truth-spells and word paradox's

[Trizap]

I was just thinking to myself:

if there are truth spells that make people tell, y'know the truth, and if some one said an oxymoron or something while under its power like "this sentence is false"
or "this is a lie", what would happen? I mean those kind of statements are both falsehood and the truth, so how would truth spells work if someone said
some kind of paradox or oxymoron? this has confused

[Proven_Paradox]

A little known effect--known commonly as Russel's Paradox--divides them by zero. I'm an authority on paradoxes, being one myself, and as such you should just take that at face value.

In all seriousness, this is a case where it's open to DM interpretation. I personally would say that since--at one point--such a statement is false (which causes it to immediately be true, but meh) such a statement would just be treated as false.

[Demons_eye]

I dont know about that but any time i am in a zone of truth and I want to lie I just say it a diffrent way. No I didnt not see the killer run away (I was the killer ><)

[xPANCAKEx]

when that happens, an npc kittengirl (the linguistics-related cousin of the catgirl) stumbles in suffering from a fatal neck wound, and dies on the floor.

even in the deepest, darkest dungeon, with the place heavily guarded, warded, and protected.... a kittengirl will come. And die.

[Staven]

Yeah, this one is up to the DM. By default, though, I would say that the spell wears off because zero was the dividend. If you wanted to be funny, have him make a will save to avoid head explosion, or have them make a bunch of funny noises and pass out. There is no right or wrong way to go about this.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

I'd look at the player and say "You realize you just forced the magical and linguistic equivalent of dividing by zero, right?" They're physics majors, they'll back off.

[Chronos]

Personally, I'd say that the person can say it, but it comes out at exactly half normal volume.

By default, though, I would say that the spell wears off because zero was the dividend.

That would make Zone of Truth pretty useless, if all the suspect had to do to get rid of it was to speak one sentence. Although I would allow an epic DC Spellcraft check to construct the magical version of Gödel's string, which would probably result in a Disjunction effect.

[Hal]

"As you start to speak, your left eye begins to twitch and you develop a slight nose bleed. Somewhere in the distance, you hear a high-pitched wail, like the voices of a thousand catgirls cried out and were suddenly silenced."

[Telonius]

You might look into some Wittgenstein for a solution to this one. He divided various statements into truth, lies, senseless statements and nonsense statements. "John is married," is a statement that could be true or false. "a equals a" is literally senseless. It's a tautology, not relying on the senses to be true or false; but could be proven true or false. "John is a married bachelor" is nonsense - neither a truth nor a lie, it's a meaningless sentence. As a DM, I would allow it to be said within a Zone of Truth. Zone of Truth prevents lying; it does not prevent nonsense. (I would gladly allow a "Zone of Law" spell to prevent nonsense statements).

[LibraryOgre]

If you are compelled to speak the truth, then you cannot make the statement "This statement is a lie", or variations thereof. It is not the truth, so you cannot make the statement.

If it allows the caster (or subject) to identify falsehoods, then it will not identify that statement as a falsehood.

What I would love to see is a high-level divination spell that lets you know the absolute truth of a given statement. Stating "Count Murderous is dead" would tell you if he was alive or dead... you'd know you'd spoken a falsehood, even if you'd seen the body, fired the final bullet into his brain, and burned the corpse yourself.

It would utterly break the game, but it would be a spell within the power of at least 9th level spells.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

You might look into some Wittgenstein for a solution to this one. He divided various statements into truth, lies, senseless statements and nonsense statements. "John is married," is a statement that could be true or false. "a equals a" is literally senseless. It's a tautology, not relying on the senses to be true or false; but could be proven true or false. "John is a married bachelor" is nonsense - neither a truth nor a lie, it's a meaningless sentence. As a DM, I would allow it to be said within a Zone of Truth. Zone of Truth prevents lying; it does not prevent nonsense. (I would gladly allow a "Zone of Law" spell to prevent nonsense statements).

Zone of Contracts:

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Zone of Contracts
Enchantment (Compulsion) [Mind-Affecting]
Level: Clr 2, Pal 2
Components: V, S, DF
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Area: 20-ft.-radius emanation
Duration: 1 min./level
Saving Throw: Will negates
Spell Resistance: Yes

Creatures within the emanation area (or those who enter it) can only speak in statements which are impossible to misinterpret. Each potentially affected creature is allowed a save to avoid the effects when the spell is cast or when the creature first enters the emanation area. Affected creatures are aware of this enchantment. Therefore, they may avoid answering questions to which they would normally respond with evasions, however, they may not be evasive, other than simply remaining silent. Creatures who leave the area are free to speak as they choose.

