Speak with dead

[ramrod]

Hi,

I'm planning for the next session of games night and hoping for the party to be able to use speak with dead on some scouts that are preceeding an invading force. If they think of this then then I would like them to be able to but worried that every killing spree will be followed by spirit interrogations to question enemies that wouldn't normally be allowed as per the wording of the spell.

Should I allow polymorph or some kind of illusion to get around this or does anyone have any suggestions for this? The scouts clearly would not want to give away their activities or what they are doing in the area so speak with dead would not normally suffice on its own.

[Unoriginal]

As said in the spell description, the corpses can lie, and have no reason to betray the invading force.

I would authorize a PC's CHA vs corpse's WIS contest if they managed to make it not obvious they're enemies (with the relevant proficiencies if any).

[Vogie]

Remember, they can Speak with the dead, but not, like, convincingly.

The dead can lie. If those who are captured are scouts, they probably won't know the specifics of the enemy plans - they're more focused on gathering intel on you, not the other way around.

[solidork]

In our game, our DM has let us use disguises to try and trick the dead. I think that is pretty reasonable, personally.