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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Voadam" data-source="post: 9758392" data-attributes="member: 2209">I generally go with RAW for spells and their limitations unless I am doing something like thematic reskinning (turning spells into high tech effects) or if I think the RAW would be problematic for the game. Generally if they can get interesting uses out of something as written that is cool. So if I am going with '24 5e version here is the text:Speak with DeadLevel 3 Necromancy (Bard, Cleric, Wizard)Casting Time: ActionRange: 10 feetComponents: V, S, M (burning incense)Duration: 10 minutesYou grant the semblance of life to a corpse of your choice within range, allowing it to answer questions you pose. The corpse must have a mouth, and this spell fails if the deceased creature was Undead when it died. The spell also fails if the corpse was the target of this spell within the past 10 days.Until the spell ends, you can ask the corpse up to five questions. The corpse knows only what it knew in life, including the languages it knew. Answers are usually brief, cryptic, or repetitive, and the corpse is under no compulsion to offer a truthful answer if you are antagonistic toward it or it recognizes you as an enemy. This spell doesn’t return the creature’s soul to its body, only its animating spirit. Thus, the corpse can’t learn new information, doesn’t comprehend anything that has happened since it died, and can’t speculate about future events.So the issues I see with doing so RAW are:Is the door a corpse? A stone door is not a corpse, a wood one takes a little more analysis. A dead plant is generally not considered a corpse, but I would probably allow it for a person one like a Treant and might allow it for a normal plant as the plant's dead body.If a plant can be a corpse, would the wooden component planks of the door count as a corpse? They are more like a slice from a body than a whole dead body. Would you allow a speak with dead on an unattached skull without a body?The corpse must have a mouth. Here I might go with sure it could have a carved mouth, possibly even a mouth-like image from the knots in the boards might be close enough if looking at it you would go "oh, a mouth!" Carving one in or drawing a face with a mouth to get it to talk is very evocative and cool IMO. This then brings up a gruesome follow up, if a corpse has a destroyed mouth, can you carve one into its chest?Languages it knew is going to be an issue. Speak with plants would probably need to be active for asking it questions and understanding its answer.Even if you got past all these it would only know stuff from when it was alive.</blockquote>

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