5-22 Scars of the Third Crusade


GM Discussion

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3/5

N N 959 wrote:
Alone, ZoT is actually 100% worthless.

100% worthless would mean it gives you no information at all, you're confusing "Not 100% reliable" with "0% reliable", they aren't the same thing.

Suppose Bob was stabbed to death. I ask you outside a ZoT if you stabbed Bob and demand a yes or no answer. You say "No." I know either you're lying or telling the truth. Suppose the odds you're lying are X. The odds you're telling the truth are 1-X.

Now I cast ZoT and ask you again. You might fail your save and say "I refuse to answer", "I don't know, after all I could be in the Matrix", "What do we really mean by 'stab' anyway?" I have you. Zone of Truth was just incredibly useful.

You might pass your save and say "No." I now know there are two possibilities. You're telling the truth or you *both passed your save and lied*. The odds you passed your save are Y. The odds that you're guilty have gone from X to the lower number X*Y. I know Y is a number between .05 and .95, so I know X*Y is lower than X. My confidence in your answer should increase if you maintain your story in a ZoT, even if I don't have certainty. If my save DC is 13, my confidence doesn't go up much, if my save DC is 33 my confidence goes up alot.

Knowledge doesn't require certainty. The guy who confesses could be lying, the guy who fails his save could be mistaken, we could all be in the Matrix, all we get are probabilities. ZoT makes those probabilities more reliable.

3/5

Given the rule quoted above about what you know about your target's save results, charm person may be a better interrogation spell.

It should be well within the limits of the spell to get a creature to confide honestly in his "trusted friend and ally". You know if he's failed and he has the option to voluntarily fail which the court can compel him to do on pain of contempt/conviction/whatever.

Grand Lodge 4/5 **** Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento

DM Beckett wrote:
N N 959 wrote:

The PRD says this on Saving Throws:

PRD wrote:
Likewise, if a creature's saving throw succeeds against a targeted spell, you sense that the spell has failed. You do not sense when creatures succeed on saves against effect and area spells.

So per RAW, no one knows if ZoT works on someone or not since ZoT is an Area spell, and not a target spell. Also, a person makes one saving throw when they enter the area, and that's it.

Alone, ZoT is actually 100% worthless. If you do not know that someone is under the spell, then you have no way to know if what they tell you is a truth or a lie by virtue of the spell. That's why you'd need Detect Magic in conjunction with ZoT to know if someone is affected by the spell.

Detect Magic also is used to determine if people have cast what they say they are casting.

Detect Magic, (unless you are talking about someone observing from outside while it is being cast) will not help. Detect Magic will show that the caster is casting a spell, and will also show that there is magic in the area, but because it's an area affect, the entire area will detect as magic, not any individuals, regardless if they made their save or not. If you are one of the individuals inside the area, even if you failed your save, you automatically know about the Zone of Truth, and how they can lie without lying or avoid answering all thy want.

K: Arcana wrote:


Identify a spell effect that is in place Arcana 20 + spell level
Identify a spell that just targeted you Arcana 25 + spell level
Detect Magic wrote:


3rd Round: The strength and location of each aura. If the items
or creatures bearing the auras are in line of sight, you can make
Knowledge (arcana) skill checks to determine the school of magic
involved in each. (Make one check per aura: DC 15 + spell level,
or 15 + 1/2 caster level for a nonspell effect.) If the aura emanates
from a magic item, you can attempt to identify its properties
(see Spellcraft).

I have seen people assert that if the person made their check, then the aura would not cover that person. Personally, I don't think it works that way, but the text involved is vague enough that I would accept a GM who ruled that it did.

You are correct that you could also use Sense Motive (Sense Enchantment)

Grand Lodge 4/5 **** Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento

Ring_of_Gyges wrote:

Given the rule quoted above about what you know about your target's save results, charm person may be a better interrogation spell.

It should be well within the limits of the spell to get a creature to confide honestly in his "trusted friend and ally". You know if he's failed and he has the option to voluntarily fail which the court can compel him to do on pain of contempt/conviction/whatever.

