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View Full Version : Sending: Speak With Dead, but better?



Phhase
2021-11-27, 11:56 PM
So, I realized something interesting about the interplanar clause of Sending. Depending on how you rule a creature's identity, you might very well be able to cast Sending to contact a dead creature, the message finding the creature's soul on whatever plane they ended up on, only having to tolerate a 5% chance of crossed wires. Thoughts?

OldTrees1
2021-11-28, 12:01 AM
"to a creature with which you are familiar"
This could be sticking point. My PCs tend to not be familiar with most corpses. Familiar implies more than cross the battlefield acquaintances.

"if the target is on a different plane than you, there is a 5 percent chance that the message doesn’t arrive."
Hmm. Send duplicates depending on the desired error rate?

Yes, you can use Sending to send a message to a creature, that still exists, and is still a creature, and you are familiar with.

Phhase
2021-11-28, 01:49 AM
This could be sticking point. My PCs tend to not be familiar with most corpses. Familiar implies more than cross the battlefield acquaintances.


True, but the use case I was imagining was where familiarity has already been established - in the case where one could Send to the creature already while it was alive, and now that it is dead, "it", or the greatest part of it, now resides in its afterlife plane instead, fully within reach of Sending. Hypothetically anyway.

Greywander
2021-11-28, 02:02 AM
So, I realized something interesting about the interplanar clause of Sending. Depending on how you rule a creature's identity, you might very well be able to cast Sending to contact a dead creature, the message finding the creature's soul on whatever plane they ended up on, only having to tolerate a 5% chance of crossed wires. Thoughts?
So, there's a major problem with this, and it has to do with how D&D lore handles the soul and the animating spirit. I don't fully understand it myself, but these are apparently two separate things. A creature without a soul is incapable of learning new information, as is the case with many types of undead. And yet, for some reason a creature's memories reside with the animating spirit. That's why a lot of soulless undead will mime actions and routines they did in life, and why they often retain any skills or knowledge they learned in life.

Contacting a person's soul, in the absence of their animating spirit, would produce essentially no useful outcome. The soul would have no memories, and thus nothing useful they could say back to you in return (unless you just really wanted to know what their afterlife was like). This is why Speak with Dead doesn't call up a creature's soul, but their animating spirit, and it's why you can't use Speak with Dead to pass information along to someone in the afterlife.

tKUUNK
2021-11-28, 02:16 AM
Okay, this is hilarious.

Can see it now: Your players learn Sending just to taunt long-term adversaries they've finally defeated.

Millstone85
2021-11-28, 07:59 AM
a creature's memories reside with the animating spirit.Any idea how this connects/coexists with the River Styx?

Before arriving in Baator, lawful evil souls take a dive in the River Styx, which steals their memories and turns them into silt. The souls then emerge on the river's banks as near-mindless lemures.

A similar fate awaits souls in Hades (as larvas) and in the Abyss (as manes), which I would guess also involves the River Styx.

Anyway, that means these souls did have memories before the fiendish waters stole them.

Mastikator
2021-11-28, 08:59 AM
Is a soul even a "creature"? you'd have to have your DM agree to it. Which I doubt they will.

Rukelnikov
2021-11-28, 09:32 AM
Is a soul even a "creature"? you'd have to have your DM agree to it. Which I doubt they will.

In the usual Wheel afterlife, souls become petitioners, and those are definitely creatures, but the nature of each changes depending on the plane, as @millstone85 mentioned, most of the souls bound to the lower planes have to pass thru river Styx which erases their memories. So most lower plane bound souls shouldn't be able to answer a Sending (and actually, a Lemure created from the soul of John Smith, is not really John Smith, so It's doubtful if even the sending would reach them). On the other hand you have the non-Drow Elves who become petitioners in Aarvandor, and pretty much stay the same as they were while alive, so the argument there is stronger.

IMO it would depend heavily on the plane in question where the soul ended up. Some would be an almost automatic failure (all those whose memories were erased, or souls disolved into the plane), some would be hard to find a reaon why it shouldn't, like with most non-Drow Elves, and then you have everything in between.


I might allow this as a DM, but I don't think I would call it better than Speak with Dead. Speak with Dead is available much earlier, and it allows you to ask multiple questions from a single casting. It also "compels" the creature to answer (it gets a will save if there's an alignment difference but otherwise answers truthfully).

Sending requires familiarity, is higher level, has a much harsher word limit, and can be ignored or responded to with a lie. The bright side is that it doesn't need a corpse, can be cast multiple times if you have the slots, and of course has other uses besides just trolling dead people.

Also, I would have to look up exactly what happens to petitioners on each plane, because I think some of them lose their memories. And trying to contact someone who got turned into a soul larva might not get a response beyond horrible screaming.

I don't know "Answers are usually brief, cryptic, or repetitive, and the corpse is under no compulsion to offer a truthful answer if you are hostile to it or it recognizes you as an enemy". Does that imply that if you are not hostile or it doesn't recognize you as an enemy it offers a truthful answer? Seems to be the case, but its also not explicitely stated. I guess they would answer as truthfully as they would an acquaintance?

I mean, if I ask a recently dead corpse how to infiltrate their village, even if I wasn't an enemy before their death, they might recognize me as an enemy just for having asked that.

Millstone85
2021-11-28, 09:35 AM
It also "compels" the creature to answer (it gets a will save if there's an alignment difference but otherwise answers truthfully).Hmm, that is a generous interpretation of "the corpse is under no compulsion to offer a truthful answer if you are hostile to it or it recognizes you as an enemy".

Eurus
2021-11-28, 09:54 AM
Crud, mixed up my editions again. You're completely right, I went to edit that when I double checked but it was too late.

