Spells that let you talk with things that don't normally talk

[Thirdtwin]

I wanna talk with weird things that don't talk. What spells are there that let you do that? I know about Speak with Animals, Speak with the Dead, Speak with Plants, and Stone Tell in core, but are there any interesting ones out of core that let you talk to like fire or something?

[MaxiDuRaritry]

I wanna talk with weird things that don't talk. What spells are there that let you do that? I know about Speak with Animals, Speak with the Dead, Speak with Plants, and Stone Tell in core, but are there any interesting ones out of core that let you talk to like fire or something?Well...

Polymorph any object lets you turn stuff that can't talk into stuff that can, which does include things like rocks, plants, and corpses. Also awaken, since anything with an Int score of 3+ can understand Common, and treants can speak, so using it on a tree can let the tree talk back. If you can convince an animal to communicate with you after it's awaken'd, simple responses such as "yes" and "no" are entirely possible.

If you can use magic to speak with inanimate objects such as rocks, do they still have those memories even after being PAO'd into intelligent critters?

[Buufreak]

If you can use magic to speak with inanimate objects such as rocks, do they still have those memories even after being PAO'd into intelligent critters?

That would require it to be alive and/or have any form of sentience enough prior to be capable of having memories.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

That would require it to be alive and/or have any form of sentience enough prior to be capable of having memories.Well, I mean, if you can speak with a rock to ask what it's seen while remaining a rock, I imagine that it would have at least some memories from then.

Hmm. PAO a recalcitrant prisoner into a rock. Cast a spell to speak with the resulting rock to ask questions about its life as a creature. What happens?

[redking]

PAO a recalcitrant prisoner into a rock. Cast a spell to speak with the resulting rock to ask questions about its life as a creature. What happens?

I wouldn't allow it. You speak with rock, you get what the rock knows not anything else.

[Inevitability]

Druid 8 spell in Masters of the Wild; Speak With Anything. Automatic Speak With Plants, Speak With Animals, and Tongues, and you "gain the ability to speak with stone, metal, earth, water, or any other solid or semisolid object or terrain feature as though under the influence of stone tell".

[Beni-Kujaku]

Earth Dreamers can communicate with mountains in their dreams.
Dream Walk technically allows you to speak with the dream persona of somebody.
Commune with Lesser/Greater Spirit allows you to speak with the spirit of any location of any significance, so you could speak to a house, to a sacred bell, to a lake, a tornado, a specific wind, a whole city, a volcano or even an island.

[SangoProduction]

I wanna talk with weird things that don't talk. What spells are there that let you do that? I know about Speak with Animals, Speak with the Dead, Speak with Plants, and Stone Tell in core, but are there any interesting ones out of core that let you talk to like fire or something?

The Nature Sphere has Speak with Elements, and Speak with Wildlife (animal or vermin, at time of casting). They do what you expect.
In the Alteration sphere, you have Speak with Animals (both animal and vermin) under Bestial Spirit.

And since we are in the sphere of Alteration: Anthropomorphic Transformation gives the target one language you speed, and raises intelligence to at least 6.
It still requires a creature to be a valid target, so there are two options if you want to speak with normally inanimate things. Animate Object in Enhancement sphere, or be a Hedgewitch with Transmuter tradition, which can transform stuff into animate stuff by level 5.
Unfortunately with that second option, it is already considered an Alteration sphere shapeshift, and therefore you could not then target it with anthropomorphic transformation. But they will be animals which can be talked to. Permanently, mind you.

[stack]

The Nature Sphere has Speak with Elements, and Speak with Wildlife (animal or vermin, at time of casting). They do what you expect.
In the Alteration sphere, you have Speak with Animals (both animal and vermin) under Bestial Spirit.

