Post/Author/DateTime	Post
MortalPlague 12-05-05, 04:23 AM	I just had a great session in a little filler campaign I'm running between major ones. My players usually play low level characters because I prefer the simpler dynamic at lower levels, but to pique their interest in this one, I told them to start at level twelve. The one thing was that their characters had to be in some noble station, or at least connected to one. We wound up with the following assortment: Edward Horace Denalleau, adopted eldest son of the king who when his half-brother was born was bumped from the succession to be third in line. Serves as the defender of the crown prince. Morphandrus Del'Taron, the Archmage Council's representative at court and master transmographer. Corina Darkeye, repentant fey'ri baroness who kills her demon kin to prove herself. Quarion, a monk of Bahamut who managed to come into possession of some Gauntlets of the Talon. Terian, a prince from a foreign land sent to negotiate a trade route. Xelgor, a once-mighty cerebromancer who died, and was reincarnated as a young boy. Few people know that he's still alive. The plan all along was to have somebody kill the king and have them framed for the assassination, but I couldn't have come up with a more suspicious group had I tried. :devil: Well, tonight was the night. After a couple of minor sessions, I sprang the assassination, and true to form, Lord Barrus (a L6 sorcerer) entered the room, asked to speak with the king alone, then knifed him with a poison blade. All the rolls clicked, and the players and characters were stunned and shocked. They burst into action, but the king was dead before he hit the floor. Lord Barrus failed to take his own life, and our heroes apprehended him, but as he told them, the blame will land squarely on them. For who has more motive to kill the king than his rejected prince? Here's the tricky part. We play again in a couple days, and my rules lawyer (the wizard transmographer, also my best rp'er) is poring through his books to find a way to clear his character. I need to find a legitimate way to block effects such as zone of truth or speak with dead so that they can't simply say "just ask the dead king what happened" or "put a zone of truth on him". Even something other than a counter to the spell could work, something like a custom or a rule of nobility. The idea of the campaign is that they'll suddenly fall from grace and have to rely on their own resources to find out who perpetrated the assassination and how they can clear their names. Any ideas?
Karada 12-05-05, 05:11 AM	Well im always one more for story than rules. Id just not let those things work. If they ask why tel them that their characters do not know. Seems simple to me. Maybe a little unfair but to be honest it adds to the story and isnt that the whole point?
mcmurphy510 12-05-05, 06:00 AM	Yep I'm with Karada. Story over rules any day! Really familirize yourself with those spells. Zone of truth requires that all answers be truthful, but does not REQUIRE an answer, and also provides a saving throw. Think about how you might answer question to the letter and still be evasive. You could automatically assume that he makes his save. Give him a save boost item or someting to make it plausable. Or give him a potion or magic item that will cause those types of spells to fail agains him. Perhaps he gets taken into custody (along with the party) and there is someone on the inside helping him. They slip a potion into his drink right before he is to testify and all his answers implicate the PCs and the clerics think he's completel truthful. For speak with dead, you could simply have the clerics refuse to cast it (and of course the PCs would not be allowed near the Kings body). They do this on the grounds that such spells disturb the peace of the departed dead and would not dare do any such thing to the soul of the King.
MortalPlague 12-05-05, 06:03 AM	Id just not let those things work. If they ask why tel them that their characters do not know. Well, as you mentioned, that is a little unfair. I'd prefer to resort to more legitimate tactics; if the DM isn't playing by the rules, it takes something away from the game (the players can only win if the DM lets them win). I'd rather disallow the attempt than rule it didn't work, though I would give an in game reason for disallowing it. For instance, various nobility might decide that speaking with the dead king is disrespectful, and really unnecessary since everyone knows who did it.
tamashastrife 12-05-05, 06:04 AM	Maybe the poison used to kill the king was magic in some way and made it so that he can't be raised/contact or whatever. As for the Lord Barrus, have him use a "poison pill" with the same stuff in it.
FriendoftheDork 12-05-05, 06:50 AM	Perhaps the poison initially blinded the king, so that he doesen't know who did it. Now someone hostile to the PCs should try to imprison them before they can zone of truth the murderer, and the murderer can acidentally die during interrogation or while shaving....
