is Evil. Interestingly, torture almost never works the other way round in the movies.

However, I don't like this particular Hollywood convention. If you like it, go ahead and use it. We might even assume that the Zone of Truth spell exists solely in order to make torture work better than it does in the real world. But that solution is not for me. I prefer to regard torture as a tactic favored by Evil creatures and morally Neutral ones who are desperate. Torture does indeed have its practical applications, particularly for Evil authorities, but these are primarily (1) providing sadistic pleasure for the torturer and (2) terrorizing the populace by "sending a message."

For information gathering, I believe Intimidate skill should be just as likely to work as torture. Indeed, I allow interrogators to use a good-cop, bad-cop strategy, whereby one cop's Gather Information check adds a bonus to the other's Intimidate check, or vice versa, for the purpose of questioning. By my reckoning, torture may add "flavor" to an interrogation, but should not increase its effectiveness. Recall that the witch trials notoriously produced many more fantastical "confessions" than true ones, which gives torture a rather poor track record as a method of information gathering.

On the other hand, if it makes sense to give torture the power to make a captive inside a Zone of Truth tell the truth (and maybe it does make sense, because, after all, "it's magic"), then maybe it isn't so senseless to give Intimidate skill this power as well.

[Chronos]

I think the spell is supposed to be used in a magical courtroom. Yeah, it's not perfect, but it's better than a courtroom without a ZoT.

Presumably, societies where this spell is typically used in court do not have the equivalent of the Fifth Amendment.

[Big Fau]

It seems like the real problem here is the save. Is it at all clear that a given creature failed it? If not, you can't really rely on any answer that you receive from the zone, because it the creature might have passed. Creatures would be allowed to not say stuff, but non-words are sometimes as informative as true words.

There is in fact a rule that lets the caster know when a target succeeds on a saving throw against his spell, but I forget where in the PHB it is.

[Emperor Tippy]

There is in fact a rule that lets the caster know when a target succeeds on a saving throw against his spell, but I forget where in the PHB it is.

" Likewise, if a creature’s saving throw succeeds against a targeted spell you sense that the spell has failed. You do not sense when creatures succeed on saves against effect and area spells. "

Doesn't apply to zone of truth.

[Duke of Urrel]

It seems like the real problem here is the save. Is it at all clear that a given creature failed it? If not, you can't really rely on any answer that you receive from the zone, because it the creature might have passed. Creatures would be allowed to not say stuff, but non-words are sometimes as informative as true words.

Non-words can sometimes be meaningful, but not very meaningful. Basically, if you put a creature inside a Zone of Truth and it shuts up or refuses to give a straight answer to any question, you know that it's hiding something (either because it's dishonest or because it's scared), but that's all.


It does increase the chance that information you receive is accurate. Not to 100% but higher than it was.

Here's where I would like us to devise a mechanism that causes precisely this to happen. Do some creatures (a certain percentage below 100%) that fail to resist the Zone of Truth spell tell the truth if they fail a Wisdom check of some kind?


I'm not sure that the motivators for questioned captives are substantially different with or without the spell.

This is a valid objection both to what I have proposed and to what Fax Celestis has proposed, with regard to Intimidate skill and torture, respectively.

Here are two other fixes for the Zone of Truth, both deviations from the rules:

(1) A creature that fails its Will save against a Zone of Truth doesn't become aware that the spell is working (or what it does) until after it answers a question truthfully while trying to lie. Once this has happened, the creature is aware that it is enchanted and may clam up.

(2) Require a new Will save every time the creature answers a new question. The creature doesn't know in advance whether its Will save will succeed, so it may try to lie rather than clam up or give an evasive answer. However, if its Will save fails, it mistakenly tells the truth.

Would these deviations from the rules make the Zone of Truth too powerful?

[Psyren]

You know if they saved vs. a targeted effect, but not against an area spell. So yeah, ZoT is pretty poor compared to good old-fashioned Sense Motive.

[Duke of Urrel]

I think the spell is supposed to be used in a magical courtroom. Yeah, it's not perfect, but it's better than a courtroom without a ZoT.

Presumably, societies where this spell is typically used in court do not have the equivalent of the Fifth Amendment.

A government without the equivalent of the Fifth Amendment may well assume that a suspect who refuses to speak must be guilty, and there may be "good" reasons for tyrannical governments to do this. As with torture, treating people who refuse to talk as automatically guilty "sends a message." However, the purpose of the Zone of Truth spell, it seems to me, should not be merely to determine whether a suspect, according to authoritarian criteria, qualifies as "guilty." It should also somehow increase the likelihood that a suspect will tell the truth.

