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Can the contacted being lie in Contact Other Plane in 5th edition?

Case for lying:

  1. In previous editions, the contact being always had a chance of lying:
  2. In addition, the Commune spell explicitly says the being contacted will give truthful answers, whereas no such phrasing exists for Contact Other Plane.

Case for truthiness:
  1. From the spell the line "If a one-word answer would be misleading, the DM might instead offer a short phrase as an answer." This implies that maybe it can't mislead or lie to them.
  2. Game balance. Commune gives 3 always true one-word answers without chance of insanity, so it could make sense that CoP gives 5 true answers.

How would you run Contact Other Plane in your games?


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I think this could strictly be up to the DM's digression. Personally I could see how contacting other planes (pretty much any time you talk to a fiend) would make thematic sense in the contacted being lying, either from mistrust or a grudge.


delericho

How would you run Contact Other Plane in your games?


I'd give truthful answers. The old chance for lying appears to have been superseded in 5e by the chance that casting the spell will drive the caster insane.
Kobold Stew
I would answer truthfully, to the best of the DM's ability (rathe than the contacted spirit's), but not make explicit to the players what the parameters of truthiness for the spell are.

They can doubt it if they wish; they know the wording of the spell and the answer yo've given Experience will tell them over the course of the campaign how the spell works.


I'm A Banana
You could probably lie if you wanted.

The only question is why you would want to, aside from being able to laugh at a player's costly mistake. And I get enough of that in 5 minutes of normal play. ;)


Sounds like we are going to go with it being generally truth based. Sometimes it might be wrong due to the being not having all or accurate info, but generally now directly lying.

Thanks for the opinions!