D&D 5E Glibness vs. Angel's Divine Awareness

[Gwarok]

Some Angels have Divine Awareness that says they know if they hear a lie. Glibness says it's magic makes whatever you say magic that determines if you are speaking the truth indicates you are being truthful. Who wins? I mean it is "divine awareness", so that does seem to root for the side of the angels, literally, but Glibness is an 8th level spell, near the top of the "world shaking" 6th-9th classification.

These two effects coming up against each other is a strong possibility in my campaign soon. I'd like to sharpen a few arguments to quell any outraged PC's

 

[Quickleaf]

Some Angels have Divine Awareness that says they know if they hear a lie. Glibness says it's magic makes whatever you say magic that determines if you are speaking the truth indicates you are being truthful. Who wins? I mean it is "divine awareness", so that does seem to root for the side of the angels, literally, but Glibness is an 8th level spell, near the top of the "world shaking" 6th-9th classification.

These two effects coming up against each other is a strong possibility in my campaign soon. I'd like to sharpen a few arguments to quell any outraged PC's

[section]Glibness (spell): Until the spell ends, when you make a Charisma check, you can replace the number you roll with a 15. Additionally, no matter what you say, magic that would determine if you are telling the truth indicates that you are being truthful.[/section]

[section]Divine Awareness (monster trait): The planetar knows if it hears a lie.[/section]

Unless otherwise stated, monster traits don't normally count as magic, so I'd rule Divine Awareness beats glibness every time.

 

[schnee]

Some Angels have Divine Awareness that says they know if they hear a lie. Glibness says it's magic makes whatever you say magic that determines if you are speaking the truth indicates you are being truthful. Who wins? I mean it is "divine awareness", so that does seem to root for the side of the angels, literally, but Glibness is an 8th level spell, near the top of the "world shaking" 6th-9th classification.

These two effects coming up against each other is a strong possibility in my campaign soon. I'd like to sharpen a few arguments to quell any outraged PC's

1) Specific trumps general: The Planetar's ability gives no DC to resist, no mention of Advantage or Disadvantage, no percent chance of it not working. It's very, very specific and final. Since 'Specific beats general', and the Glibness spell is more general than this single creature's ability, I'd say it gets beaten.

2) Flavor: The flavor of this thing - the 'tangible representation of their deities' might' - means it has the weight of a god directly behind it, which IMO trumps even the most powerful mortal spellcasting.

3) Rules lawyer: Backing up Quickleaf: the Planetar's ability says nothing about it being magic. D&D is very specific about code words like Spell, Attack, etcetera.

4) Passive-aggressively avoid the argument: If you're conflict-avoidant, then say since the Planetar is CR16, highly Magic Resistant, immortal, and has that detect lies ability, it gets a save to resist. Then just roll behind the DM screen and ignore it.

 

[Harzel]

Unless otherwise stated, monster traits don't normally count as magic, so I'd rule Divine Awareness beats glibness every time.

I think this is the best argument.

 

[Savage Wombat]

I dunno - I read it the opposite way. The purpose of the Glibness ability is "fool people who have the ability to detect lies" - the angel qualifies as a person with the ability to detect lies.

If this were 3rd edition, or another rules-picky system, it would have to say something specific like "The Angel automatically succeeds at any Insight roll to detect lies" or something for true rules-arguing.

 

[AntiStateQuixote]

I dunno - I read it the opposite way. The purpose of the Glibness ability is "fool people who have the ability to detect lies" - the angel qualifies as a person with the ability to detect lies.

This. Also ... it's an 8th level spell. It should be really powerful. It will be used 1/day at most. Let the players' toys work.

That'd be my ruling.

 

[Gwarok]

And now we get into the more hairy aspects of the situation. The player character who will be using the glibness, intends to deceive without actually lying. Lying is the basest form of deception, literally misrepresenting the truth by speaking falsehood, but proper deceptions are done without lying so much as leading your mark into following their natural inclinations and beliefs and ignoring the holes in your story, which is what my PC will likely do, and using the glibness to make people forget or ignore the parts of his argument that he is omitting seems right up that ally. Does the angel Divine Awareness cover all deception, or just outright lies?

 

[jaelis]

A lot of this is up to the dm. But obviously, the book says it just applies to lies. Misdirection and omission are not lies.

 

[Yunru]

Considering that you can misdirect and omit under a Zone of Truth, I'd say that it doesn't count as lying, so doesn't trigger an Angel's Divine Awareness.

 

[Savage Wombat]

Yeah, let the player misdirect all he wants.

As I think on it, you might make a note of whether a lawful angel is more likely to be fooled on a technicality than a chaotic one.