And since we are in the sphere of Alteration: Anthropomorphic Transformation gives the target one language you speed, and raises intelligence to at least 6.
It still requires a creature to be a valid target, so there are two options if you want to speak with normally inanimate things. Animate Object in Enhancement sphere, or be a Hedgewitch with Transmuter tradition, which can transform stuff into animate stuff by level 5.
Unfortunately with that second option, it is already considered an Alteration sphere shapeshift, and therefore you could not then target it with anthropomorphic transformation. But they will be animals which can be talked to. Permanently, mind you.

If you are going to bring in spheres of power, you should probably note that you are referring to a 3rd party pathfinder magic system.

[loky1109]

Be the monk 17

[Inevitability]

Be the monk 17

Huh, never realized how broad that ability is.


...y'know, given that a level 20 diplomancer should be able to convince anyone of anything regardless of classes, and the main limit is who you can talk to rather than how well you can talk, including monk 17 into such a build might actually be worthwhile. Funny idea for sure.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Are there spells that allow you to speak with genius loci? Would be extremely useful in a campaign where nature spirits abound. Y'know, where every object of significance has its own accompanying spirit, like how all trees have dryads that live in them, and rivers and mountains are actually the physical portions of spirit dragons that will corporealize if something threatens them.

[Tzardok]

Pretty sure that Commune with Nature does something like that. It's not exactly talking, but you get info.

Edit: I think there's a very similiar spell that allows you to contact spirits of locations in Oriental Adventures. Spell list for wu jen or shamans.

[Gnaeus]

Speak with plants is IMO about the worst spell in 3.5. It works on 3 kinds of creatures.
1. Actual plants, in case you want to ask broad questions about the climate because it is clear they don't gain the ability to tell you things something with int 0 and no eyes would not know.
2. Plant creatures who can communicate and are social. These almost always speak common, elven and or sylvan, which most people who can cast speak with plants can speak. (or otherwise can communicate directly, like Myconids)
3. Plant creatures which are hostile carnivores. So it can give you feedback while it is eating your leg.

[loky1109]

Speak with plants is IMO about the worst spell in 3.5. It works on 3 kinds of creatures.
1. Actual plants, in case you want to ask broad questions about the climate because it is clear they don't gain the ability to tell you things something with int 0 and no eyes would not know.
2. Plant creatures who can communicate and are social. These almost always speak common, elven and or sylvan, which most people who can cast speak with plants can speak. (or otherwise can communicate directly, like Myconids)
3. Plant creatures which are hostile carnivores. So it can give you feedback while it is eating your leg.

Actual plants aren't creatures.

[Gnaeus]

I will take the meaningless vocabulary correction as agreement regarding everything meaningful. I won't correct it. It is clear. The only good thing that can be said about this disagreement is that it is already more useful than anything you will ever get casting speak with plants.

[Metastachydium]

Actual plants aren't creatures.

Actual planties aren't treated as creatures by stupid WotC with its stupid face, for arbitrary, entirely mechanical reasons.


1. Actual plants, in case you want to ask broad questions about the climate because it is clear they don't gain the ability to tell you things something with int 0 and no eyes would not know.

Plant photoreception is far more sensitive than you give it credit for. Planties also detect the presence of water, the consistency of the soil, its mineral content, toxic chemicals, big, heavy objects underground that they cannot easily grow through, how pervasive the presence of certain animals is in their general area, which direction the sun rises from (compass!) and so on and so forth.


3. Plant creatures which are hostile carnivores. So it can give you feedback while it is eating your leg.

A Shambling Mound, say, is both intelligent and Neutral. Why is it more likely to attack you when you are trying to talk than, say, a Lizardfolk (intelligent, Neutral carnivore), let alone a Dragon (intelligent, not-exactly-Neutral half the time carnivore), I wonder?


Are there spells that allow you to speak with genius loci?

The Genius LociELH is a Colossal Ooze, and as such a living creature. I don't know about spells, but the Monk Method should work.


Pretty sure that Commune with Nature does something like that. It's not exactly talking, but you get info.

Edit: I think there's a very similiar spell that allows you to contact spirits of locations in Oriental Adventures. Spell list for wu jen or shamans.