My question is: Since the Zone of Truth spell apparently fails to achieve this (except with suspects so dull-witted that they would probably spill the beans without any magical compulsion), how can we make it do so – at least a little?

[Der_DWSage]

Now that I think about it...why not just have Zone of Truth become a no-save debuff that runs counter to Glibness or a huge bonus to Sense Motive for the caster? Its purpose is to force people to tell the truth, so why not have it simply be a -20 or -30 to Bluff, or correlating amount to Sense Motive. This allows extraordinary people to still lie, clam up, or otherwise protect themselves, or allows the caster to pick up the truth no matter what they say.

Yeah, I agree that it's mostly useless as is-in fact, it's almost better to kill them and start using Speak With Dead, then use Raise Dead afterwards if you're so inclined.

[Ranos]

Can't you just use Detect Magic to spot whether the enchantment aura affects the character or not ? I mean, there's ways to fool that, but you'd need prep time.

[TuggyNE]

Me, I'd convert zone of truth into a single-target version at the same level. Either make it last longer, or take away the save and have it give a flat penalty. (If you remove the save it can still be an emanation of course.)


Can't you just use Detect Magic to spot whether the enchantment aura affects the character or not ? I mean, there's ways to fool that, but you'd need prep time.

Nope. It doesn't target the character particularly, it's just an emanation.

[Duke of Urrel]

Now that I think about it...why not just have Zone of Truth become a no-save debuff that runs counter to Glibness or a huge bonus to Sense Motive for the caster? Its purpose is to force people to tell the truth, so why not have it simply be a -20 or -30 to Bluff, or correlating amount to Sense Motive. This allows extraordinary people to still lie, clam up, or otherwise protect themselves, or allows the caster to pick up the truth no matter what they say.


Me, I'd convert zone of truth into a single-target version at the same level. Either make it last longer, or take away the save and have it give a flat penalty. (If you remove the save it can still be an emanation of course.)

I am intrigued by the idea of simply making it harder to use deceit inside a Zone of Truth. This would change the spell into something more like a Zone of Obvious Lies, but at least this is a real effect. It might also get you true answers to a few yes-no questions.

I have another idea. Suppose failing a Will save against the Zone of Truth spell by five or more means that you are compelled to tell the truth rather than try to lie, clam up, or evade giving an answer?

1. If the creature made the Will save, it would be able to lie normally.

2. If the creature failed the Will save by one to four, it would be affected by the Zone of Truth spell exactly as written, so that it wouldn't be able to lie, but wouldn't have to tell the truth, either.

3. If the creature failed the Will save by five or more, it would have to answer as truthfully as it could.

This rule would be a departure from the RAW, but it would preserve both the awareness of the affected creature and its ability to resist the compulsion. The only difference would be that the Zone of Truth spell would occasionally work to compel a creature actually to tell the truth.

If the change seems too radical, we could nerf it by allowing every creature that failed its Will save a new Will save every round to resist, as with the Hold Person spell.

[Heliomance]

Personally I think the easiest way to fix it is to let the caster know whether every target failed the save or not. The trouble is, it's an information verification spell that doesn't actually verify information. Letting the caster know if the results are reliable or not fixes everything.

[Segev]

One thing I want to say and get out of the way, hopefully avoiding dragging it into some sort of off-topic real-world debate: Torture to get confessions, wherein the torturer wants a specific answer (e.g. "Yes! I did it! I hexed the mayor into having an affair with the butcher's wife! I'm a witch and they're totally innocent despite all evidence to the contrary!"), doesn't work except for evil purposes. The Lawful Neutral societies that resorted to these methods usually had already proven to the satisfaction of the justice-giver that the accused was guilty, but had laws requiring a confession before sentence could be passed (and yet, oddly, lacked laws against torture). By that point, the torturer wants a confession, not "the truth" (though getting an honest confession is obviously the goal; they already "know" the accused is guilty).

In movies and other fiction, the "desperate" hero who resorts to torture really isn't looking for a specific answer he can feed his victim. "Intimidation" and "torture" are the same thing in effect, for the "Good" interrogator. They're not saying, "Confess to this crime so I can close the case!" They're saying, "I know you know where the orphans are going to be sacrificed. TELL ME so I can go save them before it's too late!" Insert any "bad thing happening to innocent or numerous people and I need to know something the torture-target knows to stop it" situation here.