Also why I cited Abadars spell earlier, that shows an image overlaying them if they fail their save.

1/5

DM Beckett wrote:


Detect Magic, (unless you are talking about someone observing from outside while it is being cast) will not help. Detect Magic will show that the caster is casting a spell, and will also show that there is magic in the area, but because it's an area affect, the entire area will detect as magic, not any individuals, regardless if they made their save or not.

I disagree with that interpretation. Here's DM from the PRD

Detect Magic wrote:
3rd Round: The strength and location of each aura. If the items or creatures bearing the auras are in line of sight, you can make Knowledge (arcana) skill checks to determine the school of magic involved in each. (Make one check per aura: DC 15 + spell level

If you are affected by the spell, I interpret the rules to say you will have an aura based on that spell. There's nothing in DM that says one aura masks another. Thus, after the 3rd round, I would know who specifically gives off an aura that matches the ZoT school of magic. Just like I would know if someone had some other spells on them and which school they came from.

Quote:
Sense Motive is the skill you are looking for, and the DC is 25.

Throughout the discussion and the scenario, it's been assumed by me that Sense Motive detects someone lying. That does not prove to anyone else the person is lying. If the PC's succeed a SM skill check, it's not going to be compelling for them to say an NPC is lying when said PCs are the accuser. If you can hit a DC 25 on SM, then you can hit the DC 20 to check a hunch that they aren't being honest.

However, I agree that if you can Sense Enchantment, you're less likely to need DM, unless they are under more than one enchantment, which I don't think SM would catch, but DM would

And thanks for quoting the definition of frustrate. I think I am correct in saying that GMs will understand that to mean PCs get nothing useful from ZoT.

1/5

Ring_of_Gyges wrote:
N N 959 wrote:
Alone, ZoT is actually 100% worthless.

100% worthless would mean it gives you no information at all, you're confusing "Not 100% reliable" with "0% reliable", they aren't the same thing.

Suppose Bob was stabbed to death...

This is a nice mental exercise, but it runs into a couple of problems:

1. If the person confesses, then we don't zone of truth. So 100% of the time we bring on ZoT it's because, the person effectively answers "no." So the either they are lying or they are innocent. The rules of probability essentially say if you don't have information on an outcome, then the probability of a yes or no answer is 50%.

2. Bring on ZoT. If the person is lying and fail, their save...they equivocate. They have no choice. But the scenario doesn't recognize anyone with a brain cell can connect the dots on an equivocator. So ZoT is worthless in proving anything.

3. If the person makes their save, they say "no," straight up. Once again, ZoT is worthless.

And here's the real gotcha...

Quote:
My confidence in your answer should increase if you maintain your story in a ZoT, even if I don't have certainty. If my save DC is 13, my confidence doesn't go up much, if my save DC is 33 my confidence goes up alot.

So what's even worse here is that if the person does make their save and you have a high DC, you're even more convinced that they are telling the truth than if you ignored the probability. So ZoT is now prone to disinformation which is worse than no information at all. If someone rolls a 20, you're more likely to believe their lie than had you recognized you don't know one way or the other.

I don't know what the laws are in Golarion, but in the US, it's beyond a reasonable doubt for crimes. ZoT never meets that standard if I can't know whether you made or failed your save. What's more, I certainly can't prove it to anyone else.

Quote:
Knowledge doesn't require certainty.

Conviction of a crime in the US does require certainty.

Quote:
ZoT makes those probabilities more reliable.

The way I read your analysis ZoT makes it very hard for you to suspect a false positive.

1/5

Ring_of_Gyges wrote:

Given the rule quoted above about what you know about your target's save results, charm person may be a better interrogation spell.

It should be well within the limits of the spell to get a creature to confide honestly in his "trusted friend and ally". You know if he's failed and he has the option to voluntarily fail which the court can compel him to do on pain of contempt/conviction/whatever.

Now that is some excellent problem solving. You tell the accused to submit to Charm Person if they are innocent. You instantly know if they do. You tell them that submitting to the ZoT is in their best interest.