Trance something. Shamans definitely get it and it's not even high level.

[SangoProduction]

It is arguable whether or not a plant would know about its surroundings. Definitely would depend on the plant. Especially in a fantasy world.
We have actual plants that can respond to touch, wind, sound, smell, and even visual cues in the real world. Certainly nowhere near as complexly as animals, and not all in the same plant. But point remains.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

The Genius LociELH is a Colossal Ooze, and as such a living creature. I don't know about spells, but the Monk Method should work.I was talking about the original meaning ("the presiding god or spirit of a place") rather than the D&D creature.

[loky1109]

We have actual plants that can respond to touch, wind, sound, smell, and even visual cues in the real world. Certainly nowhere near as complexly as animals, and not all in the same plant. But point remains.
We have actual fungi that have memory.

[Gnaeus]

A Shambling Mound, say, is both intelligent and Neutral. Why is it more likely to attack you when you are trying to talk than, say, a Lizardfolk (intelligent, Neutral carnivore), let alone a Dragon (intelligent, not-exactly-Neutral half the time carnivore), I wonder?

Because a shambling mound is a solitary creature with no real interests other than food and no way to understand anything much beyond a toddler. The lizardfolk absolutely understands societal concepts, as it lives in a society. Understands the value of trade, being a tool user. Understands what powerful casters can do, as it probably has gods and shamans in the tribe. And can absolutely up the chain important conversations to intelligent individuals with class levels. It is very slightly less smart than a typical swamp barbarian. Theres probably a leader type near the patrol. As a member of a society, it almost certainly has information far beyond its personal experience. There are dozens of examples of treaties with lizardfolk.

The dragon even more likely. It knows exactly what humans are, what wizards are, and what gold is. It knows the value of information, and has a lot. They are described as enjoying talking. They can be bribed. They have complex motivations and may want to align with people against a common threat. There are dozens of examples of treaties with dragons.

A shambling mound is an ambush hunter. It knows you are food. It can't communicate on its own, so it has no information to trade beyond its personal senses. And with an int of 7, it will forget unimportant things, which means unimportant to it, a solitary swamp carnivore. All of its ecology articles say it really is only motivated by standing around and eating meat. It doesn't care about anything you can give it other than flesh, of which most PCs are made. I guess if you are a bard casting and your DM uses RAW diplomacy rules you could diplomance it. But that would mean that your bard took speak with plants as a level 4 spell, so.... The only example of cooperation with Shambling Mounds I find is that lizard folk will keep them around as guards by throwing them rotting meat and staying away from them. Because again, all they care about is standing there and hunger. And which actually isn't even benefited by the speak with plants spell, just the throw rotten meat ability possessed by things with hands. And even in that example, it isn't friends with the lizard folk tribe. Its just kept in a state of not hungry enough to eat them yet.


It is arguable whether or not a plant would know about its surroundings. Definitely would depend on the plant. Especially in a fantasy world.
We have actual plants that can respond to touch, wind, sound, smell, and even visual cues in the real world. Certainly nowhere near as complexly as animals, and not all in the same plant. But point remains.


Plant photoreception is far more sensitive than you give it credit for. Planties also detect the presence of water, the consistency of the soil, its mineral content, toxic chemicals, big, heavy objects underground that they cannot easily grow through, how pervasive the presence of certain animals is in their general area, which direction the sun rises from (compass!) and so on and so forth.


Can respond to wind? Sure. Can know that the party of orcs the group is tracking came by? Nope. Its mindless. It doesn't know what Orc is. It doesn't know what 2 is. It doesn't know what Hour is. It doesn't have either intelligence or wisdom. There is 0% chance even if it perceived those things it would be capable of interpreting it or remembering it. What is the perceivable difference to a tree between a deer walking past and a goblin? It could maybe indicate if something hurt it with an axe or fire, but so could casual examination.