Madfox11 12-05-05, 07:00 AM	Speak with dead is relatively easy to deal with. First of all, the corpse does have a saving throw, but more importantly, it tells what it has seen and that does not have to be the truth. In world rife with magic, it is really easy to disguise oneself as another person. So no matter what the king is going to say, if other evidence points at the PCs that still is going to create a lot of doubt among the PCs. Furthermore, there is also a spell that allows people to modify the memory of others. If somebody could get to the real assassin and cast the spell, suddenly all truth detecting magic cast on the assassin would reveal he desperately tried to save the king, but failed and that it was the assassin who people tried to frame. Of if you want to be really nasty, you could give the assassin the memory of one of the PCs casting a dominate person on the poor man and forcing him to do what he did. At the same time it is relatively easy to foil low level divinations, and while such spells might saw doubt, they do not proof all that much - especially when both the PCs and the assassin appear to be speaking the truth. Besides, none of these spells actually reveals the truth to onlookers. As the suspects, the PCs obviously cannot cast the spells themselves, and who is to say that the clerics and wizards leading the investigations are not part of the plot? Ressurection magics are more difficult to deal with, but in the Birthright setting laws prohibited the ressurection of rulers. While in Birhtright there was a mystic reason for this law, such resurections are a recipe for civil war and it is not hard to imagine a similar law in most other magic rich worlds. Perhaps people blackmailed the king in accepting his death by threatening with destroying the lives of loved ones, so that the king does not even want to come back. After all, resurection spells only work if the deceased wants to return. In the end, the success of framing people depends on (a) the resources of the real culprits and (b) the reputation and resources of the PCs - especially in a feudal type of setting. In RL the word of a knight was much more valiable then the word of a peasant and evidence hardly mattered. Just remember, that part of the challenge of running high level campaigns is not about removing all the special powers of the PCs. If you do that then you might as well run a low level campaign. The real challenge is dealing with the implications of high level powers and actually trusting on the PCs having them.
Millennium 12-05-05, 07:01 AM	Short of disintegrating the king, there's little chance of making him unsusceptible to speak with dead spells, but if the poison had an amnesiac effect then he might not remember the events clearly. This could actually lead to some highly-emotional events, because the corpse wouldn't even remember that it had been killed. By the way, keep in mind that corpses cannot remember anything that happens after they die. They can't even remember being questioned, so even if someone explained this to the King's corpse, they'd have to do it every time. As for the zone of truth, there's little chance that a 6th-level sorcerer alone could get around that, but who says the sorcerer was alone? Even Grendel had a mother; perhaps your sorcerer has some kind of draconic or demonic patron who could bolster his Will save to the point where he'd be almost (or truly) immune to zone of truth spells. In this way, the PCs' suggestion of a zone of truth spell could work against them; if he could beat a zone of truth without people knowing, it would only make the evidence against the PCs more overwhelming. Also, keep in mind that Zone of Truth only forbids lying; it does not compel people to speak the complete truth. Creatures can avoid speaking, and don't have to tell the whole truth, and as long as they don't say anything false there's no problem. With enough skilled wordplay, the sorcerer may be able to make all sorts of implications while not actually lying about anything.
Morka 12-05-05, 10:06 AM	Ok, the PCs are accusing Lord Barrus, and in return Lord Barrus is accusing them. The PCs want him to be interrogated in a Zone of Truth? Fine. But in all neutrality, no one in the court would let the PCs cast the spell themselves. It would be a third party, absolutely neutral spellcaster. But what if this "neutral" spellcaster is not as neutral as he is supposed to be? Yes, he will agree to cast all the spells the PCs want, but he might cast an heightened Nystul Magic Aura - Divination instead.
Millennium 12-05-05, 10:58 AM	Here's another situation: Barrus creates a construct (or animates an undead, or something similar) which looks exactly like him, and has the construct do the actual killing. He goes out in a public place while the deed is done, giving him an alibi and plenty of eyewitnesses to back it up. He can beat the zone of truth, since he wasn't the one who did the killing, plus he can accuse the PCs of framing him. He comes out looking like an innocent victim of framing. Even if the PCs break through the illusion, they won't know who cast it, and why would Barrus frame himself? They'll spend hours running around for an answer that "makes sense", when the truth is right in front of them. Barrus "frames" himself precisely because it doesn't make sense.
