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  1. - Top - End - #31
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    Default Re: Is it reasonable to use "they were casting a spell" to claim self-defense?

    Quote Originally Posted by Kelb_Panthera View Post
    And allows a save and can be decieved without even resorting to magic.

    Asks the rogue "did you take the jewels from the vault?" Rogue says "I did not take the jewels from the vault," while thinking "I gave it to the fighter to carry 'cause I'm close to hitting a medium load." Discern lies remains quiet.
    Yeah, but being a targeted spell, the caster knows if the target passes or fails.

    The second part can be easily avoided by asking intelligent questions.
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    Default Re: Is it reasonable to use "they were casting a spell" to claim self-defense?

    Quote Originally Posted by Zanos View Post
    Yeah, but being a targeted spell, the caster knows if the target passes or fails.

    The second part can be easily avoided by asking intelligent questions.
    Yes& but most DM'S are not trained in interrogating witness. Meanwhile, lots of folks are adept at being evasive.
    Of course, by the time I finish this post, it will already be obsolete. C'est la vie.

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    Default Re: Is it reasonable to use "they were casting a spell" to claim self-defense?

    Quote Originally Posted by Jack_Simth View Post
    Yes& but most DM'S are not trained in interrogating witness.
    A system of justice should be, though.
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    Default Re: Is it reasonable to use "they were casting a spell" to claim self-defense?

    Quote Originally Posted by Zanos View Post
    Yeah, but being a targeted spell, the caster knows if the target passes or fails.

    The second part can be easily avoided by asking intelligent questions.
    My point was that these spells aren't infallible (by a long-shot) and that it would be absurd for a court to treat them as such. Calling in a caster to make use of this magic is very much equivalent to calling in expert witnesses. It's simply calling an interrogator to give his expert opinion.
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    Quote Originally Posted by ThiagoMartell View Post
    Kelb, recently it looks like you're the Avatar of Reason in these forums, man.
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  5. - Top - End - #35
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    Default Re: Is it reasonable to use "they were casting a spell" to claim self-defense?

    Quote Originally Posted by Zanos View Post
    A system of justice should be, though.
    Indeed.

    This would be an example of a time when the DM should roll and narrate, rather than be bullied into role-playing against a player.

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    Default Re: Is it reasonable to use "they were casting a spell" to claim self-defense?

    Quote Originally Posted by Nifft View Post
    Indeed.

    This would be an example of a time when the DM should roll and narrate, rather than be bullied into role-playing against a player.
    And similarly, many PC characters are probably less experience with wordplay and technicalities in logic than a player is. In these kind of evasive speaking scenarios, that should just be a straight bluff vs. sense motive, and a vague word of what he's trying to do. A failed roll, and he doesn't catch on. A successful one, and he at least takes note of your evasiveness.
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    Default Re: Is it reasonable to use "they were casting a spell" to claim self-defense?

    Quote Originally Posted by Zanos View Post
    A system of justice should be, though.
    Sure. But you've only got a DM and some players at the actual table. A given table can RP it out with a Q&A, understanding that there will be a lot of DM's that can and will get tripped up by scenarios much like Kelb_Panthera described, or a given table can make it check of some kind (Bluff vs. Sense Motive would work as suggested by Necroticplague).
    Of course, by the time I finish this post, it will already be obsolete. C'est la vie.

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    Default Re: Is it reasonable to use "they were casting a spell" to claim self-defense?

    Quote Originally Posted by Kelb_Panthera View Post
    Has it occurred to the rogue player that ress' magic is a thing? 5k is probably less severe than whatever the penalty for murder is. If he's entitled to representation then asking for his allies to be sent for should be trivial. Getting her back on her feet could, hopefully, mitigate the charges.
    QFT.

    If Raise Dead is not somehow (per DM Fiat) unavailable, he should simply volunteer to pay it asap, and show remorse otherwise, and unless this is a clear setup or a City ruled by a Kangoroo Court (or he a known criminal of course) there should be no further consequences.

    He maybe should add a smallish compensation to the revived woman, after all, but thats Alignment-dependant. ^^
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    Default Re: Is it reasonable to use "they were casting a spell" to claim self-defense?

    If we're going to be taking the magic of DnD's world into account, that raises another thorny question: is killing someone even necessarily wrong? I mean, the afterlife does provably exist, so are you aren't really cutting off their future in the same way killing does in real life, so is there really significant harm? She's still alive, and quiet possibly in a better state than before.
    Last edited by Necroticplague; 2018-04-14 at 04:32 PM.
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    Default Re: Is it reasonable to use "they were casting a spell" to claim self-defense?

