D&D 5E How lawyery do you get with Zone of Truth?

[miniaturehoarder]

To me the spell seems worthless. All the questionee needs to do is stay silent and the caster just wasted a spell slot.

You don't use this spell when folks have the option to remain silent. You use it when you have the authority or ability to MAKE them talk.

 

[PnPgamer]

You don't use this spell when folks have the option to remain silent. You use it when you have the authority or ability to MAKE them talk.

Like how? The guy is usually going to hang anyway so why spill the beans?

 

[PnPgamer]

What would happen if the guy within the zone would say "this sentence is a lie"?

 

[Sage Genesis]

What would happen if the guy within the zone would say "this sentence is a lie"?

Probably nothing because it's a linguistic and philosophical puzzle rather than an actual attempt to deceive someone. Zone of Truth is a magical, mind-influencing compulsion. It invades the brain (or soul or whatever) of a subject and makes it so they can't make a deliberate lie. The sentence, despite its phrasing, is not a real lie: it's a paradoxical statement meant to provoke thought but without any real subterfuge behind it.


As for why people would talk: why wouldn't they? Silence will be taken as an admission of guilt and wins you nothing. Many people who kill another or commit a similar crime feel they had no choice in the matter and the Zone of Truth can strengthen that claim. When it's established beyond reasonable doubt that you had little to no choice, judgments may well become more lenient. Besides, it feels good to confess. It's all well and good to calmly sit here at our computers and talk this over like rational beings but guilt gnaws at the soul. And if they're proud of what they did... well, again, why remain silent? Tell all the world about what a rotten bastard that guy was so you're glad you killed him. With ZoT in place, you just know the "victim" was a bad one.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

my favorite answer ever in a zone of truth was given by one of my DMs


NPC: I don't want you to have that answer....

it was totally true...

 

[PnPgamer]

Proudness aspect i can understand, but why talk if all evidence points that you did it? If the guilty npc is actually doing this to further his devilish boss' cause? While he may get lighter sentence by revealing his boss, the boss may have way worse in stores for traitors.

 

[MarkB]

Proudness aspect i can understand, but why talk if all evidence points that you did it? If the guilty npc is actually doing this to further his devilish boss' cause? While he may get lighter sentence by revealing his boss, the boss may have way worse in stores for traitors.

Refusal to answer may be construed as evidence of guilt. After all, if he were innocent, all he'd need to do is say so.

 

[Mercule]

How lawyery I get depends on both the players and the target. Most of the groups I've played with don't mind a bit of verbal boxing or things like carefully worded wishes. A rare few have no patience for them and an equal number have an unnatural love of them. I try not to irritate the former or throw softballs to the latter.

I'm also more inclined to let a smarter or more cunning character get away with more dancing than a dumb one. The typical goblin schmuck isn't going to be hard to crack, but the hobgoblin warlord is another story. Most bards should be treated in much the same manner you'd word a wish for an enslaved Efreet.

 

[delericho]

Refusal to answer may be construed as evidence of guilt. After all, if he were innocent, all he'd need to do is say so.

Of course, in such a universe you can guarantee that someone (possibly a trickster god, possibly just an evil one) would develop a zone of untruth spell as a matter of some urgency... Or, better still, a zone of random truth.

 

[Warmaster Horus]

You are aware you're in a ZoT and I generally don't have NPCs say a word while they're in them. Since it is an enchantment they could also say they were magically compelled to say what the caster wanted them to say, making it a 'my word vs his' situation, anyway.