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<blockquote data-quote="Jfdlsjfd" data-source="post: 8329455" data-attributes="member: 42856">They could walk them through a Zone of Truth area, asking them to say &quot;I didn't kill Lord Salem.&quot; for the same effect. If you're wanting to remove innocents from your list of suspects, a spell is already there. Once you have the killer (and the occasional one who declined to say it in order to spite the government's effort to limit the right not to testify against oneself), narrowing the reasons is much more difficult. Important criminal wouldn't identify themselves &quot;Hello, I am Lady Xenia, next-of-kin of this bastard Lord Salem, here is 5,000 gp please kill him&quot; would be replaced by &quot;I have an interest in removing Salem permanently. (So the culprit wouldn't ding as lie when saying &quot;no one&quot; when&nbsp; asked if who asked him to kill Salem). Here is 5,000 gp as a downpayment&quot;. Something that should already be done when hiring henchmen in any case, and intermediaries who knows not to ask too many questions would thrive in this criminal business.Discern Lies also avoid the awkward scenes when the players make sure the suspect is really the one they seek by removing various parts of his body as part of the interrogation scene.The argument against Discern Lies for plot-protection seems weakened by the existence of Zone of Truth -- misnamed, because it prevents lies to be told but doesn't force people to answer [opening to way to the body-part-removal procedure by the Righteous Heroes]. I think it was more removed because of the risk of duplicate power (it's a subeffect of Detect Thoughts and a very close analog of Zone of Truth except it's less portable) rather than to ensure efficient resistance to interrogation by NPCs.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Jfdlsjfd, post: 8329455, member: 42856"] They could walk them through a Zone of Truth area, asking them to say "I didn't kill Lord Salem." for the same effect. If you're wanting to remove innocents from your list of suspects, a spell is already there. Once you have the killer (and the occasional one who declined to say it in order to spite the government's effort to limit the right not to testify against oneself), narrowing the reasons is much more difficult. Important criminal wouldn't identify themselves "Hello, I am Lady Xenia, next-of-kin of this bastard Lord Salem, here is 5,000 gp please kill him" would be replaced by "I have an interest in removing Salem permanently. (So the culprit wouldn't ding as lie when saying "no one" when asked if who asked him to kill Salem). Here is 5,000 gp as a downpayment". Something that should already be done when hiring henchmen in any case, and intermediaries who knows not to ask too many questions would thrive in this criminal business. Discern Lies also avoid the awkward scenes when the players make sure the suspect is really the one they seek by removing various parts of his body as part of the interrogation scene. The argument against Discern Lies for plot-protection seems weakened by the existence of Zone of Truth -- misnamed, because it prevents lies to be told but doesn't force people to answer [opening to way to the body-part-removal procedure by the Righteous Heroes]. I think it was more removed because of the risk of duplicate power (it's a subeffect of Detect Thoughts and a very close analog of Zone of Truth except it's less portable) rather than to ensure efficient resistance to interrogation by NPCs. [/QUOTE]

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