Intimidation, done skillfully enough, absolutely can work. Torture - threat thereof, or actually having done a bit and threat of more - can give circumstance bonuses to that Intimidation check.

The reason "bad guy torturing good guy" works so much more rarely than "good guy torturing bad guy" is the assumption that a bad guy is motivated more by selfishness than is the good guy. "Tell me where the rebels are or I cut off your fingers!" still has the poor heroic torture victim thinking about the fact that telling will result in the rebels - his friends - being tortured or killed. "Tell me where the bombs are or I will cut off your fingers!" is usually done to a bad guy who is taking a personal glee in knowing he's tormenting others with the deaths he'll cause. When he's going to pay something personally for it, he theoretically values not-being-hurt more than he values sick pleasure at others' suffering.

When it comes down to torture-for-information, the one less-believable trope is that heroes manage to convince their victims to tell them the truth. They HAVE to manage a successful intimidation check, making the victim fear their future if they don't tell before it's too late. Because otherwise, "Tell me where the orphans are or I cut off your fingers!" "Okay! They're in the graveyard; the sacrifice has to take place in the Merrovingian Mausoleum!" ... "Where are they? I don't see them here." ... "WHERE WERE THEY!?" "HAH! IT'S TOO LATE! THEY WERE SACRIFICED WHILE YOU WERE OUT, and it happened IN THE ABANDONED MILL!"

The best way I can think of to use Zone of Truth is to first question somebody without it. Then, cast it, and question them again. Preferably with multiple people whose stories all agreed before. Anybody who clams up likely failed their save or has something to hide and wants to pretend to have failed their save. This is, at least, information.

You can also use Zone of Truth multiple times, if you've got the time.

Zone of Truth isn't the most useful of spells. I wouldn't normally waste the spell slot. However, in actual magical society, it can be a powerful tool for gradually weighting things towards getting at the truth. Interrogate somebody without the Zone up. Then, interrogate them in one. Then, do it again in another one. After a month of this, you probably ahve a pretty good picture of what they were lying about.

It's just like interrogations and interviews in real police drama: you're looking for inconsistencies. Zone of Truth will help force inconsistencies when there are lies being told, because eventually EVERYBODY rolls a natural 1. And if they'd been fibbing, they'll clam up or spill the beans eventually.

The way around this is for the target to refuse to answer ANY questions when in a Zone, whether they've made the save or not. But at the very least, you know you've got an uncooperative individual at that point. So ZoT is preventing them from feeding you false information you trust due to thinking they're being cooperative.

[Fax Celestis]

Honestly, for interrogation, you're probably better served with an elixir of truth anyway.


Elixir of Truth

This elixir forces the individual drinking it to say nothing but the truth for 10 minutes (Will DC 13 negates).

She is compelled to answer any questions put to her in that time, but with each question she is free to make a separate DC 13 Will save. If one of these secondary saves is successful, she doesn’t break free of the truth-compelling enchantment but also doesn’t have to answer that particular question. No more than one question can be asked each round. This is a mind-affecting compulsion enchantment.

Faint enchantment; CL 5th; Craft Wondrous Item, zone of truth; Price 500 gp.

None of that silly text zone of truth has. Either the target makes the save, or they are compelled to speak the truth. Just find some way to pump the DC: you're smart, I'm sure you can figure it out.

[Psyren]

None of that silly text zone of truth has. Either the target makes the save, or they are compelled to speak the truth. Just find some way to pump the DC: you're smart, I'm sure you can figure it out.

Or nerf their will save. (http://xkcd.com/538/)

[Duke of Urrel]

Honestly, for interrogation, you're probably better served with an elixir of truth anyway.



None of that silly text zone of truth has. Either the target makes the save, or they are compelled to speak the truth. Just find some way to pump the DC: you're smart, I'm sure you can figure it out.

Thanks for sharing the info about the Elixir of Truth. It's a good model for how the Zone of Truth spell really ought to work, I think. I am strongly tempted to adopt the rules of the Elixir of Truth for the Zone of Truth spell, with the exception of the spell's duration (one round per caster level), which I would leave the same, in view of the fact that the Zone of Truth spell has no materials cost.

[Psyren]

10 minutes is 100 rounds so the potion definitely wins there. Even if they make their save you can just repeat the question, and making their save doesn't end the effect.

[Duke of Urrel]

The best way I can think of to use Zone of Truth is to first question somebody without it. Then, cast it, and question them again. Preferably with multiple people whose stories all agreed before. Anybody who clams up likely failed their save or has something to hide and wants to pretend to have failed their save. This is, at least, information.