It has an int and wis 0. Is the sun rising right now? If so, the plant could tell you. Or you could look around. What kind of information is an int 0 plant going to give you about toxic chemicals? Dirt tastes bad? More importantly, what kind of information is an int 0 plant going to give you about toxic chemicals that your NATURE ORIENTED WISDOM CASTER (because you are casting speak with plants) couldn't already suss out with a can't fail DC 10 or 15 survival check? "Hey man, you realize that all the plants here are growing poorly, something may be poisoning them" "I cast speak with plants!" "Dirt tastes bad". Whee!!!!! It can locate water in its immediate vicinity. So can a survival check. So can a level 1 spell. At long range.


You can comprehend and communicate with plants, including both normal plants and plant creatures. You are able to ask questions of and receive answers from plants. A regular plant’s sense of its surroundings is limited, so it won’t be able to give (or recognize) detailed descriptions of creatures or answer questions about events outside its immediate vicinity.

The spell doesn’t make plant creatures any more friendly or cooperative than normal. ... while the more stupid ones may make inane comments.

[Remuko]

Druid 8 spell in Masters of the Wild; Speak With Anything. Automatic Speak With Plants, Speak With Animals, and Tongues, and you "gain the ability to speak with stone, metal, earth, water, or any other solid or semisolid object or terrain feature as though under the influence of stone tell".

im surprised no one had replied to talk about this. this is nutty. this lets you speak with basically anything in one spell (albeit a high level one). i dont know if anything anyone else has suggested is quite as effective as this.

[Metastachydium]

It is arguable whether or not a plant would know about its surroundings. Definitely would depend on the plant. Especially in a fantasy world.
We have actual plants that can respond to touch, wind, sound, smell, and even visual cues in the real world. Certainly nowhere near as complexly as animals, and not all in the same plant. But point remains.

That's not really true, or, at worst, is something not adequately understood to make such sweeping comments.


Because a shambling mound is a solitary creature with no real interests other than food and no way to understand anything much beyond a toddler.

INT 7 is not very bright, but the toddler thing is simply silly. It definitely means it's bright enough to understand threats and pain and to bargain on the basis of mutually avoiding that if the cost is higher than the projected benefit. If you think INT 7 means "it must mindlessly attack until it or its enemy is slain", you don't really grasp what INT 7 means, I'm afraid.


The lizardfolk absolutely understands societal concepts, as it lives in a society. Understands the value of trade, being a tool user. Understands what powerful casters can do, as it probably has gods and shamans in the tribe. And can absolutely up the chain important conversations to intelligent individuals with class levels. Theres probably a leader type near the patrol. As a member of a society, it almost certainly has information far beyond its personal experience.

Understand it they might. Doesn't mean they care. They are fluffed as being only interested in food and survival, and as highly territorial beings. In fact, having the numbers and the organization to call backup as needed gives them less, rather than more, incentive to talk things through.


The dragon even more likely. It knows exactly what humans are, what wizards are, and what gold is. It knows the value of information, and has a lot. They are described as enjoying talking. They can be bribed. They have complex motivations and may want to align with people against a common threat. There are dozens of examples of treaties with dragons.

Half of them also want to be your boss or master. Their complex needs and desires commonly make them less, rather than more, reliable allies. Some might have very high INTs but still only see you as a weakling to bully and eat. Reds and Whites are described like that.


And with an int of 7, it will forget unimportant things, which means unimportant to it, a solitary swamp carnivore.

You do realize that a PC can literally have, and a low-level familiar will literally have an INT score like that or lower, right?


All of its ecology articles say it really is only motivated by standing around and eating meat. It doesn't care about anything you can give it other than flesh, of which most PCs are made. I guess if you are a bard casting and your DM uses RAW diplomacy rules you could diplomance it. But that would mean that your bard took speak with plants as a level 4 spell, so

Diplomacy is a Druid skill. Plant domain Clerics can Rebuke Plants. Mystic Rangers get the spell at character level 4.


