Spell question: Speak with Dead

[ThirdWizard]

That's fine, I never said that. If they make that Wish, I simply point out that it is beyond the power of the spell as defined in its (very clear) description and tell them to mark away the xp cost from their character sheets.

You'd be much more likely to convince me that Speak With Dead cannot be cast on a skeleton than you ever would of convincing me that CustServ has credibility.

 

[HeavyG]

but when you get a statement like "you should always give in to the players because they have worked hard to get where they are"

Assuming you are referring to Numion's statement, that's not what he said. He said :

When in doubt, SAY YES! The players have fought to advance their characters, let them use the abilities!

It doesn't mean :
Player : "Does my spell work to do X ?"
DM : "I don't think it's supposed to, but yes sure whatever !"

It means :
Player : "Does my spell work to do X ?"
DM : *checks* *isn't sure* "Ah hell, sure, why not ?"

as opposed to

Player : "Does my spell work to do X ?"
DM : *checks* *isn't sure* *had not thought of the PCs using this to get ahead* "Nope."


If a player's request immediately strikes you are unreasonable or if you're pretty sure that a player's interpretation of the rules is wrong, you should put your foot down and refuse, but if you're not sure whether or not that's supposed to work, why not let it work ?

 

[Raven Crowking]

Dang, I didn't know that my little thread had gained in such a fashion. Special thanks to Raven Crownking for standing up to the pack of hungry players.

And a special "you're welcome" in return.

RC


P.S.: After reading through the rest of these posts, I decided to go back, edit, and add.

First off, DM-Rocco, don't sweat the help. I was happy to do it. However, I can see where some of the other posters are coming from. I do think that the rule was fairly clear, and that your ruling was correct. However, had WotC written the spell more clearly, I doubt that this thread would ever have come up. Of course, you've already noted that.

Seemed some of your posts were a bit...angry. While I don't know what's going on in your game right now, I'd actually hoped that your group had moved on from the speak with dead question by now. I would have thought that just the diehards who actually enjoy these kinds of things would still be here!

The comment about "when in doubt...say YES" is, I still strongly think, a bad idea. When in doubt, do what seems most reasonable to you. Otherwise, you simply encourage players to try to make the DM doubt his decisions. Unless a character's life is on the line, or the decision is so bad that it would ruin the game, once the DM calls it final, it's done.

RC

 

[Markn]

Well third wizard, I find that these boards help more often than not, but I humble myself to not only asking on this forum but also the WOTC help line. I have not seen such contradictions as you describe, however, I am willing to bet that they do make mistakes. I also happen to think that they have a better chance of being correct than a bunch of people who have nothing but opinions to offer.

Of course I value these opinions, otherwise I wouldn't have asked for them, but I must decide what is best for my game and when an unbiased source gives me an answer, I am more apt to go by that source. People who respond to these post try to give answers that are helpful, and they are for the most part, but when you get a statement like "you should always give in to the players because they have worked hard to get where they are" I have to say, no, they got there because of structure, good role playing and a bit of die luck. Following that line of thinking, a player could wish for a million gold, and since they worked hard to get where they are, I should just give it to them, I don't think so.

DM-Rocco, first let me say that I respect you for making a stand on your ruling and by no means am I trying to change your mind. I just wanted to chime in with a few points of interest...

I for one actually contact WotC on a fairly regular basis. I find it more informational to call them than email them as speaking is a higher form of communication than email (and by higher form I mean that you get a better idea of the knowledge of the person on the other end and its a 1-800 number so why not...). As for Speak with Dead I have called them three times and recieved three different answers. One was yes it will work on a skeleton and one was no it won't and the third was DM's discretion. Each time there were different levels of knowledge. One could anwser right away with supporting information, one had to put me on hold to check different sections of the PHB and one I had to lead by the nose to check different sections of the book before he made a full ruling as he wasn't taking everything into account. In my mind the answer should be DM's discretion from the information gleaned from WotC.

In the adventure path in Dungeon there is a module called Test of the Smoking Eye. In it, the PC's come across a cleric of Wee Jas that holds a severed head in his hand and is using speak with dead on it. Now there are several things that you can extrapolate from this. 1 - The ONLY intact portion was the head and so it is the ONLY thing necessary 2 - Since the head is the only thing left, that means the vocal chords have been severed. From this we can rule out the necessity of vocal chords. That then begs the question, does one need a tongue or muscles to answer? From an earlier poster we learn that a tongue is not necessary so then do we need muscle? In my view, no (since we see instances that rule out physical necessities for living people to speak). So, no tongue, no muscle, no vocal chords, hell take the body away even - That pretty much leaves a skeletal head. That should then conclude that a mouth (meaning an upper and lower jaw) is all that is necessary.

In case my position needs to be stated, I am for ruling that speak with dead works on a skeleton. Besides, as a DM (which I am almost always finding myself in that position), if the answers could potentially ruin the story its not that difficult to 'change' the knowledge of the skeleton/zombie/corpse and thus be unable to answer certain key questions but still reward the PCs with some insight for their foresight in using this to advance the story. Besides, I think the spell is pretty limited in scope that making it zombie only would likely cause my players to stop memorizing the spell. And the reverse of allowing them to talk to a skeleton isn't a game breaker either so I am for the latter. I guess in a nutshell, does it ruin the game if they can speak with a skeleton? Not in my game anyways so I allow it.