This is an excellent technique, one that makes the Zone of Truth into something like a Discern Lies spell after the fact. You've proved that a Zone of Truth isn't completely useless! It can even destroy the reputation of a professional liar.

Thanks for the discussion of torture, by the way. My aim is to make torture flavorful, but also plausible, which is to say scary, but not very effective. That's not to say that torture can never work to make a creature tell the truth. It should work at least as well as Intimidate skill by itself. In view of the history of torture as dubious information-gathering tool, I'd keep the circumstance bonus that it adds to an Intimidate check pretty low: +2 would be enough for me.


You can also use Zone of Truth multiple times, if you've got the time. [...] Interrogate somebody without the Zone up. Then, interrogate them in one. Then, do it again in another one. After a month of this, you probably have a pretty good picture of what they were lying about.

Actually, this is the one thing that's not likely to happen. What you get with this strategy is a growing collection of lies and witnesses who aren't trustworthy, but no positive information.


10 minutes is 100 rounds so the potion definitely wins there. Even if they make their save you can just repeat the question, and making their save doesn't end the effect.

I have no problem with letting the potion win; it costs 500 gp. at least, and it should certainly cost more if you want to raise its save DC to a really challenging level, so it should be more powerful than the Zone of Truth spell.

EDIT: Whoops, I just checked the text of the Zone of Truth spell again. Its duration is ONE MINUTE per caster level, not one round per caster level. With a high-level caster and the adjustment to the saving-throw rules, a Zone of Truth could be more than equal to an Elixir of Truth.

[Segev]

The thing to keep in mind is the the reason Torture provides a bonus to Intimidate is because it ups the ante. The worse the torture from the perspective of the torturee, and the more he believes you'll really do it, the more the Intimidation should get a bonus.

Without Intimidate even being rolled, you can simply determine whether or not the target believes the pain worth keeping silent (or thinks he can fool the torturer). Since it's supposedly not an intimidate check to murder somebody and then threaten to do the same to the next guy if he doesn't cooperate. He's either afraid of being murdered or he isn't.

Honestly, "Intimidate" is a muddy skill because the skill with which you insinuate, with which you engage the target's imagination, is a big part of it...but the evil overlord who has your entire family suspended over a lava pit and has put a ticking time-bomb in your cranium probably doesn't need much skill at Intimidation. Either you're afraid for yourself and your family or you're not. I suppose the skill here is in reading YOU to find out what YOU fear. But wouldn't that be wisdom, not charisma?

[Chronos]

Quoth Duke of Urrel:

A government without the equivalent of the Fifth Amendment may well assume that a suspect who refuses to speak must be guilty, and there may be "good" reasons for tyrannical governments to do this. As with torture, treating people who refuse to talk as automatically guilty "sends a message." However, the purpose of the Zone of Truth spell, it seems to me, should not be merely to determine whether a suspect, according to authoritarian criteria, qualifies as "guilty." It should also somehow increase the likelihood that a suspect will tell the truth.
But it would do that. The subject has an incentive to not stay silent in the courtroom, because if he does, he'll certainly be found guilty of contempt of court. So he speaks up and says something, and what he says is probably forced to be true. It won't work in cases where being caught in a lie has worse consequences than contempt of court, of course, but that won't be all of the cases.

[NichG]

Well before we can fix it, we have to decide 'what is it supposed to be doing?'

I don't really think the spell is intended for interrogation. Without some way to compel speech, its never going to work on a purely hostile target - at that point you're better off using Charm Person and getting the person to want to tell you.

Court testimony is getting closer, but it still has the whole 'silence = guilt is a pretty harsh law' thing.

The way I'd envision Zone of Truth being used is either for complex diplomatic negotiations, where basically its a defense against people using lies offensively. Essentially, you're relying on the fact that the people there are there to speak to get them to talk, and the ZoT to make it truth when they do. Someone who just clams up is basically not going to achieve anything at the negotiation and will be at a severe disadvantage.

Another way it could be used is subterfuge - drop a ZoT when you're talking to a contact at a tavern. The problem is that they're aware of the enchantment if they fail the save, so it fails at this.

Note that neither of these cases require it to be foolproof, because you're not using the spell to 'prove the truth of something' like you would in an interrogation/trial; it doesn't need to be 100% if its not being used as evidence. But it can still be effective in the form of denying lies as a tool to be used in the situation.

So I think if we want to make it work for those scenarios, making it undetectable when you fail the save is the first key point. Another point would be to make it longer duration (so it can be used for extended negotiations, not just a quick question and answer session, and so it can be placed 'ahead of time').

