Feign Death & Speak With Dead

[Rogue765]

Can a person under a Feign Death actually speak. In 1e/2e the recipient could hear and smell but not see or feel and react to outside stimulus, but it never said if the person could speak. I always assumed if the person wouldn't cry out if struck it meant that the person couldn't talk but I never found definite rules.

Also, how does the Speak With the Dead work. Does the corpse physically speak, breathing in and out, causing the vocal cords to vibrate and the lips move to speak the words (therefore, the spell won't help if all you have is the severed head of the person) or does the person's voice magically eminate from the corpse. If the latter, that would be difficult for a living person to fake.

 

[shilsen]

I think your ruling is just fine - as long as that's the way you'll run the situation if it recurs and/or if the PCs ever try the same thing.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

Very intelegent ruling.

A spell designed to trick someone into thinking you are dead would likey have that built in.

thats like assuming that invisibility would have immunity to all the 'detect' spells build in since its designed to trick someone into to thinking you aren't there. Unless the spell explicitly says that it fools divination spells, I would say that the body was not a valid target for Speak with Dead, and the spell would fail. It would take a pretty radically bad spellcraft check not to notice that the spell failed, but the cleric might think it was because of an incompatible allignment. If for any reason the spell did not fail, the body would "animate" and speak exactly as if it was dead, and the subject could not choose to actively lie. This would lead to some funky answers to questions such as "who killed you".

Found and read the spell, it strongly implies to me that the subject cannot choose to speak or act. All in all, I would say that the PCs took a course of action which should have either revealed the deception or at least given them a clue and the DMs ruling to allow a bluff check was wrong.

 

[psyronin]

Lesson to be learned: Always ask one more question than allowed by the Speak with Dead spell. If the corpse still answers, KILL IT!

 

[Dirt]

That is incorrect. Speak with Dead does NOT actually deal with the soul/spirit of the departed and is in fact directed at the remains of the deceased. I can't recall if that was stated in the PHB or CD or possibly Libris Mortis. But I'm certain I read it somewhere.

The 3E version doesn't deal with the departed soul, but instead gives false life to the remains. I believe that the AD&D and Hackmaster (which is based on the AD&D mechanics) versions are different (and if I know egomann, he is playing with either of those 2 systems).