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Message: <blockquote data-quote="coyote6" data-source="post: 4916986" data-attributes="member: 1225">Note that zone of truth is a poor spell for a courtroom. If a target makes their save, they can lie all they want, and it's an area spell, so you can't tell if any particular person made their save vs. the spell. Thus, you can't actually know whether someone made their save and is lying, or failed the save and is thus guaranteed to be not lying. The priests will need to cast discern lies to really have semi-foolproof lie detection in court. Since discern lies is a targeted spell, the caster knows when the subject saved. Of course, discern lies is a 4th level spell, so now every court needs a 7th level cleric -- more correctly, they need a 7th level cleric per minute or so of testimony. I suppose the society would make resisting such spells a crime itself, at least when cast in the right circumstances, by the right people (e.g., in court, by court-approved spellcasters).FWIW, IMO, such a society can only remain LG as long as the vast majority of people go along with the society's ways voluntarily. Once there is a significant counterculture (of people that object to anything about the existing laws), then the main culture's laws will, IMO, either change, becoming less "tyrannical", or enforcement will tend to inevitably become more draconian, and thus slide slowly away from Good.</blockquote>