NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="iserith" data-source="post: 6532399" data-attributes="member: 97077">My advice is not to use the spell in such a way that it negatively impacts the game experience. I would say the same thing for any spell, class feature, or tactic. It's not enough to choose the most optimal thing to do - it must also be fun and help contribute to the creation of an exciting, memorable story.Yes, that can be part of it. But is spamming zone of truth going to be fun and will it contribute to an exciting, memorable story? Probably not. Yet I don't have to make my NPCs cagey even within the bounds of magic to avoid the issue of abusing the spell. I just play with people who don't abuse things and who pass their decisions through the lens of the goals of play before deciding what to do.I don't see my adjudication of the spell as rendering "moot entire array of Social skills." There is generally only one skill that applies to determining whether someone else is being truthful and that's Wisdom (Insight). So you expend a 2nd-level spell slot to remove the uncertainty from determining the truthfulness of the NPC. I see no issue with that. If the players would rather give the guy in the party with a high Insight bonus a chance to shine, then they'll let him take the lead instead of cast the spell.Abuse could be the DM being frequently cagey with his NPCs to hide the Big Reveal or keep his plot on track rather than give the players what they've earned by getting the NPC of note into the zone and asking the right questions. Or players who see that the DM gives up the goods when NPCs are in the zone, then set about using the spell whenever they can to the point of making the game a repetitive exercise.And really, that's true of any spell, class feature, or tactic, as I mentioned above.</blockquote>

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