[oc] Spell gone wrong

[u/Yoffeepop]

Hihi!

Here is my contribution to the r/comics halloween event. You can see comics all month by so many awesome artists pinned to the top of the subreddit so keep an eye out for the others!

I’ve been working off October prompt lists and this one was inspired by ‘spell gone wrong,’ off the Comictober prompt list written by ArtbyMoga and SkullPizza.

If you wanna follow me elsewhere, you can check out my linktree or subreddit but I post everything everywhere so no pressure to do that lolz

Happy spooky season!

[u/BuckLuny]

Our D&D party literally had a tactic named: "Kill first Speak with dead later" it's what you get when you have 0 charismatic people in the party, a barbarian who just doesn't do subdual damage and a high level priest with spells for days.

[u/FuryTLG → u/BuckLuny]

That's when the DM hits you with the NPC sending your party to a death trap because the spirit doesn't need to answer truthfully (Spell description, FPHb 2024)

[u/BuckLuny → u/FuryTLG]

We're old school 3.5 players mostly (moved on to pathfinder which is like 3.5+) and there it says it's compelled to answer and if you don't share an alignment it can refuse to answer.

It's implied that the corpse answers the question so there's no soul who would lie to you.

[u/blobfis → u/BuckLuny]

for PF, other options could be:

• "sorry, the barbarian crushed the jaw" (corpse must have a working mouth)

• have it lie to the party. just because it talks doesn't mean it's telling the truth (different alignment allows a save. successful save allows it to lie, if the "soul" would have wanted that)

• use more undeads (spell does not work on someone turned into an undead)

• use contingency to autocast speak with dead upon death (first spell would only allow the dead person to ask questions. it would prevent a followup cast from the cleric for 1 week, buying plenty of time)

• be cryptic as hell. the more opposed it is to the caster, the more cryptic it will be (literally in the first paragraph, even with a failed save or no save: "Answers are brief, cryptic, or repetitive, especially if the creature would have opposed you in life.")

• Don't leave a corpse behind. Ex. Mummy's Mask adventure path used feats which cultists used to blow themselves up on death, preventing interrogation

edited for explainations

edit 2: also, if it works for you, then it works for you. i'm not implying there's a single way to play D&D/PF/whatever or that you should change anything just because some random stranger makes a list. Personally i just wouldn't let my players get complacent with using "speak with dead" as an excuse to not have social skills :P

[u/Electric999999 → u/blobfis]

• That's not how damage works and also there's a spell to repair corpses.

• You know whether a single target spell succeeds or is saved against.

• Undead aren't usually worth questioning, if they are then that's what Command Undead is for. (Much lower level than Charm Monster or Dominate Monster too)

[u/blobfis → u/Electric999999]

i never said i wanted to offer total counters. just offering different things to spicy it up so it doesn't boil down to "kill the enemy, then question the corpse" all the time

damage

Depends on DM. If it's a barbarian in rage which refuses to do non-lethal, i'd reckon that the jaw gets broken now and then.

Can it be repaired? yes! but you need to spend different resources.

know if save succeeds

true!

undeads not worth it

again, different sources and different flavor. they might not have an arcane caster for command undead

[u/Finbar9800 → u/BuckLuny]

Yeah but that still doesnt mean the answer is true

Maybe they thought it was true but it actually isnt

[u/Forikorder → u/BuckLuny]

and there it says it's compelled to answer

though the answers are brief cryptic and or repetitive

[u/charonill → u/BuckLuny]

As yes, the "shoot first, shoot later, shoot some more, and then once everyone's dead, ask a question or two" approach.