Of course the GM could argue that doing so is agains the NPC's nature and it requires a Charisma check. Does character know if the he or she fails or makes the Charisma check against the NPC?

1/5

FLite wrote:


I don't know what you would call questioning him under zone of truth other than "additional evidence." Frustrating does *not* mean failed, and if things like "I believe the person murdered at the farm was killed somewhere else and dragged there" is any more than vague circumstanial evidence I am not seeing it. (Note, the PCs don't have to prove it, just say it.)

While we can debate what it means to be frustrated, I think ti's clear that the scenarios is discouraging the GM from allowing ZoT to win the day. In fact, I would agree with you if the scenario said that careful questioning is capable of exposing Dalton.

I will repeat what I said earlier. I would have preferred if the scenario allowed ZoT to work as advertise and this just meant things went a different direction. But I will also recognize that I can't expect the scenario to devote content to divergent paths.

Grand Lodge 4/5 **** Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento

N N 959 wrote:
Ring_of_Gyges wrote:

My confidence in your answer should increase if you maintain your story in a ZoT, even if I don't have certainty. If my save DC is 13, my confidence doesn't go up much, if my save DC is 33 my confidence goes up alot.

So what's even worse here is that if the person does make their save and you have a high DC, you're even more convinced that they are telling the truth than if you ignored the probability. So ZoT is now prone to disinformation which is worse than no information at all. If someone rolls a 20, you're more likely to believe their lie than had you recognized you don't know one way or the other.

I don't know what the laws are in Golarion, but in the US, it's beyond a reasonable doubt for crimes. ZoT never meets that standard if I can't know whether you made or failed your save. What's more, I certainly can't prove it to anyone else.

Quote:

Ring_of_Gyges wrote:
Knowledge doesn't require certainty.
Conviction of a crime in the US does require certainty.

We are not in the US.

They were ready to hang the pathfinders on the following evidence:

sidebar wrote:


1. The murders began the night the Pathfinders came to
town and ceased as soon as the Pathfinders were arrested.
2. At the scene of the second murder, Luin found a dagger
belonging to Dakota Spire, one of the dwarven Pathfinders.
3. All three Pathfinders were seen at Otto’s farm just hours
before someone found the first victim there.
4. Ekira received an anonymous letter from a concerned
but frightened citizen identifying the Pathfinders as the
murderers.

That is pretty much it.

Circumstantial, circumstantial, circumstantial, and an anonymous tip.

Grand Lodge 4/5 **** Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento

By the way, the US quite happily executes people based on hair microscopic analysis, a technique that even the FBI (who invented it) has acknowledged does not actually have more than an 89% accuracy rate. (In one case investigators swore a hair place the suspect at the scene. The suspect was convicted. It was later discovered that the hair at the scene came from the victims dog.)

We are getting better, but reasonable doubt is a really fuzzy concept, and forensic techniques, magic or technological are only as reliable in getting convictions as the people's belief in the people carrying them out.

If a group of foreigners showed up and said that their forensic lab had proved that someone was a murderer, they would have about as much credibility as pathfinders walking into a town who said their magic proved someone was a murderer.

1/5

FLite wrote:
Circumstantial, circumstantial, circumstantial, and an anonymous tip.

Beyond a reasonable doubt does not eliminate circumstantial evidence as being sufficient for a conviction. There are thousands of cases where people go to jail based on circumstantial evidence without direct proof. It just has to convince the judge/jury that the person was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

And I can guarantee you that people in the US have gone to jail for less direct evidence than what was presented against the Pathfinders. You would be appalled.

It just so happens that in more than few of these cases, the circumstantial evidence had led to the wrong conclusion. It's happened to a lot of minorities, especially when the local law enforcement needs to convict someone due to public outcry. Sound familiar?

Quote:
If a group of foreigners showed up and said that their forensic lab had proved that someone was a murderer, they would have about as much credibility as pathfinders walking into a town who said their magic proved someone was a murderer.