One simple way to render it more of an interrogation/courtroom tool is that it basically flashes a visible signal whenever anyone lies in the area, rather than compelling the truth. As a 'truth detector' instead of a 'truth-maker', it wouldn't logically need to have a save, and it could be a divination instead of an enchantment, which would make it much more useful.

A high enough UMD check could fool the spell I suppose, the same way you can mis-represent your alignment to items that are normally able to detect it. An epic-level Bluff check could do the same.

[Duke of Urrel]

The thing to keep in mind is the the reason Torture provides a bonus to Intimidate is because it ups the ante. The worse the torture from the perspective of the torturee, and the more he believes you'll really do it, the more the Intimidation should get a bonus.

Without Intimidate even being rolled, you can simply determine whether or not the target believes the pain worth keeping silent (or thinks he can fool the torturer). Since it's supposedly not an intimidate check to murder somebody and then threaten to do the same to the next guy if he doesn't cooperate. He's either afraid of being murdered or he isn't.

Honestly, "Intimidate" is a muddy skill because the skill with which you insinuate, with which you engage the target's imagination, is a big part of it...but the evil overlord who has your entire family suspended over a lava pit and has put a ticking time-bomb in your cranium probably doesn't need much skill at Intimidation. Either you're afraid for yourself and your family or you're not. I suppose the skill here is in reading YOU to find out what YOU fear. But wouldn't that be wisdom, not charisma?

Both Intimidate skill and torture are pretty muddy to me. At some point, the threat of great harm, not only to the captive but also to creatures the captive cares about, ceases to be either torture or intimidation and becomes simply a bargaining tool. Whether one accepts a bargain like this may be a rational, even utilitarian decision rather than one based on fear alone.

Of course, with such bargains, there's also an important element of trust. I think the trust issue also tends to even out the differences between Evil and non-Evil captors as interrogators. Whereas it's more likely that an Evil captor will carry out his threats, it's also more likely that a non-Evil captor is actually trustworthy enough to bargain with. On the other hand, Lawfulness may restore some trust in the case of Lawful-Evil captors, who may sometimes be held to their promises...

Finally, I think the possibility of negative altruism reduces some of the difference between Good and Evil captives. Evil captives are more selfish, certainly, but they are also motivated by the desire to harm others (negative altruism), and if keeping a secret causes enough pain to others, I think a fanatically Evil creature will keep that secret with nearly as much zeal as a Good creature would keep a secret in order to spare the suffering of others.

This is all tangential to the question of what the Zone of Truth spell specifically contributes to the efficacy of either Intimidate skill or torture, but it's also useful background, I think.

[Shloogorgh]

Cast discern lies and concentrate on the subject in question within the zone of truth

[Segev]

Quick quibble: In the US justice system, you can, in fact, stay silent without risk of contempt of court if you claim your silence is being invoked on the grounds that an honest answer might incriminate you.

This won't necessarily protect you from having prior testimony held against you, particularly if your silence now is in refusal to even re-state something you'd said under oath before. That would be useful to create reasonable suspicion that you perjured yourself before. (Still is a big task to move that to "beyond a reasonable doubt," but it's not using anything against you that can't legally be used against you.)

But at the basic level, saying, "I refuse to answer on the grounds that I may incriminate myself" won't get you held in contempt of court unless it is a patently false statement. (e.g., if you have been granted immunity to whatever crimes your testimony might implicate you in; at that point, refusing to testify does, in fact, protect you from testifying against yourself, so you could be held in contempt.)



ETA: I am not a lawyer; this is not legal advice. This is layman's discussion of the law.

[Scow2]

I've always seen Zone of Truth as a spell to be used to negate perjury - great for negotiation, and in a Courtroom that does respect the right against self-incrimination... One of the big deals of that is everyone is guilty of something, but that something's not always a crime. Also... I think in the U.S. the "Right to remain Silent" is equal parts 1st and 5th Amendments

I'd get rid of the will save (Or have people affected be visibly so).

My problem with Rounds/level negotiation instead of minutes/hours is that it takes more than 6 seconds to say most things (A diplomacy check requires at least one minute). Speech doesn't really interface well with the action economy at all.

[Duke of Urrel]

The way I'd envision Zone of Truth being used is either for complex diplomatic negotiations, where basically its a defense against people using lies offensively. Essentially, you're relying on the fact that the people there are there to speak to get them to talk, and the ZoT to make it truth when they do. Someone who just clams up is basically not going to achieve anything at the negotiation and will be at a severe disadvantage.