    Quote Originally Posted by Necroticplague View Post
    And similarly, many PC characters are probably less experience with wordplay and technicalities in logic than a player is. In these kind of evasive speaking scenarios, that should just be a straight bluff vs. sense motive, and a vague word of what he's trying to do. A failed roll, and he doesn't catch on. A successful one, and he at least takes note of your evasiveness.
    A straight roll? Probably not, you're going to take a huge penalty for having to finagle everything to not be technically a lie. Professional(Legal) or something might come into play to, since lawyers kind of specialize in crafting questions that people can't give a meaningless truth too.
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    Default Re: Is it reasonable to use "they were casting a spell" to claim self-defense?

    Quote Originally Posted by Necroticplague View Post
    And similarly, many PC characters are probably less experience with wordplay and technicalities in logic than a player is. In these kind of evasive speaking scenarios, that should just be a straight bluff vs. sense motive, and a vague word of what he's trying to do. A failed roll, and he doesn't catch on. A successful one, and he at least takes note of your evasiveness.
    Quote Originally Posted by Zanos View Post
    A straight roll? Probably not, you're going to take a huge penalty for having to finagle everything to not be technically a lie. Professional(Legal) or something might come into play to, since lawyers kind of specialize in crafting questions that people can't give a meaningless truth too.
    Hmm, how would I do this.

    I'd probably do something like...

    - Argument-by-argument rolls are Bluff, Intimidate, Diplomacy, or Sense Motive -- depending on the specific approach of the argument / strategy.

    - I would NOT ask for Profession (lawyer), that's too niche for my games, but I would reward having a relevant Knowledge: especially local, but also a bit for history or nobility & royalty.

    - The players of the other characters who aren't the defendant all earn XP for justifying whatever rolls the DA makes. This means it's many-against-one in terms of RP, and that seems appropriate for the DA's relative experience in this field. However, the DA will probably have worse stats. This also keeps everyone involved, and allows me as DM to play only the judge.

    - The judge will be swayed by both facts and the apparent character of the defendant. So lying is quite risky, but might be rewarding too.

  12. - Top - End - #42
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    Default Re: Is it reasonable to use "they were casting a spell" to claim self-defense?

    Quote Originally Posted by Necroticplague View Post
    If we're going to be taking the magic of DnD's world into account, that raises another thorny question: is killing someone even necessarily wrong? I mean, the afterlife does provably exist, so are you aren't really cutting off their future in the same way killing does in real life, so is there really significant harm? She's still alive, and quiet possibly in a better state than before.
    This is one of those player knowledge/ character knowledge things. We players know everything about magic and the game setting so it's really obvious to us that there's definitely an afterlife. It's much, much less obvious from within the game world. The overwhelming majority of people in the game world will never have seen any positive proof of such a thing.

    First there's the rarity of spellcasters in general, then the much greater rarity of those with access to transplanar magic other than the summon monster spells. I think the earliest you're even capable of leaving the material plane to visit other realms removed from it (without walking there through natural rifts and portals anyway) is something like 7th level. The ability to create man-made portals is rarified to the stuff of legends and the portals themselves are suitably rare and typically well guarded on much the same order as naturally occurring ones.

    Then there's the absolute -reams- of conflicting information on what the afterlife actually looks like after the vanishingly rare fist-hand accounts have been filtered through several degrees of separation before reaching most common folks. Sure, they -believe- it's real but they don't know it with certainty anymore than a typical modern human knows that the planet closest to alpha centauri is there. Experts say it is so and most commoners believe but that was true IRL too until relatively recently. Still is in much of the world for that matter. Unlike scientific observations in reality though, almost no one in a game world can independently verify -anything- the clergy say because they have -no- access to spellcasting of their own.

    Then consider that some of the information is in conflict because there is deliberate misinformation being sowed by the gods only know how many clerics of evil gods, arch fiends, and even mere trickery gods. A cleric of Kord and a cleric of Moradin will paint -very- different pictures of the hereafter without either of them having to lie while a priest of Mammon will paint a third picture that's almost certainly riddled with falsehoods. Who's Joe Dirt-Farmer supposed to believe when he has absolutely no means of even determining that alignment is a thing, much less what the alignment is for each of these three priests.

    To your initial question though; there's the simple fact that laws aren't written for or by the dead. The friends, family, and countrymen of those who've been taken from them by time, pestilence, or violence may take some comfort in the fact that their loved one is "in a better place" but that's not going to make them okay with people deliberately hastening their departure to the hereafter. The extraordinary rarity and expense of ress' magic is such that its existence can't even begin to put a dent in that.
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    Quote Originally Posted by ThiagoMartell View Post
    Kelb, recently it looks like you're the Avatar of Reason in these forums, man.
    Quote Originally Posted by LTwerewolf View Post
    [...] bringing Kelb in on your side in a rules fight is like bringing Mike Tyson in on your side to fight a toddler. You can, but it's such massive overkill.
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  13. - Top - End - #43
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    Default Re: Is it reasonable to use "they were casting a spell" to claim self-defense?

