It offered no play value to offset all the adventures it spoiled. Fifth edition removes the spell from the game. Second edition added one, and then 3E changed the name to Discern Lies.

The original spell didn’t even grant a saving throw. Lie detection spellsĭetect Lie (4th level) entered the game with Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, at a time when Gary Gygax should have known better. In a magic-as-technology world, you would have to pass a glyph before boarding your airship flight. The redesign keeps the spell useful and makes it trouble free.Īs written, Glyph of Warding (3rd level) can still detect alignment, serving as both judge and executioner. Now, Detect Evil and Good detects any abberation, celestial, elemental, fey, fiend, or undead of any alignment, making the name a meaningless nod to tradition. Paladins could cast it, because they enjoy deception, I suppose.ĭetect Evil (1st level) used to reveal any creature of evil alignment, which told players exactly who to trust. At least 3E kept Know Alignment’s reverse, Unknowable Alignment, on the spell list. Third edition dropped the Know Alignment (2nd level) spell, but the loss did nothing to help adventure designers because Detect Evil, Detect Chaos, and so on filled the same niche. Players who prepare spells like Detect Thoughts will feel cheated if every mystery thwarts them. Spells that reveal lies and evil can be foiled, but they either make adventures with deception impossible or they force dungeon masters to nullify the players’ abilities. In the implied D&D universe, such rings were as common as window curtains. In the second-edition era, many issues of Dungeon magazine included an adventure that asked players to identify some secret villain who inevitably possessed a Ring of Mind Shielding-inevitable because none of these adventures could have worked without it. Which spells prove troublesome, and how does fifth edition deal with them? Spells that unmask villains But as D&D grew to embrace more types of stories, such spells caused problems. Confined to the original megadungeons, spells like Know alignment and Commune caused no trouble. In my last post, I explained how Dungeons & Dragons includes a variety of spells that can ruin adventures.

Zone of truth 5e