Speak with Dead spell / revellation in PFS

[Flames of Chaos]

I don't know where else to post this, so here goes:

I've been playing an Oracle with the Bones mystery since level 1, and upon hitting level 3 I took "Voice of the Grave" as my character is a devout follower of Pharasma and didn't want to take "Undead Servitude" or "Animate Dead". I have now played for 4 sessions with this character since hitting level 3, and in several places where following the RAW for "Voice of the Grave"/"Speak with Dead", I should in theory have been able to ask a question or two of a fallen NPC/enemy.

Unfortunately my DM has yet to be able to let me do so - not because he doesn't want to, but because the flippin module literally gives no indication of what the NPC in life would have said/done.

Speadk with Dead:
School necromancy [language-dependent]; Level cleric 3

Casting Time 10 minutes

Components V, S, DF

Range 10 ft.

Target one dead creature

Duration 1 min./level

Saving Throw Will negates; see text; Spell Resistance no

You grant the semblance of life to a corpse, allowing it to answer questions. You may ask one question per two caster levels. The corpse's knowledge is limited to what it knew during life, including the languages it spoke. Answers are brief, cryptic, or repetitive, especially if the creature would have opposed you in life.

If the dead creature's alignment was different from yours, the corpse gets a Will save to resist the spell as if it were alive. If successful, the corpse can refuse to answer your questions or attempt to deceive you, using Bluff. The soul can only speak about what it knew in life. It cannot answer any questions that pertain to events that occurred after its death.

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 affect a corpse that has been turned into an undead creature.

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This in effect means I will never be able to use this revelation, nor will any spell caster with access to the Speak with Dead spell ever be able to use it, at least given the situation I faced tonight and in the past. If you would like specific circumstances, I would be happy to list them out as I am trying to avoid spoilers at the moment.

Thank you and please help!

[Starglim]

The spell is legal for play and should work as written. My Pharasmin priest has used it several times, and worse (he can now cast legend lore). The scenario generally won't tell the GM what the corpse knows, so the GM will have to work from her general knowledge of the situation. It seems unusual that she could give you nothing unless there is a specific note in the scenario that the spell won't get a response.

If the corpse, in life, was of the same alignment or it might expect the caster to take revenge on its killers, give it proper burial or otherwise further its interests, it might answer freely. If it would have been hostile to the caster in life, it will try the saving throw.

Some factors can prevent the spell working (such as the corpse being too badly damaged or previously raised as undead), as you quoted. "I don't know" is a valid answer to a question.

[Nefreet]

Flames of Chaos wrote:

Unfortunately my DM has yet to be able to let me do so - not because he doesn't want to, but because the flippin module literally gives no indication of what the NPC in life would have said/done.

We can't speak to your GM's responses, since we weren't there and don't know the details, but speak with dead and your Oracle Revelation are both legal. As with any character option, it might not always be useful.

It sounds to me that the two possibilities are:
1) you've had bad luck during a small sample size of scenarios, or
2) the GM didn't know the background or lore thoroughly enough to give you an adequate response.

I would probably lean more towards #1 myself. Some scenarios go so far as to even specifically provide answers to speak with dead, so it does come up occasionally.

[Flames of Chaos]

Nefreet wrote:

Flames of Chaos wrote:

Unfortunately my DM has yet to be able to let me do so - not because he doesn't want to, but because the flippin module literally gives no indication of what the NPC in life would have said/done.

We can't speak to your GM's responses, since we weren't there and don't know the details, but speak with dead and your Oracle Revelation are both legal. As with any character option, it might not always be useful.

It sounds to me that the two possibilities are:
1) you've had bad luck during a small sample size of scenarios, or
2) the GM didn't know the background or lore thoroughly enough to give you an adequate response.

I would probably lean more towards #1 myself. Some scenarios go so far as to even specifically provide answers to speak with dead, so it does come up occasionally.

It may be that I've just gotten a sucky case of scenarios due to sample size; I'm not sure. The first time I tried it was on an Aspice Consortium-hired mook we as a party just killed. The response from the DM didn't say "don't know", they said "there's no info for me to give you from the scenario." He's a 5-star venture captain, so he's been playing some time. Maybe I just need to be playing the right scenario, but that seems like poor planning from a scenario situation if you can only use the stuff so often.

[Pirate Rob]

Whenever I've cast Legend Lore which is probably under a dozen times the GM has been estatic to regail me with a plethora of background information on the scenario that qould otherwise be difficult to convey.

I'm sad that you are not getting a similiar response.

[Nefreet]

Same when my Necromancer gains control of an ancient, intelligent undead.

Usually there's just no way to acquire that sort of knowledge any other way.

[Philippe Lam]

The spell has a more limited use because there is no way for the caster to force the corpse to tell the truth. NPCs having the useful info often have big will saves, and underlings are unlikely to have that info.

Nor the ability nor the spell comes often so don't expect a GM or a scenario to plan for this (even if the GM should improvise without too much difficulty)