    Quote Originally Posted by Necroticplague View Post
    If we're going to be taking the magic of DnD's world into account, that raises another thorny question: is killing someone even necessarily wrong? I mean, the afterlife does provably exist, so are you aren't really cutting off their future in the same way killing does in real life, so is there really significant harm? She's still alive, and quiet possibly in a better state than before.
    Not really all that thorny. Even real world faiths that believed in a paradise afterlife had murder as a major sin.

    Quote Originally Posted by Nifft View Post
    - I would NOT ask for Profession (lawyer), that's too niche for my games, but I would reward having a relevant Knowledge: especially local, but also a bit for history or nobility & royalty.
    I wouldn't ask for the player to have it. Bluff definitely includes misleading with truths.
    Last edited by Zanos; 2018-04-14 at 07:35 PM.
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    Default Re: Is it reasonable to use "they were casting a spell" to claim self-defense?

    Quote Originally Posted by Kelb_Panthera View Post
    My point was that these spells aren't infallible (by a long-shot) and that it would be absurd for a court to treat them as such. Calling in a caster to make use of this magic is very much equivalent to calling in expert witnesses. It's simply calling an interrogator to give his expert opinion.
    well, it can be made virtually infallible by repeated castings. some cursed items bestowing a penalty to will saves may also prove very helpful. But that's high magic setting stuff, most settings will not be able to afford all that magic for a trial.

    Anyway, while the spell is not infallible, it is better than nothing. It is a further corroboration of the story. And the story itself is very believable, after all. - the rogue had no reason to kill the prostitute
    - those who knew the prostitute can testify that she used to look younger, thus proving that she was using illusions. it's reasonable she was trying to cast a spell.
    So, convincing the jury that it really was an accident. If the rogue has a decently heroic reputation, that will further help (most pcs do). With all that, it would not be unreasonable to give the rogue a sentence that would not interfere with further adventures - be it financiary compensation, or some no-crippling corporal punishment, or even occasional labor.
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    Default Re: Is it reasonable to use "they were casting a spell" to claim self-defense?

    Quote Originally Posted by King of Nowere View Post
    well, it can be made virtually infallible by repeated castings. some cursed items bestowing a penalty to will saves may also prove very helpful. But that's high magic setting stuff, most settings will not be able to afford all that magic for a trial.
    That just runs into different practical concerns. Rarity of casters, limited spell-slots, the fact that massive debuffs that you're either unable or not allowed to resist can be readily argued to be torture, expense, expediency, etc.

    Anyway, while the spell is not infallible, it is better than nothing. It is a further corroboration of the story. And the story itself is very believable, after all. - the rogue had no reason to kill the prostitute
    Is it? Spellcasters are rare and lies are not. Modern courts don't allow polygraphic evidence because of their fallibility. Why should the magic version, which is just as fallible in its own way, be treated any differently? Adventurers and corpses are found in each others' company with stunning frequency and they aren't known for their... stability. They're not all heroes and even the ones that are heroes aren't necessarily perceived as such.

    - those who knew the prostitute can testify that she used to look younger, thus proving that she was using illusions. it's reasonable she was trying to cast a spell.
    Makeup, death, and time can all distort someone's apparent age. That she looks older now that she's dead proves nothing at all much less that illusions were involved. A thorough examination of her quarters that turns up no makeup at all could point in that direction though. Unfortunately for our rogue, the best illusions are subtle and supplemental to more mundane showmanship. Hopefully the deceased wasn't particularly adept and/ or was cheap enough to dispense with makeup.


    So, convincing the jury that it really was an accident. If the rogue has a decently heroic reputation, that will further help (most pcs do).
    Not where I'm from they don't. You're right that it would help immensely though. Most of the PCs I've known were pretty mercenary and, if they had a reputation at all, their reputation was mostly just that.

    With all that, it would not be unreasonable to give the rogue a sentence that would not interfere with further adventures - be it financiary compensation, or some no-crippling corporal punishment, or even occasional labor.
    Depends on the setting. Most of the world through most of history would just kill you back for killing someone unless there was a pretty substantial gap in social status. That's why my first thought was to ress'; lessen the harm, lessen the sentence.