Jesper 12-05-05, 11:26 AM	use an anti magic field
quarkstomper 12-05-05, 06:45 PM	If Speak With Dead is used to ask the king himself who killed him... ...What if the King believes that the Prince was behind it? "Edward! You foul viper! You did not have the spine to kill me yourself that you had to hire another to do the deed?"
Gworraent 12-05-05, 06:57 PM	lord b-dizzle has a contingent spell put on him by his higher ups so that if he were ever to be captured he either dies, or falls under the effects of the amnesia spell, thus making him completely protected against all questions. you cant answer if you dont know the answer
TheScapegoat 12-05-05, 07:11 PM	One thing to consider in all this is how the PCs will react. What happens when all your plans come together and they are framed legitimatly through the rules and are going to be arrested? Is it your plan that they will try to escape and find the real killer? Do you plan on RPing a big long court session? I raise this questions because i ran i similar type of thing with my PCs where in they where framed for killing a constible by a group of thugs that where trying to get a possession of theirs. In my mind i thought they would try to flee and track down the men and was not actually prepared for them to be imprissioned. Then low and behold the LG fighter says that he will not run from the police and that the evidence will prove him innocent. When imprissioned some NPCs that where good friends of theirs offer to break them out and the LG Fighter says no. So i am forced to run a hasty court room, which i think i did an ok job but it would have been alot better had i been planning for it. Funny side to that story, one of the party memebers was a paladin who wanted to escape the guards and track down the bad guys to bring them to justice, but it was the friggin fighter who played more to his alignment and went with the law.
WolfHati 12-05-05, 07:46 PM	Zone of truth is a mind affecting spell. Protection from law I'm pretty sure would nullify it, a first level sorcerer would have no trouble casting that on himself, let alone a 6th level one. As for the speak with dead, the king might not have known the sorceror killed him, heck for all he knows, the sorceror was talking to him when some unknown assailant attacked them.
Raymond_Luxury_Yacht 12-05-05, 07:51 PM	Speak with dead is easy to nullify. While preparing the king's body, an "accident" happens, and his skull is horribly damaged, or even destroyed. Without the head, speak with dead doesn't work. Nullifying zone of truth is trickier. Perhaps the assassin kills himself by biting off his own tongue.
Badapple 12-05-05, 08:26 PM	I love the idea proposed above that whoever is appointed to investigate this is in on the plot. I noticed there are no clerics in the party, so who better to be in charge of the trial and investigation than the head priest, who is either the BBEG mastermind, or even a further pawn to the true and yet undiscovered villain. This "investigator" casts Zone of Truth on Lord Barrus. Of course he neglected to remove the Spell Immunity: Zone of Truth he cast on him previously. The party gets to watch, horrified, as the Baron lies through his teeth, shedding false tears at this wicked act that he is being accused of. Then they bring out the King's body and the investigator casts Speak with Dead on the king. Instead though he simply casts an illusion. He asks the king who killed him - answer: whichever PC you wish to really to frame. He asks the king who tried to stop this - answer: no one - they all stood around and let it happen, only Lord Barrus tried to stop it but he was prevented by <insert another couple PCs here>. He asks the King some more questions and gets outrageous lies that further condemn the PCs. "I had just told the Foreign Prince that his threat of war would not intimidate us and we would not subject our kingdom to his greedy trade route!" Let the PCs make spellcraft rolls and if they suceed they note that Speak with Dead was not actually cast, but instead another spell. Of course any cry fouls they try will simply cause them to look more guilty. If anyone actually tries to fight or escape that seals their fate completely. If the PCs try to remain reasonable and continue to press for more evidence or investigations, have the grieving Queen scream out "I've heard enough, take them away!" as she then bursts into tears, being openly consoled by the wicked high priest. Either way they wind up with public opinion set as they are Kingslayers, and they somehow have to escape a very prickly predicament. My compliments for a very interesting mid-high level challenge for the party!
