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2018-04-15, 05:28 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Is it reasonable to use "they were casting a spell" to claim self-defense?
Last edited by SangoProduction; 2018-04-15 at 05:29 PM.
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2018-04-15, 06:01 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Is it reasonable to use "they were casting a spell" to claim self-defense?
There are so-called "Good Samaritan" laws in some places to prevent that sort of thing.
Those sorts of laws might not exist in a medieval setting, so you might be liable for damages caused by your attempt to help the plaintiff.
If you want to play a very cynical, unsympathetic, and depressingly mercenary game, that might be exactly the sort of setting ingredient that would help implicitly influence PC actions.I want you to PEACH me as hard as you can.
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2018-04-15, 06:14 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Is it reasonable to use "they were casting a spell" to claim self-defense?
Why would a fantasy court have a right against self incrimination? The only reason WE have it is to avoid placing a criminal in the “cruel trifecta” in which a guilty person, faced with the possibility of punishment if they testify truthfully or refuse to testify, could endanger their immortal soul by committing perjury thus making the court complicit in their damnation. Since 1. Committing perjury doesn’t seem to matter much in the D&D afterlife and 2. If you could force them to testify truthfully or put them in a position in which their lies would be detected the cruel trifecta doesn’t arrive, there is no good reason why they would enshrine a right against self incrimination.
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2018-04-15, 07:03 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Is it reasonable to use "they were casting a spell" to claim self-defense?
The same is true of presuming it won't be corrupted at all. Corruption -inevitably- creeps into every system. That's why it's important to take measures designed to mitigate and reverse corruption. What -if- the king is corrupt? That's why you have a coalition of court nobles doing what they can to keep his power in check rather than let him have absolute, uncontested reign.
In this case, use the spells but be skeptical of the results and don't just condemn the target outright because he made a save.
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.
Holy crap, no. Language can be used in an objective way but it's nothing approaching objective on the whole, not even close. Just look at the sheer variety of English dialects for an easy example. Colloquialisms, broader idioms, slang; language is -not- objective at all.
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 defendant 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 defendant 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 defendant 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.
You don't base a system on the best-case scenario of everyone involved being entirely on-board and cooperative at every stage of progression. You presume it will be resisted and/ or have a chance of failure at every stage and design it to work in spite of such factors.
As an example to help clarify though; see my previous example of evading. If it's instead the bailiff/judge/whatever asking the rogue involved in the heist, "did you take the jewels from the vault" with the restriction of answering either "yes" or "no" the rogue can -still- answer either "yes" or "no" without lying; "yes," he was part of the group that took the jewels or "no," he did not take the jewels from the vault personally.
Very specific, careful phrasing -can- help to avoid this but it can also confuse the person being questioned and that's not helpful at all.
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.
It could be that they use an entirely testimonial system wherein the most important thing would be the ability to get more people to speak glowingly on his behalf than there are people who are upset about the death of the victim. Obviously, getting word to his party becomes top-priority in that case. It's a whole lot less nuanced and doesn't make much of a discussion though, does it?I am not seaweed. That's a B.
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2018-04-15, 07:14 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Is it reasonable to use "they were casting a spell" to claim self-defense?
It probably would not be an effective defense. The particular laws in effect would certainly matter here, but given the number of spells out there that aren't offensive, I think it would probably take testimony from at least one witness in good standing who was not only there, but capable of the Spellcraft check necessary to identify the spell she was casting. Assuming the rogue is questioned under one of the variety of ways to compel him to speak truthfully, he's probably looking at the local equivalent of manslaughter charges, since he didn't go there intending to kill the prostitute, but still definitely jumped the gun on this. He might have a chance at avoiding prison if she has nearby kin who might accept a blood price, and if the municipality is willing to consider a fine and banishment (either or both possibly mitigated if he's been of service to someone with authority) in lieu of a prison sentence.
If something I've said can be construed in more than one way, there's a better than average chance that I meant it in the least offensive of the options.
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2018-04-15, 07:33 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Is it reasonable to use "they were casting a spell" to claim self-defense?
On the issue of the trial, this is all based on the "innocent until proven guilty" standard. It's more likely to be "guilty until proven innocent." They aren't going to bother to use divinations if they think you're guilty. You are going to use divinations. Or not, if you don't want to.
But the presence of divinations is a flat out boon to the accused, because he's already guilty so divinations cannot hurt him more. The bad news is that the accused is probably going to have to pay for any out of his own pocket. The really bad news is that this is going to be horribly corrupt and anyone wealthy enough is going to find some "respectable" auger to tell the court that yup, the accused opened up his mind and his memories are clean and the spirits said the silver-born man did the dead. Who's the silver-born man? The spirits are vague, but it's obviously not the accused.
