A question about Magic and Law enforcement interacting

[Mordane76]

I'm preparing for a storyline in my campaign where one of the characters' father has been incarcerated for treason. His father was up to this point a loyal vassal and a landed noble, but now his lands have been stripped and he has been thrown into the dungeon pending execution.

Now - as one of the laws of the country his father is in, his son has the right to challenge the ruling. I haven't spoken with the player as to what this actually means, but I think he thinks it means he can 'throw down the gauntlet' so to speak against the person who accused his father of treason, and challenge him to a duel. This is not what I actually mean, so I know I need to clarify my meaning to the player, which I will.

By challenge the ruling, I mean the character will be given a reasonable length of time to uncover evidence clearing his father if any such evidence exists. He will be provided with the evidence given against his father, and if he cannot find anything in the time period allotted that proves his father's innocence, the ruling will stand and his father will be executed.


Now - here's the core of my problem. In a world where a 2nd level cleric spell can force someone to tell the truth, or a 5th level wizard spell can completely dominate the will of an individual, and the only option in the area of the zone of truth spell is to either resist it or refuse to answer (which more or less equates to lying because you can't answer the question truthfully), why is there a need for trials?

My current idea is that the nation has a law about the use of such divinations that states as follows: "If there exists physical evidence collaborating the commission of the crime in question, and that evidence passes criteria for authenticity, there is no need to expend the resources of the nation on superfluous divinations. Such divinations will only be used in the event that no physical evidence can be obtained or the validity of such physical evidence is questionable. Spellcasters used for such purposes must pass certain security criteria before the findings of their divinations are accepted as evidence."

Does this seem unrealistic or unbelievable? Does this smack of me being a Rat Bastard DM by forcing the characters to utilize detective skills instead of wrapping up the story with a dandy divination or by beating up the guy who pointed the finger at the character's father?

Or am I being uncreative by thwarting the usage of these spells to handle this storyline? While I expect some people will not like my idea on how to handle this, if you don't like it, tell me what you would do differently so that this storyline isn't over in five minutes instead of taking a session or two and providing a number of hooks for future stories.

 

[shilsen]

Does this seem unrealistic or unbelievable? Does this smack of me being a Rat Bastard DM by forcing the characters to utilize detective skills instead of wrapping up the story with a dandy divination or by beating up the guy who pointed the finger at the character's father?

No, it doesn't. There are a number of reasons why your approach works. Most divinations, especially low-level ones, are very unreliable.

Detect Evil can detect a neutral character as evil. Zone of Truth prevents the speaking of "deliberate and intentional" lies. So people can lie through their teeth as long as they don't realize they're doing so. Get a witness at a murder, who happens to mistakenly (in the heat of the moment) believe that he recognized someone as the murderer. He can fail his save against a Zone of Truth and positively identify the innocent person he thought he saw and the spell won't detect anything wrong, because in his error the witness believes he's saying the truth.

And then there's the whole issue that with many divinations, only the caster can see the results. Only the caster of Detect Evil or Detect Thoughts knows what he saw, so if he is unreliable, then so is the magic.

And on top of that there are dozens of ways to fool magical divination, ranging from the mundane (disguises, misinformation) to the magical. All in all, a court in a world where magic works and is available as per the core rulebooks is likely to treat magic a lot like a polygraph machine - potentially useful in investigation but inadmissible in a court of law.

So, in short, I think your approach works fine. If you want to post a little more about what you intend to actually be going on behind the scenes, I'm sure a lot of people here can help you with ideas about how that should intersect with existing magic.

 

[Felix]

One reason those spells might not be utilized is for the law to provide that while magic may be used to gather physical, circumstancial and eye-witness evidence, magic itself is not allowed to produce evidence. So confession under magical compulsion is inadmissable because the court cannot know what kind of compulsion the witness was under. You may use scrying magic to find people to subpoena them, divination magic to find the truth, but be left with mundane ways to prove it, or use Charm spells to force witnesses to give you leads (but not testimony).

This is reversed in a Magocracy where magic means used by the court would be the only evidence allowed.

But if the government and the court system is mundane, then they should have a healthy fear of magic being used to dupe the system. So nothing produced directly by magic is admissable.