 

[Saeviomagy]

The sad thing is that the player didn't even try to make an attempt to even try and communicate with the dead. So the spell didn't work as intended, so what. If you cast a fireball for 10d6 damage and you roll all 1s and the enemies make their saving throw, so the hoard of 11 hit point Orcs only take ten damage, what do you do? Do you A) whine and moan that the game sucks, B) blame the DM for your misfortune, C) throw out your dice, D) get mad at WOTC for making rules that cap a fireball at 10D6 and piss and moan about it to everyone who will listen or E) cast another one?

This is just a tad bit different. This is the equivalent of you saying "I put my fireball there" and the DM saying "roll to hit".

"huh? Roll to hit?"

"the book says the fireball could hit a solid body - you have to roll to hit the narrow opening between the orcs"

"You realise they're standing in 5 foot squares, right? That means there's like a 5 foot gap between each orc"

"Hey, I'm just reading what the rules say. Roll to hit"

"Fine, I cast lightning bolt"

Beyond that, Rocco, why did you even post here? It's pretty clear you're not after any genuine discussion - you just want some vindication. And frankly, you're not going to get everyone to agree to your ruling, so you may as well let the thread die.

 

[blargney the second]

On a slightly different note, in traditional chinese medicine memory is associated very strongly with muscles and tendons.

-blarg

 

[Raven Crowking]

In the adventure path in Dungeon there is a module called Test of the Smoking Eye. In it, the PC's come across a cleric of Wee Jas that holds a severed head in his hand and is using speak with dead on it. Now there are several things that you can extrapolate from this. 1 - The ONLY intact portion was the head and so it is the ONLY thing necessary 2 - Since the head is the only thing left, that means the vocal chords have been severed. From this we can rule out the necessity of vocal chords. That then begs the question, does one need a tongue or muscles to answer? From an earlier poster we learn that a tongue is not necessary so then do we need muscle? In my view, no (since we see instances that rule out physical necessities for living people to speak). So, no tongue, no muscle, no vocal chords, hell take the body away even - That pretty much leaves a skeletal head. That should then conclude that a mouth (meaning an upper and lower jaw) is all that is necessary.

There have been frequent cases of altering rules to fit an adventure throughout the history of D&D, including in the pages of Dungeon magazine and published modules. The fact that Dungeon published an adventure that doesn't follow the rules is not evidence that the rules have changed.


RC



EDIT: And as for the fireball/lightning bolt analogy, the resemblance to what DM Rocco ruled is so remote as to make the analogy useless. Closer would be a spell that stated a 50 gp ruby as a required focus, and the player having a ruby of unknown value and claiming that it would do.

 

[Markn]

There have been frequent cases of altering rules to fit an adventure throughout the history of D&D, including in the pages of Dungeon magazine and published modules. The fact that Dungeon published an adventure that doesn't follow the rules is not evidence that the rules have changed.
QUOTE]

Any chances of providing 3.5 examples? I have only followed Dungeon for several years and granted they aren't perfect but I haven't seen any examples of mistakes being that flagrant.

 

[radferth]

Sorry to be late to this thread, I just came across. I think DMR made an innovative ruling, and kudos to Raven for writing up the stats for an old-style speak with dead. My campaign is in need of such a spell, so I will be making use of it quite soon. I thought the whole point of rule 0 was so no one would have to spend time arguing RAW. Of course the whole point of these boards is to have interesting discussions, so I would like to add some other points to consider.
I tend to be very strict on "can my spell do this" rulings, but mainly because I have had lots of loophole-seeking players. That being said, I will ususally allow a player to take a new spell if I totally nerf what he wanted to do. I use the excuse that the character would have known that limitation, so they would have chosen something different. Clerics rarely bother to take me up on that, since they can use it for healing anyway.
As for the restrictions on speak with dead, I like that it is a bit vague ("A damaged corpse may be able to give partial answers or partially correct answers, but it must at least have a mouth in order to speak at all."), so I have a bit more leeway on a spell that grants info to players.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Any chances of providing 3.5 examples? I have only followed Dungeon for several years and granted they aren't perfect but I haven't seen any examples of mistakes being that flagrant.

I should be careful to note that, if the head in question does not give full (or fully correct) answers, this might not be an alteration of the rules for speak with dead:

You can cast this spell on a corpse that has been deceased for any amount of time, but the body must be mostly intact to be able to respond. A damaged corpse may be able to give partial answers or partially correct answers, but it must at least have a mouth in order to speak at all. ​

For reference, DM-Rocco's original post says:

I had a player try and cast speak with dead last night and I told him I was going to limit him to yes or no questions because it was a skeleton and didn't have a mouth. The spell says you need a way of communicating with the creature and they must have a mouth, which a skeleton doesn't have, just a jaw and some teeth.​

Which, to me, sounds exactly like what the SRD spell description implies.

If the head in question (Test of the Smoking Eye) can give full/fully correct answers, then this is an example of flagrant rules alterations to match the adventure. If not, then there is no error at all (in this particular case). Does the adventure specify? Or does it assume that the DM knows the rules?

Admittedly, in 3.X, it is much easier to simply make a rules addition. I.e., adding a new feat, spell, prestige class, etc., allows the adventure writer to do just about anything without violating the rules. Hence, fewer flagrant errors creep into adventure production.


RC