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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Pielorinho" data-source="post: 1313973" data-attributes="member: 259">Zone of truth has at least three weaknesses over this effect:1) It's a higher level spell (the least of its weaknesses);2) It allows its subjects a will save and spell resistance; and3) It can be countered with a spell such as (depending on DM ruling) protection from good.  Similarly, Detect Lies can be countered with Mind Blank or Misdirection. This trick, on the other hand, has no defenses against it. Another example of why this is important:  in one early scene in my campaign, the players reported a particular nobleman to the guards as a leader of a revolutionary, demon-worshipping cult.  Unfortunately, they also managed to tip off the nobleman that he was about to be investigated, and so the nobleman obtained a potion of glibness and a scroll of misdirection, drank the former, and had his house sorcerer cast the latter on him.  When the town guard showed up, even though they brought a judicial priest with him for the investigation (complete with detect evil and zone of truth), they were unable to find out anything about his schemes.   If we'd used your interpretation of bless, they could've cast bless, gotten everyone except for the nobleman to stand behind the cleric, and cast detect magic to see whether he was allied with the city. Sometimes you're not worried about tipping someone off that you're investigating them.  There have been plenty of times in a game where I've suspected a party member of having been replaced by a doppelganger (not that I'm paranoid or anything) and have grilled the party member explicitly to verify that they've not been replaced.  Such grillings aren't foolproof; your ruling would replace the grillings with an inexpensive and foolproof way to check. Daniel</blockquote>

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