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2018-04-15, 08:03 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Is it reasonable to use "they were casting a spell" to claim self-defense?
Casting a spell is not an attack on him. He would need to show (under the modern U.S. law system) a reasonable cause for believing he was threatened.
"She was casting a spell" is not that. But "she was casting a spell and is known to have attacked strangers with magic" might be, if he can demonstrate it.
And there's no reason to believe the courts take a modern approach.
But the truth is that he had no reason to believe he was threatened, and he is in fact a murderer. What he needs is for a cleric friends to show up and raise her at his cost. That might be taken as evidence to indicate that he didn't want her dead, and that the death was an accident.
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2018-04-16, 01:19 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Is it reasonable to use "they were casting a spell" to claim self-defense?
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2018-04-16, 01:39 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Is it reasonable to use "they were casting a spell" to claim self-defense?
first, what is the common perception of magic in the setting? I can very easily see a setting where the only sane response to seeing someone cast a spell is to strike them down for fear of curse or fireball, because those are the only spells that a common person would know about. I have played in campaigns were if an unknown entity started casting, you killed them before they could finish, or you were finished.
you should note that this was an earlier edition with a DM who believed that if you were not a wizard you knew jack about magic and how it worked, end of discussion (clerics did not need to understand anything beyond pray, and get magic, therefore did not).
Still would have skipped town, and never came back to it.the first half of the meaning of life is that there isn't one.
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2018-04-16, 03:06 AM (ISO 8601)
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2018-04-16, 03:15 AM (ISO 8601)
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2018-04-16, 03:43 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Is it reasonable to use "they were casting a spell" to claim self-defense?
we're going through a lot of semantics and crunch here, when the solution to OP's problem lies in the setting.
Places like Cormyr or the aforementioned area in Shining South, "She's a Witch" is enough of a defence to get you off free and clear.
What setting are you in? Which city in that setting? We have grognards of all stripes here, if you can name the city and setting we can tell you exactly how much trouble you're in.
Unless it's the DM's own setting, in which case you're completely at the mercy of *his* idea of justice."You want to see how a Human dies? at ramming speed."
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2018-04-16, 04:18 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Is it reasonable to use "they were casting a spell" to claim self-defense?
The proble is that if one can say "I think that horse means dog" to avoid lying then the spell is useless.
The problem is that the truth of a sentence is a human construct, not a physical reality. But the spell to work require it to be an objective reality.
Is a similar problem to alignment.
Apart from the fact that the jury is a terrible idea (if you want more judges just get more judges, like you should for criminal cases), yes people can have wrong memories, either by nature or magic.
But the truth spells should be used when you have problematic witnesses, not when things are crystal clear. If you can solve the case without truth spells that's good. Otherwise what's your suggestion ? That the judge decides on his own which witnesses are reliable and which aren't ? That's has a problem: the judge can be corrupt !
And if the judge, the caster and everybody else is evil or mind controlled the convict is doomed, but that's not a system specific fault.
I seem to remember that modify memory can be removed, don't know if by dispel magic or remove curse.
All systems can condemn innocents. Can you make an example when somebody gets condemned with truth spells but would have been released without ?
Why do they suspect the rogue of being guilty ? Did they found the jewels on him ? Did they see him fleeing from the vault ?
Also as I said before the spells shouldn't be used for interrogation, but for confirming a version of the facts. The answers should be determinated before so that the convict agrees on them and knows what to say.
So if the rogue says that he was sleeping and he wasn't part of the gang they would ask stuff like:"did you entered in the vault that night ?", "do you know/saw somebody who took the jewels from the vault ?", "have you ever left the inn that night ?". If he can say "No, no, no" the entire accusation would fall flat.
The rogue could even propose some questions.
And if the judge is corrupt ? Than he's doomed either way.
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2018-04-16, 09:26 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Is it reasonable to use "they were casting a spell" to claim self-defense?
Discern lies doesn't detect whether or not the statement is true. It detects whether or not the speaker is lying. It's entirely possible for the subject to say something that is actually true and have discern lies report the statement as a lie, if the subject incorrectly thinks the statement is false.
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2018-04-16, 09:41 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Is it reasonable to use "they were casting a spell" to claim self-defense?
On one side assuming a medieval setting with medieval trials, on the other assuming modern sensibilities. Of course one has to decide where the setting falls. we can't argue for "trial by ordeal because it is a backward society" and "no magic is used because it infringes privacy".