    I don't necessarily disagree with you in principle that the spells in question could be useful for establishing innocence, just cautioning against taking it as a given. You also seem to have made some rather bold presumptions about how the game is played. We really need the OP to establish these things before we should give advice based on them.

    To that end; let's ask. Hey OP, can we get a bit more info about the setting or the rogue's reputation in it? We've been presuming a pretty modern, evidence-based judiciary but we could be -way- off on that. DM a history buff?
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    Quote Originally Posted by ThiagoMartell View Post
    Kelb, recently it looks like you're the Avatar of Reason in these forums, man.
    Quote Originally Posted by LTwerewolf View Post
    [...] bringing Kelb in on your side in a rules fight is like bringing Mike Tyson in on your side to fight a toddler. You can, but it's such massive overkill.
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    Default Re: Is it reasonable to use "they were casting a spell" to claim self-defense?

    So I will try to answer the Legal Self Defense question.

    First off, in a more ''Like Earth before 1400 or so" time, Everyone is armed pretty much all the time. And this is even true in 2018 in a lot of places in the world. There are a lot of places you can go where you can expect everyone to be armed and have a weapon.

    Second, a spell is generically like an item with no hostile component to classify it as a 'weapon' a lot like a tool. A lot of tools can be 'weapons', but they are not always weapons. So if you see someone with a tool, you can not assume they are hostile and using it as a weapon.

    The same way you can not assume any spell is hostile.

    So, the third thing is this takes us to 'intent'. Someone holding a weapon or tool, or casting a spell, does not have legal hostile intent unless it is obvious. For a handheld weapon just holding or pointing does not count; it would need to be a swing. Missie weapons, and things like bows, would count if pointed toward the individual. A tool or item really only counts if the use it like a weapon. A spell really only counts if it has some directed hostile effect.

    In short: You can not assuming ANY spellcasting is hostile and react with deadly force.

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    Default Re: Is it reasonable to use "they were casting a spell" to claim self-defense?

    Quote Originally Posted by Kelb_Panthera View Post
    This is one of those player knowledge/ character knowledge things. We players know everything about magic and the game setting so it's really obvious to us that there's definitely an afterlife. It's much, much less obvious from within the game world. The overwhelming majority of people in the game world will never have seen any positive proof of such a thing.

    First there's the rarity of spellcasters in general, then the much greater rarity of those with access to transplanar magic other than the summon monster spells. I think the earliest you're even capable of leaving the material plane to visit other realms removed from it (without walking there through natural rifts and portals anyway) is something like 7th level.
    The bold is why I believe knowledge of it would be common.It's entirely possible for somebody with no extraordinary skill to take a visit if they know of a way. While a lot of people wouldn't have the experience themselves, there'd also be a substantial amount of people who have. Not believing in the afterlife would be like me believing China doesn't exist, simply because I've never been there.
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    Default Re: Is it reasonable to use "they were casting a spell" to claim self-defense?

    Quote Originally Posted by Kelb_Panthera View Post
    This is one of those player knowledge/ character knowledge things. We players know everything about magic and the game setting so it's really obvious to us that there's definitely an afterlife. It's much, much less obvious from within the game world. The overwhelming majority of people in the game world will never have seen any positive proof of such a thing.

    First there's the rarity of spellcasters in general, then the much greater rarity of those with access to transplanar magic other than the summon monster spells. I think the earliest you're even capable of leaving the material plane to visit other realms removed from it (without walking there through natural rifts and portals anyway) is something like 7th level.
    We only have one CERN, and there are only a few thousand scientists with the right competence to figure out the jumble of data it produces and say "according to this, we can say X and Y about subatomic particles". And yet we do know those particles exist and behave in certain ways.

    This thing about science is that it only takes one person to discover it, and possibly a few more to independently confirm it, and then everyone know it.

    On a more down-to-earth example, in the middle age the amount of people who went to china was even smaller than the amount of high level spellcasters in D&D. And yet it was known that there was china, though not many details. So I'd surmise that in D&D it makes sense that everyone knows that there is an afterlife and some people went there without being dead, but the details of their working would only be known to a small cadre of specialists.

    Quote Originally Posted by Kelb_Panthera View Post


    I don't necessarily disagree with you in principle that the spells in question could be useful for establishing innocence, just cautioning against taking it as a given. You also seem to have made some rather bold presumptions about how the game is played. We really need the OP to establish these things before we should give advice based on them.
    I've put a fair share of "if" in my post because I know most of it depends on the specific workings of the setting.
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    Default Re: Is it reasonable to use "they were casting a spell" to claim self-defense?

