D&D 5E Detect Thoughts as an interrogation tool

[Nebulous]

Remember the duration is only concentration up to one minute, which is not very long for a contentious interrogation.

Yeah, you could have the villain easily monologue for sixty seconds and just end it.

 

[Oofta]

I remember reading a sci-fi story about a world where the cops had space magic psionics and the guy was trying to get away with murder. So every time they questioned him he would focus on a commercial jingle ear worm. The cops only figured it out because he kept using the same jingle.

 

[prabe]

I remember reading a sci-fi story about a world where the cops had space magic psionics and the guy was trying to get away with murder. So every time they questioned him he would focus on a commercial jingle ear worm. The cops only figured it out because he kept using the same jingle.

That sounds a lot like Bester's The Demolished Man.

 

[DemoMonkey]

Tell the prisoner - truthfully - that they can answer your questions alive, or they can answer your questions dead. You can get Speak with Dead, and you don't particularly care which option they pick.

It should have a salutary effect on their talkativeness.

 

[prabe]

Tell the prisoner - truthfully - that they can answer your questions alive, or they can answer your questions dead. You can get Speak with Dead, and you don't particularly care which option they pick.

It should have a salutary effect on their talkativeness.

Only if they don't know speak with dead doesn't compel truthfulness.

 

[turnip_farmer]

Tell the prisoner - truthfully - that they can answer your questions alive, or they can answer your questions dead. You can get Speak with Dead, and you don't particularly care which option they pick.

It should have a salutary effect on their talkativeness.

Speak with Dead doesn't make the corpse reveal information it wanted to keep hidden when it was alive. Nebulous' wizard would presumably know this.

 

[Nebulous]

Tell the prisoner - truthfully - that they can answer your questions alive, or they can answer your questions dead. You can get Speak with Dead, and you don't particularly care which option they pick.

It should have a salutary effect on their talkativeness.

except for this line.... 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.

 

[Bohandas]

PCs have the baddie tied up and questioning him while the bard has Detect Thoughts going. What is the difference between surface thoughts and deeper probe that should allow a save to resist? They're asking him detailed stuff, such as "Who do you work for?" The baddie doesn't want to answer them, but of course he thinks "Mr. Redbeard." Said baddie is also a wizard familiar with magic and knows the PCs have magic.

I think surface thoughts just means they're actively thinking about it. Something would simply be required to bring the information to mind before it could be read.

 

[auburn2]

PCs have the baddie tied up and questioning him while the bard has Detect Thoughts going. What is the difference between surface thoughts and deeper probe that should allow a save to resist? They're asking him detailed stuff, such as "Who do you work for?" The baddie doesn't want to answer them, but of course he thinks "Mr. Redbeard." Said baddie is also a wizard familiar with magic and knows the PCs have magic.

Keep in mind a round is 6 seconds and the guy being interrogated will presumably challenge the intrusion every turn. This means, assuming you stay "on the surface" The PCs will get out on short question, see the thoughts and then have to win a challenge to stay in his head and get in another question. Eventually they will lose the challange, against a wizard probably after only a few turns. If they "probe deep" he would get a challange and a save and it would end quicker.

With this in mind in general in my game, if you ask a question the answer is going to come into the guys head, but you are not going to get too many questions.

 

[Oofta]

Another option with this is to base the information the mind reader gets is based on the level of success of the saving throw. Fail it by a lot and they get the details. Fail it by a little and they get a solid clue. Succeed by a little? They know they didn't get the answer. Succeed by a lot? False answer.