This is another interesting suggestion. The presence of a Zone of Truth does seem to make Diplomacy a little more likely to work. In fact, it seems to make Diplomacy skill, as I understand it, a little more likely to be actually used, in place of Bluff skill.

I interpret Diplomacy skill as the use of courtesy and flattery to make one's words more appealing without the use of lies. If you negotiate in bad faith, making promises you don't intend to keep, I require you to make a Bluff check; I won't allow you to make a Diplomacy check. So imposing a Zone of Truth, which makes false diplomacy (using Bluff skill) a little less likely, should make honest Diplomacy (using Diplomacy skill) a little more likely to succeed, simply by raising the level of trust in the room.

Another piece of evidence has been found that the Zone of Truth spell is not completely useless! Thanks for this, NichG.

EDIT:

But it would do that. The subject has an incentive to not stay silent in the courtroom, because if he does, he'll certainly be found guilty of contempt of court. So he speaks up and says something, and what he says is probably forced to be true. It won't work in cases where being caught in a lie has worse consequences than contempt of court, of course, but that won't be all of the cases.

I should not so casually have dismissed the points you made, Chronos. Given the specific incentives in a courtroom environment, including the threat of punishment and the bargaining that can be done with that, a Zone of Truth spell can make a real difference. Certainly you can use it to eliminate unreliable witnesses, so that you don't have to waste any time with them. Moreover, the Zone of Truth spell is actually concerned with the truth and is free of bias in favor of any party, so that the information it uncovers may occasionally even surprise the interrogators themselves.

[Maginomicon]

Honestly, for interrogation, you're probably better served with an elixir of truth anyway.



None of that silly text zone of truth has. Either the target makes the save, or they are compelled to speak the truth. Just find some way to pump the DC: you're smart, I'm sure you can figure it out.

There's also Truth Wine.


Truth Wine
75gp, Alchemy DC 30

This sweet white wine of elven origin loosens the tongue more effectively than other alcohol-based drinks. In addition to suffering the wine’s normal intoxicating effects, those who drink truth wine must make a Will Save (DC 15) to tell a lie. The wine’s effects are short-lived, lasting only 10 rounds -1 round per point of the drinker's Constitution bonus. (For example, a character with a +2 Constitution bonus would suffer truth wine’s effects for 8 rounds.) Creatures must drink at least 1 glass (8 oz.) of truth wine to suffer its effects.

Elves are unaffected by truth wine.

[Duke of Urrel]

There's also Truth Wine.

Hmmm. Truth wine would indeed put the veritas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_vino_veritas) back in the vino, wouldn't it? Of course, we'd have to assume that lack of awareness is part of the effect. The wine would have to make you blurt out the truth in place of a lie without giving you a chance to hold your tongue instead.

[Maginomicon]

The inquisition spell (BoED page 101; Sanctified 5, which means any non-evil prepared-type caster can access it) is also worth noting.

With this spell, the caster compels the target creature to divulge information it may be hiding. If the target fails its save, it is forced to reply to the caster’s questions (one question per three caster levels), speak truthfully, and not respond in such a way that the answers provided may be misleading. The questions posed may be answered with a simple yes or no, or they may require a more detailed response. This spell cannot be used to force the target to divulge information it doesn’t know, and the target creature is unable to fabricate lies of any kind while under the spell’s hold.

[Emperor Tippy]

Mind Rape is the best interrogation tool in the game, especially if you have ensured an inability for the target to make the save (ask your DM, them being unconscious might do it).

Mind Probe is the good lower level alternative.

Detect Thoughts tends to be one of the best lower level interrogation options. You know if the target made their save or not, it lasts minutes/level, it's only a 2nd level spell, very few entities can lie without their surface thoughts betraying them, you pick up more details, and you learn what the target wants (or doesn't want) you to ask or conclude.

Mark of Justice is also quite useful. Set it to activate if the subject fails to fully, truthfully, and completely answer your questions. Also use a double Mark of Justice with triggering conditions of "takes a step" or "draws breath", one set to drop Wisdom by 6 and the other to drop Will saves by 4. That is a -7 to Will saves, which should practically ensure failure.

Combine with Mind Fog for extra fun (-17 to will saves, if they are making that then you are probably doing something wrong).

[Psyren]

Use the Succubus trick - tie them up, place a book by the door, lesser geas to read the book. Give them food and drink to keep them alive for several days but don't let them near the book. Eventually they'll be down to 1 in every score.