Brookshw
2021-11-28, 09:58 AM
Any idea how this connects/coexists with the River Styx?

Before arriving in Baator, lawful evil souls take a dive in the River Styx, which steals their memories and turns them into silt. The souls then emerge on the river's banks as near-mindless lemures.

A similar fate awaits souls in Hades (as larvas) and in the Abyss (as manes), which I would guess also involves the River Styx.

Anyway, that means these souls did have memories before the fiendish waters stole them.

It's not relevant, petitioners memories are stripped while the soul travels through the Astral on the way to Baator (or wherever), coming out of the river has no bearing.

Millstone85
2021-11-28, 10:12 AM
It's not relevant, petitioners memories are stripped while the soul travels through the Astral on the way to Baator (or wherever), coming out of the river has no bearing.Leaving behind an astral memory core, yes, but I have seen no mention of that in 5e.

What we do have now is the Raven Queen and her shadar-kai coveting the sedimented memories of the River Styx.

Rukelnikov
2021-11-28, 10:25 AM
It's not relevant, petitioners memories are stripped while the soul travels through the Astral on the way to Baator (or wherever), coming out of the river has no bearing.

Not all petitioners memories are stripped, as a matter of fact, elves are specifically noted to rememeber their past incarnations for their first century, so they clearly aren't erased.

Millstone85
2021-11-28, 10:55 AM
Not all petitioners memories are stripped, as a matter of fact, elves are specifically noted to rememeber their past incarnations for their first century, so they clearly aren't erased.What I find very intriguing in MToF is that it speaks of elves being "reincarnated" or "born" in Arvandor. Does that mean elven petitioners typically materialize on the plane not with a pop but with a bang, if you get my double entendre? Would attempting to communicate with one by way of the sending spell only return a baby's babblings?

Brookshw
2021-11-28, 11:17 AM
Leaving behind an astral memory core, yes, but I have seen no mention of that in 5e.

What we do have now is the Raven Queen and her shadar-kai coveting the sedimented memories of the River Styx.

Fair. Unless new canon contradicts existing canon I just merge them, ymmv. As to the Raven Queen, she collects memories from across the multiverse for unknown reasons, why wouldn't she be interested in any memory sediment wherever it's located.Edit: suppose I should add that I'm assuming the sediment is from the natural memory stealing property of the river, though if I'm overlooking a 5e lore point then please feel free to point it out.

@Rukelnikov, specific exceptions can exist, that's not a problem.

Temperjoke
2021-11-28, 11:39 AM
Potentially it could work, but there are a lot of things that success requires that I don't know that I would rely on it. I mean, you have to be familiar with the creature, it has to be in a condition that allows it to respond, it has to be willing to respond, and even with all that, there's a chance that it won't work across planes. Which means that if it doesn't work, you don't know why it didn't work, so possibly you waste a bunch of spell slots trying multiple times if it's something important.

I wouldn't take the Sending spell just for this use, but it's an interesting way to try to use a spell that you already have or were already going to take.

Naanomi
2021-11-28, 12:13 PM
Even petitioners that retain their memories tend to be significantly altered by death, I wouldn't count on someone being willing to respond or to respond in a comprehensible way to a Sending post-death even if they would have done so in life

JonBeowulf
2021-11-28, 12:38 PM
True, but the use case I was imagining was where familiarity has already been established - in the case where one could Send to the creature already while it was alive, and now that it is dead, "it", or the greatest part of it, now resides in its afterlife plane instead, fully within reach of Sending. Hypothetically anyway.

I don't follow you. Sending has a cast time of one action and a duration of one round. There's almost no room for "cast while they're still alive and they receive after death."

I'd have no problem with you attempting this when you run across a corpse and go, "Hey! I knew that guy. I'm gonna send him a quick text to let him know I found his corpse and I'll take care of things."

How/If he responds is up to me. It could be silence, it could be "k thx bye", it could be "I appreciate it, but stay away from my widow or I will find a way to haunt you and your family for eternity."

Millstone85
2021-11-28, 12:55 PM
My PCs tend to not be familiar with most corpses.
True, but the use case I was imagining was where familiarity has already been established - in the case where one could Send to the creature already while it was alive
I don't follow you. Sending has a cast time of one action and a duration of one round. There's almost no room for "cast while they're still alive and they receive after death."Yes, I think you misinterpreted the exchange. It is about two different castings of the spell, one while the target was alive and one now that the target is dead, and the assumption that there was enough familiarity for the first casting to work.

Amnestic
2021-11-28, 01:11 PM
The question, I suppose, becomes "can you become unfamiliar with someone due to them dying?"*

And the answer will depend a lot on the setting and the individual. You're not Sending to anyone in Eberron who faded away from Dolurrh, nor would you (in my opinion) be able to Send to someone whose soul juice got reformed in Avernus into a devil. They've changed too much, at that point, even if it is the 'same soul'. But other times, sure, potentially.

*also raises the question of if you can become unfamiliar with someone prior to them dying and...it's unlikely to come up in a campaign in my opinion but I would also say yes, you can, in rare exceptions.

Phhase
2021-11-28, 01:42 PM
As I recall, Speak with Dead specifically does NOT contact any actual remaining part of the creature, it only essentially uses negative energy to awaken the imprint (basically the sort of person-shaped-hole left behind by the absence of the soul) of the creature so it may act in the stead of the soul.

tokek
2021-11-28, 01:51 PM
I think you have a number of lore answers let me add in a game balance answer.

This begins to cover the ground that Contact Other Plane spell is clearly designed to cover. I would not let a lower level, easier and less risky spell essentially do what Contact Other Plane is supposed to do. By the wording of Contact Other Plane the spirits of the long dead clearly can be contacted but I would not let a simple Sending spell do it.