Does Speak with Dead compel an honest answer?

[Pielorinho]

We're desperately trying to prove an evil conspiracy in our game, and one of our main pieces of evidence is the corpse of one of the conspirators. Under a Charm-influenced interrogation, he confessed to being in the conspiracy and told us who his superiors and inferiors were, but the confession, due to a magical oath he'd taken, killed him.

The city guards are willing to interrogate the corpse with Speak with Dead, but obviously his corpse isn't going to be happy about giving up his allies, especially without the influence of a Charm spell (which doesn't work on corpses, anyway).

The corpse may resist the spell by succeeding on a will save; my question is whether a failed Will save compels it to answer questions honestly. If not, is there any way we can compel honest answers from it?

Text of spell:

You grant the semblance of life and intellect to a corpse, allowing it to answer several questions that you put to it. You may ask one question per two caster levels. Unasked questions are wasted if the duration expires. The corpse’s knowledge is limited to what the creature knew during life, including the languages it spoke (if any). Answers are usually brief, cryptic, or repetitive. If the creature’s alignment was different from yours, the corpse gets a Will save to resist the spell as if it were alive.
If the corpse has been subject to speak with dead within the past week, the new spell fails. You can cast this spell on a corpse that has been deceased for any amount of time, but the body must be mostly intact to be able to respond. A damaged corpse may be able to give partial answers or partially correct answers, but it must at least have a mouth in order to speak at all.

This spell does not let you actually speak to the person (whose soul has departed). It instead draws on the imprinted knowledge stored in the corpse. The partially animated body retains the imprint of the soul that once inhabited it, and thus it can speak with all the knowledge that the creature had while alive. The corpse, however, cannot learn new information.

Indeed, it can’t even remember being questioned.

Daniel

 

[RangerWickett]

My reading is that, since there's no actual soul in the body, it has no motivation to lie. You simply ask it a question, and it tells you the answer to the best of its knowledge.

 

[Ambrus]

Once the corpse fails it's saving throw, it is compeled to answer the questions asked of it truthfully, though perhaps cryptically, within the limits of what it knew in life. Although the spell grants a corpse a "semblance of life and intellect" it isn't truly alive anymore and it can't seek to outwit foes or formulate lies in an attempt to deceive the caster, nor can it refuse to answer questions; it has no independant will anymore. It's also not going to be unhappy "about giving up his allies" since the body itself doesn't care about it's former allies anymore; it's just a dead corpse not the actual person it once was. It's soul has already moved on to its afterlife (probably in a lower plane somewhere). The proof that the corpse is lacking it's soul is that it can't answer questions about the afterlife, only about what it knew while alive.

The lights are on, but no one is home.

 

[werk]

This spell does not let you actually speak to the person (whose soul has departed). It instead draws on the imprinted knowledge stored in the corpse. The partially animated body retains the imprint of the soul that once inhabited it, and thus it can speak with all the knowledge that the creature had while alive.

Sounds like you are pulling the desired info out of the dead brain. I would rule it can not lie directly unless that is also part of the spell that killed him. The desires of the dead person do not matter as you are just dealing with the body, not the soul.

I'm thinking of it as data recovery. The user doesn't want you to know what's on the hard drive. The user's owner doesn't want you to know what's on the hard drive, so he destroyed the user and user's computer...but you have the hard drive. It doesn't matter what the user or boss wants, you can read anythng you want off of the drive given the right tools.

I thought the line was weird about having a partial body gets partial answers or partially correct answers...don't know what they are trying to do there. So if a rat chews off his pinky finger, the corpse can start lying/withholding information?

 

[Nareau]

I'm the DM in this situation.

Interesting. I had never interpreted the spell as compelilng truthfulness. I can see where you're going with it, though.

The Will save actually makes me thing the corpse *does* have a will. It's essentially trying to resist being interrogated. And the "cryptic" thing makes me think that the corpse is capable of confounding the information given. And the phrase "allowing it to answer several questions..." makes me think it doesn't have to say anthing. Otherwise, wouldn't the authors have said "forcing it to answer several questions..." ?

Oh, and another question: If the corpse makes the save, I'm assuming he's not considered the corpse has NOT been "subject[ed] to speak with dead". Is that right?

I'll go with whatever the majority says on here.

Spider

 

[the Jester]

Spider, as a dm I ran into this issue a while back. Eventually, I ruled that the spell compels honesty but not straight answers. It just seemed like too useless a spell otherwise. If you do rule that it doesn't compel honesty, might you consider a Greater Speak With Dead that does compel honest answers?

 

[ThirdWizard]

It tells the truth...

Whether the PCs can interpriet the cryptic words, though, to understand what its saying is another story all-together.

 

[Voadam]

I'm the DM in this situation.

Interesting. I had never interpreted the spell as compelilng truthfulness. I can see where you're going with it, though.

The Will save actually makes me thing the corpse *does* have a will. It's essentially trying to resist being interrogated. And the "cryptic" thing makes me think that the corpse is capable of confounding the information given. And the phrase "allowing it to answer several questions..." makes me think it doesn't have to say anthing. Otherwise, wouldn't the authors have said "forcing it to answer several questions..." ?

Oh, and another question: If the corpse makes the save, I'm assuming he's not considered the corpse has NOT been "subject[ed] to speak with dead". Is that right?

I'll go with whatever the majority says on here.

Spider

The will save is not optional, it is a reflex from the difference in alignment. The soul imprint is not aware of anything current, it does not know if the caster is a friend or foe or even that it is answering questions, the spell only draws from the knowledge the character knew while alive.

 

[RigaMortus2]

And the phrase "allowing it to answer several questions..." makes me think it doesn't have to say anthing. Otherwise, wouldn't the authors have said "forcing it to answer several questions..." ?
Spider

All this means is, it enabled the corpse to answer the question, as they normally do not answer questions (w/o magical help).

 

[Liquidsabre]

The corpse will speak exactly what it knows if asked, but it's whether the information the corpse had is believable and accurate (i.e. if the corpse, while living, was mistaken or deceived about their knowledge) that you have to worry about.

You might happen to ask a corpse-moron, who thought the next city was but a few miles away, when in fact the city is many leagues distant.