    Quote Originally Posted by Kelb_Panthera View Post
    That just runs into different practical concerns. Rarity of casters, limited spell-slots, the fact that massive debuffs that you're either unable or not allowed to resist can be readily argued to be torture, expense, expediency, etc.
    I say that if a lv 6 spellcaster is a prostitute magic should be quite common in the setting. Any tribunal should have an inquisitor able to cast discern lies. Mybe even 2, for increased reliability.


    Quote Originally Posted by Kelb_Panthera View Post
    Is it? Spellcasters are rare and lies are not. Modern courts don't allow polygraphic evidence because of their fallibility. Why should the magic version, which is just as fallible in its own way, be treated any differently? Adventurers and corpses are found in each others' company with stunning frequency and they aren't known for their... stability. They're not all heroes and even the ones that are heroes aren't necessarily perceived as such.
    Zone of Truth and Discern Lies are extremely effective (apart for the save problem which affects only ZoT) if the defendant has to answer only with a yes or no.
    Refusing to answer would be quite incriminatory, given that an innocent person has just to say yes or no when the inquisitor asks him to confirm his own version of the facts.

    In the case in question:
    "Did you kill the prostitute when she was casting a spell ?" "Yes".
    "Did she warned you before she started casting the spell on which you killed her ?" "No".

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    Default Re: Is it reasonable to use "they were casting a spell" to claim self-defense?

    Quote Originally Posted by King of Nowere View Post
    We only have one CERN, and there are only a few thousand scientists with the right competence to figure out the jumble of data it produces and say "according to this, we can say X and Y about subatomic particles". And yet we do know those particles exist and behave in certain ways.

    This thing about science is that it only takes one person to discover it, and possibly a few more to independently confirm it, and then everyone know it.

    On a more down-to-earth example, in the middle age the amount of people who went to china was even smaller than the amount of high level spellcasters in D&D. And yet it was known that there was china, though not many details.
    It was also "known" that PRester John and his kingdom were out there somewhere.

    On the other hand, most people do accept the culturally provided information that they're given. So I'd say that just about everybody in a standard D&D setting is vaguely aware of and believes in the existence of whatever afterlifes are set up in the cosmology.

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    Default Re: Is it reasonable to use "they were casting a spell" to claim self-defense?

    Quote Originally Posted by Darth Ultron View Post
    So I will try to answer the Legal Self Defense question.

    First off, in a more ''Like Earth before 1400 or so" time, Everyone is armed pretty much all the time. And this is even true in 2018 in a lot of places in the world. There are a lot of places you can go where you can expect everyone to be armed and have a weapon.

    Second, a spell is generically like an item with no hostile component to classify it as a 'weapon' a lot like a tool. A lot of tools can be 'weapons', but they are not always weapons. So if you see someone with a tool, you can not assume they are hostile and using it as a weapon.

    The same way you can not assume any spell is hostile.

    So, the third thing is this takes us to 'intent'. Someone holding a weapon or tool, or casting a spell, does not have legal hostile intent unless it is obvious. For a handheld weapon just holding or pointing does not count; it would need to be a swing. Missie weapons, and things like bows, would count if pointed toward the individual. A tool or item really only counts if the use it like a weapon. A spell really only counts if it has some directed hostile effect.

    In short: You can not assuming ANY spellcasting is hostile and react with deadly force.
    Armed is a relative term. They were armed in the sense that a scythe, pitchfork, or agricultural flail can kill you. That’s why all those weird martial arts weapons exist, because nobility could have swords and peasants couldn’t but it’s sure possible to frack someone up with a threshing flail if you know what you are doing, and especially with slight modifications. On the other side of the world we have a pretty clear picture that the weapons carried in the peasants revolt either were or had recently been agricultural tools (like a scythe blade tied to a stick.)

    But again, even today but especially over time, you would have a huge, huge disparity of outcome based on jurisdiction. Some outcomes could be.

    We automatically disbelieve the prostitute (or the female or believe the wealthy individual, or the male), you win.
    We automatically disbelieve the foreigner, you lose.
    It comes down to a single lord’s decision. Better hope he didn’t like that sex worker.
    There could be a judge with set rulings.
    Trial by combat or ordeal.
    An actual jury trial.

    Do they need people for something? You could be conscripted, press ganged, or enslaved. Or sent to a colony. They may not care about evidence if there’s a quota to fill.

    Magical evidence could be compulsory, allowed, or forbidden. Heck, I think I could argue any of those 3 positions in a modern court.

    Is it a church court? Is it a secular court? What does the prevailing religion say about sex work, or foreigners.

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    Default Re: Is it reasonable to use "they were casting a spell" to claim self-defense?

