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Message: <blockquote data-quote="TYPO5478" data-source="post: 3459097" data-attributes="member: 37531">Nothing in core that allows direct contact with dead people?  How about planar binding or planar ally?  Granted, neither of those spells would force the called creature to converse with you, but neither does sending.  Since lesser planar binding, a 5th level wizard spell, could call souls of the dead from the outer planes, why shouldn't sending, another 5th level spell, be able to at least contact them?At any rate, contacting dead people with sending isn't really what concerns me.  We're getting away from the original question I had regarding sending (possibly because I didn't make it clear enough what the question was).  Sending has in its spell description a failure rate specifically associated with cross-planar contact; presumably there is no potential for failure if the caster and subject are on the same plane.  The original question (which I neglected to enunciate) was, "If sending fails because of planar interference, will the caster know that's why it failed or will he still think it succeeded?"  That led to the larger question, "Does the caster know why he didn't receive a reply to sending: because the target didn't want to reply or because the target didn't receive the sending in the first place?  Can the caster ever be sure sending worked if he didn't receive a reply?"Of course, all of that leads to the even-more-general question, "Does a caster ever really know why his spell failed?"  Suppose a wizard casts hold person on a silver dragon who has assumed the form of an elf.  Would the wizard know that his spell failed because the target was invalid and not because the elf made his save?  Or would he just know the spell failed and not know why?</blockquote>

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