Now you can nail them with every debuff in the book - Mind Fog, Bestow Curse, Crushing Despair etc. Dominate them to lower their SR if necessary until these take effect. They should be hovering somewhere between -20 and -30 to will. Now you can remove the geas and their int will get back to normal within a day (allowing you to question them) but with all the other debuffs intact. Reapply the Mind Fog if you need to and then hit them with your truthspell/truthpotion.

[Red Fel]

Use the Succubus trick - tie them up, place a book by the door, lesser geas to read the book. Give them food and drink to keep them alive for several days but don't let them near the book. Eventually they'll be down to 1 in every score.

Now you can nail them with every debuff in the book - Mind Fog, Bestow Curse, Crushing Despair etc. Dominate them to lower their SR if necessary until these take effect. They should be hovering somewhere between -20 and -30 to will. Now you can remove the geas and their int will get back to normal within a day (allowing you to question them) but with all the other debuffs intact. Reapply the Mind Fog if you need to and then hit them with your truthspell/truthpotion.

This... Sounds incredibly, awesomely evil. I mean, wow.

"Just read the book, and all of this will stop."

"Why aren't you reading the book? Don't you want your suffering to end?"

And so forth.

I re-read this post, and I hear in my mind, "Shall we begin again? How many lights are there?"

[Fax Celestis]

This... Sounds incredibly, awesomely evil. I mean, wow.

"Just read the book, and all of this will stop."

"Why aren't you reading the book? Don't you want your suffering to end?"

And so forth.

I re-read this post, and I hear in my mind, "Shall we begin again? How many lights are there?"

http://stream1.gifsoup.com/view/70631/there-are-four-lights-o.gif

[Red Fel]

http://stream1.gifsoup.com/view/70631/there-are-four-lights-o.gif

Oh, Captain, my Captain.

[Duke of Urrel]

The inquisition spell (BoED page 101; Sanctified 5, which means any non-evil prepared-type caster can access it) is also worth noting.


Mind Rape is the best interrogation tool in the game, especially if you have ensured an inability for the target to make the save (ask your DM, them being unconscious might do it).

Mind Probe is the good lower level alternative.

Thank you for the suggestions. Perhaps I should buy the Spell Compendium so that I can have options like these at my fingertips.


Detect Thoughts tends to be one of the best lower level interrogation options. You know if the target made their save or not, it lasts minutes/level, it's only a 2nd level spell, very few entities can lie without their surface thoughts betraying them, you pick up more details, and you learn what the target wants (or doesn't want) you to ask or conclude.

Hmmm. Whether the Detect Thoughts spell works this way depends on how one interprets (or how one's DM interprets) the phrase "surface thoughts." When a creature tells a lie, perhaps its "surface thoughts" are also a lie. The truth may lie somewhere deeper, beyond the reach of the Detect Thoughts spell.


Mark of Justice is also quite useful. Set it to activate if the subject fails to fully, truthfully, and completely answer your questions. Also use a double Mark of Justice with triggering conditions of "takes a step" or "draws breath", one set to drop Wisdom by 6 and the other to drop Will saves by 4. That is a -7 to Will saves, which should practically ensure failure.

Combine with Mind Fog for extra fun (-17 to will saves, if they are making that then you are probably doing something wrong).

Like the Inquisition spell, the Mark of Justice seems to accomplish what the Zone of Truth fails to accomplish – but this spell is in the SRD, right in front of my nose! Thanks for pointing it out to me.


Use the Succubus trick - tie them up, place a book by the door, lesser geas to read the book. Give them food and drink to keep them alive for several days but don't let them near the book. Eventually they'll be down to 1 in every score.

Now you can nail them with every debuff in the book - Mind Fog, Bestow Curse, Crushing Despair etc. Dominate them to lower their SR if necessary until these take effect. They should be hovering somewhere between -20 and -30 to will. Now you can remove the geas and their int will get back to normal within a day (allowing you to question them) but with all the other debuffs intact. Reapply the Mind Fog if you need to and then hit them with your truthspell/truthpotion.

Assuming that having a very low Wisdom score makes a creature too stupid to lie, this is a good method to make the Zone of Truth spell work – though I think it's really the radical reduction in Wisdom (as well as Intelligence and Charisma) that does it, not the Zone of Truth itself. Remember that my original complaint about this spell was that even if a creature fails its Will save against it, the creature can still choose to stay silent or give an evasive answer, unless it has lost its common sense.