The only example of cooperation with Shambling Mounds I find is that lizard folk will keep them around as guards by throwing them rotting meat and staying away from them. Because again, all they care about is standing there and hunger. And which actually isn't even benefited by the speak with plants spell, just the throw rotten meat ability possessed by things with hands.

"People who can't speak with them in random fluff I found can't speak with them" tells us… Nothing.


Can respond to wind? Sure. Can know that the party of orcs the group is tracking came by? Nope. Its mindless. It doesn't know what Orc is. It doesn't know what 2 is. It doesn't know what Hour is. It doesn't have either intelligence or wisdom. There is 0% chance even if it perceived those things it would be capable of interpreting it or remembering it.

Ignore me while I accept that the spell does what it says it does (limited doesn't mean nothing).


What is the perceivable difference to a tree between a deer walking past and a goblin? It could maybe indicate if something hurt it with an axe or fire, but so could casual examination.

Funnily enough, due to how Tracking works, "have you been stepped on recently" is entirely a valid question and might provide a workaround for lack of a feat and a bunch of skill ranks.


Is the sun rising right now? If so, the plant could tell you. Or you could look around.

They have a circadian rhythm they observe religiously, and they subtly move towards where there is more light.


What kind of information is an int 0 plant going to give you about toxic chemicals? Dirt tastes bad? More importantly, what kind of information is an int 0 plant going to give you about toxic chemicals that your NATURE ORIENTED WISDOM CASTER (because you are casting speak with plants) couldn't already suss out with a can't fail DC 10 or 15 survival check? "Hey man, you realize that all the plants here are growing poorly" "I cast speak with plants!" "Dirt tastes bad". Whee!!!!!

Plant chemoreception is superficially similar to your sense of taste in a purely mechanical sense, but what it'd tell you wouldn't be "dirt tastes bad"; it'd be "roots won't go deeper, dirt deeper down that way bad for me". Detect Poison may or may not be prepared at any given moment and requires line of sight. Also, they can locate underground hard obstacles you can't see, because it can't just grow through them.


It can locate water in its immediate vicinity. So can a survival check. So can a level 1 spell. At long range.

Locate Water is a splatbook spell you either have prepared or you don't. If you don't have line of sight, it only gives you rough direction. If it's underground, have fun digging a lot.

ALSO: It's magic. Apply your logic to Stone Tell, and suddenly it's a 6th level Druid-only spell that does literally nothing. "A stone’s perspective, perception, and knowledge may prevent the stone from providing the details you are looking for." Since stone is inanimate matter, it has no perspective, perceives nothing and knows less than that.

[Chronos]

The problem is, things with 0 Int, Wis, and Cha also can't speak. But the spell, somehow, enables them to do so. Clearly, the spell must magically get around some of a plant's limitations, but it's unfortunately left unspecified just how. Which leads to the bad kind of nerfing where a player has one set of expectations of what a spell can do, and the DM has a different set of expectations, and so both end up aggravated.

[Dalmosh]

Not a spell, but the Spirit Sense feat from Heroes of Horror is quite odd.
https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?498138-Optimize-this-feat-12-Spirit-Sense-from-Heroes-of-Horror-p-124

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Can't shapeshifting into an animal allow one to communicate with animals of the same type? I seem to recall that being a thing, though I don't recall where. If so, lycanthropy, curse of lycanthropy (the good one), metamorphosis, greater metamorphosis, polymorph, draconic polymorph, polymorph any object, shapechange, wild shape, etc would all allow you to speak to animals of whatever genus/species/whatever you want.

Though I might be misremembering it as a rule for something else? Although I don't think so. I just don't remember where I read it, or if it was a general or a specific rule for a particular form of shapeshifting.