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Ridiculous monsters you won't take seriously even as they disembowel you
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2018-04-16, 11:54 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Is it reasonable to use "they were casting a spell" to claim self-defense?
People can believe false stuff even with objective language, it's a totally different issue.
Now how can someone believe a false statement to be true ?
He can remeber things in a wrong way, or memories could have been altered with magic.
If the former nothing can be done, but I suppose people don't forget easily stuff like "I killed X", "I stole from the bank" and similar. "what color was the car" is something that could be remebered wrongly, but it's also something that shouldn't decide a trial.
If we are talking magic, there are ways around that. A simple dispel magic should work (and you obviously have to dispel the defendant anyway).
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2018-04-16, 04:10 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Is it reasonable to use "they were casting a spell" to claim self-defense?
The way I would do it, in a large city, you make a deal with a lawful god of justice.
Holding criminals in pretrial, have them (or their council) agree with the opposing council on 1-5 short sentences relating to key disputed facts of the trial. Here, they might be
I killed the prostitute
She was casting an unknown spell
I believed I was in danger.
Then, on testimony day, you line up the accused between the guards. 3-5 clerics in a line all cast zone of truth spaced out in a hallway. The prisoners walk forward, stand in a certain spot, and state their sentences. Then move forward to the next zone and do it again. Assuming you can say one sentence per round, and you could put 2 prisoners in a zone 20 feet apart and have the guards and witness clearly hear their testimony, properly organized, you should be able to fact check some 6-10 prisoners per ZoT casting (minimum 30 rounds from level 3 casters). If you can’t say your statements in any zone, you fail. Impose a perjury penalty for failure.
Even someone with a good save might be cautious about trying 5 consecutive Will saves. Make sure the high priest sometimes does a rotation and everyone knows it.
Is it absolutely foolproof? No. No evidence is. But it’s likely to be more reliable than eyewitness testimony or fingerprints or a lot of other evidence we use. You could even take the experience of the casting clerics into account when weighing the ZoT evidence, like we would with experts.
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2018-04-16, 04:26 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Is it reasonable to use "they were casting a spell" to claim self-defense?
Zone of Truth is a mind-affecting compulsion enchantment. So immunity to it is only slightly less common than air, and frankly trying to be immune to it isn’t even suspicious (since it’s in the same category as Mindrape and Dominate Person).
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2018-04-16, 05:02 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Is it reasonable to use "they were casting a spell" to claim self-defense?
Detect magic is a 0 level cantrip. You are a prisoner, deprived of your gear and components and ordered not to buff yourself beforehand. And if it is known or suspected that you are a very high level caster further precautions can be taken. That’s like the difference between how we convict an armed robber at a 7-11 and how we convict an enemy spy. Yeah, a high level caster can likely beat the system. But a high level caster committed the murder from half a continent away and sure never got apprehended by the city watch.
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2018-04-16, 05:28 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Is it reasonable to use "they were casting a spell" to claim self-defense?
Why? You're guilty, otherwise you wouldn't be a prisoner. It's up to you to prove your innocence. If you are innocent, you should be chomping at the bit to have your mind read and escape the ax. That you aren't is just further proof of your guilt. We're telling the headsman not to be too concerned with the sharpness of his instrument.
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2018-04-16, 06:10 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Is it reasonable to use "they were casting a spell" to claim self-defense?
Halruaa in the Shining South is a magocracy - all the people holding real political power, are mages.
Which is probably why they recognise wands as potentially deadly weapons, and "pointing a wand" as something reasonable to treat as a deadly threat - they know exactly how dangerous magic can be - because that's the kingdom's speciality.Marut-2 Avatar by Serpentine
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2018-04-16, 06:55 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Is it reasonable to use "they were casting a spell" to claim self-defense?
It depends. (duh)
Legal systems in the real world vary wildly in manner of trial, manner of punishment, what crime it would be (or if), or even if charges could be brought.
Ancient China? Convictions are acceptable only with confession, but you can use torture to extract confessions. Ancient Athens? Only a family member of the woman could bring charges. Modern New York? Almost certainly one would be looking at prosecution for murder (but rape charges explicitly don't apply against prostitutes.) Modern Texas? I doubt one would even be taken to the police station.
What are the local laws concerning spell casters? Hell it's possibly that not only is the rogue not in trouble but the local wizards guild owes him the bounty on unlicensed spell-casters.
What are the laws governing self defense?
What do trials look like? There is no particular need for them to make much sense by our standards. (All defendants regardless of crime must answer the riddles of a Sphinx, those who fail get eaten, those who walk out, are cleared of charges.)
