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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dausuul" data-source="post: 7522988" data-attributes="member: 58197">You have it exactly backward. If the defendant responds with a direct declaration of innocence, they are released. The same trial could go like this:Magistrate: Please say "I did not murder John Smith," and nothing else.Prisoner: I did not murder John Smith.Magistrate: You have testified to your innocence and the gods have confirmed the truth of your words. You are free to go.The start of this argument was the assertion that you can "beat" zone of truth by doing the politician thing where you weasel around the point and never give a clear answer. But unless you are extraordinarily gifted at weaseling, it's really damn obvious when you're doing that, and there's no reason why an interrogator or a judge should let you get away with it. It works for politicians because their goal is to escape a time-limited interview without giving their opponents a sound-bite to be used against them, and the interviewer has no way to compel them to answer straight. That isn't the case here.Then the same question could be asked as: "You are accused of murdering John Smith. Murder is defined as X, Y, and Z. Please say, 'I did not murder John Smith, as defined by the magistrate of this court.'"You do run the risk of getting so legalistic that the defendant simply doesn't understand you, and that is a real flaw in this system. Zone of truth prevents deliberate lies; it does not guard against statements whose truth or falsehood the subject simply doesn't know. The magistrate might have to go to some lengths to make sure the defendant understands the question before asking it.I do think it's interesting that intelligence is a liability in this situation.Sure. It's also justified to bring up the 3rd-level spell which negates the 5th-level spell entirely, and the serious flaw in the 14th-level enchanter trick.I did note that there is an 8th-level spell which flat-out wins: Glibness (by any reasonable reading) can beat zone of truth, straight up, end of story. This system is not infallible. But it's difficult to beat.I was discussing the scenario I set forth, in which the question was "murder." If your goal was to set up a different scenario that doesn't work, and then declare that it doesn't work... yes, you're right, the scenario you constructed does not work. Well done. But I don't see what it has to do with anything.</blockquote>

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