Lies, Lies, Lies and Silent, Stilled, Eschewed Spells

[strongbow]

There are 2 spells from Oriental Adventures that allow you to maintain concentration on a spell while casting another. I think the first is called Aiming the Target. I'm not sure what the other one is, but it's about an 8th level spell. So in conjunction with other spells and some of the things already mentioned, you could pull it off.

Of course, the cleric would have had to research this spell(s), but that's not a problem for a well-connected NPC.

 

[strongbow]

What about a 3 person tag team combo?

The cleric actually casts zone of truth
Person # 2 casts the lie all the time spell
Person # 3 counters the zone of truth spell with another zone of truth spell used as a counterspell.

Some of this depends of how you interpret voluntarily failing your saving throw. I.e. is it like spell resistance, where after you lower your resistance, anyone can cast a spell on you. So if you interpret spells as succeeding when the PC's are voluntarily failing their saving throws, you could pull this off.

This is sneaky, but somewhat realistic, as the PCs are lowering their mental resistances--and getting more than they bargained for.

In game terms, the PCs would be failing against all spells on a particular initiative count. Since they know that the zone of truth spell is being cast on them, this might explain the tingle of magic that they feel.

 

[nameless]

It's not that they "lower their resistance," they can simply be affected by a spell and choose to voluntarily fail their save, in order to gain the benefits. You can even save against a Cure spell, if you really want to. The trick is that the PCs think they're allowing a Zone of Truth to be cast on them, while they're really not. They're gonna voluntarily fail their save for the spell being cast by Guy X, unless they can tel it's nasty. If a bunch of spells started being thrown around, any smart PC would try to save against them all, since something odd is going on.

It looks like they are simply gonna have to spellcraft or sense motive against this guy to find out that they shouldn't fail their save.

-nameless