Too many what ifs, just a bunch of things for the GM to think about.
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2018-04-16, 08:29 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Is it reasonable to use "they were casting a spell" to claim self-defense?
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2018-04-16, 08:36 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Is it reasonable to use "they were casting a spell" to claim self-defense?
They can't just say they think that. They have to actually think it. That's the difference. The spell, as InvisibleBison points out, doesn't tell you what the actual truth of the matter is. That's not it's purpose. It tells you only whether or not the target is lying. Telling the truth in a misleading way isn't lying. It's certainly deception and a pretty basic misinformation technique but it's -not- speaking a false statement.
The problem is that the truth of a sentence is a human construct, not a physical reality. But the spell to work require it to be an objective reality
Apart from the fact that the jury is a terrible idea (if you want more judges just get more judges, like you should for criminal cases), yes people can have wrong memories, either by nature or magic.
But the truth spells should be used when you have problematic witnesses, not when things are crystal clear. If you can solve the case without truth spells that's good. Otherwise what's your suggestion ? That the judge decides on his own which witnesses are reliable and which aren't ? That's has a problem: the judge can be corrupt !
And if the judge, the caster and everybody else is evil or mind controlled the convict is doomed, but that's not a system specific fault.
Simplicity is vicerally satisfying but rarely is it properly thorough when errors can destroy people. If your system demands everyone in it behave properly to function, it won't function very often if it functions at all.
I seem to remember that modify memory can be removed, don't know if by dispel magic or remove curse.
All systems can condemn innocents. Can you make an example when somebody gets condemned with truth spells but would have been released without ?
In fact, the drinking buddy was actually a spy from a neighboring nation and was assassinated because he got made but this, being a matter of national security, never reaches the ears of anyone who doesn't need to know, including any investigators or the judge.
The drunk is hanged for a murder that he didn't commit.
Without the compulsive magic, maybe a few more questions get asked about how and why he killed his friend but "he said he did it and the judge's magic said it was the truth" so they wrapped it up and moved on.
Why do they suspect the rogue of being guilty ? Did they found the jewels on him ? Did they see him fleeing from the vault ?
Also as I said before the spells shouldn't be used for interrogation, but for confirming a version of the facts. The answers should be determinated before so that the convict agrees on them and knows what to say.
So if the rogue says that he was sleeping and he wasn't part of the gang they would ask stuff like:"did you entered in the vault that night ?", "do you know/saw somebody who took the jewels from the vault ?", "have you ever left the inn that night ?". If he can say "No, no, no" the entire accusation would fall flat.
The rogue could even propose some questions.
And if the judge is corrupt ? Than he's doomed either way.I am not seaweed. That's a B.
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2018-04-16, 08:42 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Is it reasonable to use "they were casting a spell" to claim self-defense?
"Mmm, indeed. The average commoner is assuredly Vile, often deformed, and you can't ever count on one for rational thought." -- a noble, probably
But seriously, "mundane people" generally doesn't mean constructs or undead, and Sculpt Self is a Dragon Mag custom-race subsystem -- anyone using that is creating a unique life-form, and it would be a bit of a stretch to call the lifeform "mundane".
Plus the guy with Deformity: Madness might be summarily ruled insane, and hauled off to a madhouse without any chance at a criminal trial.
Vile feats are explicitly supernatural, and represent non-mundane corruption.
tl;dr - If you give them "basic things" like very advanced non-basic things, then sure. But those things are non-basic.I want you to PEACH me as hard as you can.
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2018-04-16, 08:48 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Is it reasonable to use "they were casting a spell" to claim self-defense?
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2018-04-16, 08:58 PM (ISO 8601)
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2018-04-16, 09:11 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Is it reasonable to use "they were casting a spell" to claim self-defense?
The pulling a weapon analogy is off here - what's going on is more someone pulling an unknown object out of a bag large enough to contain a weapon. Officially even most medieval societies wouldn't consider this a reasonable case of self defense in the abstract, let alone most modern societies.
The specific case is a different matter. If the murderer is the right sort of person, and the victim the right sort of person, the defense needed can be incredibly minimal or absolutely ridiculous, ranging from cases along the lines of "while I was in this heavy vehicle, this totally unarmed person outside was walking a little close, I felt threatened, and I shot them" being taken as valid and "this squad of heavily armed people kicked down my door in the middle of the night, and swarmed in with weapons while I was sleeping" not being taken as valid.