 

[LordMelquiades]

Nah, you go for it. Magic potentially gives an easy way out, and who wants that? It's always struck me that while magic can be used to facilitate the examination of justice, it can also be used to conceal the truth. For example, if the character relaying testimony in a zone of truth has been charmed to believe a falsehood is the truth, then the zone is ineffective.

If you want much more on the subject, this is a good resource:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1589780396/104-2203053-3239113?v=glance&n=283155

 

[Mordane76]

I hadn't stopped to consider the interactions of Enchantment - those are good points all around, given the potential for misuse and cover-ups, coercion...

I've already planned out a lot of the physical evidence and investigation, I just needed to make sure I wasn't stepping into a bad place by limiting divinations. I have a Wiz6 and a Clr6 in the party, both who could sling a slew of divinations in my direction that could potentially blow my story apart. So, I can let them use the spells to discover information, but they'll need hard evidence to back it up.

So the law should read on to say - "All evidence glean through divination must be further collaborated by physical evidence to be deemed admissable before a magistrate."


Thanks, guys!

 

[Crust]

It really depends on the power level of magic in the campaign, what NPCs are available, and what opposition stands against them. If it's a small village, then perhaps there's no one in the village that can cast any of those spells, so it's a moot point.

If it's a larger city, I would expect that all trials would involve a paladin and a cleric making copious use of truth telling spells and evil detection magic. It's a must when a larger population allows for things like evil wizards, clerics of dark gods, dopplegangers, mind flayers, liches, demons, devils, etc. with their hooks in the city.

It would depend on the deity. If the population has any clerics worshipping gods of law or justice, I would expect those clerics to insist they use their spells to find the facts, to cleanse the matter of all possible ignorance in pursuit of the unblemished truth. If it's available, it should be used... Unless the government of that population wants to cover things up.

 

[Agent Oracle]

Now - here's the core of my problem. In a world where a 2nd level cleric spell can force someone to tell the truth, or a 5th level wizard spell can completely dominate the will of an individual, and the only option in the area of the zone of truth spell is to either resist it or refuse to answer (which more or less equates to lying because you can't answer the question truthfully), why is there a need for trials?

Easy answer? Will saves. ZoT is a low-level clerical spell, and has a low saving throw to overcome. (10 + 2 (spell level) + x (Clerics Wisdom modifier)) if your typical NPC cleric casts it, with the elete array, then the saving throw is 14, even a 1st level commoner with a +0 save and wisdom as his dump stat could lie through a Z0T 25% of the time. Not good for law enforcement.

Furthermore, resisting a ZoT is not a physical endeavor, it's a mental one, which requires less effort, and no visible "tell" that he's resisted.

Conversely, a stronger Bard or Wizard could hit someone with a "Dominate Person" spell and make a man go up on the stand and proclaim HIS guilt in place of any of a number of other people.

 

[shilsen]

One thing I forgot to mention - if you can get hold of the Eberron book "Sharn: City of Towers", it has a chapter on Law and Order and some pretty good rules for the role of magic therein.

 

[Wolv0rine]

My only question/concern would be if you've stopperd to consider that you're approaching this legality issue from a too modern PoV.
That suggested law you threw out off the top of your head (or so it seemed) sounded like you were trying to word it in modern layman's legalese, with (while I'm no expert, I haven't researched it yet) I'm fairly sure the law in such times (not even taking into account the fantasy aspect) wasn't quite so much complex If/Then statements and interwoven ironclads as much as proclamations of what is and isn't allowed.
Anyone else more knowlegable on this than I am?

Of course if you want to do it that way, it's your game. But since you asked.

 

[evilgamer13]

conspiracy

I do like the backround checks for truth seers but I would think that clarics of the state religion would act as truth seers for the courts (being men of god and therefor above suspition). But what if it this case the clergymen were duplisitus of aiding in the commition of purgery. Perhaps this truth seer is just s sleze but it would be so much more interesting if the church it's self had something important enugh at stake to order one of the judishal clarics to help in a frame up. Was a bishop bribed? Does the acusor have an artifact in his posetion that the church desperately needs? Was the father somehow a danger to the souls of his serfs?