I thank you nonetheless for your advice on how to make even a very powerful creature highly likely to fail its Will saves. This has applicability far beyond simply making the Zone of Truth spell work. Of course, every creature has at least a 5% chance to succeed on a Will save, no matter how weakened it is (due to the natural 20 rule), so you'd want to have several scrolls with the Zone of Truth spell prepared, just in case.

[Gnaeus]

Also... I think in the U.S. the "Right to remain Silent" is equal parts 1st and 5th Amendments.

It is pretty much just the 5th.

More importantly, we don't have it because our forefathers thought that it was bad for people to incriminate themselves. We have it because they thought that Perjury was particularly awful and they wanted to prevent a situation in which a defendant had to face the choice between telling a lie and going to jail.

This was called the Cruel Trilemma, and Wikipedia explains it pretty well.
"The "cruel trilemma" was an English ecclesiastical and judicial weapon developed in the first half of the 17th century, and used as a form of coercion and persecution. The format was a religious oath to tell the truth, imposed upon the accused prior to questioning. The accused would find themselves trapped between:

A breach of religious oath if they lied (taken extremely seriously in that era, a mortal sin, and perjury);
Self-incrimination if they told the truth; or
Contempt of court if they said nothing and were silent."

If we had had a foolproof way to keep people from lying in court, we probably wouldn't have a 5th amendment either, because that would not have been an issue.

[Psyren]

Assuming that having a very low Wisdom score makes a creature too stupid to lie, this is a good method to make the Zone of Truth spell work – though I think it's really the radical reduction in Wisdom (as well as Intelligence and Charisma) that does it, not the Zone of Truth itself. Remember that my original complaint about this spell was that even if a creature fails its Will save against it, the creature can still choose to stay silent or give an evasive answer, unless it has lost its common sense.

I thank you nonetheless for your advice on how to make even a very powerful creature highly likely to fail its Will saves. This has applicability far beyond simply making the Zone of Truth spell work. Of course, every creature has at least a 5% chance to succeed on a Will save, no matter how weakened it is (due to the natural 20 rule), so you'd want to have several scrolls with the Zone of Truth spell prepared, just in case.

The better solution is to use your ZoT spell to brew that potion Fax linked above (potions only take 1 day to brew, but you've got plenty of time anyway since you have to wait for the LG to tank their saves.) Once their will save is in the nether, you debuff it even further using the curses I mentioned, remove the geas so they return to their senses, and then make them drink the potion while they've got a massive penalty to their save. That way you don't have to worry about the potion's save DC being fixed.

[Fax Celestis]

The better solution is to use your ZoT spell to brew that potion Fax linked above (potions only take 1 day to brew, but you've got plenty of time anyway since you have to wait for the LG to tank their saves.) Once their will save is in the nether, you debuff it even further using the curses I mentioned, remove the geas so they return to their senses, and then make them drink the potion while they've got a massive penalty to their save. That way you don't have to worry about the potion's save DC being fixed.

It's an elixir, not a potion, which means you use Craft Wondrous Item, not Brew Potion.

[Psyren]

It's an elixir, not a potion, which means you use Craft Wondrous Item, not Brew Potion.

Phooey. Well, like I said, plenty of time either way (hope you bought manacles.)

[Fax Celestis]

Phooey. Well, like I said, plenty of time either way (hope you bought manacles.)

Actually, this is a good thing, because now you can use Heighten to craft to pump the DC.

[Telok]

Divine Metamagic: Heighten Spell => Bestow Curse: Unable to lie.

Traditional and effective.

For my own setting I have Inquisitor Chairs
Inquisitor Chairs (caster level 6, DC 15, 20,000 gp)
One magic item important to the empire is it's Inquisitor Chairs. They are large ebony thrones with inlaid silver runes and three globes at the crown of the back. They are found in every Temple of Zin, some businesses, and rather too many government offices. The chairs are enchanted with Detect Lies, Detect Magic, and Zone of Truth spells that will light up either the left hand red globe (for lies) or the right hand green globe (for truth). The central milky white globe will light up if when the person in the chair is detected as having any non-divination magic on them. The chairs use three command words that must be loudly spoken. The first activates the white globe to detect magic, the second activates the green globe to enforce truth (this causes the white and green globes to light up, the green globe will not light up if the person in the chair makes a Will save), and the third startes the red globe detecting lies.
It is a well known fact the the Inquisitor chair is not terribly hard to resist. It is also very well advertised that repeated resistance to the effect of the Inquisitor Chair is a capitol offense that always requires lengthy imprisonment and painfully enhanced interrogation techniques.