D&D 5E Using Suggestion To Thwart Zone of Truth

[Burnside]

This actually seems pretty straight forward. If the target of zone of truth knows it's lying (and fails the saving throw) it can't utter the lie - suggestion in effect or not.

Suggestion compels a target to pursue a course of action "to the best of its ability..." So the target will try to lie to the best of it's ability, even if compelled to tell the truth by zone of truth.

But if it knows it's lying, failing the zone of truth saving throw will prevent it from doing so (lying).

A better use of suggestion (as alluded to above) would be to suggest that a target answer a certain way if asked about something - for something it doesn't know is a lie.

If the target failed a saving throw for Suggestion to lie, and then failed a saving throw for Zone of Truth preventing them from lying, do you think their head would explode like in Scanners?

 

[Mort]

On a related note (sorry if this is a threadjack): Does glibness (8th level spell) allow you to lie in a zone of truth?

It would appear not:

Glibness makes it so anything you say registers as truthful even if there is magic detecting truth.

But Zone of Truth does not "detect truth." It makes it so the target(s) cannot deliberately lie - which is different (it's essentially a working truth serum).

Seems that glibness is useless against the (much lower level) zone of truth.

Thoughts?

 

[Mort]

If the target failed a saving throw for Suggestion to lie, and then failed a saving throw for Zone of Truth preventing them from lying, do you think their head would explode like in Scanners?

I think you could have some fun with anyone who has a good insight skill - as some very odd things would be going on with the target - resulting in all sorts of odd behavior, facial tics etc.

 

[Burnside]

I think you could have some fun with anyone who has a good insight skill - as some very odd things would be going on with the target - resulting in all sorts of odd behavior, facial tics etc.

Okay, but I kinda want my exploding head at this point, and anything short of that will be a disappointment to me.

 

[Mort]

Okay, but I kinda want my exploding head at this point, and anything short of that will be a disappointment to me.

I'd be all for it. Comic spell interactions really needs to be more of a thing!

Besides an adventure shifting from "is this guy telling the truth?" to "OMG why did his head just explode Scanners style?" (bonus points if you're the DM and play the quick clip, remote or in person) can only go in a great direction from there.