    To the poster above me: you are entirely right. I assumed that the "relatively fair" meant "relatively modern", but if my GM's being a little dickish he could decide that "relatively fair" means fair in-setting and then pick any of the options you described. Seems unlikely, but...
    Well, I'll keep everything you just said in mind for my next campaign! Thank you!

    Quote Originally Posted by Necroticplague View Post
    If we're going to be taking the magic of DnD's world into account, that raises another thorny question: is killing someone even necessarily wrong? I mean, the afterlife does provably exist, so are you aren't really cutting off their future in the same way killing does in real life, so is there really significant harm? She's still alive, and quiet possibly in a better state than before.
    If you kill someone, you are harming their family, friends, loved ones and dependants. You should get punished for that.
    And maybe the person you killed was Evil, in which case you've literally sent them to the Nine Hells or somesuch before they could redeem themselves in this life. Not very nice, that.

    Quote Originally Posted by GrayDeath View Post
    QFT.

    If Raise Dead is not somehow (per DM Fiat) unavailable, he should simply volunteer to pay it asap, and show remorse otherwise, and unless this is a clear setup or a City ruled by a Kangoroo Court (or he a known criminal of course) there should be no further consequences.

    He maybe should add a smallish compensation to the revived woman, after all, but thats Alignment-dependant. ^^
    So you would accept being painfully murdered and then losing a level? Of course Raising her isn't enough - it doesn't even begin to erase all the damage. That would require a Heart's Ease (and maybe Programmed Amnesia or Modify Memory), True Resurrection, and if possible time travel to hide that she ever dies in the first place (because knowledge of her death probably hurt her loved ones, and cost her money and time). And by RAW that's pretty much impossible without insane levels of cheese.

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    Default Re: Is it reasonable to use "they were casting a spell" to claim self-defense?

    Quote Originally Posted by TalonOfAnathrax View Post
    So you would accept being painfully murdered and then losing a level? Of course Raising her isn't enough - it doesn't even begin to erase all the damage.
    Note to self: in case of accident, don't raise TalonOfAnathrax.

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    Default Re: Is it reasonable to use "they were casting a spell" to claim self-defense?

    Quote Originally Posted by TalonOfAnathrax View Post
    T
    So you would accept being painfully murdered and then losing a level? Of course Raising her isn't enough - it doesn't even begin to erase all the damage. That would require a Heart's Ease (and maybe Programmed Amnesia or Modify Memory), True Resurrection, and if possible time travel to hide that she ever dies in the first place (because knowledge of her death probably hurt her loved ones, and cost her money and time). And by RAW that's pretty much impossible without insane levels of cheese.
    Wow, take a deep breath.

    Once she is raised, she is no longer dead. Hence he cannot be (assuming more or less "regular fantasy laws") be accused of murder, especially since she can clarify that yes, she did cast a spell, and he can clarify that no, he did not intend to kill her butr simply overreacted.

    Nowhere did Is ay it would "erase" anything (whatever you exactly mean by that), and as readable in the quote you quoted, making it up to her is, if the rogue is even remotely good, a given.

    Of course, after all that is done, she may sue him for wrongful assault/Attack, and he her for faking her youth/dishonest business practices....if this was a Game about Lawsuits that is. ;)
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    Default Re: Is it reasonable to use "they were casting a spell" to claim self-defense?

    Quote Originally Posted by TalonOfAnathrax View Post
    If you kill someone, you are harming their family, friends, loved ones and dependants. You should get punished for that.
    Fair enough. Hadn't considered the impact on others besides her.
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    Default Re: Is it reasonable to use "they were casting a spell" to claim self-defense?

    Quote Originally Posted by GrayDeath View Post
    Once she is raised, she is no longer dead. Hence he cannot be (assuming more or less "regular fantasy laws") be accused of murder, especially since she can clarify that yes, she did cast a spell, and he can clarify that no, he did not intend to kill her butr simply overreacted.
    There is an assumption here that the standard response to being subjected to a raise dead would come back to life. The spell says the soul must be "free and willing to return." What if it's the rare exception that souls are both, and that's why murder victims aren't just being raised left and right?

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    Default Re: Is it reasonable to use "they were casting a spell" to claim self-defense?

    Casting a discreet spell is the equivalent of drawing a discreet electronic device. It ~could~ be a fireball or detonator. Or it could be prestidigitation or one's cell phone. There's no *ACTUAL* excuse for what he did because basic cantrips establish that what she could be doing is something very very mundane.

    That is, in a well-educated society.

    Culture is the big factor here. How do people in that society view casting spells? Is it proper etiquette to cast in private? Like...it might be an objectively reasonable thing to do in a context-less environment, but context is critical, and it's something that the PC doesn't get to decide upon.