Zone of Nonsense:

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Zone of Nonsense
Enchantment (Compulsion) [Mind-Affecting]
Level: Clr 2, Bard 2
Components: V, S, DF
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Area: 20-ft.-radius emanation
Duration: 1 min./level
Saving Throw: Will negates
Spell Resistance: Yes

Creatures within the emanation area (or those who enter it) can’t speak any anything that is understandable without being either high or a philosophy major. Each potentially affected creature is allowed a save to avoid the effects when the spell is cast or when the creature first enters the emanation area. Affected creatures are aware of this enchantment. Therefore, they may avoid answering questions to which they would not be able to be appropriately obscure, or they may be evasive as long as they are never coherent. Creatures who leave the area are free to speak as they choose.

Zone of Lies:

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Zone of Lies
Enchantment (Compulsion) [Mind-Affecting]
Level: Clr 2, Blkgrd 2
Components: V, S, DF
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Area: 20-ft.-radius emanation
Duration: 1 min./level
Saving Throw: Will negates
Spell Resistance: Yes

Creatures within the emanation area (or those who enter it) can speak only deliberate and intentional lies. Each potentially affected creature is allowed a save to avoid the effects when the spell is cast or when the creature first enters the emanation area. Affected creatures are aware of this enchantment. Therefore, they may avoid answering questions to which they would not normally respond with a lie, or they may be evasive as long as they remain outside the boundaries of the truth. Creatures who leave the area are free to speak as they choose.

[Prometheus]

Think about it, "This statement is a lie" can never be (definitively) true or (definitively) false, so it depends on whether the spell says "can only speak truths" (excluding these statements) or "cannot tell a lie" (not excluding these statements from what can be said). In the case of Zone of Truth, it's the later, so you can say paradoxes. Similarly we would expect the speaker to be able to speak random gibberish.

I think there may be a way for a character to exploit this by adding ambiguity. They could preface their statements, with, "I'm just a lying liar aren't I?...let me tell you some lies, because apparently that's all I'm good for..." or "Well, for the record I don't think the magic is working right and everything I'm telling isn't right but..." and than say whatever they like. One of two things would happen: a) The first part of their sentence would either become a separate statement which would have no effect on the second part of the sentence ("This is a lie, but I killed the guy" -> "This is a lie. I killed the guy.") or b) the first part of their sentence refers to the second part of the sentence ("This is a lie, but I killed the guy." -> "I didn't kill the guy."). Because the sentence is grammatically ambiguous, one of the meanings of the sentence is always correct (so the player can always mean it that way) but it can always be taken another way. This would fall under Zone of Truth's "they may be evasive as long as they remain within the boundaries of the truth".
Of course, what the meaning conveyed to the questioner can be ambiguous as well, especially if the questioner is trying to figure out how this all figures out into the spell they had cast. More likely than not, its going to be clear that you are working on technicalities and you are more likely to leave your questioner's confused than to mislead them. You are probably better saying nothing unless you get sick delight out of watching the questioner's pull out hairs.

EDIT:An alternate method would be to slur your words so that you don't make sense (passes the Zone of Truth), but are taken for the nearest phrase that does make sense. For example, the phrase "I didn't kill the guy" could be conveyed by saying
I didn't kill the gay (true, unless the guy happened to be gay),
I didn't kilt the guy (true, unless you dressed him in traditional Scottish attire),
Id didn't kill the guy (true, if you didn't get carnal pleasure from the task),
or I diditny kill the guy (diditny has no meaning, and therefore your statement is saying anything at all).

[Kurald Galain]

Smullyan to the rescue!

A lie is, according to Smullyan, not a statement which is false, but a statement which one believes to be false. A character that believes that the world is flat can stand in a ZOT and say that the world is flat - even if this happens to be factually false. What matters here is the intent to deceive.

This makes the spell fun to use on the terminally confused, or the insane. If a person has bizarre beliefs, well, those will show up as truth. If the creature lacks the skill in logic to spot the paradox in "this is a lie", and really believes that he is lying, then he can speak the truth that he is lying.

[Tsotha-lanti]

I'd look at the player and say "You realize you just forced the magical and linguistic equivalent of dividing by zero, right?" They're physics majors, they'll back off.

You mean to say that the spell just goes, "Can't be done" ?

Well, that certainly sounds horrible.

Seriously, Mark Hall nailed it.

Kurald Galain is also right, in that the spells (generally) don't detect objective falsehoods and can't compel someone to speak objective truth - it's all subjective. It threatens to get a bit more complicated if you consider this, but I suppose that if the person speaking the paradox knows it's a paradox, they also don't believe it to have a real truth value.

[LibraryOgre]

Seriously, Mark Hall nailed it.

Sigged.

[Charity]

Seriously, Mark Hall nailed it.

See that isn't nessisarily a good quote...
For example

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Seriously, Mark Hall nailed it.

See

[LibraryOgre]

See that isn't nessisarily a good quote...

See

You're just upset about me and your mom. ;-)

[Charity]

Have you any idea how much I had to pay that portrait artist?

[Sstoopidtallkid]

You mean to say that the spell just goes, "Can't be done" ?

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[Mando Knight]

I had to divide by zero to pass Calc 1... and I got a sensible, correct answer. You just need to take limits.