If the specific situation here is closer to the former case, the PC is probably fine. If it's closer to the latter, or even fairly neutral, they're likely hosed. As for where it falls on that line, that's incredibly setting specific, and depends mostly on how out of town strangers, known adventurers, high class prostitutes*, and mages are treated. We know it's a large trading city, which at least implies some minimum standard for out of town strangers, though there's still plenty of room for it to be relatively low (if not at the levels that can be hit in insular communities). Most of the rest is up in the air.
*This is an assumption, but the description given of a highly socially competent mid level character who is also a mage points to it.
Under this line of reasoning there are several real world societies that you'd expect to not care about murder, some modern, more historical, all convinced that the afterlife is proven to exist by their standards of proof. Yet they're all hostile to murder in law, and to murder of at least some people by at least some other people in practice.I would really like to see a game made by Obryn, Kurald Galain, and Knaight from these forums.
I'm not joking one bit. I would buy the hell out of that. -- ChubbyRain
Current Design Project: Legacy, a game of masters and apprentices for two players and a GM.
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2018-04-17, 02:33 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Is it reasonable to use "they were casting a spell" to claim self-defense?
The spell tells you objetively if the target is lying. The point is not what the reality of the matter is, the point is that the target can't say something he knows it's false.
Unless (and that's the problem of objective language) he can choose to intend the words with a different meaning. "Did you lefet the inn that night ?" and he says "No" because he intend the inn as the entire city, even if he knows perfectly what the judge intended.
But if that's the case the spell it's useless.
If a witness doesn't want to be confirmed by magic that would rise a lot of questions and reduce the value of what he says. But what I was talking about was still using magic to interrogate the defendant, if the situation is unclear, which generally happens when there are no witnesses or they are unreliable.
"Mr Rogue, given that the only witness is you friend and he refuse to submit to discern lies, you are going to confirm your version under the spell. Otherwise I will consider you guilty."
Also "having their mind forcibly opened up and pried" is quite an exaggeration, it doesn't do anyhting of the sort. The caster can't read the thoughts of the target.
If you fear the judge can be corrupt what's your solution ? It seems to me that is to have more judges.
So the simple solution here is to have more casters.
The others being ?
If he confess to have killed his friend while drunk the obvious thought would be that it's not strange that he doesn't remember exactly how he did it.
The guy would be condemned with any system. Seriously what would be your defense line ? "He obviously didn't do it because he doesn't remember how he did it ? Yes, he was drunk, admitted the fact, had reason to do it and there are no other suspects, but those are details..."
Well, it doesn't seem to be the case here, or can you explain how the rogue is going to spin the truth with the questions that I provided (the second one is supposed to be two different questions with the difference signaled by the /). And notice that a real trial would involve dozens or hundreds of very specific questions.
I also have to notice that the case in the OP would actually be solved easily, while the one with the drunken guy falsely accused would end with a giulty verdict under any system.
So on 3 cases we have 2 that can be solved with magic, while one can't be solved either way. I must say that the obvious flaws of the system are not so obvious.
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2018-04-17, 10:54 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Is it reasonable to use "they were casting a spell" to claim self-defense?
This thread led me to a thought. The assumed thought that the penalty for a crime is jail.
Why are jails a thing in D&D worlds? They are either trivially easy to get out of for mid-level characters, or must cost so much to construct that one wonders how they could be worth the investment. Furthermore they are an obvious hazard to the city, a large group of people trapped in a small chambers, usually in darkness, and unarmed? It's the ideal growth medium for self-replicating undead. A single Ghoul or Shadow gets into the Bastille and Paris falls by the next day. They are also a tempting target for any number of races or beings from Vampires to Mind Flayers to Drow Slavers. And countering these external threats as well as the internal ones would make jails expensive to operate.
There are probably societies where some of these traits are mitigated or even desirable, but in general most D&D societies would (IMHO) find jails to be a poor solution. Holding cells while awaiting trial? Sure. A drunk tank? Sure. Dungeons? Sure. But mass incarceration is a poor choice I think.
So what do they do with criminals instead?
Exile
Banishment
Slavery
Corporal Punishment
Fines
Branding/Magical Marking
Geas
Work Gangs
Curse/Hex
Banish to another plane
Polymorph Other
Execution
Feed to the Monster
Execute/Raise
Execute/Raise/Execute/etc...
Execute/Turned to mindless undead
Conscription
Heal (Cures all mental problems)
I mean, in a D&D world you could torture someone to death, make them pay for their own raise dead, and then say "Don't do it again." But the only thing they could come up with was jail?Last edited by Andor13; 2018-04-17 at 10:56 AM.