    That's first of all. Second, we have the issue of proofs vs. accussations. He stands accussed of murder, and the evidence against him is *STRONG*, except for his own accussation of the deceased. If he can't reasonably prove that she was casting a spell, then we're not even going to -get- to the cultural-context argument of if what she was doing was ok in their culture. So that's a really critical point of contention.

    Speak with Dead will be a great boon in mitigating his sentence, as reckless manslaughter might not carry as severe a penalty as a murder charge. It can be....massaged through the system, even, for some service to the kingdom. However, it'll *DOOM* an innocence verdict, as it'll demonstrate her lack of malice.

    Zone of Truth will like-wise be helpful, but if he can play his cards right, the questions could deceptively exhonerate him entirely.
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    Default Re: Is it reasonable to use "they were casting a spell" to claim self-defense?

    Quote Originally Posted by King of Nowere View Post
    We only have one CERN, and there are only a few thousand scientists with the right competence to figure out the jumble of data it produces and say "according to this, we can say X and Y about subatomic particles". And yet we do know those particles exist and behave in certain ways.
    But the more basic sciences that give you a certain amount of faith in the scientific method can be demonstrated at a very basic level by literally anyone that grasps the concepts. There's no analogue to this with magic. Precious few people in a typical game world have access to magic -at all- much less in a way that makes the concepts involved accessible. I can show my nephew (8) some basic newtonian interactions between objects and explain them to him in a way that not only makes sense but that he can check for himself with some fairly basic maths. Tim the hedge-wizard can explain how teleport or ethereal jaunt works in theory but if he's not yet of sufficient level (very likely) he can't actually demonstrate at all, never mind in a way that whomever he's explaining it to can check.

    This thing about science is that it only takes one person to discover it, and possibly a few more to independently confirm it, and then everyone know it.
    Magic is not science. There's more than a few parallels that make understanding the conceit that it is very easy to understand but it lacks a certain fundamental quality; replicability. The only people that can check behind spellcasters on their notes and theorems is a sufficiently leveled caster of the same type. Until you get to a fairly rarified level of science, anyone willing to put down the time, money, and effort can run experiments.

    On a more down-to-earth example, in the middle age the amount of people who went to china was even smaller than the amount of high level spellcasters in D&D. And yet it was known that there was china, though not many details. So I'd surmise that in D&D it makes sense that everyone knows that there is an afterlife and some people went there without being dead, but the details of their working would only be known to a small cadre of specialists.
    They may well "know" that there are fantastic places that take long, arduous journeys through dangerous locales to reach but the idea that these places are where you go when you die is another matter altogether. The outer realms are, by far, the hardest to reach without casting spells and, when you get there, they're nigh-infinite expanses. The odds that you could find a dead loved one in a single life-time without employing serious magic are infinitesimal. Even if you could, you'd likely never realize it when you consider that they almost certainly won't recognize you and likely bear only a passing resemblance to their living appearance, per the petitioner template in MotP.

    More succinctly: believing these places are out there somewhere is one thing, believing they're the afterlife is another. Essentially, this:

    Quote Originally Posted by johnbragg View Post
    It was also "known" that PRester John and his kingdom were out there somewhere.

    On the other hand, most people do accept the culturally provided information that they're given. So I'd say that just about everybody in a standard D&D setting is vaguely aware of and believes in the existence of whatever afterlifes are set up in the cosmology.
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    Quote Originally Posted by BlacKnight View Post
    I say that if a lv 6 spellcaster is a prostitute magic should be quite common in the setting. Any tribunal should have an inquisitor able to cast discern lies. Mybe even 2, for increased reliability.
    I wouldn't take a single NPC as representative of the entire setting. Sometimes talented, intelligent people end up in weird circumstances because of poor decisions made in their youth or even happenings completely beyond their control. Life is stranger than fiction and this wouldn't even be that strange for fiction.


    Zone of Truth and Discern Lies are extremely effective (apart for the save problem which affects only ZoT) if the defendant has to answer only with a yes or no.
    Yes/No questions can be misleading in themselves even before you consider that imperfect phrasing can make either a valid answer. Even if we assume that the court's goal is, in fact, to reach the truth rather than simply to convict; this is fuzzier than you're making it seem. Further, at the end of the day, the caster wasn't there and he's the only person that knows whether his discern lies effect was actually successful or not. While a court may well be more inclined to take the word of a state official on such matters than they would some random jackass off the street, it's -still- just an expert witness. The possibility of corruption, whether it's acted on or not, has to be taken into account when designing a legal system.