MortalPlague 12-06-05, 02:25 AM	Thank you for the excellent responses. I'm probably going to use the idea of the investigators themselves being in on the plot, particularly if it's the high priest. If I know my players, they won't stand around and wait to be taken into custody, though; they're not the sort who usually allow themselves to be captured. They were already talking about teleporting out of there last night, so if that's the route they take, it'll play perfectly into my hands. What action is more suspicious than flight? :) Game is tomorrow. I'll let you know how it works out.
Madfox11 12-06-05, 04:51 AM	If Speak With Dead is used to ask the king himself who killed him... ...What if the King believes that the Prince was behind it? "Edward! You foul viper! You did not have the spine to kill me yourself that you had to hire another to do the deed?" Speak with dead does not work this way. The corpse does not show initiative, it simply gives short direct answers to the questions asked. So if somebody ask this particular king who killed you, he would simply state the name of the baron (assuming he saw him do the deed). If the question was who do you think is behind the murder, the most likely answer would be "I don't know" unless the king truly was convinced the framed PC was planning a murder (in which case you are left wondering why the hack he placed the man in charge of his own security). As a DM you can of course always change how a particular spell works, but in this case I personally actually prefer the RAW. I like to challenge the PCs to come with properly worded questions and how it adds a bit of a mystery to divination spells exactly as how they opperate in myths. Side-note: protection from <insert alignment of choice> protects against mental domination. It does NOT protect against mind affecting spells and a zone of truth works normally against such a protected character. After all, they are not compelled to the truth. The cast of the spell simply knows when the target is not speaking the truth.
UmbraLux 12-06-05, 08:46 AM	It may depend on who did the assassination and why. If it was someone with powerful connections who wants to ensure the king doesn't/can't return, he'll have had to consider the ramifications of resurrection spells as well as speak with dead and possibly even other divination spells. In such a case, the dagger was probably specially crafted for the assassination and majic jars it's victim in a jewel in the pomell (sp?). That way the king cannot be resurrected. Next consider the assassin. Why would whomever hire him want him around? He'll probably attempt to assassinate him in a similar fashion unless the assassin is fanatic enough to desire death and not accept resurrection spells. If the assassin can be killed in a way which points to the PCs, they'll fall under suspicion. Especially if the accusations have already started to fly... Do note, control of the dagger used to kill the king becomes very important in this scenario. Whether left with the PCs as a clue to figure out or spirited away by the true killer, it is the key to returning the king to life and clearing the PC's.
Badapple 12-07-05, 02:47 AM	Oh and even more sinister... if the High Priest is in on it, then when he goes to "raise" the king from the dead he simply casts a placebo spell then shakes his head sadly and says that the poor man has decided not to return from heaven. I may actually steal this campaign idea and run it myself as well!
MortalPlague 12-07-05, 11:34 AM	I ran the game yesterday and it went very well. The characters decided to let themselves be apprehended, realizing it would look very guilty to run. They were imprisoned, their gear was taken, and they waited for a little over a day. They heard from various other people who came to see them that the Arch Priest had communed with the King's spirit and that the dead king had pointed them out. The characters were suitably upset at being framed. They were slated for execution, and they managed to teleport out just as they were approaching the chopping block. They fled the city and used phantom steeds to get to the nation of the foreign prince (side note; those things are fast!).
tiercel 12-07-05, 05:55 PM	Sounds like things went well. I realize most of these are moot points now, but I'll make them anyway: I don't think anyone should actually use zone of truth. It's not targetted, so you don't even know whether someone within the zone has been affected or not -- and even if they have, they know of the enchantment and can still be evasive. Discern lies is what you're thinking of.... ...except, of course, there is a simple solution for the Undercover Bad Guy: Mind Shielding This ring is usually of fine workmanship and wrought from heavy gold. The wearer is continually immune to detect thoughts, discern lies, and any attempt to magically discern her alignment. Faint abjuration; CL 3rd; Forge Ring, nondetection; Price 8,000 gp. Still, speak with dead poses an obvious problem (unless the king didn't actually see who knifed him). One nasty way to get around this is to animate dead the king's corpse with the order "lie perfectly still" -- speak with dead doesn't work on undead, just dead. Still, having the priest in on the conspiracy is the easiest, most straightforward solution.