In the US court system, each side is allowed to provide expert testimony. It then becomes incumbent upon each party to present the most credible experts. If the foreign lab put on a better presentation and had solid scientific methods, they'd have every chance of convincing a jury. What that lawyer would have to do is make an effort during the voire dire to eliminate jurors that might be prejudiced against those type of foreigners.

Grand Lodge 4/5 **** Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento

N N 959 wrote:
FLite wrote:
Circumstantial, circumstantial, circumstantial, and an anonymous tip.
And I can guarantee you that people in the US have gone to jail for less direct evidence than what was presented against the Pathfinders. You would be appalled.

Not really, I am familiar with those cases too.

My point was that the standard of proof in golarion is far lower than our idealized standard we claim to have. Not that we live up to it.

N N 959 wrote:
It just so happens that in more than few of these cases, the circumstantial evidence had led to the wrong conclusion. It's happened to a lot of minorities, especially when the local law enforcement needs to convict someone due to public outcry. Sound familiar?

Actually that is my point. You are trying to get the authorities to free the hated minority. That has a higher bar than convicting someone they all don't like.

N N 959 wrote:
Quote:
If a group of foreigners showed up and said that their forensic lab had proved that someone was a murderer, they would have about as much credibility as pathfinders walking into a town who said their magic proved someone was a murderer.
In the US court system, each side is allowed to provide expert testimony. It then becomes incumbent upon each party to present the most credible experts. If the foreign lab put on a better presentation and had solid scientific methods, they'd have every chance of convincing a jury. What that lawyer would have to do is make an effort during the voire dire to eliminate jurors that might be prejudiced against those type of foreigners.

Except you are that type of foreigner, and the judge, jury and executioner are all one person. (well, two people, but you get the point.) (correction. two people and a bloodthirsty mob who is going to miss a hanging tomorrow if they believe you.)

3/5

N N 959 wrote:
But the scenario doesn't recognize anyone with a brain cell can connect the dots on an equivocator.

"He gladly enters a Zone of Truth" is I think the bit which has to go. "F you outsider, I don't have to answer your questions!", "You don't have any authority over me!", "No way am I subjecting myself to your weird magics!" are all answers he could offer that beat (or at least hamper) ZoT. I agree that equivocation isn't a viable strategy.

Quote:
...if the person does make their save and you have a high DC, you're even more convinced that they are telling the truth than if you ignored the probability.

Suppose the DC really is 24 or higher, Krunne fails 95% of the time in either tier. Yes, there is a 5% chance he walks into the zone and *really* fools me because I'm so confident in the ZoT, but there is also a 95% chance I get him (because he's forced to equivocate). A method that works 19 out of 20 times is a great method. Hell, cast it twice and make him repeat his testimony. Then his odds of fooling it twice drop to 1 in 400.

As it happens I'm a US lawyer IRL, and while convictions require proof beyond a reasonable doubt, *evidence* doesn't. If someone saw a person running from the crime scene, getting into a car of the same make and model as yours, and driving away, that's totally admissible. It doesn't prove you committed the crime beyond a reasonable doubt, it doesn't have to. The standard for relevance of evidence is that it makes some material fact more or less likely to be true. If that witness is the *only* evidence, you shouldn't be convicted, but it is totally legit as one piece of evidence that goes towards making up a jury's mind.

Someone refusing to testify in a ZoT is evidence, someone testifying in a ZoT or out of it is evidence too.

We may also just be using the word "certainty" differently. I mean 100% certainty. That never happens and the law doesn't require it. If you say "beyond a reasonable doubt" requires certainty you have to mean "a very high probability of guilt". If we required metaphysical certainty we would never convict anyone, prosecutors in the US just have to show a high probability of guilt.

Re: Expert Witnesses: In the US an expert has to be recognized by the court as an expert before they can testify. I can't just announce I'm a forensic expert, I have to ask to be recognized and the other side can object to my credentials or lack thereof before the judge makes a decision. I would imagine any Golarion legal system would need a similar mechanism. You'd need to convince someone in authority that a) you have the magical powers you claim to have and b) you can be trusted to be honest about what you're doing and what results you're getting.