[ShurikVch]

Worldspeaker PrC (Dragon #311): 4th-level class feature: Elemental Speech - it allows (1/day) to speak not with Elementals (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/typesSubtypes.htm#elementalType), but with actual "elements" (air, fire, or water); to speak with it, Worldspeaker must know the corresponding "elemental language" (or just to use their 1/day Tongues SLA)

[Duke of Urrel]

The problem is, things with 0 Int, Wis, and Cha also can't speak. But the spell, somehow, enables them to do so. Clearly, the spell must magically get around some of a plant's limitations, but it's unfortunately left unspecified just how. Which leads to the bad kind of nerfing where a player has one set of expectations of what a spell can do, and the DM has a different set of expectations, and so both end up aggravated.

This is the main problem (or challenge) with the Speak with Plants spell. It requires the dungeon master to come up with a reasonable and balanced notion of what normal living plants (normally unconscious objects) can become aware of about their surroundings, so that it is not pointless for PCs to talk to them.

I have a number of house rules about this, starting with the general rule that normal living plants, though they are objects, have Wisdom scores of one, so that they can perceive their surroundings in some way. Indeed, I endow all normal living plants with normal hearing, though not with understanding of any spoken language; I endow all plants that are rooted in the ground with Tremorsense in a 30-foot radius; I endow all fungi with olfactory Blindsight in a 30-foot radius; and I endow all green plants with Low-Light Vision in all directions, because leaves are light-sensitive organs that can "see." (Deciduous trees go blind in the fall when they lose their leaves.)

Normal living plants have no Charisma scores and thus no self-awareness. However, I allow all the sensory data that a plant receives to accumulate in its body, which retains them unconsciously, just as a corpse unconsciously retains the "imprinted" memories of the soul that once inhabited it – which is what enables the Speak with Dead spell to work. When you cast the Speak with Plants spell upon yourself and then talk to a normal living plant, you effectively "awaken" it into a creature, so that it suddenly acquires: Charisma and Intelligence scores, the ability to communicate with the spellcaster verbally, and the ability to access, as conscious memories, all the sensory data that it has so far unconsciously retained in its body.

This makes the Speak with Plants spell at least a little useful.

[Thirdtwin]

Wow, I didn't expect some of these answers. I'm impressed, I wouldn't have thought to use PAO that way. Speak with Plants does seem like a thing that is going to rely on the DM more than, say, Speak with Animals, and I wish WotC had been a bit more exact about what a player could expect from a casting of it. I'll probably just talk to a squirrel or something more often than a tree tbh...

[Metastachydium]

Wow, I didn't expect some of these answers. I'm impressed, I wouldn't have thought to use PAO that way. Speak with Plants does seem like a thing that is going to rely on the DM more than, say, Speak with Animals, and I wish WotC had been a bit more exact about what a player could expect from a casting of it. I'll probably just talk to a squirrel or something more often than a tree tbh...

I will maintain that people leaning hard into SwP not doing what it says it does should worry more about why Stone Tell exists. The former has utility either way (as I've outlined above; a ground-penetrating radar, in itself, is no joke, for starters), whereas if one will reject the "it's magic" approach, there isn't even any need for unscientific "plants dumb, plants unfeeling" level assumptions to conclude that the latter does nothing at all, ever.

[SangoProduction]

I will maintain that people leaning hard into SwP not doing what it says it does should worry more about why Stone Tell exists. The former has utility either way (as I've outlined above; a ground-penetrating radar, in itself, is no joke, for starters), whereas if one will reject the "it's magic" approach, there isn't even any need for unscientific "plants dumb, plants unfeeling" level assumptions to conclude that the latter does nothing at all, ever.

This is a fun conversation. I would like if no one attacked the other side while making their point, so that it stays fun.

[Metastachydium]

This is a fun conversation. I would like if no one attacked the other side while making their point, so that it stays fun.

Exactly! No badmouthing FLOWERS, folks!

[Chronos]

Duke of Urrel, I applaud this. First, because it explicitly lays out what plants are capable of with this spell, which is something that should have been in the rules. Any explicit rules here are better than no rules. And second, because it does so in, I think, a reasonable and fair way.

Oh, and I also applaud that you use "data" as a plural. But I'm nerdy that way.