D&D 5E No Equivalent of Detect/Discern Lies in 5E?

[DammitVictor]

For D&D, I want to see an item called "Salt of Protection". Compare Holy Water as an easily purchased magical item.

The player pours the salt in a continuous line, and no divination nor planar travel can enter its wall or circle.

It also addresses the unrelated problem that D&D worlds feel like modern, scientific/deterministic worlds that just have a layer of magic sort of slathered on top. Remove the spellcasting requirement on crafting alchemical items, and let "mundane" items have magical properties without constantly resorting back to "a wizard did it".

How does simple purified salt block divination and conjuration without being enchanted? It's salt. That's what salt does. The protection from evil and magic circle against evil spells are for immediate use and long-term use, respectively, or as an emergency backup for people who can't rely on salt.

 

[Yaarel]

It also addresses the unrelated problem that D&D worlds feel like modern, scientific/deterministic worlds that just have a layer of magic sort of slathered on top. Remove the spellcasting requirement on crafting alchemical items, and let "mundane" items have magical properties without constantly resorting back to "a wizard did it".

How does simple purified salt block divination and conjuration without being enchanted? It's salt. That's what salt does. The protection from evil and magic circle against evil spells are for immediate use and long-term use, respectively, or as an emergency backup for people who can't rely on salt.

Anybody can learn how to benefit from the magical properties that are inherent in nature. It is a skill. Literally.

I feel D&D accidentally stumbled on the best crafting rules of any edition, by making Tool a kind of skill check.

This also relates to legendary warriors who forge a magical sword. So to craft a magical sword, it is a Blacksmith Tools check. There might be special ingredients if the DM wants to gatekeep a magic item, but anybody can learn the skill to do it.

Same goes for Alchemist Tools to concoct various items: it is a Tool check.

 

[Seramus]

Detect Lies is gone for the same reasons as Detect Evil. In general, 5E has a "nothing infallible" policy when it comes to determining things. A few things come close, like Zone of Truth, Detect Thoughts, and high Insight Checks... but all of those have built in limitations to make sure you are never actually SURE of something. Even spells like Augury, Divination, Commune, and Legend Lore have elements of the unreliable narrator intentionally built into them.

Sometimes they go a little too far with the "nothing infallible" policy, like Find Traps, Primeval Awareness, etc. Hahaha.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Yeah, for sure. One thing I really like about Pathfinder is the stealth nerf to spells like knock and remove disease that suddenly make "mundane skills" very important. And Skill Unlocks from Pathfinder Unchained. Way, way too much of the interaction/exploration pillars of modern D&D is relegated to "magic", the sole province of magic classes, and way, way too much of "magic" is just spells.

It also addresses the unrelated problem that D&D worlds feel like modern, scientific/deterministic worlds that just have a layer of magic sort of slathered on top. Remove the spellcasting requirement on crafting alchemical items, and let "mundane" items have magical properties without constantly resorting back to "a wizard did it".

How does simple purified salt block divination and conjuration without being enchanted? It's salt. That's what salt does. The protection from evil and magic circle against evil spells are for immediate use and long-term use, respectively, or as an emergency backup for people who can't rely on salt.

The only point I'd disagree with you here is that you're equating "modern D&D" with "D&D 3.X" - overlapping into both 2e and Pathfinder.

Seriously, that isn't at all how 4e works. As is being shown it's not how 5e works. One of the biggest improvements I see in modern D&D is precisely that not everything important is spells - and that e.g. rogues can do things with their bonus/minor actions simply because they are rogues. Pathfinder's knock still makes the spellcaster better at opening locks than most rogues (caster level +10 is likely to be higher than a skill check); 5e's knock is a trade-off because it's loud.

And whereas your grognard friends claim that the problem was when the thief was added from what I can tell the problem wasn't the addition of the thief - but that they decided (for whatever reason) to make thieves actively bad in the published rules - with unreliable abilities, low chances of success, and the ability to only do things that normal people could rather than the ability to go above and beyond. But the decision was, certainly as far back as 1978, to make about 40% of the PHB of almost any edition pre-4e into spells and for spells to solve things without drawbacks. Modern D&D is starting to escape.

 

[Sithlord]

If they are a problem. Just simply ban those spells from your game.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

If they are a problem. Just simply ban those spells from your game.

WotC did that already.

 

[Reynard]

"Who hired you?"

In earlier editions, pretty much any significant NPC came with an amulet of immunity to Detect Lies and Detect Alignment. One has to conclude that such amulets are common, rendering the spell useless, so no one bothers with it any more.

"Who hired you?"
"Santa Claus" dings as a lie

Now what?

Again, detecting a lie doesn't provide any more information than a successful Insight check does -- potentially less since at least Insight can be more nuanced (they are lying because they are scared of you versus lying because they are scared of whoever they work for).

Frankly if your "mystery" can be undone by a single positive lie detection it is a pretty crappy mystery. Any time, in any game in any genre, you write a mystery you must take the capabilities of the detectives into account. If you aren't doing that you are not doing it well.

All that said, I don't actually care if Detect Lies exists in the game rules. It's actually pretty lame as far as tools to solve mysteries go.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

"Who hired you?"
"Santa Claus" dings as a lie

Now what?

You go through the list of all suspects. "Was is A?" "Was it B?" "Was it C?" etc.

 

[Sithlord]

WotC did that already.

Thought that was the zone of truth spell

 

[Reynard]

You go through the list of all suspects. "Was is A?" "Was it B?" "Was it C?" etc.

In order for that to be a viable strategy, the PCs would have to have a list of suspects, which means they already conducted an investigation, which puts this point in the adventure somewhere at the end of Act 2 where it goes from a "who dunnit?" to a manhunt. What's the problem?

I think some people in this thread are taking a stance against a spell like Detect Lies without actually thinking about how they would craft a real mystery in D&D with or without the spell. There are any number of other ways PCs can bypass traditional CSI/SVU style investigations. Good. It's D&D. It is the DM's job to account for that stuff if they want to run a mystery.