5/5 5/55/55/5

FLite wrote:

Circumstantial, circumstantial, circumstantial, and an anonymous tip.

Pretty good for a time before DNA evidence. Some heavily armed murderhobos show up, one of their knives winds up in a deadguy you start to suspect the cause of death might be that knife.

5/5 5/55/55/5

Ring Of Gyges wrote:
I would imagine any Golarion legal system would need a similar mechanism

Does the sheriff like you? you're in. He's the law in these here parts.

Did you bring the cheap beer? You're out.

1/5

FLite wrote:
My point was that the standard of proof in golarion is far lower than our idealized standard we claim to have.

Not sure I know if that's true. What may be true is that the less intelligent/wise/educated/savvy the trier of fact is, the easier that person may be manipulated, but that doesn't mean they aren't using the same standard. In this case, we could easily argue that the townsfolk have reached the beyond a reasonable doubt standard much more quickly and with less compelling evidence than we'd like. But as I said, if you had perfect knowledge of all the criminal trials throughout US history, I'm sure you'd find some that were worse than this one in terms of solid evidence and still resulted in guilty verdicts and executions.

I would submit that the real difference is that we a try to do a better job of giving a fair trail. As you suggest, when the judge/jury and guy who arrested you to begin with is one person, you may have a hard time convincing the judge to admit/accept/hear evidence that proves you innocent. But in the end, I would maintain that people don't call for a guilty verdict until they've convinced themselves beyond a reasonable doubt, even if they don't articulate it as such. In their mind, you're guilty and there's no doubt about it.

Quote:
Actually that is my point. You are trying to get the authorities to free the hated minority. That has a higher bar than convicting someone they all don't like.

Maybe I'm playing it wrong, but I got the sense the sheriff is quite level headed and is willing to hear evidence that the Pathfinders may be innocent. The PC just need to avoid getting on his bad side.

Quote:
Except you are that type of foreigner, and the judge, jury and executioner are all one person. (well, two people, but you get the point.) (correction. two people and a bloodthirsty mob who is going to miss a hanging tomorrow if they believe you.)

But most of that animosity comes from one person. The trial at the end does not seem to be biased against the PCs unless they bring it upon themselves, if I recall correctly.

Going back to the "standard of proof" topic, I'll revisit an earlier theme. In a world where magic can give us absolutes, even better than science, I tend to think that full fledged trials would require a high level of proof. Everyone knows people can cast illusion, shape change, use Charm Person, etc. I think there would be a heightened sense of unraveling the truth. Even more so when you have Lawful Good judges or even Paladins who are not susceptible to corruption or intimidation. Grant it, that's not the scene in this scenario, but I think that sense of true justice would trickle down to the small folk.

1/5

Ring_of_Gyges wrote:


Suppose the DC really is 24 or higher, Krunne fails 95% of the time in either tier. Yes, there is a 5% chance he walks into the zone and *really* fools me because I'm so confident in the ZoT, but there is also a 95% chance I get him (because he's forced to equivocate). A method that works 19 out of 20 times is a great method. Hell, cast it twice and make him repeat his testimony. Then his odds of fooling it twice drop to 1 in 400.

Again, you run into some problems with this approach.

1. I don't see anything in the rulebook which allows a character to know what the DC is for their spells. And while I am of the belief that caster would know the modifier of people who save agains their spells by virtue of the knowing how easily someone resisted their spell, once again, the rulebook doesn't really say that.

2. I have serious doubts that the US court system would allow an expert to administer a test that said we think the subject is 60% likely to be telling the truth. Polygraph tests are not admissible and I'm sure they provide a similar type of probability. Per Wikipedia

Wikipedia on Polygraph wrote:
...polygraph testing can discriminate lying from truth telling at rates above chance, though below perfection.
Quote:
If someone saw a person running from the crime scene, getting into a car of the same make and model as yours, and driving away, that's totally admissible.