    Refusing to answer would be quite incriminatory, given that an innocent person has just to say yes or no when the inquisitor asks him to confirm his own version of the facts.
    This amounts to allowing the defendant no active defense of his innocence based on the result of the word of a court official who's tool is -known- to be less than infallible. Gaming this would be simplicity itself to would-be corruptors of the system. There's plenty of reason beyond the current case to object to being subjected to magics that poke at your mind as well. A simple right to privacy or protection from being compelled to testify against yourself would make such methods suspect at best even if they were infallible simply because the caster is -not- infallible.

    Again, because I don't want it to get lost in the shuffle, I'm -not- saying these spells should never be used as part of legal proceedings. I'm saying that they shouldn't be given undue weight when they are.
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    Default Re: Is it reasonable to use "they were casting a spell" to claim self-defense?

    Quote Originally Posted by Kelb_Panthera View Post
    Yes/No questions can be misleading in themselves even before you consider that imperfect phrasing can make either a valid answer. Even if we assume that the court's goal is, in fact, to reach the truth rather than simply to convict; this is fuzzier than you're making it seem. Further, at the end of the day, the caster wasn't there and he's the only person that knows whether his discern lies effect was actually successful or not. While a court may well be more inclined to take the word of a state official on such matters than they would some random jackass off the street, it's -still- just an expert witness. The possibility of corruption, whether it's acted on or not, has to be taken into account when designing a legal system.
    Assuming that the system doesn't work because an official will become corrupt will cause any system to work poorly. What if the King is corrupt? What if the President is corrupt? We have external checks for these things.

    An easy example is making the person casting discern lies the Judge. The Judge isn't the only source of truth in the world, and if he regularly sabotages cases he's still responsible to the rest of the court system at large. That doesn't mean that he doesn't wield considerable influence within his own courtroom, though.
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    Default Re: Is it reasonable to use "they were casting a spell" to claim self-defense?

    Quote Originally Posted by Kelb_Panthera View Post
    Yes/No questions can be misleading in themselves even before you consider that imperfect phrasing can make either a valid answer. Even if we assume that the court's goal is, in fact, to reach the truth rather than simply to convict; this is fuzzier than you're making it seem. Further, at the end of the day, the caster wasn't there and he's the only person that knows whether his discern lies effect was actually successful or not. While a court may well be more inclined to take the word of a state official on such matters than they would some random jackass off the street, it's -still- just an expert witness. The possibility of corruption, whether it's acted on or not, has to be taken into account when designing a legal system.
    Well those spells are problematic because it's not clear if language is objective. But if it's not then they are useless and I don't think that the designer made those as waste space. Thus language has to be objective in D&D settings, and the only ways out are those described... which are basically none.

    It goes without saying that law men should be good at formulating their questions, but probably they would use standard qustions slighty altered for the specific case.
    The way I would design a trial is: the judge interrogate freely the convict and they conclude on a version of the facts. Then they decide on the questions. After that the caster (or 2 casters if possible) is called and the convict has to answer the questions under ZoT or Detect Lies (in the case of ZoT maybe it will be repeated multiple times to be sure). If everything goes well the version of the facts becomes judicial truth and the judge makes his decision.
    If the convict doesn't collaborate of lies... bad for him, because such a system greatly helps the innocents and those who collaborate.

    About unclear answers can you explain how the two that I provided as example in my previous post are unclear ? Just to discuss the issue with a practical example.



    Quote Originally Posted by Kelb_Panthera View Post
    This amounts to allowing the defendant no active defense of his innocence based on the result of the word of a court official who's tool is -known- to be less than infallible. Gaming this would be simplicity itself to would-be corruptors of the system. There's plenty of reason beyond the current case to object to being subjected to magics that poke at your mind as well. A simple right to privacy or protection from being compelled to testify against yourself would make such methods suspect at best even if they were infallible simply because the caster is -not- infallible.

    Again, because I don't want it to get lost in the shuffle, I'm -not- saying these spells should never be used as part of legal proceedings. I'm saying that they shouldn't be given undue weight when they are.
    Medieval trials were terrible and while D&D settings are varied they are generally dangerous places, so I wouldn't count on having 1st world justice as comparison.
    Testimony against yourself can look bad today, but would you prefer torture or trial by combat ?
    And you shouldn't underestimate the appeal of the argument "innocent people will never been convicted with this system".
    Granted there is the corruption problem, but that's not solved by other systems.
    You say that the caster could lie and condemn the convict. But in a standard trial the judge could still condemn basing on anything. And if they have multiple casters the problem would be greatly reduced.
    Let's take the case in exam. What should the judge do ? It seem like standard homicide. But the PC could ask for the Disguise Lies. If the caster is honest he could get a reduced punishment. If not he gets condemned, but that was a given either way.

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