And it's fundamentally different. In that case, the trier of fact is doing their own assessment. What is not admissible is for you to present an expert that would say "If a person runs, there is a 80% chance they are guilty of a crime." Under Frye that has no chance of admission and even under Daubert that's probably going to be blocked by the judge.

Quote:
The standard for relevance of evidence is that it makes some material fact more or less likely to be true.

Yes and no. If the type of evidence can lead to false conclusions and is procured through pseudo-science, it's probably not going to be admitted. It's my opinion that in the US court system, ZoT responses would be inadmissible unless the trier of fact had certainty that the witness was under the effect of the spell. We may have to disagree on that point.

3/5

I suspect ZoT wouldn't be permitted in the US on the same theory that polygraphs aren't. I don't have a good sense of how reliable polygraph machines are, the impression I get is that they're pretty lousy. A local village priest might have a Wisdom around 14 and a ZoT DC of around 14. If he's a specialized 'justice priest' he might have spell focus and greater focus to get it up to 16.

The average wisdom 10 pig farmer (commoner/1) is going to fail that about 75% of the time. The most sophisticated criminal they run into might be a Wisdom 14 6th level evil cleric with Iron Will and a +9 who only fails about 30% of the time. Much higher level than that and you are pretty well immune to low level village justice anyway.

Suppose I say under ZoT that I am innocent of all charges. Even if you assume I'm the worst case +8 will, that still means there is a 35% chance I failed my save and told the truth. You can't hang someone if there is a 35% chance they're innocent. I suppose I'm making a "base rate" fallacy here.

If you're not familiar with the fallacy you'll find it really interesting:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_rate_fallacy

I should think about this more, but really I should go pack as my ride to PaizoCon shows up in half an hour....

1/5

Even if you couldn't know whether someone was under ZoT or not, I think one way it might always be used is if the verdict is "not guilty." I could imagine the US having a "ZoT notwithstanding the verdict" option. As a last resort, the accuser gets to cast ZoT on the accused and ask them if they are guilty. If you're lucky and they fail, you get a confession and that might suffice to overturn the verdict "as a matter of law."

So in that case, I would agree it's not 100% worthless :)


I made some alterations and am running this scenario as a prelude to Wrath of the Righteous (WotR). I have a group that's pretty into roleplaying and figured this RP heavy scenario would give a nice opportunity to establish why the party members were together, find their personalities and develop a group dynamic.

Spoilers for Scars of the Third Crusade.:

Instead of occurring after the fall of Kenabres, I set the scenario in the weeks preceding Armasse and WotR. Ekira's mentor housed some Pathfinder friends who were arriving in advance of the Sky Citadel expedition. Her mentor was murdered and she was unable to accept it as a random act of violence, blaming the Pathfinders.

Two members of my party were Crusaders, an inquisitor and a paladin, and I had them assigned to be escorts for the upcoming Pathfinder expedition. When news of the events in Dawnton arrived, the Pathfinders requested that the Crusaders send some people to investigate, fearing that sending more Pathfinders would antagonize the townsfolk. The third party member was in Dawnton on his way to join the Crusade when the other two arrived just as was being accused as an accomplice in the murders by a townsperson looking for a reward from Mayriff Luin and Ekira.

I really wanted to play up the suspicions and distrust that the townsfolk have of strangers and tie them to fears of demon sympathizers an traitors a la the Third Crusade witch hunts. I altered a piece of the evidence against the Pathfinders to include a planting of a symbol of Baphomet on Dakota Spire at the same time as the weapon used in the second murder was taken. This repeats for the framing of the PCs.

I'm going to give Dalton Krunne a tattoo or brand of Shax's unholy symbol and a collection of trophies from his victims well concealed on his person (either locks of hair or finger nails) so that the PCs may discover hints of the carnage Krunne spread in the surrounding area and of the demonic influence present in Mendev despite the wardstones.

Mild faction related spoiler for WotR.:

I haven't yet decided whether to leave Ekira's mentor's death as a random act of violence or to tie it in with either the Blackfire Adepts or Templars of the Ivory Labyrinth (Cult of Baphomet) and their secret presence in Kenabres.

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